Duane Pitre & Pilotram Ensemble - Organized Pitches Occurring In Time - CD

Organized Pitches Occurring In Time consists of two 25 minute pieces of music, both spawned from the same conceptual composition/score by Duane Pitre titled, Ensemble Drones. With their form reminiscent of works by La Monte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music and their tonality touching on the floating works of Terry Riley, The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th and a Pump Organ Base & The Ensemble Chord in C with a Major 7th and a Guitar Base are aural tapestries based on a minimal tonal palette with their instrumentation consisting of guitars, alto saxophones, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, tone generator, and pump organ.

The Ensemble Drones composition varies from the traditional sort as it is rule-based with the score consisting of a set tonic, set pitch classes, playing methods, technique restrictions, and spontaneous conduction. The score is a structure for the performing ensemble to improvise on—order spawning chaos producing order that is different on each occasion of a performance or recording. Ensemble Drones is discipline and freedom, both within each other, the first major focus of the work. Variance is the second major focus of the composition; with instrumentation, ensemble performers, tonic, pitch classes, and the physical space varying from performance to performance, the results can never be the same.

One way to view Ensemble Drones is like a compositional “body,” as in the composition taking human form. The score is the skeletal structure that gives the "body" its general shape and feel. The pump organ, for instance, could serve as the circulatory system, the bass clarinet as the muscles, cello and saxophones as the internal organs, the electrically generated tones as the nervous system, guitars as the flesh, viola as the skin, violin as strands of hair, and the listener - the listener acts as the eyes. Not in the sense of vision, though - each listener will "view" the same compositional body differently, and, in return, the body will view itself differently with each new set of eyes. This helps to analogize the last major focus of the Ensemble Drones score/composition, which is perception.

ARTIST BIO:

Duane Pitre is a composer/performer who is recognized for his creation of multiple abstract sounds such as dense/atmospheric drones and minimalist compositions/improvisations.

After Duane Pitre's departure from San Diego's The Camera Obscura in Summer 2000, he started the project known as Pilotram. In September 2004 Pitre moved to Brooklyn, New York, and Pilotram started performing at NYC venues such as The Ontological-Hysteric Theater (NOISE! 2005), The Knitting Factory, Galapagos, Lit, and ABCNoRio. There, Pitre began in-depth studies of music and sound including: the physics of sound, the involvement of mathematics in tuning and temperament, the ancient tuning system of Just Intonation and other microtonal tuning systems, as well as the minimalist composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich.

Although improvisation played its part in Pitre’s works pre-2004, the improvisational NYC scene had an immense impact on him. After sessioning around town for the better part of 2005, Pitre had a new love - spontaneity.

2006 found Pitre heading back to San Diego to focus on his solo works, the exploration of new instruments like his Justly Tuned Ukelin, and the continuation of his Just Intonation and microtonal studies (these studies also included the traditional world music of India, Persia, and Japan all which utilize microtonal systems). 2006 also marked the transformation of his performance/recording title from Pilotram to Duane Pitre/Pilotram. 2007 will see further title transformation to Duane Pitre, shedding the Pilotram moniker altogether.

While in San Diego, Pitre began to implement his Just Intonation and microtonal studies into his own music, spawning the pieces Music for Microtonal Guitar and Mallets and Comprovisation for Justly Tuned Ukelin [no.1], both to be included on a new record of solo works which will be completed in Spring 2007.