Since the launch of Ascendance a few weeks ago, one question keeps coming up: how can music really adapt to a genealogy? Let’s dive into the behind-the-scenes of this interactive musical innovation.
What is a GEDCOM file?
Before exploring the musical magic of Ascendance, let’s first understand what makes this experience possible: the GEDCOM file.
GEDCOM (Genealogical Data Communication) is the standard format for genealogy files. It’s a simple text file with the .ged extension that contains all the information about your family tree: names, birth and death dates, family relationships, family events.
How to create your GEDCOM file?
If you use genealogy software:
- Ancestry, MyHeritage, Geneanet: Go to your tree settings and click “Export” or “Download GEDCOM”
- Family Tree Maker, Gramps, Legacy: Export option in the main menu
If you’re starting from scratch:
- Create a free account on Geneanet
- Enter your family information (parents, grandparents, etc.)
- Export your tree: Menu → Tools → Save/Export → Export a branch
- Important: Choose “Ascending branch” and “0 degree of collaterals” to export only your direct ancestors (without uncles, aunts, cousins)
- Select GEDCOM format and download the file
- Load this file into Ascendance to discover your family music!
Why only direct ascendants? Ascendance is designed to explore your direct ancestral lineage. Collateral branches (brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts) are not necessary and could disrupt the musical experience.
A musical journey in three movements
Ascendance structures your genealogical exploration into three distinct musical phases, each with its own sonic identity:
1. The Warm-up: A Journey Through the Centuries
Before diving into your family history, Ascendance offers you a journey through musical history. Representative samples from each era - Pierre Henry, Léo Delibes, Gregorian chant, Ambrosian music, melodies from ancient Greece - layer in random order.
This introduction creates a unique temporal atmosphere, preparing the listener to travel back in time to their most distant ancestors.
2. The Outward Journey: Each Ancestor, a Melody
This is where the real magic happens. Your time ship travels up the family tree, and each ancestor generates their own acousmatic melody composed of three symbolic sound objects:
- A kind of bell (death knell) ringing at the date of their death
- A kind of two-voice choir lasting throughout their lifetime
- A kind of trumpet marking their birth date
Intelligent spatialization: Your position in the tree determines what you hear. Only ancestors within a 4-generation radius are audible, creating a realistic field of perception distributed in quadraphony.
Harmonic evolution: With each generation ascended, the sound objects rise by a comma (ninth of a tone), creating an ascending musical progression that symbolizes your journey into the ascendance of the visited tree.
3. The Return Journey: The Temporal Avalanche
Once you reach the most distant known ancestor, the ship makes its U-turn and descends back to the present at a speed of 10 years per second.
The music changes dramatically: gone are the individual bells, trumpets, and choirs. In their place comes an avalanche of double notes descending chromatically, symbolizing the cascade of generations that preceded you.
The journey ends with a majestic final chord marking your return to the present.
Technical Innovation in Service of Emotion
This approach revolutionizes musical listening by creating a unique soundtrack for each family. Your genealogical music depends entirely on:
- Your tree’s structure (number of ancestors, known generations)
- Historical dates of your ancestors (births, deaths)
- Your navigation through genealogical space
- The richness of your GEDCOM data
A Deeply Personal Listening Experience
Ascendance transforms genealogical exploration into a contemplative musical journey. Each family has its sonic signature, its rhythms, its harmonies. The work you hear will never exist for anyone else because it springs from your unique family history.
This approach questions our relationship to time, memory, and heritage, proposing a new form of transmission: one that passes through listening and electroacoustic musical emotion.
Download Ascendance for free on itch.io and discover the music hidden in your genealogy.