About this work:
This was the final version of several incipient attempts to integrate my "Rainforest" background tape with live performance. These earlier attempts were variously called "Earth Song" and "Amazon," and used similar approaches. What finally clinched it was a trip to the Burgess Shale country on the side of Mt. Wapta in Yoho National Park, BC, where we found incredible ringing rocks that contained fossils of 500 million years ago -- the Burgess Shale fossils. We took c. 40 of these and eventually made a xylophone out of them, which formed the basis for our live performance of "Earth Music" on the McLean Mix concert called "Gods, Demons and the Earth" along with a CD of the same name. In this work, Priscilla recites poetry, sings, and performs the rock xylophone while I perform on a Prophet 2000 sampler and other instruments including a clarinet mouthpiece taped onto a soprano recorder. The work is very evocative and sultry in nature, and recollects the background to our Rainforest installation (also used in my "Rainforest Reflections.").
Evocative nature work for McLean Mix duo. Dur. 11:52. Priscilla McLean, processed voice and narration (texts by Cedric Wright, etc.) glacial rock xylophone; Barton McLean on processed clariflute, processed keyboard, with stereo CD drone. Premiered in its final form at the Australian Broadcasting Network in Melbourne, in 1991 “Free Range”, on our tour of Australia, New Zealand. Quite different from the final version recorded on our “Gods, Demons and the Earth” album. Live acoustic instruments digitally processed over ethereal tape. First version while in residence at Montclair State U., N.J.(3/88), Revised version premiered at Goucher College (4/90). In addition to the different material, another difference in the final recording on Capstone is that I did it on the computer with audio and MIDI combined, so I was able to add more material than was possible in live performance (also the case in my recording of “Happy Days.”) Recorded on Capstone CPS 8622. As opening piece of the “Gods, Demons and the Earth” McLean Mix tours, it was performed at Univ of Auckland (9/21/91), Goucher College (preview concert on 4/8/90), Univ of Connecticut, Storrs (1/26/91), St. lawrence Univ. (1/31/91), Univ. of Akron (3/28/91), Mt. Union College, Alliance, OH. (4/2/91), Williams College (4/5/91), Vassar College (4/17/91), Univ of Delaware-newark (4/26/91), Hamilton College (4/28/91), Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, SUNY at Whiteface Mountain, NY (8/13/91), Cal. State Univ-Chico (3/8/93), San Francisco Conservatory of music (3/11/93), Old First Concerts, San Francisco (3/12/93), Oberlin College (3/25/93), Chicago Musical College-Roosevelt Univ (3/29/93), Thunder Bay (Alpena, MI) Arts Council (4/1/93), Texas Tech Univ-Lubbock (3/2/94), Kirkland Art Center, Clinton, NY (4/30/94), Noyes Museum (5/14/95), Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI (3/15/95), Western Illinois Univ (3/29/95), Ball State Univ Festival of New Music (3/18/96),
My website (where you can find my email as well)
http://www.fairpoint.net/~rainfor1/McLean_MAXMSP/Main_page.html
Phone: 518 658 3595
YouTube playlist (with 32 videos and counting)
https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3ACAB7BAD86CE7B4
Also check out my entry in Wikipedia
Although I, Barton McLean, hold the copyright, I nontheless hereby gladly authorize anyone to make copies and perform the work for noncommercial and/or educational purposes providing that my name is reasonably displayed as the composer. I do not under any circumstances authorize selecting portions of the work to appear intact in another person's composition, or to appear under any other composer's name, without my written signed authorization.
Regarding the audio file accompanying this work: I, Barton McLean own the copyright to the composition itself. Being aware that this work has been released on a commercial CD, and that the CD company might possess the copyright to that particular sound recording of the composition, I nonetheless claim copyright to this specific sound recording posted here, because it is not the exact recording released on CD. Rather, it is another mix down and revision of that work which may approximate the commercial CD in most respects but nevertheless is a distinct sound recording of which I claim the copyright.