Helen Bledsoe

Category: contemporary music

  • Electronic Music, Tape vs. Live Electronics, Click Tracks. Q and A

    [Taken with permission from an interview with Cássia Carrascoza Bomfim, in preparation for her doctoral dissertation]

    Do you feel a lot of difference between playing works with a pre-recorded tape and computer processing in real time (Max/msp)?

    Both ways present various issues of playing with a microphone. With a tape piece, I am concerned that the live sound mixes with the electronics. With computer processing, I have the additional concern to make sure I play in a way that my signal will be processed, which sometimes compromises variation in dynamics and articulation. For example while playing Nono’s Risonanze erranti with Musikfabrik, there is a measure where the piccolo is marked ppppp. However, if I play that dynamic as written, the signalisation will not register. If one has a standing microphone, then it is possible to play around with the distance between you and the microphone, but if you have a clip or contact microphone, this is not possible.
    A pre-recorded tape piece may have the advantage of technological simplicity, and if it is well conceived, then it provides either freedom to allow asynchronicity or good cues (acoustic as well as notated) that facilitate synchronicity, and does not constrain the performer in terms of sound color and dynamic. A great fun, technologically simple piece I have played is David Dramm’s Thrash and Variations for Flute and Boom Box, where I just walk on stage with a portable CD player, and off I go! With real time processing, I feel artistically more free in terms of spontaneity of tempo, but have more worries because there are more things that can go wrong, i.e. program crash, more cables that can be defective, midi cables or an interface that can be defective. I don’t do the electronics myself and rely completely on my technician partner. So yes, I do feel differences.

    In relation to your feelings of time and tempo, could you point out the differences between the two genres?

    This is very dependant on the piece. Of course, there are tape pieces that offer you absolutely no freedom in terms of time, and in some cases I welcome a click track to help the coordination. There are some bars of Michel van der Aa‘s Rekindle that were challenging for me. This wonderful piece is cleverly done so you don’t generally need a click track, but there were a few bars at the end where there the flutist is only playing long notes and there is nothing going on in the tape part to give you a sense of pulse, so you really have to rely on your inner metronome to stay together. A piece like Stockhausen’s Paradies has an unmovable and inflexible tape part, but a click track is unnecessary because much freedom is given to the performer in terms of the tempo. (There is theoretically also freedom with the dynamics, but since the tape does not offer dynamic differences, the player is rarely given an opportunity to play really softly.)
    With live processing pieces, there is sometimes freedom of timing, sometimes not. For example, Saariaho’s Noa Noa gives the performer, by means of a foot pedal, the means to choose timing. However, the samples and effects that are triggered have their own programmed time, so if you rush, the sample or effect will not play out, or if you are too slow, there is an unmusical gap. (This piece may also be played without foot pedal, with the sound engineer following the score and triggering the samples.)

    Premiere of Ole Hübner's "this place"
    Premiere of Ole Hübner’s “this place”

    Could you tell more about your experiences with click tracks?

    With ensemble pieces, we often discuss if we should all have a click track or just the conductor (or if chamber music, just one of us). Not everybody translates the pulse of the click the same, some play more on the beat, others after, and we always argue about what kind of sound we should have for the first beat of the measure (high, low?) because depending on the tessatura of your instrument, it could make a big difference. So sometimes it’s more satisfying to play as chamber music, without a click track. A click also has to be well done and have helpful cues to alert us that we are coming up to a tutti or a new section or tempo change. Another issue is the division of the beat, or whether a beat is subdivided or not. We once played a piece that required a click track, but the click was extremely unhelpful because for the tutti sections, all divisions, even 32nd note triplets, were clicked! Such minutae is annoying rather than helpful since with a flurry of clicks, you can actually lose the sense of pulse. In general, it really depends on the individual piece and the quality of the click track, whether we decide to all have a click or follow someone with the click.
    As a soloist I am happy to play with a click if it really helps. Recently I premiered Ole Hübner’s this place for solo bass flute, several layers of video and audio together (watch on YouTube here). When playing a coordinated sound track, a click is extremely helpful. The question for us was from where to run the click track, to send it from the computer to my headphones via cable, wireless, or for me to play it from my own device? For simplicity’s sake, I played it from my own device, just giving a cue for the start so my click and the recordings would be together. This can be risky though, if the starting cue is not together.

