Elements 2: Helium
Elements 2: Helium is the sixth album in a series of music on the Elements, a large work in progress consisting of electronically/digitally created architectural music compositions by Oscar van Dillen.
The work on this album was composed May 2022.
All works, cover art and booklet of this album were created by Oscar van Dillen.
The other albums in this series so far are:
- Elements 1: Hydrogen Deuterium Tritium H D T
- Elements 118: Oganesson Og
- Elements 6: Carbon C
- Elements 8: Oxygen – Ozone O
- Elements 14: Silicon Si
- Elements 7: Azote N
Tracks
- Helium – Section 1 13:16
- Helium – Section 1 17:18
- Helium – Section 1 19:54
Total duration: 50:28
The CD booklet can be found HERE.
Ways of Listening to the Elements
The series Elements consist of digital compositions which have a more static, installation-like character, crossing the border between musical and spatial composition, linking up music and architecture, both arts concerning Space.
It is a remarkable feature of human anatomy that the inner ear is the organ that perceives sound as well as space. Inside in the cochlea resonating crystals distinguish the frequencies within sound. Outside on top of the same organ there are the three half-circles of the Labyrinth, perceiving spatial movement along an XYZ axis system.
The direct perception of 4-dimensional space-time itself can be seen in this essential part of our anatomy: one organ handling perceptual elements of both space and time in unison.
Space, in the perception of XYZ orientation on the inside of the Labyrinth: spatial movement and balance. Time, or rather the inverse of time in Hz and frequency cycles/s in the perception of pitch on the inside the Cochlea.
Van Dillen’s compositions in the series Elements can be listened to in several ways. Traditionally these are: privately over loudspeakers or headphones, or in a concert situation, that somewhat awkward setting where a group of interested people are sitting immobile and listening to what comes out precorded out of a professional loudspeaker system, with no apparent performers in sight.
Each of the Elements is created to be able to stand on its own, as a deeply composed and serious work of art, to be enjoyed on its own. Yet the Elements series as a whole has also been conceived to work and sound together as a larger ensemble: a potential meta-symphony of works, to be exhibited and enjoyed in an architectural sound installation of a variety of Elements set to play on repeat.
For installation playback of the series Elements, van Dillen proposes this option of creating simultaneously playing (looping) versions of various Elements widely spaced apart over a large space or several neighbouring spaces. Listeners could actively move around through the music or choose to linger or sit in certain spots for some time.
Also at home, a smaller version of an installation can be realized by playing several (looping) compositions in adjacent rooms, so they somewhat overlap and audibly interact. The only thing needed is one playback device per home installation element.
It is the composer’s wish that he himself as well as others will be able to create an ever-evolving range of different choreographies for various architectural installation performances of these works in the future, of diverse sizes and durations, ranging from the very intimate to the truly monumental and in everything between.
If such architectural installations would be placed in a museum, they would allow interaction with visual arts as well, but they could also be put in very dark settings.
Meanwhile at home, the listeners are challenged to DIY DJ and mix two or more of these compositions and turn one’s home into a personal theatre or museum.
A degree of inclusion of the listener into the process of creation can thus be achieved.
Elements of both Music and Chemistry
The Elements referred to in the title are obviously the chemical elements: the very first of the periodic table of which is Hydrogen with its remarkable isotopes Deuterium and Tritium, the only isotopes with their own chemical abbreviation. Less obvious from the titles is the use of Elements of Music, as described in his original approach to composing: his method (not a system) of prepositional analysis, developed from 1998-2011 by van Dillen.
Prepositional analysis is a new approach to the creation and analysis of music, not restricted to any style or vocabulary, but based on how humans hear music and perceive its elements Sound and Silence in interaction. Sound manifests itself in spectrum, time, and space, and from this observation 5 categories are derived, which sum up to 6 with silence included. These both include and transcend Stockhausen’s 5 dimensions of sound (pitch, duration, volume, timbre, and place). Based on the interactions a set of 22 prepositional analytical concepts is postulated, for use in creative composition or analysis.
