Dracaena
portrays, through its musical imagery, the characterization of a sea serpent.
As the composition unfolds the noxious creature's creeping, hissing and stinging
qualities are depicted. Aside from these programmatic aspects, "movement" in this
work is accomplished by extensive tape manipulation techniques (splicing,
speed variations, overdubbing, echo, etc.) and processing techniques (filtering,
flanging and spatial location).
Source material was generated on a Moog Model 55 analog synthesizer at the
Cleveland Institute of Music's Electronic Music Studio. Composition, mixing and
mastering was completed at Northwestern University's Electronic Music Studio
utilizing Scully 282-4, Teac A-3340S, and Teac 3300-SX tape recorders
and a Tangent 8x4x2 mixer.
