O N D E S  C O R T I

Suzanne Farrin & Jacob Kirkegaard © 2015

Ondes Corti is a series for inner ear tones and ondes Martenot. The musical materials are derived from tones produced by the ear itself projected through live electronics and in dialogue with one of the earliest electronic instruments: the ondes Martenot

The ondes was first imagined at the top of the Eiffel Tower by Maurice Martenot, an engineering student and amateur cellist who was drafted during the First World War to work on radio transmissions. Depressed over the destruction, he had a vision that these tools could be transformed from destructive to beautiful. He dreamed of creating an instrument that could communicate directly with an audience with no impediment other than "the imagination of the performer." He eventually believed that the performer would be able to "think" an interpretation and the audience could receive the music telepathically. The result is an instrument that is an expressive, other-worldy machine and also the most technically advanced musical instrument of its time (the 1920s)

These expressive tones also exist within the ear itself and appear remarkably similar timbrally to sine waves. This musical fingerprint is the result of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAE)s, which are sounds that are generated in the Organ of Corti without external stimulation. They are perceptible, though often go unnoticed, and can be recorded with sensitive microphones. Like human sound signatures, they are a window to the immense diversity and richness of the human identity

Ondes Corti explores2 these inner and other worlds: what we create and what we are capable of receiving. These pieces will unearth the tones hidden in nearly every individual's ears and create musical poetry that exposes and embraces the sounds that connect us

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