Around the Bend (Video)

Transcript

- Thank you guys
for being hijacked by your professor to come and listen to Colin's talk.
This is the first of this year, I think,
for Music from the Library Speaker series, but it's the fourth in the entire season.
So Colin, as you know, is going to talk to us about the compositional process
for his work, Around the Bend, which was recently performed.
He will have some audio sampling for to enjoy as well.
[applause]
- Thank you for coming.
I figured I would play you the pieces.
The audio's kind of--I tried to turn it up all the way,
but you'll have to strain your ears to hear it unfortunately.
But I'll read you the program notes for each piece before I'm gonna play it.
You can follow along with the score and listen,
and then I got a few things to say about it
and take some questions.
So this is what the players see.
There's an audio score that goes along with it
that they're listening to.
They manipulate the instruments with their hands.
They can use sticks and mallets.
The crotales can be bowed and the wood block be covered in sandpaper,
but it's up to them.
The transcription, which you will see is not exact, but it's as close
as I can get of the audio score that they're listening to.
They have to listen carefully to the audio
and also to each other in order to get the piece to work.
But the exact timing with the recording is not necessary.
We try to recreate all the sounds that they hear
and for each note [inaudible] you’ll see a quarter note, or half note,
or whole note.
It represents an opportunity for them to play.
They don't necessarily have to play if there are other instruments playing.
If there is a solo then they do have to play.
And that forces them to really listen to each other,
listen to the audio and improvise.
And I'll go into more detail with the score afterwards.
I figured you could just see what's going on... first.
So there's-- the first player has snare drum, bass drum
and a woodblock, and it's set up... like this,
snare, bass, and a wood block here.
And the second player has snare drum,
[inaudible] here, floor Tom, crotales.
And then the third player has snare drum, conga, and the cymbal here.
And they can all use their hands and get to where they’re going.
Alright so lets open that up.
[inaudible]
[recording plays miscellaneous percussive sounds]
Alright, well it didn't exactly follow the score, but...
that’s a basic outline.
[recording plays miscellaneous percussive sounds]
So the third one follows the same directions as the first one.
[recording plays miscellaneous percussive sounds]
Alright, those are the three pieces.
Just a quick note on the notation before I get into this.
So here you see-- [clapping audio play]
you see three lines for each player...
and each line corresponds with particular instruments,
so snare drum's the top one for this player, bass drum and woodblock.
And then it goes down.
So this person has the opportunity.
He's listening for a breath in [inhales heavily]
and then can use that with using his hand on the snare drum.
And he's the only one playing that. So he has to play.
However these two players when they hear the next audio,
which I'll also should play the audio in a second.
They don't necessarily have to play
or maybe they can split up the solos themselves.
They have to listen to each other, use cues or feel,
they can determine the musicality of each gesture.
In this mark here, it was trying to--
if you have-- tried to simplify, not have a bunch of quarter notes.
So these are just ten like beat markings, and where exactly which letter
falls on the beat, so zoup.
[Z sound] was on the beat.
So that was the basic...
outline for that.
So, I guess...
[inaudible] Any questions on what you've seen so far?
- [audience member] So the vowels, is it also the supposed to be heard?
- Why don't I play you what they hear.
- [audience member] Okay, cause yeah, I’m missing something.
- Okay.
I was going to preface this a little bit before playing it because it sounds
really kind of ridiculous,
but I think it, it'll [inaudible].
Okay. Well, I’ll just do it myself then.
So for the very first--
- [Maxwell] You don't have the actual recording they had
or can you just not get it to play.
- I can't get it to play.
I can go to Box real quick.
- [audience member] Is it you saying... the words/letters?
- Mhmm.
Sorry about this.
[typing]
- [audience member] [inaudible]
- So this is the audio for the first piece...
that they hear when they try to put [inaudible] with their hands.
[recording plays various letter-based sounds]
You get the idea.
- [audience member] Where did you develop the text from?
- Made it up.
- [audience member] [inaudible]
- [Colin] Yeah.
I'm actually going to go ahead and jump into [inaudible] my little presentation.
So, it’ll give you more context on how it actually came about--
the system of notation and why I chose to make those particular decisions.
So I want to preface everything I’m about to say with the following that
I would not be able to write this piece without the help of Dr. Rick Snow,
he helped me construct the architecture and...
made sure that I didn't
put an outhouse where a kitchen should be or something crazy like that.
