Skin

About

Click here for the version for Alto Saxophone and Electronics.

For the last five years – since moving to the United States – I’ve been trying to understand the (white) American idea of race and the relationship between violence and sexuality. My immigrant’s sense of curiosity about the American fixation on skin has gradually stretched into tendrils of understanding, wending between the intricate layers of privilege, power, and shame associated with race and with sex, down into the dark roots of the country’s history.

Skin is the meeting point of our bodies with the world through which we move. It is a place of weathering, of impact, of touch. It is a signifier to others of who we are, for how long we have lived, and where we come from. I wrote Skin as a rumination on the way in which our skin pushes up against truth; engendering both real identities and constructions of the self.

ELECTRONIC SETUP

You will need:

To play the fixed electronics:

• A laptop with Ableton Live or free QLab software (there is currently no tablet/iPad version of QLab)
  
• A MIDI foot pedal (an electronic piano expression/sustain pedal won't work) and cable to connect it to the laptop
  
• Stereo speakers and mixing desk
  
• Audio interface and cables from laptop to mixing desk
  

For amplification (required):

• A directional microphone
  
• A microphone stand
  
• An XLR cable connecting the microphone to the mixing desk
  
• Speakers