I wrote a sound poem in morse code

FinsburyParkCarrots
FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
edited April 2007 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
And I'll be putting it up on myspace, soon.

Does everyone know about the East German Stasi spy station that used to broadcast in the small hours, on shortwave, during the cold war? Bloody terrifying, it was. What you'd get would be these gong chimes that were scarily dissonant and sinister, followed by a computer generated female voice, reading out numbers that an agent in the field would decipher using a one-time crypto pad.

Here's a clip of the original gong chimes, as recorded in 1978 and featured on
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page73.html:

http://www.swldxer.co.uk/gongsnew.mp3

Well, I'm not into sampling, so I thought, hmmmm: could I use an old style oscillator/synth to recreate those menacing chimes, and orchestrate them layer by layer into a piece of contemporary electronic music? Well, I had a go, and wrote a morse code message, too. Finally, I found a plugin that simulates radio static, and I threw that in, with phasing/flanging/Leslie speaker effects, to make it sound like a beaten up old radio signal going in and out.

Since the Stasi never admitted to owning the station, and the recording of the gongs became more distorted and weird over the years it was played, I presume there's no author of the chimes, and thus no copyright. So I played the motif as the theme of this piece.

It's very long and deliberately repetitive, but I've put in loads of textures. It's one for listening to when you're in a freaky mood. ;)

So, you'll hear my gongs piece in a few minutes, when I make an mp3 from the WAV file. ;)
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Okay, it's up, as the second link, "Long Night of the Gongs":

    http://www.myspace.com/finsburydemos

    ;)
  • justam
    justam Posts: 21,415
    Wow. This one works incredibly well doesn't it? :)
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Thanks, Justam! I played the basic notes and set the VST synth to Oscillator 2. I made the first oscillator signal flat, the other sharp. With a bit of tweaking, it started to sound like the tonal distortion on the original gongs tape (a reel to reel that aged and stretched over the years of use until it sounded very strange indeed, I think). I put a couple of layers in different octaves, sometimes alligned, other times delayed (for a kind of legato effect near the end).

    Now, can anyone tell me what I've said in morse? ;)
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page73.html

    The first link was broken. Try it now.
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Blimey. Forty-seven views in two hours? They're out tharrrrr, I tell yaaaa. :eek:


    :D





    :eek:






    :confused:








    ;)
  • olderman
    olderman Posts: 1,765
    cool :cool:

    insert a little eric dolphy or paul desmond, i.e. jazz it up for your fans fins. :D
    Down the street you can hear her scream youre a disgrace
    As she slams the door in his drunken face
    And now he stands outside
    And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
    He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
    What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
    Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
    And his tears fall and burn the garden green
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    The Assembly of Birds was my jazz odyssey. Maaaaaan. That's so, er, last Sunday evening, man! Get wid dah program! ;)

    :D

    Cheers, olderman!
  • DopeBeastie
    DopeBeastie Posts: 2,513
    i wonder what you'd accomplish if you put your energy toward pure evil, fins

    i daresay, you'd have earth destroyed in no time ;)
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    I'm all goodness. :cool:

    By the way, the composition is now cited on Simon Mason's shortwave espionage page:

    http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page30.html#rmg
  • DopeBeastie
    DopeBeastie Posts: 2,513
    i'm all about the slow groove today... miss eryka badu has all my love today, but i will certainly check it out, sir lord my lord that is self-reportedly all goodness... sweetness and light a few others might add, myself included, but you know...

    we're biased, lol
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Oh, then it's not a gongs day, then. The gongs are all about "Ah'm gonna fook wid yo heeeeed, listenersss". :D Well, ya gotta mix up the repertoire a bit....
  • DopeBeastie
    DopeBeastie Posts: 2,513
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    Oh, then it's not a gongs day, then. The gongs are all about "Ah'm gonna fook wid yo heeeeed, listenersss". :D Well, ya gotta mix up the repertoire a bit....


    It was "fook wid yo head" week last week. This week, it's about fooking wid smpn else. ;D
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Okay, I'll write a "fookin' wid sumpin' else" song, next! :cool:
  • DopeBeastie
    DopeBeastie Posts: 2,513
    :D rockin
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Well, I just started something, but right now it sounds more like the incidental music to a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Er, I'll come back tomorrow. :D
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    There's another link to this on the web now, via Simon Mason's page:

    http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page73.html

    and there's a .wma link following:

    http://www.swldxer.co.uk/lnotg.wma
  • olderman
    olderman Posts: 1,765
    gives new meaning to the phrase "wall of sound" .. still, it's kinda cool. however, 3 minutes is enuff. signing off now, roger, over and out. :D:D:D
    Down the street you can hear her scream youre a disgrace
    As she slams the door in his drunken face
    And now he stands outside
    And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
    He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
    What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
    Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
    And his tears fall and burn the garden green
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    olderman wrote:
    gives new meaning to the phrase "wall of sound" .. still, it's kinda cool. however, 3 minutes is enuff. signing off now, roger, over and out. :D:D:D


    I thought of just doing it for three minutes, but the morse message takes forever! And you have to repeat it! Ya know, for the sake of verisimilitude. And, for, er, being arty. And all dat shite. :cool: Plus, the original gongs were about ten minutes in length, back in the day. Er, yes.
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    I take it you don't want to hear the twenty-seven minute version I did? ;)
  • olderman
    olderman Posts: 1,765
    yes, while strapped to seat at the theater with my eyes pried open while having eye lubricant dropped into my eyes while being force to view random acts of violence on a movie screen ;)
    Down the street you can hear her scream youre a disgrace
    As she slams the door in his drunken face
    And now he stands outside
    And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
    He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
    What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
    Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
    And his tears fall and burn the garden green

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