Speak No Evil

The piece was written on the CoMA summer school course that I went on in July 2007 held at Doncaster. Our teacher asked us to record a sound bite (or use an existing one) and create a piece using only that sound bite and various manipulations of it. Speak No Evil (completed on 26th July) is based on a famous sound bite. When performed, it is desirable that the performance space and audience are in complete darkness.

I would suggest that you listen to the piece first before reading the analysis below as it's better to hear it without prior knowledge of the piece.

Speak No Evil was first performed at a lunchtime concert on the 26th July 2007 at Doncaster College.

Analysis:
The sound bite was taken from George Bush's speech on the war against terror. The piece begins with a very distorted version of the sound bite - vowel sounds are elongated and consonants are reversed. As the piece progresses, each occurrence becomes clearer. However, the word "war" retains its processing throughout the piece and so only feels implied. The strange drone in the background throughout the piece is the word 'war' pitch-shifted and time stretched.