| Bryan Jacobs | music composition and sound art |
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Compositions for instruments and electronics
 |
Do you need, Do to me, 18 me, 18 mean |
written 2012
instrumentation: six vocalist (any voice type) and electronics
New York Times review
Do you need, Do to me, 18 me, 18 mean is partly a computer version of the game "telephone". The text was derived in the following manner -- a) read a phrase into a computer's "voice to text" software, b) the computer normally gets it wrong, c) take the computers wrong interpretation and read that back in, d) the computer misunderstands again, e) repeat.
Here is an example of the computer's misunderstandings. This specific text is used at the beginning of the work:
in the beginning there was light
in the beginning right
in the beginning night
in the beginning of light
in the beginning of right
Although each subsequent phrase is phonetically related, semantically they can be quite different.
Each vocalist also has a large button similar to those used on the popular 1980's TV game show, Press Your Luck. The performers press the buttons as notated in the score to start and stop predefined electronic samples.
