Review from the Society of Composers Inc. (SCI) Newsletter (April, 2004)

"The finale of the concert was Douglas O'Grady's Canticle. This tightly focused piece manipulated vocal and vocal-like timbres until a full-fledged independent line soared above punctuating sweeps in the accompanying texture. Hearing the vocal line descend into guttural sounds was a delight.
A great piece on a wonderfully engaging concert!"

-Jay Batzner, reviewer

Performance History
October 29, 2005, Gourmet Melodies
Georgia College & State University

April 24, 2004, Douglas O'Grady DMA Recital
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

April 12, 2004, Electronic Music Concert
Central Missouri State University, Warrensberg

January 31, 2004, SCI Region VI Conference
Arkansas State University, Jonesboro

December 3, 2002, Electronic Music Concert
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

            The sounds in Canticle were created using Csound, a programming language used in digital sound synthesis.   The soprano “voice” was created using FOF (Fonction d'onde formantique) synthesis within the Csound environment.   FOF synthesis involves the use of a granular synthesis texture with five formant filters mimicking a human vocal apparatus.   There were no samples or recordings of “real” voices used in this piece.

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Canticle for two-channel digital media
© Copyright 2002 Douglas M. O'Grady
All Rights Reserved

Registered with ASCAP

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Sample Csound .orc file of one of the FOF instruments:

; CANTICLE by Douglas M. O'Grady
; © Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved
written by Douglas O'Grady
sr = 441009
kr = 4410
ksmps = 10
nchnls = 2

;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; *FOF 1 A*
;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
instr 9

igrain = p5
inote = cpspch(p4)
idur = p3
kpan = p6
kfreq expseg inote, idur*.15, inote, idur*.65, igrain, idur*.20, igrain*0

k1rrandi .006, 1/.05, .8135
k2 randi .006,91/.111, .3111
k3 randi .006, 1/1.219, .6711

kjitter = (k1+k2+k3)*kfreq
kfreq2 = kfreq+kjitters

a1 fof ampdb(90),ikfreq2, i800, 0, i80, .003, .017, .007, 20, 2, 10, idur, 0, 1
a2 fof ampdb(84), kfreq2, 1150, 0, i90, .003, .017, .007, 20, 2, 10, idur, 0, 1
a3 fof ampdb(58), kfreq2, 2900, 0, 120, .003, .017, .007, 20, 2, 10, idur, 0, 1
a4 fof ampdb(70), kfreq2, 3900, 0, 130, .003, .017, .007, 20, 2, 10, idur, 0, 1
a5 fof ampdb(40), kfreq2, 4950, 0, 140, .003, .017, .007, 20, 2, 10, idur, 0, 1

amix =(a1+a2+a3+a4+a5)*0

aamp =.amix/p7

aout linen aamp, .5, idur,9.5

outs aout*kpan, aout*(kpan-1)
written by Douglas O'Grady
endin