Strange Tales - musings of a sound monkey

This last 2 weeks have seen me working with the mighty 2Act Theatre Co again, this time on the controversial stage adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’.

Many aspects of the production are challenging, right through from staging, but the sound aspects are particularly interesting as for the sound designer and composer, there are a number of very rigid parameters to work around dictated by the script itself (should you choose to be dictated to!), but often that can present its own interesting challenge in finding a seam of partially moulded creativity.

Much of the music centres around the integral use of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and in particular the 4th Movement - The Ode To Joy, possibly one of the most iconic pieces of classical music ever.   The central protagonist is addicted to a life of ultra-violence and drug propelled acts of moral abandon, and is finally caught by the authorities after being betrayed by his companions or ‘droogs’. The authorities use Alex as a guineapig for a morally questionable new aversion therapy called the Ludovico Technique. One aspect of this therapy is the use of things the patient holds dear, against them. In Alex’ case, this is Beethoven’s 9th, which is linked in the treatment by images and soundscapes of violence, butchery and sadism.

This is a good place to start for the sound designer…..  Burgess was a great exponent of creative, even playful, structures within the story and there are many well-documented examples of some of the constructions used within the story; use of polyglot merged languages; and mirrored first and second halves of the plot to name but 2. So, it would seem churlish not to play along….

I decided early on that there were three main bodies of music that I would need - the treatment/’authority’ music; Alex’s world music; and incidental/environmental music.  Much of the incidental music is carefully selected sections of the 9th, often picked for juxtaposition against violence or distressing scenes, highlighting the violence with serenity and drama.  At one point in the prison, Alex chooses Wachet Auf by Bach (in an inexplicable left turn at the lights - and if anyone knows why Burgess chose this, please comment here!), but this is the only obvious departure from the predominant use of Beethoven.

One small script reference is given to Alex protesting at the use of Ludwig and Handel in the treatment, so in my cacophonous remix of the 9th for the treatment section, I did actually mix in a reversed segment of Handel’s WaterMusic in the build up to the climax. 

So, for the music used by the authorities, I chose to use ‘stock’ versions of the 9th (Karajan for completionists who might be interested), albeit somewhat carved around using Multi-mode filters, ring modulators and multi-band distortions for the treatment pieces.  Rising tone generators were also used to produce 20Hz to 20kHz sweeps during the treatment to produce an incredibly uncomfortable experience for the audience (especially for the under 18’s in the crowd!). LFO-driven slicers and gates were also used to produce a disorientating panning ‘sampling’ effect in a nightmare scene.

For Alex’s world of the Korova bar and also for the house and bows music (which I included in Alex’ world), I decided to write music from scratch. This presented challenges as well as the genre choice for Clockwork is tricky at best and here’s why… Burgess wrote the novel in 1962, to be set in a vastly changed political climate of the near future, probably what we would now call…. the past! Then came Kubrick and the now iconic but (not unfair to say) dated score by Walter/Wendy Carlos, which was ground-breaking at the time, and has planted itself indelibly in the minds of anyone who has seen the film - me included!  (Interestingly, Carlos ignored many of the directions for specific music laid out by Burgess, (including Scheherazade in the prison not Wachet Auf) and though tempting to go with this electronica approach, I decided to go down a more contemporary line.

One interesting (to me anyhow) thing about buggering around with the 9th and the main Ode to Joy theme is actually how difficult it is to bugger around with. I wanted to go with a straight minor version, but actually that’s incredibly difficult.  I hate to sound slightly metaphysical for a minute here, but the more you try, the more you are drawn back to the theme in the major - it’s almost as if the Ode to Joy was created to always return to the joyous major. yes, technically, you can re-score it, you can sit and do it on paper, but if you’re a muso, you just try it. For me, there’s just something that just keeps bringing you back to that theme.   I finally succeeded but you know? it felt very wrong.

For the house, entracte and bows music, I wrote 3 variations on a theme of the 9th which i titled ‘The Broken 9th’ , ‘The Restored 9th’ and a dance called ‘Love in the Middle Ages’.  All the instrumentation was based around long sustained and ebow’d 8-10 tracked harmony electric guitars (all played in, not auto harmonised - hate those things!), against a vocal sampled rhythm from Stylus RMX and a great long evolver patch from Omnisphere. 

All in all, as with every project i get the opportunity to work on for 2Act, it was hugely interesting process and again, I am immensely grateful to Simon Carr and Sam Dunstan (in his really impressive directorial debut) for their trust in allowing me the freedom to sit in splendid isolation and experiment with these things, often only appearing at the tech/dress with finished pieces. 2Act chose pieces to perform that challenge the sound designer/composer constantly, and I can’t wait for the next one again.

In the meantime, for those that are intrigued to hear some of these things I keep banging on about, I will shortly be releasing an album of the last couple of year’s worth of pieces I’ve written for theatre and scare productions probably on CDBaby and CD called ‘At Different Stages’.

Viddy you all soon my horrorshow droogies

p-a-d