    With real time processing there are other factors to consider when using a click track. Sometimes there is a latency of the signal processing. Then I hope the effects and the acoustics hide any imperfections of synchronicity.

    If you are lucky, you get the click track in time to practice with it, especially if there are these sort of compensations that have to be made. In our experience, if you have a click track, it is really important to practice with it and not spontaneously rely on it in concert.

    Do you think as rule, that you are more free (in the time sense) playing with processing in real time than with a pre-recorded tape?

    For me the only time I feel completely free from questions of time is during improvisation. This can be a lot of fun with live electronics, but also effective with tape as in the last movement of Nono’s Das Atmende Klarsein. Whether I feel free depends more on the composition and the composer’s conception (and notation) of time than the technology itself.

  • Composing Dynamics

    Composing Dynamics

    In composition workshops, the question sometimes arises: in an ensemble or orchestral situation, how does one write dynamics for individual instruments? For example, if you want a balanced forte among winds and brass, does one write forte for the winds (assuming they are not playing in the altissimo register) but mezzo forte for the brass? Or does one just write forte for all instruments and expect the musicians (or conductor) to balance things out?

    In spite of the wonderful composers (Ligeti among them) who have taken trouble to relativize dynamics for us, I would say: Write what you want to hear, not what you think we can play. Trust me. Let us do the musical work (or at least give the conductor something to do 🙂 ).

    Other considerations: instrument building and playing techniques change over time. Abilities among players vary considerably. I can think of flute players who can drown out a brass section. If I were one of them, I would feel patronized by relative dynamics. Sadly, I am not, but I still feel sometimes annoyed by assumptions made by composers. For example, some composers assume a flute tone in the 3rd octave will be loud, so he or she will write pp for every passage in that register. Sometimes it’s obvious that is going on, sometimes it isn’t. What to do? Do you want your future performers spending their rehearsal time on your piece arguing with each other or putting your piece together?

    This bears repeating:

    Write what you want to hear, not what you think we can play.

    Thank you for reading.

     

     

     

  • Preparation for Expression

    Preparation for Expression

    This summer, for better or worse, I find myself without paid work for a whole month, so I have flown off to St. Petersburg with my family to enjoy the last of the White Nights. With one week left, I spend my vacation practice mentally preparing that which I have to play from memory, and mulling over thoughts about what is actually involved in creating musical expression. Once again, I have no particular point in this entry, just an accumulation of thoughts.

    One of my goals this summer is to read Constantin Stanislawski’s “An Actor Prepares” in the original Russian. It’s very slow going, which is good in a way, since sometimes I tend to read too fast and not retain things. Theatrical, artistic expression is a big topic (so far) in the book, but I am wondering whether it is worthwhile to draw parallels to musical expression.

    AnactorpreparesPlaying a solo part has obvious parallels to playing a role in a theatrical work, but is it useful for musicians to really experience the emotions we are trying to convey, as an actor is encouraged to do? Stanislawski himself points out that experiencing the emotions is not enough. There has to be technical control over the use of one’s body and voice above and beyond feeling. I think that is the crux for musicians.

    Here’s something that probably happens to most of us: I can really “go for it” in a high, ecstatic, fortissimo passage, passionate, all systems going full steam.  However, if I really do that, my heart will be racing, and my center of energy and balance will be too high. If there is a sudden dynamic shift, I am up a creek, breathless, heart thumping, out of focus. Even in the moment of passion, there has to be a part of yourself that stays sober and reminds you to stay down, open and be ready for what’s coming. That part, I guess, is our technique. It is the balance of that sober part to our ecstatic part that makes our practice and performance so exciting.

    I remember one thing Robert Dick told me. In abstract contemporary music, we often can’t rely on the use of recognizable rhetoric, or the Affects we learn about in Early Music. Sometimes we can’t even rely on the expression of anything recognizably human e.g., sad, happy, sensuous, hideous. However, what the audience will recognize is energy. That is what we must aspire to conjure. It may be that your energy will not be interpreted as you intended. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

    I’ll leave off by sharing a video with Barbara Hannigan, who talks about her preparation for the role of Alban Berg’s Lulu. Few of us have the luxury of this deep level of preparation, but I found her dedication very uplifting. (ed. – In case you don’t make it to the comments section, here is another recommended video with Stephen Fry discussing the visceral experience of opera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVN4dShaZWk.)

