A lesson learned from none standard notation.

Whenever I get a piece of new music there is always the initial "shock" of notation. Over the years I have become less phased by it but there is always a period where you have to sit down and really look over the part and digest what is going on. What are the techniques, what are the effects/affects, where are the internal consistencies, etc. At the same time there is this instant focus to what is the architecture of the piece, or my part with in the score (which I want to get ASAP, to see how I interact). With the score we are looking at pitch relationships (microtonal etc, should that be unison?) am I emulating other instrumental effects (remember that internal consistency I just mentioned) for example am I trying to create the illusion of over-pressured bowing on the horn, or should it sound different. With new music these are decisions we have to make really quick since if we don't we will never get past step one of the process.

This leads me back to my post title, a lesson learned. Is this kind of process something I undertake when I receive any other more "conventional" or "idiomatic" piece. Should I? Should I do it more? All of those are questions I am reevaluating, I have my process when I get a new work, get a score, get the part, etc. But maybe I have been missing an opportunity to dig deeper into it,

Meeting the demands

So some quick housekeeping. I have started working on Jordan's piece for horn, electronics and video and it is going to be a wild ride. So watch for posts, and video entries about that.

FIRST!

I was inspired to write this post in light of a conversation I saw on the facebook horn page about playing new music, and how it can be "damaging" to our chops. This is a multifaceted thing that I could pull apart but am really going to focus on one thing which was a great piece of advice I have had passed to me by two fantastic teachers, and that is about meeting the physical demands of music. This seems to be a topic that is always hammered (unfairly) onto new music but trust me it applies everywhere. So I want to break it down into a few parts, some new music specific, and the others just a nice warm blanket of good advice I received. We will start with that.

1) You need to adjust in the large scale to the playing demands you face.

Okay, sounds obvious but in practice it is overlooked a lot. Example, we get a piece maybe some wild new composition or a really delicate Mozart octet that hammers at your upper range leaving you to exist in a fourth for 30 minutes. You need to adapt your big picture to meet those demands. In this instance I would be spending more time daily addressing my low range and other playing that just isn't being met in the rest of the day. I like to think I have a pretty heavy morning of playing where I grind away at my fundamentals, knowing that there are days you just need to mix it up to allow yourself to make it to Sunday and a whole new week of challenges. 

2) Get past the technique and see the big picture

My teacher said a great thing to me (of many great things). "Sometimes you need to take a step back to see the blue sky". So in this context this idea applies to "getting stuck" technically. It could be a fluttertongue, some rapid hammertongue stuff, a complex string of timberal changes, microtonal melodies etc. Whatever it is the more you get on the phrase, or the big idea the more the positive physical and mental habits we build daily take over. If you get to "THE PAGE" and are like.. okay... only 36 high Ds left and a whole bunch of fluttered stopped pedal Es, You are about to have a really long day.

Also, at least this is something I always tell myself is that these challenges, things that seem illogical or dare I say unidiomatic (which I think is an synonym for awesome) are what keep audiences, and performers thinking. Also, I have never met a successful person who hates a challenge.

Survey results and some interpretation and thoughts

So, I am back again. I thought I would take this chance to share the results from both the initial, and the follow up survey with everyone. It should be noted I won't share the actual comments people made since I don't have permission to do such, but I will give a brief summary of the results.

First here are the results to the initial survey,

It is noted below that the results do not "add up" this is explained and corrected below.

For those keeping track the second survey began to explore the topic a bit more in depth. It should be noted as all data was collected anonymously it is not possible to know if respondents were consistent between the two. In hind sight this may have been something to consider, but, at the time since no controllable database was used, and anonymity was sought after this was the route that I had to follow. Here are the results to the second survey:

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So where does this put us? First I would have liked to get a larger sample size, but that is not really in my control, that being said I will open up a form that will be linked below if you want to anonymously leave your thoughts on the subject matter. If you want to comment directly feel free to comment here, or e-mail me your thoughts. OR GUEST BLOG. These things are very important when developing an article in my opinion, since often in music we rely on the objective comments of the author to express an idea. I would like a great blend of objective and subjectivity towards the overall product.

Second, If we look at the totals there is an error in the initial survey, there were 55 logged respondents, but of that 55, 5 submitted a form with no data, so the adjusted percentages are as follows:

• Have performed: 40%
• Studied/would like to: 8%
• Interested: 32%
• No interest: 20%

Now an initial comparison of the data provides some points of interest. The first area, which could be very coincidental is that 20% of people have no interest in this style of music, and 18% have never seen a work like this. We can go one step further to consider that of the 14% of respondents (second survey) 80% of them (or 11% of overall) have no interest in exploring this kind, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened with a larger sample source. Though, there are some consistencies, though they are hard to infer from a small sample.

Looking again at the responses in the second survey we can observe that the OVERALL negative impression that would lead to not wanting to explore this music is a total of 25% (11% have not seen chart, 14% have seen). This is again close to the results (+5%) of the original survey. Both of these are positive as the initial survey had no inquiry in to exposure beyond personal performance.

Now a few key points of the written responses are as follows:

• The success of the music seen appears to rely heavily on a few key points,
• First, the actual composition itself, is it effective and is there an inherit purpose to the piece.
• Level of the performer, there seems, based on responses, a lot less room for "faking" as the inherent style of the music requires a very active performer. 
• Not full of melodies, something needs to be there.
• Is it cohesive (compositionally and as a performance) unless the goal is to be not. Clarity in architecture.
• How well are the electronics used. The multimedia, when well done is full of  virtuosity, not an afterthought, or perceived therein to be one.
• Equipment used NEEDS to be high quality, and all bugs sorted out.
• Audience involvement, not necessarily in a cheesy educational way, but tools are needed to engage the listeners, especially those who are new, and could feel overwhelmed.

These highlight reoccurring themes in the survey responses, there are many other ideas, and thoughts that are all appreciated and will have great use. What struck me the most is the complexity of reception of this music. This is something I myself am trying to figure out as much as I can so it is good to see it is an active element of the environment that surrounds the field.

So, more will come as I interpret data, if you want to add anything feel free as I said to do it in the comments, or e-mail. If you want it to be anonymous, follow the link below.

Link to form

Again, thank you to all those who took time to fill these out they are serving me greatly towards constructing an article that should hopefully apply to the interests of many and not be self serving ;)

Changes, news, and miscellaneous things.

So, there are going to be more changes here, as you can see with the addition of new pages, the Biblio project and such. There will also be a content change. One thing I have learned is that you can never predict what is going to happen next, the things that happened I never saw coming. If you have been on the "about" page you would have seen I have announced a project. I will get into that in a moment, first, the changes.

It is taking a great deal of time and resources to get the multi-channel tape part for the Stockhausen, and my workload exploded here. So ultimately, I felt it would be best to push the Stockhausen back till fall to make sure nothing is rushed and there is time to get all the materials. In addition to this I have had requests to cover other things on the blog as well. So I will do that. Everything is going to be related to new music and things associated with it, ideas, techniques, etc. So watch for that. Posts may be more frequent since there is lots going on I could talk about.

Now for the BIG news. I have begun collaborating with composer Pierre-Henri Wicomb. The end of this will be a new work for horn and multimedia. This is the thing that I never saw coming, and am extremely excited to be a part of it. I will keep everyone posted on that project as well.

Until next time.