Thomas Park- Benchmark: Hub

“The Heliades”
By Thomas Park

In my 20-plus year career as a musician, | never really considered writing an opus, until
recently. My work with generative systems has inspired the creation of a musical environment
that will continue all day and all night. | call this series of possible loop-based compositions,
“The Heliades”, (or, “the daughters of Helios”). | also consider it my opus.

The notion is that, first | call on the vocal talents of Rebekkah Hilgraves. Rebekkah is a very
talented and able vocalist. She is one of few people | would entrust with the task of supplying
vocal samples.

Using Rebekkah’s and my own held voice notes, | combine these into riffs and phrases. “The
Heliades” is comprised of 6 compositions, each for a different time of day. Each composition
has a different phrase structure. The early morning, for example, starts with only whole steps
up. Mid-morning introduces thirds. Fifths come in with late morning. The afternoon and evening
compositions provide mirror images as phrases move down the scale rather than up.

12 phrase loops are chosen, from a pool of 60 for each piece. These are played for 12 minutes
at a time. Then, a new set of phrases in randomly loaded in and played. When it is time for the
overall composition to change, a new set of phrases is considered.

As the day goes by, a distinct set of possibilities for that time of day exists. “The Heliades” will
sound different, to some degree, at all times-- never really repeating. It will also sound unique to

the hour at which a person listens.

The aesthetic success of “Radio In C” made me want to try something more structured, and
gave me the confidence to compose and assemble “The Heliades’.

You may listen to “The Heliades’” for free here:

https://www.thomasparksolutions9.com/