A piece for Readers Chorus crafted using a sentence from Gertrude Stein's "The Gradual Making of The Making of Americans."
In these descriptions it will be readily observed that habits of attention are reflexes of the complete character of the individual.
I had been in Readers Chorus for a few iterations at this point, and I wanted to do a piece that was based on the characteristics of a speaker's voice. This phrase of Stein's seemed like a text which could be adapted to this idea.
The piece was created by recording each reader reading this sentence while following a few instructions; the other readers must not hear each other recording the text (as to not be influenced by their inflection) and the reader must use their natural speaking voice (there is to be no acting or exaggeration).
A graphic score was then created by transcribing the recordings, with the score exaggerating the inflections of the readers. The directions for performance merely being for a reader to read their transcribed section while pronouncing their natural inflection, which is then followed by the other members of the chorus mimicking the characteristics of the reader. The piece continues until all readers have performed their transcribed section.