Thursday, 25 February 2010
Further Development
The Cape Jeremy Affair
First Public performance
Adelphi Studio Theatre, Salford
Performed by ev2 19-02-2010
1. assess audio library
1.1 The audio library was found to be misrepresentational of the report regarding ratio of sounds mentioned in report. Even though the initial aim was to include the correct ration of wind/ environmental sounds to other or phenomenological sounds, errors crept in during development of the initial test scores. As such from a list of 43 sounds mentioned in the report 27 mentioned the horrendous weather - currently this ratio is 9/23 ... more wind needed will plunder my FI, Icelandic and Antarctic libraries.
1.2 The electroacoustic miniatures were also lacking. Areas for development should include more psychological efefects of the weather, hyper-wind, wind loops, terror and fear.
2. On the visual presentation of CJA as theatre
2.1 Damian's observation of the demo video (second half) being 'ordinary', 'utilitarian' etc described my own feelings when I watched the video back; we want to make sense of what we see with what we hear - what is the importance of that cable, what is the importance of that musician.?I decided that the eye and the space and the musicians needed treating live.
2.1.1 In a direct response to this, and to present a useful document to the ROH Firsts I decided to treat the video footage to replicate low level lighting environment: with surprising results - my engagement was enhanced, the musicians looked like they were part of an installation/ set, I was sucked into a world rather than presented with the ordinary.
2.2Q: do the musiciains need to be seen live?
2.3 Three possibilities for development i) a LX designer - using video footage, live still projection, lanterns, gobo's, mobiles etc - lights the musicians and the stage in response to the live score; ii) the audience and the stage are treated as one, and lighted as an installation, in response to the live score; iii) the laptops generate the LX design or (as Mick Wilson mentioned) each score is projected onto each musician in an abstract lighting type way.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Reflection & Feedback on First Public Performance
On the whole very successful. je and cv thought the performance of the material was good, and strangely that the laptops performed well.
Half the audience were given programme notes before the performance. However, during a straw pole of the audience no one admitted to not being transported somewhere else. Typical words were - solitude, emptiness, alone (no one mentioned fear or the storms which dominate the text)
1. Questions immediately after focused on:
1.1 Should this be a radio play?
1.2 Should the audience be watching the 'score' to relate sound to an interpretation? (This point was again mentioned by DC - my immediate response was to say that we are, but through our ears!)
1.3 What does the score look like, and which software?
1.4 What is the software logic?
2. Meeting with Damian Cruden (artistic director of York Theatre Royal): Before watching performance on computer
2.1 Paradigm is very interesting as it breaks down forth wall conventions of participant-actor participant audience.
2.2 The freeing of the imagination because of the openness of imagination will be augmented by the communal-ness of theatre spectatorship - one that can not be replicated in cinema: we are all experiencing this live and is a constant reminder that we are spectators, which in turn should allow braver thoughts and illicit more vivid and daring flow of imagination.
3. DC after watching performance on computer (visuals in 2 halves: i) development stills, ii) live gig)
3.1 up until the live performance footage the see-hearing was working. Composition excellent. BUT the eye, and therefore the mind, was seeing 2 guys on a dodgy table pouring over with cables - this utilitarian relationship damaged the mental image and should be seen as a warning.
3.2 Additional elements that need considering
3.2.1 be careful what the audience see's in the vicinity of the gig - it all has meaning
3.2.2 Perhaps an LX designer is needed to work with the tapestry of the stage
3.2.3 Do we need to see the musicians? The CJA setup is not normal therefore we prescribe meaning to it unlike an orchestra whos form is ubiquitous in its theatre environment
3.2.4 If seen the musicians need to engage with audience - not 'panto' have a presence i.e. what is the nature of their connection?
3.2.5 What is the 'animal' communication in the CJA - what primeval/ overarching feeling do I want to convey?
3.2.6 At which point - and how - does it stop being a witness of a live 'radio broadcast' and enter theatre?
3.2.7 cause and effect - if we see them the musicians are responsible for this in their audience
4. Future development
4.1 cv to revisit the library - is it representational enough?
4.2 organise 2 private performances back to back for a gathering of professional creatives in York at YTR - mixed M/F music/theatre. The purpose is to present, explore and discuss at length the implications of musician presence as opposed to lighting/stage presence
Half the audience were given programme notes before the performance. However, during a straw pole of the audience no one admitted to not being transported somewhere else. Typical words were - solitude, emptiness, alone (no one mentioned fear or the storms which dominate the text)
1. Questions immediately after focused on:
1.1 Should this be a radio play?
1.2 Should the audience be watching the 'score' to relate sound to an interpretation? (This point was again mentioned by DC - my immediate response was to say that we are, but through our ears!)
