Influences of Luminosity – 2001

Here is a note from the composer about the creation of Influences of Luminosity:

The inspiration for the concept of “Influences of Luminosity” came to me as I was creating the “master” image from which all the other images in this CD booklet were derived. The hue of the rectangles of translucent color being influenced by others above and below inspired me on many levels. On one, ideas of how layers of sound effect the overall color of the composite sound became quite clear. On another, I revisited many happenings in my life that were indeed influenced by the light about me and began to realize that I am what I am because of these influences. The depth of these realizations can only be alluded to verbally, but as a result I had a surge of creativity and over a period of several continuous hours I had created over 100 variations of this “master” image. Over the subsequent two year period the nine compositions of “Influences of Luminosity” were completed.

Technically, I utilized Csound, which is a programming language based on the C programming language, to create the instruments, the score and the performance of the compositions. As of late I have been delving deeper and deeper into algorithmic composition and have begun utilizing a stochastic event generator called Cmask. Basically, I write a program that directs the computer in the composition of a piece of music. Therefore, several of the pieces included in this project have been composed in part by my assistant, “Quark” the computer.

I hope you will enjoy listening to “Influences of Luminosity” as much as I have enjoyed putting it together. As always your comments are requested.

Michael Rhoades 03.10.2001