photo © Marie-Sophie Rohmer
Music Factory
realized with the composer Théo Mérigeau
and the children of the class of CE2-CM1-CM2 of the Léo Lagrange school of Evaux-les-Bains and their teacher Aude Couturier
With the help of Sacem and DRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine
In 2022-2023, the children, their teacher Aude Couturier and the composer Théo Mérigeau shared a Music Fabrique (device of the Sacem) along the lines of a song written by the composer for the show A l ́ombre des nombres.
« The project of this Music Fabric is to study the relationship between numbers and music and to work with numbers not as combinatorial or structural tools but as units of measurement of the elementary parameters of sound. Vibration, the evolution of air pressure over time, obey physical laws. All the sound messages from the outside world that come to our ears are digitally descriptible. To define the parameters of a sound, such as its height, duration or intensity, there are units of measurement that express numbers. I have worked to make these underlying numbers visible and understandable to children by linking them to extremely simple and sensory musical phenomena and parameters: intensity, speed, height, stamp and thus creating a consort with children, a score built on the basis of these acoustic phenomena.(...) I want to create an artisanal lutery of inexpensive materials, such as PVC tubes and baudrouch balloons. Instruments manufactured such as flutes or mouth organs will have the dual benefit of promoting understanding of the basic acoustic phenomena of the instruments (vibration mode, harmonic series, tube resonance, etc.) and of producing unheard-of sounds conducive to a deeply original restitution. These rudimentary instruments all have very strong constraints (limited ambiguity, sometimes only a few notes) Theo Mérigeau, intent note – Spring 2022
The children and Théo Mérigeau played their creation on 8 June 2023 in Évaux-les-Bains.