In the composition "Chant d'Ailleur" Alejandro Vinao varies chants of a fictive culture which develop their own distinct technology despite their folkloristic flair.

"Chant D'Ailleurs" ("Chant from Elsewhere") is a set of three song-like chants from a fictional culture. I imagined this culture as one which had developed technology in spite of having remained rural. This improbability accounts for the ritualistic and at times monodic nature of the singing, coupled to a computer part which seeks not to harmonize or orchestrate the songs but rather to extend the phrasing and timbre of the voice beyond its natural acoustic means.

Our culture has used each new technological development to further its original musical concerns: harmony, large scale form and timbre. My imaginary culture too, used technology to develop its rural and ethnic singing tradition. Based on this idea, I developed an imaginary singing style, with its own melisma, its own ornamental identity, the identity of a chanting "tradition" that I invented. In this tradition, the tune of each chant is less important than its ornaments, which can have a much stronger musical profile. Such a tune is difficult to remember. We may recall the "style" of the phrasing but not the phrase itself. The computer is also part of this imaginary style. The vocal sounds it manipulates and the new timbres it creates are articulated and "performed" in away which is consistent with the chanting style of the singer. When the computer takes the vocal sounds and transforms them into new timbres, it does so following the "stylistic constraints" of this imaginary culture.

I based the invented singing style on the traditions of different Eastern music and in particular on one Mongolian folk tune which I specially like for its beautiful use of melisma and glottal vibrato.

"Chant D'Ailleurs" was commissioned by the French government for Groupe de Recherches Musicales and was premiered by Frances Lynch at the Grand Auditorium of Radio France in Paris, the l0th of February of 1992. The computer part was produced at GRM using a SYTER Computer to process original vocal sounds.

Technical Background
17 min
HW: Syter, Mac IIFX, S-1000 Synthesizer, Sound Tools
SW: Alquemy-Sound Designer-Performer, Syter