mouth music (synthesised speech)

"In Celebration" analysed






"Recorded on September 16, 1980 at the International Festival of Electronic Music, in Stockholm, Sweden, pianist Kerstin Åberg, performs Charles Dodge’s “Any Resemblance Is Purely Coincidental”, a work for tape and solo piano. According to the composer: «The tape part is based on computer restoration and re-synthesis of the 1907 recording of the legendary Enrico Caruso singing "Vesti la giubba" from Ruggero Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci" (1892). In the course of the work the voice searches for an accompaniment and is heard at different times with the original band, with electronic sounds, with copies of itself, with the live piano, and with combinations of them all. There is a surrealistic, dreamlike aspect to these apparent dislocations. The initial efforts are humorous; as the work progresses other emotions come into play. The title of the work recalls the standard disclaimer from FBI television dramas of the 1950's. I chose it when assured by RCA Records that I could use the computer renderings of the legendary voice if I made no attempt to exploit Caruso's name or visual likeness. "Any Resemblance Is Purely Coincidental" was commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1980. The computer renditions of the Caruso voice were made by digital signal processing pioneer Thomas Stockham and his student Neil J. Miller at the University of Utah in the early 1970's. The work is dedicated to the memory of Margaret Fairbank Jory, who was executive director of the American Music Center at the time that I was its president"









Charles Dodge talks about his Speech Songs at Perfect Sound Forever







 (Realization of Samuel Beckett's Radio Play)

Charles Dodges on Synthesized Speech Music