  • Atonal Intonation in Light of Berio’s Sequenzas

    Luciano Berio‘s Sequenza no.1 for flute is one of my favorite pieces. I also love teaching it; it has so much to offer in terms of technique (especially articulation!), style and presentation. There is an unwritten book inside me about this work, but for now I would like to consider one aspect of the work that often gets ignored: Intonation.

    This is one reason it is not my favorite piece to listen to. If you know me, you know I don’t have perfect pitch, or even flawless intonation. Nevertheless, neither you nor I can assume that a work without a traditional tonal center and without traditional harmonic relationships is devoid of centers and relationships entirely. I would argue that in this context, these matters require even more consideration. I’d like to address this generally and specifically, not as a how-to guide, but as food for thought in your own practicing.

    In general, there are rules of thumb for atonal solo works. Here I quote Doris Geller’s “Praktische Intonationslehre“, page 117 (my translation):*

    In free-tonal music there is also a hierarchy of intervals, the most important points of orientation being the prime intervals (octaves, fifths, fourths), especially when they form tones that draw attention to themselves. These could be, for example, long, held-out notes or notes that follow a rest.

    Here she is referring to Debussy‘s Syrinx, and gives specific examples. However,  these words and her further advice to analyze goal notes, high points, low points, and melodic turning points can apply to all solo works. Edgar Varèse‘s Density 21.5 especially offers the same points of consideration.

    Specifically for the Sequenza, I consider the soul of the work to be in the long, held-out notes. If you listen to the other Sequenzas of Berio,  you will hear this particular pattern of drawing the listener in. Often there are rapid, virtuosic passages punctuated by the stillness of a single note, where the quality of sound and the relationship to its environment are of utmost importance.

    *In a previous entry, I write more about Doris Geller and the intonation of melodic intervals.

     

  • Notating New Sounds – Rewrite?

    I love it when a composer takes the flute in hand and explores its sounds while writing for flute. It shows more dedication and curiosity than just looking up techniques in a book (not to disparage the good books about writing for flute).  Sometimes, it can produce an original sound, but sometimes it re-invents the wheel. Which is fine, but the wheel may come with a new symbol and complicated instructions. I have seen this cause frustration, esp. when the instructions are lengthy and not in your language. Once you reach understanding: “ah ha, so it is ____(fill in known technique)” it may be easy to adjust to a new notation. If not, then I am faced with the question, do I spend time re-notating, or visually re-adjusting to the score? This is something I will come back to.

    In no way do I wish to discourage composers from exploring flute sounds themselves. However, be aware that today there are not only books, but a rash of flutist composers out there who have spent decades thinking about how to write new sounds in ways that flutists can easily understand. So if you really want to delve into the world of new sounds, check out these composers and their written scores: (Feel free to add to this list in the comments, but please keep it to composers who use extended sounds.)

    It might interest you to look at the late flute works of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Thanks to his collaborator, Kathinka Pasveer, everything is 100 % playable and extremely well notated. Xi, Flautina and Kathinka’s Gesang are several examples of pieces with well-notated techniques.

    You will see that even among flutist composers there is no standardization of extended techniques. However if you study them, you get a feel for what is accepted and what the players are used to reading. So take your pick; if the player has questions, you can always refer back to the piece or composer from which you took the notation.

    Now, about re-writing, or rather, re-notating. When the question comes whether to spend my time re-notating or to spend time learning a tricky or non-intuitive (for me) notation, I almost always choose to re-notate. This might be to more easily read the notation of an extended technique, microtones, or rhythm, etc. Please note this is a last-resort solution. I am already comfortable with many variations of key-click, tongue pizz, air sound, and multiphonic notations. However, when the score presents a real visual problem for me, I decide to re-notate. This has the following advantages:

    • I get to know the music really well away from the instrument
    • While practicing, I can easily and more directly process the composer’s intent (i.e. the music)
    • In concert, I feel more secure. When under pressure, there is enough extraneous sensory information and certainly there are enough extraneous emotions to deal with. If you are not playing from memory, the score is your anchor. It has to be solid.

