FRANK STEMPER, COMPOSER
Lumpy the Skeleton (and his Friends) (2012)
Electro-Acoustic Music via computer [6:12 mins.]
Realized in the Center for Experimental Music, Southern Illinois University
Premiered 31 October 2012 by the Halloween Pops in Carbondale, IL.
Opus 74 — A.S.C.A.P. work I.D. 88467841
Premiered 31 October 2012 by the Halloween Pops in Carbondale, IL.
Opus 74 — A.S.C.A.P. work I.D. 88467841
Lumpy the Skeleton (and his friends)
LUMPY began as a demonstration during a lecture for a class in beginning composition at the university. For that beginning course, I would assign 1-3-week composition projects based on a set of musical parameters that dealt with particular composition techniques (of harmony, rhythm, phrasing, orchestration, etc.). After making the assignment, I would explain the parameters and then demonstrate the parameters beginning a composition on the spot, that is unprepared. It was great fun for me, and I think it helped the students to see immediately what the heck I had just been talking about – by putting it right into music. This spontaneity on my part would also get me to thinking candidly out loud, probably the same things that the composition students would think later that week when they were trying it themselves. I hoped that my demo would get them to relax and be creative. Normally, I would just write the demo comp on the blackboard and erase it after the class was over — although sometimes I’d then go back to my office and quickly write it down, just in case in might be useful sometime. There were actually some good sketches that came out of that class, which I taught every single semester for 32 years. But "Lumpy" was the only one actually became a finished and presented piece. Good old LUMPY the SKELETON (and his friends)!
The parameters that were utilized when LUMPY was used as a demo comp were learning to compose using synthetic sounds, created directly on a computer, sometimes with a synthesizer., sometimes with a sampler, always edited. In fact, the students were creating new instruments and then composing for those instruments. That was the week that my beginning students got to start working in the Center for Experimental Music, one of the initiatives that I founded while I was at the university. Not sure if C.E.M. survived my retirement in 2014, i.e. if it was continued by my successors - but actually, anyone who has the interest can put together a studio of their own for much less money than I spent building C.E.M. (well, the university's money).
I never did really take it seriously or finish it back in 2003. However, in 2012, the music department was planning to put together their annual Halloween Pops concert – a high charged program of crazy music by all the students and faculty., dressed in weird Halloween outfits. I thought about LUMPY. I gave the piece that name, because it sounded to me like a skeleton dancing around. And so I revised and finished the old LUMPY, creating something that I hoped would scare a few people. At the performance, all the lights in the concert hall went out coordinated with the first sound of LUMPY – a cannon! So imagine listening to this in the dark, surrounded by eight speakers. Or just close your eyes.
LUMPY began as a demonstration during a lecture for a class in beginning composition at the university. For that beginning course, I would assign 1-3-week composition projects based on a set of musical parameters that dealt with particular composition techniques (of harmony, rhythm, phrasing, orchestration, etc.). After making the assignment, I would explain the parameters and then demonstrate the parameters beginning a composition on the spot, that is unprepared. It was great fun for me, and I think it helped the students to see immediately what the heck I had just been talking about – by putting it right into music. This spontaneity on my part would also get me to thinking candidly out loud, probably the same things that the composition students would think later that week when they were trying it themselves. I hoped that my demo would get them to relax and be creative. Normally, I would just write the demo comp on the blackboard and erase it after the class was over — although sometimes I’d then go back to my office and quickly write it down, just in case in might be useful sometime. There were actually some good sketches that came out of that class, which I taught every single semester for 32 years. But "Lumpy" was the only one actually became a finished and presented piece. Good old LUMPY the SKELETON (and his friends)!
The parameters that were utilized when LUMPY was used as a demo comp were learning to compose using synthetic sounds, created directly on a computer, sometimes with a synthesizer., sometimes with a sampler, always edited. In fact, the students were creating new instruments and then composing for those instruments. That was the week that my beginning students got to start working in the Center for Experimental Music, one of the initiatives that I founded while I was at the university. Not sure if C.E.M. survived my retirement in 2014, i.e. if it was continued by my successors - but actually, anyone who has the interest can put together a studio of their own for much less money than I spent building C.E.M. (well, the university's money).
I never did really take it seriously or finish it back in 2003. However, in 2012, the music department was planning to put together their annual Halloween Pops concert – a high charged program of crazy music by all the students and faculty., dressed in weird Halloween outfits. I thought about LUMPY. I gave the piece that name, because it sounded to me like a skeleton dancing around. And so I revised and finished the old LUMPY, creating something that I hoped would scare a few people. At the performance, all the lights in the concert hall went out coordinated with the first sound of LUMPY – a cannon! So imagine listening to this in the dark, surrounded by eight speakers. Or just close your eyes.