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Roberto C. Lange

A New Tributary, Version One

-86.229105, 39.821359

Little Eagle Creek, one of Indianapolis’s six waterways, runs along streets, people, cement, trash, birds, and other contemporary environmental sounds. A New Tributary, Version One is a sound composition based on composer Roberto Lange’s impressionistic interpretation of Little Eagle Creek. Lange’s field recordings were processed with sound manipulation tools using a computer and analog audio effects. Added to this, sampled sounds of cellos and other string instruments create drone-like effects that are chopped or repeated to give a musical embodiment of the persistence of this ever-flowing organism—the creek. As a starting point for A New Tributary, Version One, Lange wondered: “what if the water running through the creek had ears, what would it hear?” At times on the track, Lange creates musical moments that are repetitive as a way to imagine both the creek and the water hearing the constant motion and life along Little Eagle Creek. At other times, Lange places subtle and slowly shaped sounds that mimic a gentle push of water on the sandy corridors that guide the creek along to its next junction where it meets up with the White River.

• Duration: 10:00

• Year: 2015

• Commissioned by: National Science Foundation