Sole Injection

Composer: Zack Browning

Sole Injection for amplified violin and computer-generated tape was written during the summer of 1996 and commissioned by Carbondale Community Arts for performance at Arts in Celebration '96.

This composition is the fifth in a series of works by the composer, which uses the magic square of the sun as a compositional model. Of the enormous number of magic squares it is possible to form, seven have been associated with the seven planets of the Ptolemaic Universe (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, The Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon).

These "Ptolemaic Magic Squares" appear in De Occulta Philosophia, a book on magic by the Renaissance polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa Von Nettesheim published in 1531. A magic square consists of a series of numbers arranged so that the sum of each row, column and diagonal is the same amount. Eleven different routes through the square (the middle nine each having a duration of 55 seconds) are mapped onto a musical structure based upon the magic square.

The unique position of each number within the square is paralleled in the musical score by a particular style, rhythm, density, timbre and orchestration. The tape was produced using GACSS (Genetic Algorithms in Composition and Sound Synthesis) which is an original computer music software package developed by Benjamin Grosser.