9 Beet Stretch

Description

9 Beet Stretch

The Ambisonic Guild is an interdisciplinary group dedicated to the exploration and study of experimental sound, electroacoustic music, microtonal montage, ambisonics, patahysics, sound art, and performance, in all formats, and from all periods. We are dedicated to increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and art.

Leif Inge’s (*1970) iconoclast take on Beethoven, the monumental 24-hours soundscape 9 Beet Stretch, and has become emblematic of his art. The 9 Beet Stretch is a piece of idea-based sound art made of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The source recording, a Naxos recording conducted by Béla Drahos with the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia and Chorus (Naxos 8.553478), was stretched digitally to a duration of 24 hours with no distortion or pitch shifting. The work is presented as a 24-hour-long sound installation/electroacoustic concert.

The initial realization of 9 Beet Stretch was done in 2002 at NOTAM (Norwegian network for Technology, Acoustics, and Music) by Anders Vinjar, Kjetil Matheussen, Leif Inge, and Bjarne Kvinnesland. Granulation divides the sound into short enveloped grains and reproduces them in high densities ranging from several hundred to several thousand grains per second. Slicing the input file into short pieces then overlapping these slices to lengthen (or shorten) the result allows a change in the speed at which things happen in a recorded sound without changing the pitches. The ratio of augmentation reaches 24 hours will vary depending on which source recording is used. The sources range from 64′ to 78′, giving a ratio somewhere in the range of 19 – 23 times.

For more information, please visit 9beet2.com.