His constant [inaudible]
feeling what I was doing was too weird or ridiculous.
In fact, what I came up with is not that radical,
it fits within the tradition of contemporary music.
I did not know this at the time and it felt really strange to write...
and everything [inaudible] took a span of about a few months.
So...
I’d never actually written a piece that used a different set
of tools for building blocks [inaudible] pitches,
[inaudible] this point really more worried about
modal harmonic relationships,
and my understanding of structure was still pretty small.
I’d only written a few pieces, each one dependent on harmony,
really intensely.
After this piece was finished, my understanding of what was possible
as a composer really kind of expanded.
You can organize a piece around most any sound
as long as you set the right parameters.
And I-- to go back and just a--
I feel like it's important as a composer to just kind of
share the process of development.
When I was first trying to become a composer, I took a jazz lesson
and my teacher said, “You can't play these notes.
You’re not allowed to.” And...
my gut reaction was, this is ridiculous.
Why can't I do whatever I want?
Why am I learning the parameters of someone else's piece?
So there's improvisation, but I cannot deviate harmonically
if I want it to sound halfway decent.
And I've learned in that, and also since then, in order to satisfy myself
as a musician, as an artist, I had to set the parameters myself.
[inaudible]
That being said, composition allows you to create the structure,
but you have to pick and choose very carefully.
You can do whatever you want, but you can't do everything at once.
Otherwise, you get a jumbled mess.
Kind of speaking to the crowd here, but...
I wrote this in the sense that anyone can really understand
what’s going on.
With this piece, I had the opportunity to manipulate timbres and timbres alone.
There are other factors that I could manipulate, such as tempo, dynamics,
phrasing, rhythm.
However, this foundation demanded that each one of these remain secondary.
Timbral shifts would inform how these secondary factors would play out,
which was not to include factors like melody or harmony.
So these were the types of decisions that helped me
to make shape of this piece in my mind [inaudible] asking about.
So, I had part of the foundation already, but it wasn't enough.
I knew that the group coming in love to improvise and were very good at it.
[inaudible] the year before, they performed a 20 minute piece
that sucked you in using just a minimal amount of sound.
Writing for the strength of the group was exciting
because it allowed me to constrain myself.
When you have infinite possibilities in front of you as a writer,
it's hard to pick just a few.
It's nice to know that one thing will absolutely work.
And I also knew that this group specialized in graphic notation.
This was not a chance to step out of my comfort zone
and structure my piece around something completely foreign.
I still use quarter notes and ledger lines
and time signatures, but I wanted to redefine them in some way.
This desire manifested itself similarly in the first and third movements,
but differently in the second.
I’ll cover more on notation later on.
So at that point I knew to use timbre improvisation
and graphic notation as three foundations for my piece.
That's why I needed to figure out gesture.
I wanted my piece to create a kind of
aural experience with no narrative, or no exact purpose.
The first and third movements I wanted to suck you in
without dragging you from one point to another.
It couldn't feel linear.
That informed my decision regarding gesture and localized ideas.
I needed to have enough timbres to keep it interesting,
but also to keep the sense of stasis.
You're not going to move from A to B, but you're going to fluctuate on A.
Stick with the first and third movements.
I had stasis, timbre, and gesture to inform my large, middle,
and local structures.
Large was mainly static.
Middle had to move in some way from sets of sounds to other sets of sounds.
And local had to have small, subtle gestures to keep you interested.
With these three parameters, that’s how I used my voice
as the source material for gesture on the percussion instruments.
By using my voice I could allow the virtuosic improvisers,
to use their skills to interpret what I was saying in real time.
The score, as you can see, is a transcription of the noises
that I recorded.
Here's where the improvisation comes into play.
I decided that there had to be a balance between improvisation preset parameters.
You cannot let the players run wild, but I also could not keep them
from interpreting my scores without more than the usual amount of freedom.
My first and third movements gave the most [inaudible].
My vocal score was an attempt to outline general phrasing,
dynamics, and articulation,
but I left the specific sound creation and timing open to the performer.
I would cue only what instruments potentially play for a period of time,
not how or when exactly to play it during that period.
A shhh sound could be rubbing, tapping, or resonant noise.
Your valves could cause the player to change the pitch or the sound--
pitch of the sound he or she is making on the instrument, for example.
Three players who play different parts of the sound.
One player can play that-- you know, they can split up what they hear,
and one player can play that one sound for-- And then the next one plays.
