Soprano

Composer's note:
The Line Between was written with an enormous amount of flexibility and rhythmic freedom in mind; not a lot of concern for strict synchronicity between voice and tape within phrases. The music allows the singer to be free within the bounds of sounds which are, by necessity, fixed. The lack of strict rhythmic correlation creates a sense of “communal prayer” which is heard very clearly at several points (perhaps most notably in the final minute).

There are many moments (the very first phrase, for example) where the singer has a great deal of freedom in tempo; often the tape part emerges without a clear beginning from the singer’s pitch. In such cases—and, really, throughout the piece—the singer is encouraged to treat a phrase’s internal rhythms with some freedom. Again, the composer is drawing on the aural image of prayer chants; both the variation one might hear as different chanters lead a prayer, and the heterophony that emerges as a group chants ‘together.’

Part of the Perspectives of Mew Music/Open Space Milton Babbitt Memorial project