A beautiful start to the day driving in the winter sun on all the backroads from Humbie to Peebles. I love projects when you really feel 'on retreat' in a rural place away from the bustle. It really does make space for thoughts and ideas to breath.
After the initial soundcheck the players rehearsed the dots (without electronics) and ironed out a few queries. I was impressed with Louise's score and she was confident and articulate in answering questions, making decisions and responding to suggestions.The first experiments with processing were with a simple delay and then a touch of shuffling. The shuffling worked really well with tremelo writing in the upper strings and combined with an enhancement of the cello and bass though a resonator.
Louise had written a 4 bar build up to the single violin chords which worked so well we thought we would repeat them and have an extended build up. Louise performed the automation of resonances in waves, In and out, as the intensity of the quartet material increased. Some subtle delay and shuffle pitch variation gave the last section some lovely shapes and integrated really well with the rhythmic playing of the quartet. The piece has a great shape to it and I think everyone was pleased with how the last performance take went.
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