Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Deepfake for Sax brings alto saxophone into dialogue with live electronics and visual media across three movements: Liquid Film Noir, Discotheque Allusions and MetaData Phoenix. Sustained lines, chromatic gestures and passages of rapid, flexible figuration interact with electronic brass, rhythmic layers and processed sound. The notation combines defined musical material with freedom in pacing, phrasing and, in selected passages, pitch choice.

The movement titles and performance directions evoke cinematic and popular-music identities. In Discotheque Allusions, a spacious opening gives way to a fast bebop stream over drum-and-bass material, followed by a slower cyberpunk technoir passage and a return to the opening character. Pedal cues connect these changes to the electronic system. The work's audiovisual language combines sampled pop-cultural material with still images made using generative AI.

These encounters can be heard as transformations of recognisable musical identities: the saxophone changes its role as the surrounding sound world changes. The work invites the performer to shape those transitions through tone, breath, rhythmic energy and cueing.

Work Details

Year: 2023

Instrumentation: Alto saxophone, electronics.

Duration: 22 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — Advanced chromatic passagework, varied tone production and pedal cue coordination. Movement II permits pitch selection and breathing pauses within the fast stream.

Analysis

Kit: Sound Experiments : Australian Electroacoustic Music in the Secondary Classroom With music and resources by Dr Cat Hope, Monica Lim, Kate Milligan and Dr Mark Oliveiro / Music Resource Kit compiled and written by Dr Joanna Drimatis.

eBook: Sound Experiments : Australian Electroacoustic Music in the Secondary Classroom With music and resources by Dr Cat Hope, Monica Lim, Kate Milligan and Dr Mark Oliveiro / Music Resource Kit compiled and written by Dr Joanna Drimatis.