This composition was part of the choreographic work CRONOS created by Andréine Bel and performed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Mumbai, India) and the Shri Ram Center (Delhi) in October 1994.
The following grammar "-gr.ShapesInRhythm" was written (in about 2 days) by Andréine and Bernard Bel.
There were six dancers on the stage: Smriti Mishra, Olivier Rivoirard, Vijayshree Chaudhary, Arindam Dasgupta, Somenath Chatterjee and Suresh Shetty.
The musical structure consists of 9 parts using very different sound patches played on Roland D-50 synthesiser with a Musitronics extension card. Each part is based on the rhythmic structure of a tihai: three equal repetitions of a rhythmic pattern, interspersed with two equal rests, with the constraint that the last unit must fall on the first beat of the rhythmic cycle. The cycle has 16 beats, or tintal in North-Indian music/dance. Tihais are basic figures of Kathak dance and tabla drumming.
On an old Mac IIci, this would take 14 minutes to produce and time! For this reason, subgrammar instructions have been optimised: instead of the standard "RND" mode, "ORD" has been used wherever possible, otherwise "SUB1", whose process is a unique "parallel" rewrite of the work string.
Playing the piece required a 30-millisecond quantization setting which reduced the size of the phase table by a factor of 222. See Complex ratios in polymetric expressions for a detailed explanation.
At the time this grammar was written, BP2 did not support articulation or glossaries. This grammar has highlighted the need for such features.
Smooth time and time patterns (with time-objectst1, t2 and t3) were used because the dancers expected the first sections to start slowly and speed up. Thus, the composition starts at metronome 60, continues at metronome 80 and ends at 88. In this composition, however, striated time would be a much better option because speed changes can be managed using the "_tempo()" tool: forget time patterns, set the metronome to 88 and insert _tempo(60/88) then _tempo(80/88) and finally _tempo(1) to change speeds. This work was an incentive to implement the "_tempo()" performance tool…
Click this link to display the score of this piece. “Shapes in Rhythm” composed by Andréine Bel and played by the Bol Prorcessor on a Roland D-50 synthesiser (1994)
ORD [Setting ratios with time patterns] GRAM#11[1] Tp1 --> t1 t1 t1 t1 t1 t1 t1 t1 GRAM#11[2] Tp2 --> t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 GRAM#11[3] Tp3 --> t3 t3 t3 t3 t3 t3 t3 t3
SUB1 GRAM#13[1] Smriti --> {3,Sm Sm Sm} GRAM#13[2] Olivier --> {5,Ol Ol Ol Ol Ol} GRAM#13[3] Vijayshree --> {2,Vi Vi} GRAM#13[4] Arindam --> {4,Ar Ar Ar Ar} GRAM#13[5] Somenath --> {6,So So So So So So} GRAM#13[6] Suresh --> {12,Su Su Su Su Su Su Su Su Su Su Su Su}
SUB1 GRAM#14[1] Huit --> BigTik Tik Tik Tik Tik Tik Tik Tik GRAM#14[2] Six --> BigTik Tik Tik Tik Tik Tik GRAM#14[3] Cinq --> BigTik Tik Tik Tik Tik GRAM#14[4] Cinq2 --> BigTik Tik3 Tik3 Tik3 Tik3 GRAM#14[5] Quatre --> BigTik Tik Tik Tik GRAM#14[6] Huit2 --> BigTik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 GRAM#14[7] Sept2 --> BigTik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 GRAM#14[8] Six2 --> BigTik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 GRAM#14[9] Cinq2 --> BigTik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 GRAM#14[10] Quatre2 --> BigTik2 Tik2 Tik2 Tik2 GRAM#14[11] Ek --> Tik GRAM#14[12] Do --> Tik GRAM#14[13] Tin --> Tik GRAM#14[14] Chhe --> BigTik
SUB1 // The eight following rules are typical cases in which _staccato() should be used. GRAM#15[1] Dha1 --> {1,{si3,si4}---} GRAM#15[2] Su --> do6--- GRAM#15[3] Sm --> fa5--- GRAM#15[4] Ol --> mi6--- GRAM#15[5] So --> la5--- GRAM#15[6] Vi --> re6- GRAM#15[7] Ar --> mi5--- GRAM#15[8] An --> fa6--- GRAM#15[9] Dha4 --> {fa2,do4} GRAM#15[10] Tick32 --> _vel(40) do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 do3 GRAM#15[11] Tik --> do7 GRAM#15[12] Tik2 --> {do5,do6} GRAM#15[13] Tik3 --> {_vel(15) sol6,_vel(110) do7} GRAM#15[14] BigTik --> {do6,do8} GRAM#15[15] BigTik2 --> {fa3,fa4}