1.3 What does the score look like, and which software?
1.4 What is the software logic?
2. Meeting with Damian Cruden (artistic director of York Theatre Royal): Before watching performance on computer
2.1 Paradigm is very interesting as it breaks down forth wall conventions of participant-actor participant audience.
2.2 The freeing of the imagination because of the openness of imagination will be augmented by the communal-ness of theatre spectatorship - one that can not be replicated in cinema: we are all experiencing this live and is a constant reminder that we are spectators, which in turn should allow braver thoughts and illicit more vivid and daring flow of imagination.
3. DC after watching performance on computer (visuals in 2 halves: i) development stills, ii) live gig)
3.1 up until the live performance footage the see-hearing was working. Composition excellent. BUT the eye, and therefore the mind, was seeing 2 guys on a dodgy table pouring over with cables - this utilitarian relationship damaged the mental image and should be seen as a warning.
3.2 Additional elements that need considering
3.2.1 be careful what the audience see's in the vicinity of the gig - it all has meaning
3.2.2 Perhaps an LX designer is needed to work with the tapestry of the stage
3.2.3 Do we need to see the musicians? The CJA setup is not normal therefore we prescribe meaning to it unlike an orchestra whos form is ubiquitous in its theatre environment
3.2.4 If seen the musicians need to engage with audience - not 'panto' have a presence i.e. what is the nature of their connection?
3.2.5 What is the 'animal' communication in the CJA - what primeval/ overarching feeling do I want to convey?
3.2.6 At which point - and how - does it stop being a witness of a live 'radio broadcast' and enter theatre?
3.2.7 cause and effect - if we see them the musicians are responsible for this in their audience
4. Future development
4.1 cv to revisit the library - is it representational enough?
4.2 organise 2 private performances back to back for a gathering of professional creatives in York at YTR - mixed M/F music/theatre. The purpose is to present, explore and discuss at length the implications of musician presence as opposed to lighting/stage presence
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Salford composition staff - interview
Present:
AW: Alan Williams (Reader in music)
JD: Joe Duddell (Reader in Music)
MW: Mick Wilson (Head of Composition)
Questions arising from CJA
1. Form - why random/ generative
1.1 the wholeness of the forensic ontology and its library is the composition, the random process allows an unlimited progression through this material. Furthermore, my 21st century life (social, cultural) is not based on a predictable sonata or ternary form, as such surely my music should be influenced by this. AW mentioned Umberto Eco's poetics of the open composition -
1.2 "The addressee is bound to enter into an interplay of stimulus and response which depends on his unique capacity for sensitive reception of the piece. In this sense the author presents a finished product with the intension that this particular composition should be appreciated and received in the same form as he devised it. As he reacts to the play of stimuli and his own response to their patterning, the individual addressee is bound to supply his own existential credentials, the sense conditioning which is peculiarly his own, a defined culture, a set of tastes, personal inclinations, and prejudices. Thus his own comprehension of the original artefact is always modified by his particular and individual perspective. In fact, the form of the work of art gains its aesthetic validity precisely in proportion to the number of different perspectives from which it can be viewed and understood. These give it a wealth of different resonances and echoes without impairing its original essence; a traffic sign, on the other hand, can only be viewed in one sense."
1.3 "The multiple polarity of a serial composition in music, where the listener is not faced by an absolute conditioning centre of reference, requires him to constitute his own system of auditory relationships. He must allow such a centre to emerge from the sound continuum. Here are no privileged points of view, and all available perspectives are equally valid and rich in potential... The possibilities which his work’s openness make available always work within a given field of relationships. As in the Einsteinian universe, in the “work in movement” we may well deny that there is a single prescribed point of view. But this does not mean complete chaos in the internal relationships. What it does imply is an organising rule which governs these relationships. Therefore, to sum up, we can say that the work in movement is the possibility of numerous different personal interventions, but it is an amorphous invitation to the indiscriminate participation... In other words, the author offers the interpreter, the performer, the addressee a work to be completed. He does not know the exact fashion in which his work will be concluded, but he is aware that once completed the work in question will still be his own. It will not be a different work, and, at the end of the interpretation dialogue, a form which is his form, will have been organised, even though it may have been assembled by an outside party in a particular way that he could not have foreseen. The author is the one who proposed a number of possibilities which had already been rationally organised, oriented, and endowed with specifications for proper development."
