Electro-Acoustic Music 2006: The Duchamp Examinations
Robert playing "Duchamp" in Santa Cruz California, 2006
Robert’s “Duchamp Examination” is a demonstration of how a composer can dissect, examine and re-produce a precomposed (but not prerecorded) piece through a combination of analog and digital mastication and redigestion, in real-time solo performance before an audience. Duchamp might have said “Bob chews his cud”. “The Duchamp Prelude” is a kind of electronic alapana, in which Robert explores the chordal sequence of the source piece “If Duchamp Drew Beautifully” through an overdriven TM-2 bandpass filter.
For “The Duchamp Examination” Robert plays and sings the source piece into the Boomerang section by section, further using the Boomerang as an insert editor to advance the composition by displacing the recorded segments with live musical phrases and lyric samples, not so much triggered as expressed and modulated in real time using the combination of MIDI guitar, synthesizer control pedals, and software.
Tap/click to view Robert perform The Duchamp Examination #10