So you can take one sound, split it up,
or they can take that one sound and just have it be linear.
Just trade off depending on what I say is okay for them to do.
So a situation would be like this one,
they don't have to play.
They can split up the aria, [inaudible].
The pitch might change so they might slide up [claps] the drum differently.
It's really, their musicality comes in play.
So it depends on how a few players hear each other and the audio is scored.
I took inspiration from the Ursonate and we'll see if it works.
[recording plays miscellaneous voices making musical sounds]
[inaudible]
He would take...
he would take one sound or one word that he had made up and then expand upon it.
So [sounding out notes] something.
And so that inspired me for the first movement with the language,
I wanted it to feel natural and to make up my own kind of Ursonate
to be interpreted.
And that would inevitably influence the phrasing of the piece.
Because if I'm speaking with the language
the way they play it, it’s going to sound more...
the timing would be more like I'm speaking a sentence and invariably
change the music.
Whereas in the third movement I did a lot of...
breath, but it wasn't
phrased like in sentences and I manipulated the sound they were hearing.
I extended some things to the natural lengths like a shhhh sound that you hear.
I overlaid lots of different sounds on top to...
put into the instruments and make it more musical.
So the form is different in that way in terms of the localized gestures.
But the large-form structure is still static and the middle structure
is still sets of sounds changing over time depending on what they hear.
So the tempo of the first and third movement is really fast.
It's at 120, it's fast for them to hear themselves,
hear what they're doing, hear everything around them and also put it in.
So they're kind of just a little bit behind the beat.
So, I found that
while my intention was to have them have the time to listen each other,
I think if I were to do another piece like this, I would slow down the tempo,
give them more time to hear each other, what each one was doing,
and create really personal improvised gestures and [inaudible].
- [Maxwell] Yeah, but, could you comment on
how you think that would change the effect of music.
I mean, the fact that they are processing information at the rate
at which their processing information creates a certain...
it's not really complexity, but it's on the border-- it's like...
simplified new complexity in the sense like what [inaudible] does
when he creates so much information for a performer to process.
They’re required to...
play all of this information in time and it creates a certain energy.
And I was wondering, you know-- - At the time--
- [Maxwell] how you would balance-- I like the energy of the piece.
And so if you slow it down, you're not going to have--
- I wouldn't slow this piece down.
If I did the piece would be completely different.
And I still think it works. I think the energy was great.
However, at the time I didn't quite conceptualize how much.
Like, so it was a learning process.
After the fact, they like, couldn't do it all.
But it still works even though they couldn't do it all
‘cause they were forced to just do-- There's lots of energy.
- [Maxwell] That's what I mean.
Like, when you listen to the
Catalonian composer talk about his [inaudible] score
on Friday and he was referring
to the fact the performer will never perform all of it.
I don't know. I didn’t get to go hear it perform, but maybe you did.
That creates a certain environment,
like a meta-environment in which these,
in which they sort of have to inhabit this space with the piece.
And I understand what you mean by wanting to give them more time.
I just don't know...
if you think about it in terms of--
- I wouldn't change this,
but when I started out, I wasn't expecting this.
So, I think if I wanted to actually execute on my initial plan,
was to have really, truly [inaudible] and have time to really craft [inaudible].
That’d be a good starting point for [inaudible] and I know what not to do.
It still ended up working through my own ignorance.
I think it just worked out. [chuckles]
- [audience member] [inaudible]
- Yeah, of course. Yeah.
So, the audio wouldn’t be so-- and the tempo might not be 120,
but this is a great,
like-- I didn't know about that kind of style at the time [inaudible]--
- [Maxwell] He plays a different music in many ways.
I made that comparison and I should make it...
carefully, because I’m not trying-- you know, you've already stripped harmony
and melody out of your music in this project.
So, you know, that strips a layer of that complexity out.
And that's why I mean, kind of like a simplified complexity.
Because they don't read the complexity, but the complexity
is putting the thing together, which I find very interesting.
- Mhmm
- [Maxwell] It's quite simple on the page, but there's a--
when you look at it, it's not what it sounds like.
So there's another layer of complexity that sort of [inaudible] improvised
elements that you’ve added in.
The chance of operation, so to speak.
- [audience member] How efficient do you feel this notation is [inaudible]?
- It would have...
it would have been really-- I wouldn't have been able
to get a sense of-- I wouldn't [inaudible] improvisation
into this piece without loosening up the rules of traditional notation..
