The anti-opera, "I Could Not Sing," revisits an early video work, "see also 0502.2156" (May 2, 2003), created mostly in Mathematica, and assembled from frames and sound output by programming in that system into a fixed length video.
I Could Not Sing
Click to pause or play. Press the "d" key to see the temperaments, score and libretto.
Porting to p5.js provided the opportunity to reconsider the software score and trade the fixed duration for continuous play and generative soundtrack. Starting with the same premiss, that the parameters for the curves would also serve to produce sound, I devised a system of compositional parts corresponding the the runs, generations, and periods of the animation. The score adds a phoneme libretto chosen by the curves with a majority rule selection tactic. The tonal system is a xenharmonic selection from 1-12 n-equal divisions of the octave (EDO) temperaments. [You can press the "d" key to see the temperment, score and libretto as it plays.]
I was thinking about the "Wa-ohs" from Merideth Monk's Dolman Music. And Thinking about the social significance of choral music, of ensemble. Moondog's "Voices of Spring" also came to mind. That lyric:
Voices of spring were in chorus.
Each voice was singing a song.
I could not sing in that chorus until I wrote me a song.
I wrote my song and joined the throng.
–Moondog, Moondog 2 (1971)
The joining and splitting of the curves in the animation evoke the push and pull of human tendencies, both fusional and schismatic, social and anti-social -- the desire to bond and merge and the fear of it. Belonging and alienation. The one and the many.
Voices are a choir when they are together, and only then.