These elements of music have in fact been used for a longer time and some if not all of them can be found in music history. In the work on this album, they are used to create new music inspired by the chemical elements. The chemical elements being such basic building blocks of matter, represent the basis for every existence, and for life.
By means of Mendeleev’s system for natural matter, and thus for material nature, van Dillen ventured to compose his meta-symphony Elements.
Helium
At the beginning of the universe there was only energy, immensely hot energy in an expanding universe consisting of time and space. It is only after some initial cooling that the 4 fundamental forces themselves started to come into being, after which what we know as particles started to form. After sufficient cooling these particles started to combine into the first atoms: Hydrogen and Deuterium, along with some Helium nuclei (incomplete atoms).
One of the 4 fundamental forces is gravity. It was responsible for condensing clouds of matter (as we call everything made out of atoms) so much, that they started to collapse upon themselves and became the first stars. Within these stars, largely consisting of Hydrogen, pairs of Hydrogen atoms were fused into Helium. This is why we call this element Helium because it was first found to exist on the sun. Only later was it also discovered on earth too.
But the element Helium was named after our star. Known as Ra to the Egyptians, or Ahura Mazda by the Persians.
Above is an image of the spectral lines of Helium. It was by the bright yellow line in this unique light signature that this at the time unknown element was first spotted during a solar eclipse in 1868. Hence its name Helium, derived from Greek ἥλιος, meaning sun.
Helium is the first compound element, and the first of the group called the noble gases. This name was chosen because this group (column in the periodic table) is chemically unreactive under conditions that favor human life. Since Helium was among the first-born atoms, it is very abundant in the universe. Though rare on earth, Helium’s universal abundance is second only to that of Hydrogen.
One can imagine that at the reality of a larger than primal atom, the road is open for more complex atoms, and so it was: in the heavier stars, thermonuclear fission processes produced heavier elements still. In fact, there is not a single heavier atom that was not created at some point in time in some star. All matter is stardust. All heavier atoms are the product of nuclear fission in stars.
We ourselves are the children of stars become aware.
It is with Helium that this process of atom creation takes its very first step: forming an atom with 2 protons, over twice as heavy as the primal atom Hydrogen. It is a strange coincidence that so many human cultures worshipped the sun as a creator god: the sun being our star is de facto one of the many creators of matter, in its shining we see the life-giving light: a waste product of this process.
Now imagine ourselves the size of a planet, listening to the sounds of this process of matter creation. We are become huge cosmic ears now, listening to the sounds of the sun.
It is inspired by such an imaginary listening that Elements 2: Helium was composed by Oscar van Dillen. After having listened to the NASA “sound recordings” of the sun, this original composition was pondered upon and created.
Making of Helium
The sounds of Helium were all produced by processes of modular synthesis. Apart from the Voltage modular virtual system with its many modules, Fabfilter’s semi-modular Twin 2 synthesizer was used. All sounds have been used with a more or less precise tone structure in mind, shown in the image below. The end a perfect authentic cadence!
For the middle and high-pitched elements a 12-tone series was loosely used, moving from H to e (for He, the atomic symbol of Helium), the H being the German name for B (which also Bach used to spell his name in tones). Twin 2 and large sawtooth sounds (33 sawtooth waves in subtly detuned unisons) were used for this highly resonant tone material, as shown in the patch below, creating a tonal sound, but, interacting with itself, deeply moving about.
For the middle and high-pitched elements a 12-tone series was loosely used, moving from H to e (for He, the atomic symbol of Helium), the H being the German name for B (which also Bach used to spell his name in tones). Twin 2 and large sawtooth sounds (33 sawtooth waves in subtly detuned unisons) were used for this highly resonant tone material, as shown in the patch below, creating a tonal sound, but, interacting with itself, deeply moving about.
A generative modular setup was added to provide a layer of crackling noise, now like Geiger counter sounds, then again like far away music, because bandpass filtered.
OIJ Records 019 – Donemus DCV 419