Debut: Sept 4th and 5th, 2008
Stella Adler Theater
New York, NY

• 30,000+ raindrops and 300 thunderclaps scored alongside evolving melody.
• Live melodies triggered and pitched by throwing rocks into a bucket filled with water and using a hydrophone to capture the sound.
• Accompanied Your Beautiful Grunt by Holly Faurot and Sarah Paulson
• 30 minute performance consisting of 8 performers, 3 video monitors, and video
• Developed using the Java Music Specification Language (JMSL)

What does a thunderstorm sound like? 

What would it sound like if you could direct it? 

And choose each rain drop's pitch?

*NEW!! If you'd like to see a test run of the piece via the actual score, click here.  The page will load the score into new windows and you'll be able to follow along with every note.  The test-run is only 5 minutes long and requires the JSyn plugin.

The storm itself consists of over 30,000+ pitched rain drops that play over a whole-tone scale.  Gaussian distributions are used to mange the event densities over the length of the storm and linear functions used to set the top most possible pitch for each drop. The total duration of each drop is calculated using random numbers within set limits.The storm slowly approaches and reaches its peak about half way through the performance.

Parallel to the storm is an evolving melody.  At first, the event distribution and length of each note is almost random (though it's controlled by a function) and slowly evolves - after the storm passes - to a more uniform and lyric density.  The melodies are triggered by the impact of rocks being thrown into a bucket full of water and a hydrophone is used to capture the event and the pitch.  The pitch is used to set the first note of the melody, though the melody chosen at the beginning of the piece is the same and relative to this pitch throughout.

Decisions about when to throw rocks were made live during the performance based on reactions to the movement of the dancers.

Sit back.  The storm will come and go. 

Thank you to Holly Faurot, Sarah H. Paulson, and the Stella Adler Theater.