Left and right of passage

"This location of fish passage exhibits an imperfect balance as humans attempt natural processes, and while total success is not possible the effort is worthwhile. Water is clearly audible in the recording, and echoes reflect the human-created boundaries. Adding to these soundscapes of place, I introduce my own sounds, in the form of cello and vocals. All of the sounds in “Left and Right of Passage” originate with either the field recording, or my playing cello or singing, yet layers of reverb, tuning, and other effects birth myriad sonic identities.

"Examining the satellite data, the western side of the river seems very uniform and unvaried, whereas the eastern side appears more complex, intricate and waving. I am translating this asymmetry into the way the music is panned, and taking the perspective of the Lech River with “head” waters south (the Lech flows northward), and looking outward towards humans, the left side is stable and uniform, whereas the right side is intricately dynamic. “Left and Right of Passage” is structured as a double choir, with one choir (on the left) providing a consistent wall of sound, and the other (on the right) constrained but with movement. Melodies and swells of cello add to further complexity for the right choir, and a solo vocal dips in and out. 

"Channeling is a recurring concept in the river segment and this composition. The river used to be multithread with multiple channels, but has been strengthened and confined to a single channel. Fish are channeled to enable their movement past human energy production. In “Left and Right of Passage,” constrained movement is evoked in the vocals, particularly in the left choir but also in the right choir. The brevity of spurts of pizzicato and truncated melodies illustrate channeling in the cello. Segments of the original soundscape emerge unaltered (aside from volume shaping) at the beginning, middle, and end of the piece, emphasized by frequency constrained channels of the original soundscape. These are offset so that the original field recording can be distinctly heard, most notably at 18-50s, 1:12-1:55 and at 3:15 until the conclusion."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Heather Spence. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.