ICMC/25/d1/1400 Concert n02/01 Anger at the Asteroid

• Anger at the Asteroid

  • My Notes

    • Three ladies in red dresses each stand behind a big dinosaur skull
    • They were moving their mouths and it was affecting the sound; maybe it was video
      • The aperture of their mouth affected the sound

  • see-also

    • Dinosaur Choir (2022-present) | Courtney Brown
      • includes a video

  • #Summary

    • Anger at the Asteroid reimagines the long lost sound and fury of a Corythosaurus (a duck-billed dinosaur) herd after Chicxulub impact, leading to the extinction of all the non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaur vocalizations are recreated via biological computational models of bird vocal boxes altered according to dinosaur skull measurements and the CT Scans of adult and subadult Corythosaurus skull fossils.
    • Dinosaur vocal calls have been silent since they became extinct following the large asteroid impact event 66 million years ago. Anger at the Asteroid by the Dinosaur Trio brings these vocalizations back to life via the ensemble of hadrosaur skull musical instruments of the Dinosaur Choir project. These instruments create dinosaur sound via CT scans, 3D fabrication, and physically-based modeling synthesis.
      • Musicians give voice to these dinosaur instruments by blowing into a mouthpiece, exciting a computational voice box, and resonating the sound through the recreated dinosaur’s fossilized nasal cavities and skull. Scientists hypothesize that our dinosaur, the Corythosaurus, used its crest and nasal passages for sound resonation.
    • The soundscapes of these musical works use the sounds of cicadas, crickets, and frogs, which evolved during the Cretaceous period before the impact, along with fire and combustion sounds after the impact that paint the scene, sometimes forming rhythms. The Dinosaur Trio began in September 2024, with the aim of developing a performance practice with the new hadrosaur skulls and Anger at the Asteroid is the first major outcome of this research. The work is a structured improvisation, with a round robin beginning section between the dinosaurs and later sections that allow for call/response and following and game piece-like signals between musicians, using hand signals and eye contact.
    • Courtney Brown and Cezary Gajewski created the Dinosaur Choir musical instruments. Thomas Dudgeon also consulted and provided 3D models and CT Scans of skull specimen ROM 1933 with permission from David Evans and the Royal Ontario Museum. We acknowledge Phillip Currie, Corwin Sullivan, Caleb Brown, and the Dinosaur Paleontology Lab of University of Alberta for consultation, support, and access to fossil specimens. Courtney Brown and Sharif Razzaque created Rawr! Study in Sonic Skulls and we also acknowledge Garth Paine, Carlo Sammarco, Sallye Coyle, Brent Brimhall and Gordon Bergfors for their contributions. We acknowledge Lawrence Witmer and Witmer Lab, Ohio University for providing CT Scans and 3D models for Rawr! A Study in Sonic Skulls for specimen CMN 34825. Rawr! was supported by the Arizona State University GPSA. Dinosaur Choir supported by Fulbright Canada (2022-23), a SMU URC Grant, and the SMU FYRE program. We also thank Adam Neal, Jennifer Ebinger, and Ira Greenberg for their support of this ensemble.