    In the olden days, copying scores was one way students learned music. There is a lot to be said for this method, but I don’t recommend subjecting 21st century ensemble players to it. Solo pieces are different matter. However, if your piece requires the performer to re-notate and is being work-shopped along with six other pieces in the course of one day, your piece will stand out, but not in the way you hoped 🙂

     

  • Effective Use (or not) of percussive sounds

    I have already written a lot on the subject of percussive sounds, but here I would like to add a few subtleties of usage.

    We will be performing Grisey’s Talea soon, and preparing the score, I am struck by how fantastic the piece is, yet how awkwardly some of the percussive effects are used. My goal is not to fault Grisey, but since there are composers who may emulate him (and why not? he was a wonderful composer!), I want to smooth the way. It seems to me Grisey and many other composers have a misconception of what these effects can actually achieve.

    A tongue or lip pizzicato does not add volume to a note (especially in an ensemble context), and is never louder than an ordinario note played at the same volume. It is a misconception to think that starting a note with a pizz will intensify its initial volume. A really forceful accent with the airstream, or with the langue sorté, will do the job better. In a solo work, a pizz will give a satisfying pop, and is an effective way to vary articulation. This pop is produced by closing off the resonance of chest cavity and most of the flute tube (since there is minimal air traveling down it), and is not compensated by the meager resonance inside the mouth.There is no air stream to project the sound. This is why I am frustrated by the following passages, where if I play a true pizz, I get a lessening of volume and intensity – just the opposite of what is musically called for:

    This next sample shows a similar volume difficulty with the tongue ram at the end of a crescendo on the downbeat of 26, along with the difficulty of switching quickly from closed embouchure position to open in the two bars after 26. And I have to ask, who the hell is going to hear those key clicks? This is why they fall so often into my “why bother” category of techniques. Great use of pizzicato here, though.

    Why am I bothering with such small things? The musical intentions of the composer are clear, and one can easily perform the gesture with alternatives.  However, students of flute and composition are getting younger and younger. Our youth ensemble is tackling repertoire I never dreamed of when I was in my teens. They may not have the experience to immediately grasp what is needed musically. They will, at first, take the score literally, thus getting frustrated. If their teacher is also inexperienced, there will be a double frustration and the trust between composer (alive or dead) and performer damaged.

  • Summer in the Back Seat

    Summer in the Back Seat

    This summer has been wild. I’ve had no proper vacation, yet have had a lot of quality family time. Musically it’s been rich, but as far as teaching, I have given up my job at the Conservatory of Bremen. Although it is not a financial blow, it will make my musical life poorer indeed.

    I imagine I would have time to devote to students and to build up a good studio when I reach my 60’s. However, 65 is the age of compulsory retirement in Germany (and many other countries). It’s just not fair. If I live out my given life-span, I would have about 20 good years to give and devote to my students. Although I will continue to teach privately, coach and give masterclasses, regular teaching will have to take a back seat, for now at least.

    This summer has also been filled with large theater projects, where music may often take a back seat. Seen in a positive light, music becomes just one facet that makes up theatrical life. But it is astonishing how one has to often struggle in order to give the musical facet any substance. I sometimes believe that being a dead composer is the most difficult job in the world. Heaven forbid if you have taken the trouble to print specific directions for staging, costume and lighting. They will be ignored and trampled upon by future generations.

    It doesn’t do to be critical though, poor J.S. Bach would likely cringe at my interpretation of his Sonatas. Life goes on.

    I will finish with a contradictory thought I can’t get rid of. It seems to me that Contemporary Music is undergoing an institutionalization and a marginalization at the same time. (This is in spite of the critical acclaim that followed Stockhausen’s works at Lincoln Center and the Munich Biennale this summer. However, I stress, it wasn’t the music that drew such media attention.)

    Institutionalization is likely a natural progression, it has happened to some extent with “regular” Classical Music and Jazz. By institutionalization of Contemporary Music, I refer to the number of Ensembles and Ensemble Academies that have sprung up, and the specialized Masters Degrees that are available. These are wonderful things!

    just what are we broadcasting to the universe?

    Marginalization is relative and less easy to define, but I can name a few trends. One is less air-time on radio. Another is academic. It is astonishing how few top contemporary players have top teaching jobs, and I mean full professorships and not just adjunct, assistant, whatever. Sophie Cherrier and Mario Caroli are wonderful exceptions. But what about Robert Dick, who is an amazing teacher? And if the trend continues, I believe that upon retirement, Harrie Starreveld will be replaced in Amsterdam with an orchestral player, not with a premiere contemporary ensemble player and soloist as he is.

