Inspiration
The Materials & The Calm Work
20/01/10 15:45 Filed under: New Music
This is what its like to work in a vacuum. When there’s no client or boss to tell you the job is done, when the only goal is to effectively express yourself, when there are no limitations to guide you. I need to get better at this.
Anyway, enough of that. I have finished the short little LCO piece, and have just now sent this demo off. It is in the hands of fate whether it gets picked for performance in March - they may not like it for many reasons, but I feel satisfied that I have responded to the brief in my *own* way, aside from the desire to spend the rest of eternity polishing it up and fixing little details, I think it’s more or less there. The only thing I’m not happy about is the instrumentation (chamber orchestra) and the fact that technology is forbidden (I mean, really?). It was inspired by “the Frame House” - a home design and built by architect Marcus Lee (it was featured on Channel 4’s Grand Designs program, to give you an idea of what I’m talking about). The brief was to compose a short piece for chamber ensemble that is inspired by architecture - either the Frame House or another building, the “Hot House” (designed by Cany Ash). Here’s the programme notes I sent along with the scores:
My piece starts with the raw materials, working with them and perhaps even bending them slightly to construct frames around spaces, floors and rooms. The spaces have different functions and house varying levels of activity, yet they are all made of the same stuff and share the same very simplistic design.”
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UPDATE - it wasn’t selected, but I’m cool with it because I think this piece would have a better life with a smaller, plugged in ensemble, like I originally intended.
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Sage advice for every situation
24/11/09 21:25 Filed under: Work
I’m so pleased to finally have them for real in my sticky little mitts and not just via an online applet, I’ve been thumbing through each card in turn, grinning to myself and imagining the crazy situations I could apply the directions to. Let’s draw one right now... it simply says “water”. Yes.
I attended the LCO New “Inspired by Architecture” study day on Monday in London. We assembled on the 9th floor of City Hall, listening to talks from the likes of Diana Burrel, Simon Bainbridge, Richard Scott, Cany Ash, David Gordon, framed by a spectacular view of Tower Bridge, Thames and the City beyond. Then we hopped on a bus and had a look at some modern functional architecture in the East End/Hackney. The idea is to compose a piece for orchestral ensemble inspired by the buildings we saw, the best few to be performed, recorded and published by the LCO early next year.
I love these sorts of things - the light a fire under you to get writing, but without the stress that comes with a real commission. And you get to meet other young composers, get a feel for what they’re trying to say. The issue I have with this work is one of ‘obviousness’... i.e., architecture and music share many concepts and vocabulary (line, form, structure, texture, repetition/pattern, juxtaposition, brightness/darkness/lightness, space/ambience, perspective/depth... the list goes on! The challenge will be to have the music refer to the buildings in an unobvious way, to avoid the whole “that line is this line, that colour is this colour” correlation that always turns out so trite and contrived. The music should maybe latch on to one detail and lose sight of the whole, or tap into the sense of movement and atmosphere, or the air that is divided and trapped within a structure. Or not... we’ll see how it turns out.
I have had some great responses to my wanted ad, and as a result some exciting commissions and collaborations in the pipeline! It’s been a while since I’ve written new music for individual players to perform, and feels strange after doing so much media stuff - the creative freedom is such a welcome change and takes a little getting used to. All this thinking of new work has given me the mojo to finish up my String Quartet for Ariella (finally). Progress!
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Using Ableton Live 8 Looper To Make My Own 'Alleged Dances'
31/10/09 11:47 Filed under: Work
Kinda like what John Adams tried to do with his "Book of Alleged Dances" in the mid nineties with the triggering of prerecorded loops during string quartet performance, with Ableton you could create such loops on the fly while a performance is in progress... you could even bank these loops as they are made and retrigger them in various combinations to create interesting textures and harmonic colours. Such exciting possibilties... and I imagine much more exciting and gratifying than watching a performance played along to pre-recorded material on CD (which, unfortunately, is what happened in the end to Adams' project).
I really love this idea of recording being temporal rather than definitive - to capture something quickly and manipulate it instantly. If only I could find a cellist who would be happy being my guineapig for a day or two...
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