- [audience member] [inaudible]
- That one was much more straightforward, actually.
- [audience member] [inaudible] And it suited that,
because it's the clearest representation of what you wanted them to do.
Then you have the [inaudible] what part of the [inaudible], right?
- Yeah.
So, actually, the second movement is very different from
the first and third, and it actually has a good climax.
And I think that the...
the architecture of that was...
actually isn't just like flat, you know, when you think of the first and third
that's just not-- doesn't go anywhere, just kind of chills.
It's got lots of sound, but the overall large structure,
it’s just flatline [smacks hands].
But the second one just goes
up, and up, and up, and down a little bit and then we’re done.
[inaudible chatter]
- [Maxwell] You may not have composed that,
a shape into the first piece, but they certainly performed a shape
in their own way.
I mean, that's I think part of the intent, right?
- Well-- - [Maxwell] I mean, the improvised nature
of creating music based on timbral objects and...
with which they can perform the piece, sort of,
almost at their discretion, but also with what you sort of suggested.
- When also, yeah, with the-- I might be..
thinking too much away from the first and third, because my vocals...
there is structure to that.
In that...
some of them, yeah, some of it gets faster, sometimes it gets louder.
There's-- and that's when you hear the [claps loudly]
loud kind of pops and that happens at very specific times.
And that will always happen at specific times.
It will always be louder
even as this piece is played again, and again, and again.
There will always be points where it’ll sound similar
because of the way that I phrased the vocal line.
Yeah, So I guess it's not as obvious as the second one.
Yeah.
And I guess I also learned from writing these three pieces what's possible,
but also to respect notation and to be clear and concise.
It took me forever to make this look as good as I could
and still had plenty of mistakes.
And they were moving so fast
that there was just a little mistake in there then it wouldn't,
it wouldn't come out like-- it would be a problem.
But I guess to quickly talk about the second one again, yeah,
the overall shape for me in my mind was crescendo.
[inaudible] crescendo and then the middle structure was planning out
how to get-- basically [inaudible] dynamics.
And then the localized structure was just a swell.
And then the variations on that one gesture.
So in the second one we had the one swell gesture [inaudible] differences,
and then in the first and third one we have a ton of [inaudible].
So, what allowed for more a linear
feeling in the second one was the fact that I took this one idea and,
I think, managed to balance it fairly well on the local, middle,
and large levels to create this, basically, climax [inaudible].
- [audience member] I wanted to ask how did you conceptualize
and create a second movement?
What was the thought process?
- I saw a YouTube video of a guy rolling a drum.
And then It was going from [inaudible] to the middle and back again
and it was like a lot of sound. - [audience member] Mhmm.
- With dynamics some of that, the differences are lost.
But I think it was enough to vary,
you can still hear-- it still popped through.
It didn't have to be-- it could be either super-soft or have lots of variation.
[inaudible]
[inaudible]
- [audience member] Okay.
- But yeah, I'm really glad that I wrote these
and definitely open to writing more timbral-based music because of it.
And I don't think it'll take me nearly as long to do it again because it won't
be such like a mind--
I can get over the fact that this is just not weird, you know.
[inaudible] transcribing strange noises in a room by myself--
- [audience member] Is cool? - is fun. Yeah. So--
- [Maxwell] So, that was going to be one of my many questions
that [inaudible].
How did you approach creating the text?
Was it transcription of improvisation or was it working with certain
sounds and then, you know, composing them out?
- Well, for the first one--
- [Maxwell] [inaudible] - Okay [chuckles]
For the first one I actually wrote out the language.
And I practiced it and fiddled around with it like it was a poem or something.
And after I got more comfortable with that and I just moved completely away from it
and then just-- when I was recording it, I just made maybe 10 or 15
different recordings of how to say what I'd written
in different and interesting ways and just chose what I like the most.
And I didn't want to cut it up. I just wanted to...
get into different characters until I found one
that was the most dynamic and interesting.
And with the third one, after having done all the language,
I kind of want to move away and see if I can get different sounds.
So, that one was...
just me making noises into the microphone, like,
a bunch of times until I had my structure and things that I liked.
I wrote-- actually that one I did not write out beforehand.
Yes, basically improvisd.
- [audience member] [inaudible] - Mhmm.
- [Lisa] I have probably what is going to sound
like a completely superficial question
for all you composer types and then a practical question.
