Klank, klinkt, geklonken
Is a project about the meaning of language and the emotions of sounds.
The piece is about the sound characteristics and timbre of the Dutch language. What effect do syllabes have on the feelings of the words using these syllables? I focussed on the contrast between hollow – full and sharp - soft sounding syllables. To get to words that fitted this contrast I made a scheme.
In this scheme I wrote syllables and words fitting to the sound they had. Putting these words in a intuitive order it became a poem with its own story. The meaning of the poem, which only formed after I had written two thirds of the poem by intuitively combining words together, fits for me very well to the sound of the piece. The intensity of the text and meaning are shaped by the sounds that are used. Simply said it is difficult to write a warm feeling text with hollow sharp sounds while doing the opposite is similarly difficult.
Next to the poem I wrote I recorded all dutch syllables and put them in a granular synthesizer which I programmed in Max MSP. Combining the live spoken words and the digitally manipulated syllables I created a live performative piece.