by Brad Wutke

Collaborator: Kristy Farkas  

cicadas song diary

I would like to share with you a journey of sound created by the inspiration of a field recording by Kristy Farkas. The sound is an amazing capture of the mating ritual of the Japanese cicada. The male’s body flexes and relaxes to create a cricket type sound. Take this and multiply it by 10,000 and you have the orchestral insect love song of the illusive cicada. 

First impressions
The first listen through blew my mind. A collection of saw waveforms at such intense frequency made me think of granular synthesis. I knew immediately I could slow them down and pitch them to an alien language our ears could confuse with birds, monkeys and even human screams. The trickle of a stream can be heard underneath the primary sound, and the odd soloing individual can be pulled out of the mix. Other than that the sound is repeating and mesmerizing. With this field recording comes the challenge of recreating a recognizable reproduction of the cicada with out over emphasizing that frequency that although beautiful can only be tolerated at lower levels. This being a web-based project, I will have to creatively use compression to make it mix well for laptop speakers and at the same time let it retain the natural. 

August 6 2009
The sound listened to in full 4 -5 times.
I then isolated variances and inflections of the drone.
I cut and looped parts of the audio to create a rhythm and set the sequencer to a mind halting tempo of 8 BPM to emphasize the long drawn out process of the event, (it takes between 7 and 17 years for this life cycle to complete, this audible mating ritual being the grand finale)  

Aug 9 2009
I’m back at it and realizing the Japanese stage for the event, I began writing a haiku poem that might sum up the cicada life cycle. 
My life underground
A quiet sanctuary
But today we sing 

Aug 10 2009
I began layering complimenting synthesized and organic samples to build a platform for my poem and the melody created by the transposition and mutation of the field recording. The odd drum sound comes in to signify the tempo (8 BPM) 


Aug 12 2009  
I worked through the night arranging and rearranging slices of audio in the darkness of my home studio, and as a result my piece takes the current shape. A soundscape of the intense emotion of a vast courtship and the somberness of the last act of a 17-year long epic play unfolded itself before me.    


Aug 14 09
Last day to compress and send. 


Brad Wutke has been making music for 20 years in some fashion or another. Since the introduction of the computer in the 80s he has been manipulating wav files. He produces, records and engineers music for other bands. His project buyproduct started about 8 years ago and he is still without the release of an album. Brad plays bass in an electronic rock band, but considers himself to be more experimental than conventional with his music.

To comment on this site you must login. Before you login you must register with a valid email address.