So a superficial question: Did you actually intend
to get all those [inaudible] or was that just a really happy accident?
[inaudible]
- I knew there would be different sounds but I didn't know [inaudible].
- [audience member] [inaudible] I thought about that when I was listening to it.
[inaudible] it's like its own little ambiance track that adds to it.
It's awesome.
- [Maxwell] Yeah, I think...
one thing to sort of take from this...
it's there... that becomes a control parameter
if you get a snare drum player to play some of the things
and then start putting things together and analyzing them before you compose it.
- Right.
- [Maxwell] ‘Cause then it becomes not just a...
[inaudible] resonance within the overall gesture and sort of--
you notated a little more clearly
or you plan when you're notating and you figure out this beautiful graphic
thing and then it becomes part of the sort of [whispers] harmony.
- Right. - [Maxwell] But like the naked,
it's this sort of deconstructed,
[coughing]
hidden, recessed harmony.
Like, this sort of visage of that, you know, which is really beautiful.
But... I think that was a very,
very good question.
[chuckles]
- [Lisa] That was [inaudible] I’d never heard percussion sound like that.
It's just the coolest. Alright, so the practical question,
because I am a librarian and you composer types
just hurt our minds all the time with your insane scores.
How would you imagine packaging this?
So it sounds like movements one and three are really an auditory score
and only the second movement is actually composed [inaudible]?
- Mhmm.
- [Lisa] So would you want to have some-- like, a score with only
the second movement and then an audio component for the first and third?
Or would you also include a transcription and say the first and third
movements indicating those are just for educational study purposes?
[inaudible]
- No, the first, the first and third we need the paper score.
- [Lisa] Okay. - Because the paper score
tells you when...
when to play a particular instrument. So--
- [Lisa] So that's in combination with the sound [inaudible].
- So this guy's got a conga.
- [Lisa] Right. [inaudible]
- Right. And he has to play. He’s--
- [Maxwell] Why does he have to play the conga?
Did you make a conscious decision, like, you want that sound on the conga?
[coughing] Or was it just, like, arbitrary.
- [Colin] It was not arbitrary.
I figured-- I knew I would listen to the word and...
it's a great question.
I listened to the word and I thought, okay, what have I done
previously before this moment and what [inaudible] [chuckles]
- [audience member] [chuckles] I was like, hmmm.
- So yeah, that actually I [inaudible] was talking about, they can improvise.
But I was also giving them like a barebones structure for the piece of--
it actually is important for the bass drum to be interacting with the snare drum
at this moment because I want this octave essentially to be present...
and with the higher octave of the snare drum,
because the word called for it at the time of the structure that I had set.
- [Lisa] So that actually vastly simplifies it.
But still, how would you imagine packaging this score conception,
either by performers or libraries?
- It would be all three movements together.
One, two, three in order, because you can't--
it wouldn't be the same if you just played, if you like--
you need to have all three.
One-- like, it needs to go in order to play--
- [Maxwell] [inaudible]
- Excuse me? - [Maxwell] [inaudible]
- Yes, you do need audio for the first and third.
And then you need-- it’s unfortunately complicated,
you also need a computer and mp3 player for every single person...
to listen.
Or they memorize it, but that’s asking a lot.
- [audience member] Yeah.
- [Lisa] So my evil plot is [inaudible].
How would you present [inaudible] or other people
through time, since mp3 players
soon will someday disappear and be replaced by something better.
- [Maxwell] I imagine it would go with...
I imagine that we would go with the, sort of, best hard copy,
you know, there's the idea of flash drive,
but then you’ve got something that's kind of...
3D in the 2D the world.
And then-- so maybe, I mean, I think CDs still--
and then the CD at some point, just like,
the problem is, like, we have all of these great
reference...
there's a great flute reference book that’s out of print,
but it comes with the record, it’s 45, you know.
[inaudible] And no one ever, no one ever digitizes it ‘cause they always forget,
because it's in the back of the book and they just leave the book on the shelf.
And then you want to hear the, you want to hear the samples and you’re like,
“What is this thing?”
- [Lisa] [inaudible] - [Maxwell] Exactly. That's a good point.
- [audience member] You think it's things like what you just did to access your file
through that Box sharing website that, basically like, if you're worried about...
the physical material that we use right now.
Like, VHSs disappear,
DVDs disappear, we go to Blu-Ray, we’ll go to the next one and we’ll keep going.
