Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf

from two roots

Shuoxin Tan’s algorithmic computer music composition is based on two mathematical numbers (roots) that represent two different equal temperament tuning systems: 21/12 from traditional tuning and 51/25 from the composition “Studie II” (“Study II”) by Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Using the SuperCollider programming language, Tan applied the tiny, barely perceptible difference between two roots to the microtonality and set the numbers to music as the basic proportions of all the sound characteristics, e.g. frequency, envelope, tone duration, volume, etc., using white noise and sine tones.

The resulting sonification is somewhat boring and banal. And yet – why can’t banality be enjoyed? To what extent can one perceive the numbers through silence?

The composition was performed on 25 October 2022 at a concert of the Iannis Xenakis Workgroup (a research group initiated by Dennis Scheiba) in the underground parking lot of the Institute for Music and Media Düsseldorf with 8-channel L-Acoustics. The recording was released as a mini CD-R edition in London on 1 March 2023 by experimental music label Infant Tree.

“from two roots” by Shuoxin Tan was created during the artist’s time in the Klang und Realität master’s program at the Institute for Music and Media at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf, where she majored in Epistemic Media. The work was supervised by Prof. Julian Rohrhuber.