Friedrich's Comma

TITLE: Friedrich’s Comma
CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): #54 (1999)
INSTRUMENTATION: for two voices
PAGES: 7
DURATION (APPROX): 1’37
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE: Kristy Cheadle & Steve Tasko, The University of Wisconsin, 2007
Note
Friedrich’s Comma presents a heightened vocal expression by offering an increased graininess of timbral complexity during sound production.  This increased graininess becomes possible when complexity of articulation is heightened through a novel comprehensive map of place and manner within the vocal tract, that expands the phonetic-based model to well over 100 locations and postures with their associated manners.

For this small study, an anatomic grid was developed so that multiple levels of information could be transmitted simultaneously.  The significance of this model is that it allows for the possibility of developing a contrapuntal complex of independently strata within one face.

Friedrich’s Comma was featured in the article “Palatal Sound;  A Comprehensive Model of Vocal Tract Articulation”, published in ORGANIZED SOUND, volume 4, number 2, fall 1999, © Cambridge University Press.