Songs in Isolation V: Being Inside

<p>Text from YouTube description box: &quot;We&#39;re still locked down in Melbourne. Our taps in our rental place have started constantly dripping again for the 30th time since we&#39;ve lived here. No one&#39;s coming to fix anything at the moment. Life is breaking down.&quot;</p> <p>This piece was written in October 2020, inspired by the incessant dripping of the taps in our bathroom sink and shower that our landlords had refused to repair for several years. At the time, Melbourne was nearing the opening-up phase, and each day felt like torture until we were allowed to reconnect in physical spaces with friends and family. The eternal sameness of daily life was taking its toll, and I was back to cutting my hair to change the monotony of experience. People are generally aurally irritated by dripping taps, and it is, additionally, used as a torture technique, commonly called Chinese water torture (de Young 2015).</p> <p>I used <em>Max</em>, <em>Ableton Live</em>, <em>GLVD</em> (version three, with gestures: fist, palm, peace sign, and pinky out) and one hand manually controlled volumes on a second MIDI controller. GLVD version three, my <em>Max</em>-patch device interface was not optimised and thus CPU intensive, which caused problems with <em>Ableton Live</em>. I used the single glove to help compensate for this drain on computing power. This piece is the only one not to incorporate voice. In its place, I used the vibration drone of my hair clippers and reverb to bring out the overtones as I would with voice.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>