the result of explorations into a signal chain comprised of a sampler being triggered by a free rate midi arpeggiator, run as a carrier signal through a vocoder, with repeated excerpts from a slowed-down reading of my poem, “and why can’t death be beautiful”, as a modulator signal. the sample within the sampler is the result of modulated sample looping, rendering, and using the render as the sample for the same process in an iterative fashion. this final render is then used as the seed sample within the sampler connected to the arpeggiator. the rate and gate parameters of the arpeggiator are connected to sliders on a control surface, and a render is made with real-time control surface modulation, watching the envelope of the vocoder modulator poetry reading, and gesturing accordingly. this signal chain is layered several times with slight variations in each instance, and all are recorded simultaneously. the printed layer renders are then mixed and chopped up to taste. the signal chain setup for this series is made with stock Ableton plugins, and is relatively simple, but complexity and intrigue lie in the iterative and layered nature of the process. the title comes from the late Otto Rank’s book, The Trauma of Birth, which explores birth as the fundamental psychological trauma which we all share as living beings. my process frequently provides a means of therapy and of personally understanding trauma and other existential and depressive tendencies. i appreciate Rank’s notion of our very entry into life being a foundational source of trauma, which shapes our experiences, feelings, desires, psychology, etc. as another lens through which we can view the interplay of tension and release in which we live. this specific series explores variations within this signal chain, playing with gestures informed by speech and movement, while always stemming from a single seed sample source, which is also the result of its own iterative growth process, mirroring the prenatal, incubatory phase leading up to birth. each piece in the series is then a performed and rendered variation from the same seed, utilizing the same modulated parameters, with the same basic signal chain configuration, with variations in performance and the initial parameter configuration of the sampler, vocoder, and modulator signal. upon first listenings, the pieces are chaotic, but there is a definite pattern, the easiest one to grasp being the breaths in between excerpts, and with familiarity come specific phonetic and syllabic movements from the excerpt modulator signal. this piece provided the foundation for what would be a particular signal processing technique (arpeggiator/sampler/vocoder) used in many other pieces/series. i consider it the traumatic birth of this specific style of electroacoustic music and sound design as they pertain to my own practice.