It's an interesting thing for me, imagining how to use a computer as an instrument within the orchestra. I've not been that satisfied with what I've seen in other works. I'm not a huge fan of "tape" pieces, where the performer plays along with prerecorded material. It always felt too disparate to me. Imagine a clarinetist standing on stage with a huge PA backing him up, pumping out prerecorded material. Visually you have these two imposing structures and then this lone clarinetist and sonically you have someone playing music with the inherent risk of live performance and then this "tape" thing which just spews out exactly what it was intended to do regardless of an audience or not. For me, if there's prerecorded material in a piece, I'd rather hear the whole thing on a recording. That way, both the live player and the tape have equal standing within a permanent medium, and the two elements are voiced by the same sound making device, i.e. headphones or speakers. I find the value of live performance is in its impermanent nature and the risk that exudes from the performers and the stage. One of my acting teachers always said: "Risk is everything." We could substitute this with "vulnerability." Granted, I love hearing a commanding performer whose natural tone and flow is uncanny and perfect, but there's still risk, there's still vulnerability in the emotional investment and in revealing that investment to hundreds or thousands; regardless of their relationship to the performer, each other and their judgements. So when there's a CD player in the back playing music for someone else to play along with, it's just not worthy of the "live" experience for me, [emphasis: for ME]. So for me to perform laptop with an orchestra, I've got to find a way to do with the laptop what everyone else is doing. I have to turn the laptop into an instrument that is capable of making a mistake and can be performed with expression; and somehow the performance of it must include risk or vulnerability.
The other piece of this involves the kind of sound that one generates with the tape or laptop. If I return to the clarinet and tape piece, let's imagine that the sonic world of the tape material is entirely electronic; meaning it isn't sampled in any way and was generated solely through electronic means. Again, we have a very disparate relationship between the two worlds. That divide between entirely electronic and acoustic can be very cool, and has been exploited throughout the last 4 decades of electroacoustic music, but I've always found difficulty in truly enjoying these works...they're just not for me...not in the concert hall. On a CD, sure, its easier for me to enjoy the music, but in the concert hall I have a hard time allowing those opposing materials to meld in my ear...I want to feel a sonic relationship between the two instruments that implies a sort of harmony (even if the characters of the duet are at war). I want there to be a reason that these two instruments are playing together, after all, I rarely make music with people who I am not resonant with in some way.
All this over-explanation and over-thinking has lead me to live sampling. It retains the kind of risk that I prefer, and I'm working with material that has only just existed in the last few moments, performed by those with whom I'm collaborating. Like a jazz musician quoting the final bits of the previous soloist before moving into his own improvisation. And this is an obvious thing to an audience, especially when there are inconsistencies and imperfect things that come back through the sampling. The whole artistic experience is then housed within that container of the performers and what they can do in that moment; in that venue. I'm not reaching into a hard drive to grab sounds that were recorded worlds away, and the sounds, or rather, the music that I'm creating with the laptop is directly related to the orchestra...it is the orchestra.
In order to make it something that I enjoy performing, I have to use a good deal of sound manipulation, and it can't all be written out. Ideas are there, plans, and the like, but I like to think of things as an acoustic musician: Where do I want the tone to go? What is the push and pull of the phrase here? How can I make this shift into something one wouldn't expect? How can I make this my own? These are things that are rarely written into a score for a performer, but these things are perhaps the most important part of the performance and that's what I like to focus on with the laptop; I like to amplify the quality of shaped phrases and tone color shifts in a way that isn't possible with acoustic instruments. I wouldn't say that what I'm doing is incredibly complicated, I'm no "controllerist" guru, (look up controllerism, you'll find people like Moldover and the like) I just have a great love for technology and also simple, acoustic sound......
In some ways pre-recorded music is like visual art. Is there risk in a painting?
ReplyDeleteI think in reference to the performance aspect, risk is mostly a time-based phenomenon, just as music itself is totally aligned within a time-ruled medium. While I believe visual art is rarely bound by time in the same way, so it's rules for risk are more aligned with subject matter and technique. Furthermore, it's not like we can judge artists on how well they are representing some design that they've chosen to replicate, as in a composed score being performed by a musician. Now, if we were to create a performance art in which a painter has to replicate a masterwork in a set period of time, then you start to put in risk in the way that I'm describing in the blog...
ReplyDeleteOn the flip, outside of the Sympho context, I'd argue that there's plenty of risk in a painting, just as there's plenty of risk in pre-recorded media, but the risk has to become aligned with the limitations of the medium. So for recorded music, the risk becomes more about the presentation, the recording techniques, the emotional openness - it's quite an experience to record music, because it's development up until the 20th century was totally impermanent - there's something foreign in creating a permanent recording like this... in some ways it completely obliterates a huge parameter of the art form....
Can't stay on topic, but there you have it.
I would say that there is a very real time-based risk for a painter. It's just that the risk is totally separated from the viewing experience, since it occurs during the creative process.
ReplyDeleteThe same can be said of the recording of music, of course. The risk is always there of failing to create or reproduce something worthwhile. I think Paul F is right on when he talks about the thrill of taking the risk during the viewing/listening experience - i.e., in a live concert context. I can say with certainty that there was a huge element of risk associated with his role in the FLECTION concerts, and - without that risk - the whole feel of the concert would never have been as vital.