Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

No products are available for this work

The Australian Music Centre's catalogue does not include any recordings or sheet music of this work. This entry is for information purposes only.

It is listed in our catalogue because an event featuring a performance of this work was included in our calendar of Australian music. Details of this performance are listed below.

Work Overview

Journal is part of a larger (and continuing) work 'The Rudiments of Music' - and as part of the chapter on the stave. It is a realisation of a score conceived as a "plan for action" from which sounds and textures are evolved in the studio in an attempt to expand the spectrum of consonance and dissonance. The didjeridoo, bull-roarers and Aboriginal happy sticks(sic) are used systematically - excerpts from Capatin Cook's journals of the Endeavour voyage to Australia are interpolated - the male and female voices chant or speak, and some of these sounds (including the violin and double bass) are freely transformed at the discretion of the composer.

— David Ahern

Work Details

Year: 1969

Duration: 57 min.

Commission note: Commissioned by the ABC to commemorate the anniversary of Captain Cook's landing in Australia and was especially written for the medium of radio.

The original recording of this work was performed by David Ahern (potentiometers, ring modulator, violin, narration and direction) and George Thompson (didjeridoo, double bass), with vocal parts by Sandra Gore, James Bowles, Pat Bishop, Jeffrey Kevin, Rona McLeod and David Whitford (with clapping sticks and bull-roarers).