I owe a lot of my insight into computer generated music and even more inspiration to the Electronic Studio of the Technical University here in Berlin. This studio has a long history, starting in 1953, and it serves as a space for research in the field of generation and manipulation of sound, but also as a place where composers can work on their music with technology usually not available for individuals. My piece Studies for Thunder is an example for this.

To celebrate the 65th birthday of its long term director, Folkmar Hein in February 2009, the composers who were working in the studio over the years have been asked to provide a 65 second long piece. Here is my contribution:

Hommage_17.mp3
The piece is a montage of little gestures, mainly created using various kinds of synthesis. Other material is the result of processing a recording of walking on stones in a desert, a recording from inside my kitchen fridge, my coffee maker, and a fax machine. As usual all asembled and processed in Ableton Live with a bit of MAX/MSP.

I spent quite some time with that little exercise, and in fact I created seventeen (!!) versions of the piece over a period of four weeks. Here are two earlier versions that show the process:

Hommage_01.mp3
Hommage_10.mp3
Enjoy the music