Venue and date: …to be announced…
Composition by Ida Hiršenfelder
Performed by Ida Hiršenfelder and Urška Savič
Duration: 54 minutes
Year of production: 2025
About
The microtonal composition draws from the merge of psychoacoustic and zoomusicology as the human ear perceives far fewer microtones between intervals than, for example, birds. So humans, despite our musicality, do quite poorly regarding tonal recognition. Bowing a cymbal, unlike tuned instruments, offers an expanded range of frequencies and suggests bird-like listening. The composition creates a space for the psychoacoustic experience of oscillating sound waves enhanced by the listeners who alter the oscillating waves by moving through the space, thus actively participating in the composition. Attentive listening enhances the ability to perceive finer differences between intervals. A trained ear may perceive up to 20 intervals between C2 and D2, while the average untrained ear perceives far fewer, primarily due to frequent exposure to harmonies. Through its unfamiliar sound world, microtonal music evokes new emotional and cognitive responses, fostering new ways of listening and being with sound.
Compositional concept
- Microtonal composition for two performers, each bowing two cymbals by a set of two different bows (violin, bass) and three percussion instruments (frame drum, sea drum, rainstick). Drums are excited by a set of different sizes and shapes of rubber mallets and rotated. The score is written in sagittarian microtonal style. It contains aleatoric signs for the performers to use prescribed gestures ad libitum. The score is performed live for 54 minutes.
- The performance is recorded with static and rotating microphones. The recording is used to compose an 4-channel fixed media electroacoustic composition using acousmatic montage techniques.
Instrument choice
- Each performer plays 2 different cymbals
- The cymbal is marked with fundamentals and overtones that can be achieved with bowing. The markings are in two colours, corresponding to the violin and bass bow.
- Each performer plays three percussion instruments (frame drum, sea drum, rainstick)
- Each performer has a thunder tube, tingsha bells and other small shakers to be used ad libidum when specified.
Method of playing
- Constant bowing of cymbals (two different bows: violin and bass)
- Friction mallets on cymbals (eight different sizes and shapes)
- Friction mallets on frame drums
- Rotation of sea drum and rainstick
Acousmatic gestural techniques and energy models
Percussion-resonance, Friction, Accumulation of corpuscles, Flux, and Swirls and rotations
Method of recording
- In two acoustically resonant points in the space place two sets of omnidirectional stereo microphones suspended on rubber bands on a rotating mobile stand. Preferred microphones DPA or Lom Audio. Preferred recorder: SoundDevices MixPre series.
- Two cordial directional microphones in two acoustically resonant points. Preferred microphones: Sennheiser. Preferred recorder: SoundDevices MixPre series.
- Ambisonic B-format recording for reference. Preferred recorder: Zoom H2n.
Acousmatic montague techniques
delta sounds, attack substitution, interpolation, composite objects, cross-fading, connection through theme and variation
* All techniques of transformation (frequency, spectral, amplitude, time, and spatial transformations) will be applied to achieve a maximal phase interference of overtones.
Credits
Composition: Ida Hiršenfelder
Performers: Ida Hiršenfelder and Urška Savič
Production: ON Rizom (Nataša Serec) and ŠŠŠŠŠ | Institute for Spatial Music
Mentor in bowing techniques: Jaka Berger
Year of production: 2025
Supported by the City of Ljubljana, Department for Culture
Bios
beepblip (Ida Hiršenfelder) is a sound artist and archivist making immersive psychogeographical spatial compositions with code, electronics, analogue synthesizers, and field recordings. Her work primarily explores sound ecology and spatialisation, addressing themes such as the agency of non-organic others, non-human animal languages, and listening to the inaudible. She was a member of the Theremidi Orchestra (2011–7) and is currently part of the Jata C group for bioacoustics and sound ecologies (2018–), the Clockwork Voltage community for modular synthesis (2022–), and the CENSE Central European Network for Sonic Ecologies (2022–). Her solo albums Noise for Strings, Vol. 1 (2019), Noise for Strings, Vol. 2 (2020), and the forthcoming Rhythmagogia (2025) were published by the Kamizdat label. She has exhibited sound installations at group shows in museums such as MG+MSUM (2013, 2024, 2025), MSU Zagreb (2019), ZKM Karlsruhe (2022), and Kunsthaus Graz (2025). Her compositions have been presented at various festivals, including Ars Electronica, Linz (2016), Device Art, Zagreb (2019), OTTOsonics, Ottensheim (2022), Wave Field Synthesis, The Hague (2022, 2023), Motions | An Experimental Sound Event, Zagreb (2023), Experimance, Saarbrücken (2024), TO)pot Festival of Radical Walking, Ljubljana (2024), and Lighting Guerrilla, Ljubljana (2025, announced). Hiršenfelder completed a Master of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague (2023). She frequently composes for contemporary dance, for which she received the Golden Lightning Award from Bunker Institute for soundscape in the 2023/24 season.
Urška Savič (Sava šumi) (1992) is a photographer, critic, radio artist, and producer. She graduated from FAMU (Academy of Performing Arts, Prague) in 2014, specialising in collage and photomontage, and earned an MA from ALUO (Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana) in 2020, focusing on archival practices in contemporary art, for which she received the Prešeren Award. Between 2015 and 2019, she was active in the Modri Kot collective at Rog Autonomous Factory (Ljubljana). She began incorporating sound and writing into her multimedia practice during her exchange studies in Porto (2017–18). Since 2017, she has worked at the Cultural and Social Sciences Editorial at Radio Študent and has served as the artistic director of the Open Radio Investigative Art Platform R A D A R since 2019. In 2021, she also began working as a radio sound engineer. As a critic, she contributes to magazines such as Fotografija/Membrana, Maska, Razpotja, and Kino, and co-creates multimedia projects including Sluhodvod – Zavod Sploh, and festivals such as Lighting Guerilla, Red Dawns, Young Lions, and City of Women. Currently, she teaches at the ALUO Department for Photography since 2023/24. She is also a satellite member of Kela, a photography collective and Glitch Trigger, a ŽLINTA sound experiment.