The two main aspects of the composition are reflected in the title. I’m a dancin’ alludes to vernacular behaviour and popular music, while SAWDUST makes reference to a process of waveform synthesis. By vernacular, firstly, I am referring to common pop music and the associated behaviour while listening. Generally speaking, this music is rarely listened to. Moreover, it is either regularly ignored (for example: background music in a café, restaurant or clothing shop) or used as accompaniment to other activities (for example: social gatherings; evening dinner). I’m a dancin’ asks the musicians (and audience) to reconsider simple melody, which is more often than not, the prime attractor of pop music. The main themes of my composition should sound familiar; although they are rearranged and distorted to the point where one must re-examine their importance as, say, a melody. Secondly, SAWDUST is borrowed from a waveform synthesis computer program. A waveform is a graphical representation of a sound (any sound) seen as it evolves over time. The designer of SAWDUST, Herbert Brün (1972) states: « The computer program which I called SAWDUST allows me to work with the smallest parts of waveforms, to link them and to mingle or merge them with one another. Once composed, the links and mixtures are treated, by repetition, as periods, or by various degrees of continuous change, as passing moments of orientation in a process of transformations ».
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