Over parents’ weekend, you may have noticed the music in the foyer of Owen D. Young Library. Professor Michael Farley has been exploring the relationship between place and sound for much of his music career and developed a composition tailored to the foyer. Professor Farley describes himself as a “music human,” meaning that he refuses to pigeon-hole himself into one area of study and instead studies music as it applies to our world today. The classes he teaches at St. Lawrence include the First Year Program, “Finding a Voice,” next semester’s First Year Seminar, “Sound and Place,” as well as “Composition: Text and Sound,” “Introduction to Music,” and “Musics of the World.”
Professor Farley began studying the foyer of ODY about a year and half ago, experimenting with different sounds and recording the activity in the foyer at different times of the day. He was inspired by the Japanese influences in foyer’s design, stating that, “I learned from Joan Larson [the library's former Director of Research Instruction], that the foyer represents a Japanese torii — a formal entryway to a Shinto shrine. I love Japanese concepts of design. Maybe that was the source of my interest.” Besides the actual architecture of the space, the people who used and occupied the foyer were also a source of inspiration for Professor Farley’s composition. Professor Farley said, “I watched carefully as people moved through the space. I timed them and I questioned them about their state of mind as they entered and left the library.” He realized that he wanted to heighten the awareness of the passerby as they entered and left the space, in order to make them realize where they were and what that space may represent. He created compositions that would relay this message within five seconds, the amount of time it takes to cross the foyer. Professor Farley used a recording of the revolving door in the foyer, the calls of the Amargosa Toad, the Tarahumara Frog, the Cliff Chirping Frog (on loan from Lang Elliot), and synthesized long tones and chirps. His goal was to reach the resonant frequency of the foyer, which he explained as, “You know how when you sing in the shower there are particular notes that ‘ring?’ In the foyer it’s around 104 Hz. The whole space sings there and I tuned all of my sound sources to that fundamental.”
