Raymond Moore - Trip Through the Milky Way

Trip Through the Milky Way: An Electronic Panorama (1969)

The three basic motives of "Trip Through the Milky Way - An Electronic Panorama" are: a twenty-three-note row in which the interval of a fourth appears thirteen times; a series of thirteen fourths; and a sine wave glide tone whose ups and downs are governed by the interval of a fourth. All of the motives were created with a sine wave oscillator.

Several one-voice lines were created from these three basic motives. They in turn were copied -- halving or doubling the tape speed and hence creating a building block -- i.e. a four-voice unit.

These building blocks were then combined so that in the middle of the composition there are sixteen distinct lines on each stereo channel and thirty-two in the center (Two channel version).

Hence, "Trip Through the Milky Way - An Electronic Panorama" is a multi-voiced (64) canon at the octave.

The composition was not a planned trip through the Milky Way but rather after the fact. When it was finished (March 1969), the structure and contour of its sound densities and intensities were not unlike a sound picture (or, if you will, Panorama - in the four channel version) of a trip through the Milky Way.

In the July 1970 issue of High Fidelity, "Trip Through the Milky Way" was awarded Honorable Mention in its Electronic Music Contest of August 1969. --Raymond Moore

Art by Wladyslaw T. Benda