Same thing with music.
You'll still be able to access this file through the internet if...
- The cloud.
- [audience member] to set it up correctly we're like--
- [Maxwell] Plus, the internet will change too--
- [audience member] No, it will. It will.
But, like, you’re not [inaudible] I mean, it's,
it’s going to be an easier way to access it if you set up right.
- [Lisa] But then, how do you have controlled distribution?
[inaudible discussion]
- [Maxwell] Yeah, that or maybe, is it possible
to make an element of a publication public domain, just like--
- [audience member] If they sign the rights over.
- [Maxwell] if the-- the publisher would have to agree to it.
Because it would be easiest just to go ahead and make that component,
not the score itself but the-- because they can't,
they still can't perform it the same way without the score.
- Yeah. - [Maxwell] But...
maybe that might be an answer and then it can be, you know,
a little more [inaudible].
[inaudible discussion]
- [Lisa] [inaudible] So you’re saying you can’t perform it
just based on the sound, you do need the score?
- Yes.
- [Lisa] But you could be losing some control of the distribution [inaudible].
[inaudible]
How much control are you comfortable giving up?
[inaudible discussion]
[tapping podium]
[Lisa] Do you guys have anymore questions?
[inaudible discussion]
- [Maxwell] Did you do any analysis
of the sounds that you created to inform timbres
that you asked performers to perform in movements one and three.
- Did I do any analysis?
Ummm...
[audience chuckles] At what point?
When I was writing them or...
- [Maxwell] When you were-- the pre-compositional plan.
- Yeah.
- [Maxwell] Were you, were you listening and analyzing
what existed within the sound you were making?
- I mean, I wouldn't have--
- [Maxwell] Besides “shhhh” and “oouh” because that's like long, short.
I mean, like the actual formant analysis, maybe.
- The formant?
- [Maxwell] Yeah. - What is that?
- [Maxwell] Formant analysis is basically analyzing--
FFT analysis is analyzing the, both the...
like, it's not a sonogram analysis in a sense but--
and Dr. Snow can tell you more, give you a program that can do this.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [Maxwell] But there's a sonogram analysis and then there's--
which is based on an FFT analysis,
which is basically taking the spectrum of the sounds--
- I did a real-- - [Maxwell] [inaudible] amplitude and
sort of analyzing the vertical and the horizontal.
- I did not go into that much detail.
I just knew the “shhh” would sound pretty good on cymbal, you know?
[audience laughs] - [Maxwell] No, I like it.
- Yeah, I'm not-- I'm just saying, like, my straightforward
answer here is just, like...
- [audience member] Simplicity.
- I, yeah...
I tried to get at least for the-- let’s see...
- [Maxwell] I'm asking this-- - Basically, if you look at what's
going on here, you have two instruments
going into-- and then it spreads out,
and comes back in, and then it comes out, stops,
and then it’s spread out even more.
There's a shape to everything I was doing.
And then it basically does it again.
And then it spreads to three, the last measure.
- [Maxwell] At which point they could or could not play some element of that.
So it could just be one.
It could be some composite gesture, this [inaudible].
- Right, but they're all [inaudible].
So then you have-- it goes again you have the three, was the two,
back to three, stays with three, and then a solo.
But you still have two potentially.
So that's kind of how I was, I was thinking and to try and get it, so...
[inaudible]
- [Maxwell] I don't-- I really,
this is more just devil's advocate, kind of.
- That’s fine. [inaudible]
- [Maxwell] I mean, because I think...
as a composer and in your growth, there's always--
All of our growths as composers,
we have to come to terms with the fact that we perceive that idea at one point.
You've already established the fact that, like, what would I do next?
How would I approach the next piece if I were even to redo this...
recommit to composing something similar to this again.
And there are a whole different...
there's a whole set of parameters that
you've already thought about doing a little differently for the next piece.
And so, it's like that.
And I ask all of this because you only used your voice.
And you have a deep voice. - Right.
- [Maxwell] And so your deep voice dictates the way I think or I--
it doesn't sound like your voice when they perform.
So I'm not trying to-- but there is a formant
analysis to have for a relationship because the way you're perceiving
the sound is the way you perform the sound.
It informs the way you kind of compose with the sound.
You know, just like if you had Lena perform it and record it.
[Colin and Lena chuckle] And Brandon perform the same sound
and then put it together. - Yeah.
