”Clarinet Threads“ by Dennis Smalley sets out to create a new environment for a traditional instrument, trying to find a context for the astonishingly wide variety of sound-types the clarinet can produce.


The birth of the computer signalled the start of a new era in electro-acoustic music composition. It increased dramatically the possibilities of reshaping existing sounds, of applying ”musical microsurgery“ to create previously unheard sounds, of providing flexible means for building and sculpting new sonic textures, structures and spaces, and of investigating how sounds behave and how our minds respond to them. Urged on by humanity's infinite curiosity, the computer-aided composer seeks to reveal a new consciousness of our physical surroundings and the psychological environment through which we think, feel and communicate. These are the ultimate human rewards of creative thought and activity, of exploration and imagination. These are the underlying dreams and goals of our unceasing pleasure in listening to music.
”Clarinet Threads“ sets out to create a new environment for a traditional instrument, trying to find a context for the astonishingly wide variety of sound-types the clarinet can produce. The clarinet's variegated and freewheeling, modern personalities suggested a rejuvenation through contact with computer-based surroundings.
These surroundings were composed from a large sound repertory created indifferent places at different times. As far as I know there is not yet (Will there ever be? Should there be?) any single, ultimate system for computer music. So rather than try to compose a piece from start to finish confined to one system I took advantage of the variety and proliferating richness of systems available in order to create a library of sound objects and sequences which might be suitable for use. These had to include sound whose identity is both closely related to and very different from the clarinet. Thus a sound source recorded in England mingles with a digital synthesizer based in Toronto and both may be processed using computer programmes on a system in Paris. The interactive process of exploring sounds with computers holds the potential for finding the new and unexpected. The computer is a companion for the imagination. (D.Smalley)

Technical background:

”Clarinet Threads“ was realized on a SSSP digital syntesizer (University of Toronto) and on a Fairlight CMI (University of Birmingham). Digital processing was done in the Studio Numérique, Groupe de Recherches Musicales. (Publison digital pitch shifter/delay at the University of East Anglia).

Clarinet: Roger Heaton.

Denis Smalley was born in New Zealand in 1946. Studied performance at the Canterbury University and the Victoria University of Wellington. Awarded a French Government Bursary in 1971, he went to Paris to study with Messiaen. At the same time he completed a Diploma in Electro-acoustic Music with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. Having decided to concentrate on electroacoustic music composition, he moved to England, first settling in York where he completed a doctorate at the University of York. In 1976 appointed Lecturer in Music at the University of East Anglia where, now as a Senior Lecturer, he is responsible for the Recording and Electro-acoustic Music Studio. His works are entirely electroacoustic, ranging from works for tape incorporating recorded and computer-generated material, to works for amplified voices and instruments. His music has won prizes in international competitions in Sweden, France and the United States, and is available on the Hyperion and UEA recording labels.