    Feel free to argue with me on these points, they reflect my rather limited experiences.

     

  • A Slap in the Face of Public Taste: Russian Futurist Manifesto of 1912

    A Slap in the Face of Public Taste: Russian Futurist Manifesto of 1912

    Arthur Lourié, one of the leading Futurist composers.

    On December 29, 2012, the Pushkinskaya 10 GEZ 21 in St. Petersburg celebrated 100 years of Russian Futurism.The concert, featuring Sergei Oskolkov performing piano works by Arthur Lourié, piqued my interest in this movement. Since I didn’t find an online translation of this movement’s 1912 manifesto that convinced me, here is my own. Many, many thanks to my husband, who helped me. How this all relates to my own experiences will be part of another post. I’ve pasted the original Russian below.

    A Slap in the Face of Public Taste
    To our readers – an Unprecedented Unexpected First.
    We alone are the face of our Time. The horn of time is trumpeting through our lingual arts.
    The past constricts us. Academia and Pushkin make less sense than hieroglyphics. Dump Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. overboard the ship of Modernity.
    Those who don’t forget their first love won’t recognize their last.
    Who would trustingly turn their last love to Balmont’s perfumed lechery? Does it reflect the vigorous spirit of today?
    What coward would fear to tear the paper armor from the warrior Bryusov’s black tuxedo? Or does it shine with unknown beauties?
    Wash your hands that have touched the filthy slime of books written by countless Leonid Andreyevs.
    All those Maxim Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remisovs, Averchenkos, Chornys, Kuzmins, Bunins, etc. need only a dacha on the river. Thus fate rewards tailors.
    From the heights of skyscrapers we look down on their sorry asses!
    We order the reverence of poets’ rights:
    1. To enlarge the scope of the poet’s vocabulary with fabricated and derivative words. (word-novelty)
    2. To insurmountable hatred for the language existing before their time
    3. To wrench with horror from their proud brows the Wreath of cheap fame you have made from bathhouse switches
    4. To stand on the rock of the word “we” amidst seas of boos and outrage.
    And if your filthy stigmas of “common sense” and “good taste” are still present in our verses, they nevertheless glimmer with the first heat-flashes of the Newly Approaching Beauty of the Word – sufficient and valuable unto itself.

     

    Пощёчина общественному вкусу

    Читающим наше Новое Первое Неожиданное.
    Только мы — лицо нашего Времени. Рог времени трубит нами в словесном искусстве.
    Прошлое тесно. Академия и Пушкин непонятнее гиероглифов. Бросить Пушкина, Достоевского, Толстого и проч. и проч. с парохода Современности.
    Кто не забудет своей первой любви, не узнает последней.
    Кто же, доверчивый, обратит последнюю Любовь к парфюмерному блуду Бальмонта? В ней ли отражение мужественной души сегодняшнего дня? Кто же, трусливый, устрашится стащить бумажные латы с чёрного фрака воина Брюсова? Или на них зори неведомых красот?
    Вымойте ваши руки, прикасавшиеся к грязной слизи книг, написанных этими бесчисленными Леонидами Андреевыми
    Всем этим Максимам Горьким, Куприным, Блокам, Сологубам, Аверченко, Чёрным, Кузминым, Буниным и проч. и проч. — нужна лишь дача на реке. Такую награду даёт судьба портным.
    С высоты небоскрёбов мы взираем на их ничтожество!
    Мы приказываем чтить права поэтов:
    1. На увеличение словаря  в  е г о  о б ъ ё м е  произвольными и производными словами (Слово-новшество).
    2. На непреодолимую ненависть к существовавшему до них языку.
    3. С ужасом отстранять от гордого чела своего из банных веников сделанный вами Венок грошовой славы.
    4. Стоять на глыбе слова «мы» среди моря свиста и негодования.
    И если пока ещё и в наших строках остались грязные клейма ваших «здравого смысла» и «хорошего вкуса», то всё же на них уже трепещут впервые зарницы Новой Грядущей Красоты Самоценного (самовитого) Слова.