- [Maxwell] So then you get different--
then we're dealing with different kind of ways of interpreting
the make up of that sound because we've made a composite
sound out of what was made already. So.
- That's, yeah, that's a great idea. The way to expand it.
[inaudible discussion]
I tried to-- when I was writing this,
I tried to get, like, “high” and “low”, you know.
I tried to get [inaudible] with the spectrum,
but in general, I was around my speaking voice.
- [Maxwell] I think one thing that would be really effective
for this in that respect is that, like, do what you've done.
Like...
don't divorce yourself from the process.
Go through it, but then have like a good new music
performing vocalist perform it for you as well.
- Mhmm.
- [Maxwell] And just to kind of have that experience
because I think that might also inform how you approach the whole...
music that follows the music.
- I feel in that case I would actually have to notate everything prior
to recording it and like-- ‘cause I can't just improvise it.
I mean, I could [inaudible] give her certain parameters. But--
- [Maxwell] No, no, I'm saying do what you did.
- Yeah. - [Maxwell] But then at the end,
after you’ve got everything, before you make all the decisions about...
instrumentation or orchestration.
I mean, this is like, if you look at-- I use, this anecdote probably far too much.
But If you look at [inaudible] sketches for...
[inaudible] you know, you’ve got-- he colors things in red,
like, it's all just piano music and then he starts, like, circling things.
So it's sort of the modernist approach to, like,
playing at the piano and circling things and then making it bigger, you know.
It’s like... And that's all I'm kind of thinking about.
Because there's one other thing that I think that I feel is missing
from this piece, and that's-- like everything's very
one dimensional...
on the page.
It's almost monophonic.
- And in fact, several voices it certainly would be.
- [Maxwell] Well. Yeah. I mean,
I just wonder why it’s so monophonic.
I mean, when I say monophonic, I mean literally like, rhythm.
It is homophonic, but it's all-- since we don't have pitch.
So we don't have melody and harmony.
We don't-- it sounds, it looks more homophonic.
It follows the same rhythms.
The same syllables are with the same rhythms.
So it's like, it's not like a choral piece that turns into a percussion piece.
- Mhmm. - [Maxwell] It's a solo voice piece
that’s being split up into three parts.
- [audience member] How would you create [inaudible] with that then?
- [Maxwell] Blending of vowels, you know.
I mean, it's a whole nother piece.
I mean, it would change the piece completely.
- Well, I tried to counteract that by saying...
split the sound with each other, you know. It allowed--
- [Maxwell] But I think that’s the improvised part, right?
- Yeah.
They handle timing and...
and actually have it, like,
what timbre.
- [Maxwell] I guess I'm really, like,
thinking through all these things because I think it's a very original way
of going about it.
And I think it...
it kind of asks to be delved into again multiple times because there are...
there's definitely a multiplicity of possibilities...
- Mhmm.
- [Maxwell] in terms of how you go about creating form
out of this sort of simplified construct, you know.
So maybe I'm just kind of sitting here thinking what I would do with this music
because I kind of like the effect.
- I feel like what you're asking is to remove the improvisation [inaudible].
- [Maxwell] No, I don't want to remove that at all.
I want to find another way to inform the improvisation [inaudible].
In another piece. I’m not saying--
- Yeah, yeah, no [inaudible]. I feel you though, it’s good.
- [Maxwell] [inaudible]
[laughs]
Maybe I’ve had too much coffee.
- I appreciate the questions.
- [Lisa] You know, I hate to be the one to stop a really interesting conversation
but it's past four o’clock. We’re past the hour marker.
So thank you Colin so much for doing this and thank you guys--
[audience applause]

In collections

Music from the Library!

Details

Title: Around the Bend (Video)
Series Title: Music from the Library!
Creator: Tulane University Libraries
Speaker: Kemper, Colin
Hooper, lisa
Editor: Velasquez, Alan
Transcriber: Vasquez, Amelia
Velasquez, Alan
Contributor(s): Media Services
Date Created: 2014-04-17
Description: Video recording of student Colin Kemper's talk titled, Around the Bend, for the Music from the Library! speaker series.
Extent: 57 min., 56 sec.
Genre: Lectures
Topical Subject(s): Music performance
Music
Publisher: Tulane University Digital Library
Language: eng
Identifier (Local): AroundtheBend.mp4
Rights: In Copyright - http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type of Resource: moving image

Around the Bend (Video)

Description

In collections