The vocal content of the piece was provided by the Brandeis University Chamber Chorus, of which Lucier was then the director. The score calls for members of the Chorus to “prepare a plan of activity using speech, singing, musical instruments, or any other sound producing means that might describe—to beings very far from the earth’s environment either in space or in time—the physical, social, spiritual, or any other situation in which we find ourselves at the present time.” Along with Sylvania engineer Calvin Howard, Lucier used the vocoder to isolate and manipulate elements of speech in real time.
The vocal content of the piece was provided by the Brandeis University Chamber Chorus, under Lucier's direction at the time. The score calls for members of the chorus to "prepare a plan of activity using speech, singing, musical instruments, or any other sound-producing means that might describe—to beings very far from Earth’s environment either in space or in time—the physical, social, spiritual, or any other situation in which we find ourselves at the present time." Along with Sylvania engineer Calvin Howard, Lucier used a vocoder to isolate and manipulate speech elements in real-time.