Jan Svenungsson

"National Song", backstory



"National Song" is a 74 minute long musical composition made during summer 1998. It was "constructed" with the help of a synthesizer and a sequencer computer programme, using a midi-based method close to the copy of copy of copy method used in the Psycho-Mapping drawing series.

First a 30-bar melody line taken from the Swedish National Anthem was played and adapted from memory. It is played very slow, and in a much lower register than normal. Then this sequence was copied and the new sequence pasted to the first, whereafter a random change was made to the second sequence. Then the second sequence was copied and one, two or three random changes were made to the third sequence, and so on and so forth, during 74 minutes. The changes were decided by a specially constructed game of cards. All changes were, however, fine-tuned, by ear, so as to sound musical. The end result is an atonal ambient composition which is supposed to be played as background music at a very low volume.