All Hail the Machine

2011/22
9 mins
bass clarinet & electronics

Premiere: 21 June 2011
Australian National Academy of Music
South Melbourne Town Hall
Alex Morris - bass clarinet

Programme Note

The impetus for All Hail the Machine came from television “channel surfing”. I think most of us have idly watched several TV shows at once and hopped from channel to channel either due to the prevalence of ads or due to the mundane quality of television shows in general. The piece begins innocuously enough with a long melodic line that threads its way around the upper echelons of the instrument. Without warning, the music instantly snaps to another idea, now deep and violent. This concept of “channel changing” through radical mood swings forms the entire piece: new ideas become interspersed with old ones. The final minutes of the piece are played out over an archaic sounding loop that serves to remind of the tedium of ads and the questionable content on television.
In 2022, eleven years after the premiere, I revisited the piece to streamline the electronics. In the process I made changes to the bass clarinet part as well. When this work was originally written, streaming services hadn’t reached the general public and so it was “free-to-air” television that informed this piece.
NOTE: This piece requires the use of Ableton LIVE software. Please send an email via the contact page to request the patch.


Performance by Ashley Smith.

To borrow or purchase the score from the Australian Music Centre click here

Back to Compositions