Umberto Eco (1959), The Poetics of the Open Work
1.4 "When a composer feels a responsibility to make, rather than accept, he eliminates from the area of possibility all those events that do not suggest this at that point in time vogue for profundity. For he takes himself seriously, wishes to be considered great, and he thereby diminishes his love and increases his fear and concern about what people will think. There are many serious problems confronting such an individual. He must do it better, more impressively, more beautifully, etc. than anybody else. And what, precisely, does this, this beautiful profound object, this masterpiece, have to do with Life? It has this to do with Life: that it is separate from it. Now we see it and now we don’t. When we see it we feel better, and when we are away from it, we don’t feel so good."
John Cage (pub 1959, written 1952)
2. Narrative
2.1 CV mentioned that, without meaning to, I appear to have surfaced in a musical territory that could be described as experimental music theatre. However, the theatre occurs in a place within the mind between the extrinsic (senses) and the intrinsic (memory, imagination). As such, the internal dialogue that occurs in this dimension of each listener will be individualized, therefore the purpose of the composition is to elicit a dramaturgical flow without out a prescribed narrative direction.
3. What distinguishes it from electroacoustic composition, contemporary composition, or installation?
3.1 The intention from inception of ideation through conceptual development, etc, has always been about creating a seeing through sound and music. Furthermore, the piece is performed in a theatre environment, it has a definite start and a finish.
4. JD Does the audience need to have read the book/ report prior to the performance?
4.1 No: however, the programme notes become vital - they need to clearly establish a horizon for the minds ears to wonder and to set up a mode of phenomenological listening that can achieve this. However, it is not a problem if the audience decide to listen using their preferred mode (casual, semantic, reduced (Chion)) although it must be stressed that the composition was created to be completed by the audinece using the phenomenological listening mode.
5. AW did not get the differentiation between "about, with and inbetween"
AW proposed a explanation for his interpretation of my differentiation where a Hungarian composer has auralised the data of moon transits with the result that something from the character of the movements of the moon where captured within the music. CV negated this analogy but in retrospect AW was closer than I understood at the time for 2 reasons:
1) embeddeness - something of my report is embedded within the music
2) we should have explored the score and had tangeble and not intellectual reference.
AW: Alan Williams (Reader in music)
JD: Joe Duddell (Reader in Music)
MW: Mick Wilson (Head of Composition)
Questions arising from CJA
1. Form - why random/ generative
1.1 the wholeness of the forensic ontology and its library is the composition, the random process allows an unlimited progression through this material. Furthermore, my 21st century life (social, cultural) is not based on a predictable sonata or ternary form, as such surely my music should be influenced by this. AW mentioned Umberto Eco's poetics of the open composition -
1.2 "The addressee is bound to enter into an interplay of stimulus and response which depends on his unique capacity for sensitive reception of the piece. In this sense the author presents a finished product with the intension that this particular composition should be appreciated and received in the same form as he devised it. As he reacts to the play of stimuli and his own response to their patterning, the individual addressee is bound to supply his own existential credentials, the sense conditioning which is peculiarly his own, a defined culture, a set of tastes, personal inclinations, and prejudices. Thus his own comprehension of the original artefact is always modified by his particular and individual perspective. In fact, the form of the work of art gains its aesthetic validity precisely in proportion to the number of different perspectives from which it can be viewed and understood. These give it a wealth of different resonances and echoes without impairing its original essence; a traffic sign, on the other hand, can only be viewed in one sense."
1.3 "The multiple polarity of a serial composition in music, where the listener is not faced by an absolute conditioning centre of reference, requires him to constitute his own system of auditory relationships. He must allow such a centre to emerge from the sound continuum. Here are no privileged points of view, and all available perspectives are equally valid and rich in potential... The possibilities which his work’s openness make available always work within a given field of relationships. As in the Einsteinian universe, in the “work in movement” we may well deny that there is a single prescribed point of view. But this does not mean complete chaos in the internal relationships. What it does imply is an organising rule which governs these relationships. Therefore, to sum up, we can say that the work in movement is the possibility of numerous different personal interventions, but it is an amorphous invitation to the indiscriminate participation... In other words, the author offers the interpreter, the performer, the addressee a work to be completed. He does not know the exact fashion in which his work will be concluded, but he is aware that once completed the work in question will still be his own. It will not be a different work, and, at the end of the interpretation dialogue, a form which is his form, will have been organised, even though it may have been assembled by an outside party in a particular way that he could not have foreseen. The author is the one who proposed a number of possibilities which had already been rationally organised, oriented, and endowed with specifications for proper development."
Umberto Eco (1959), The Poetics of the Open Work
1.4 "When a composer feels a responsibility to make, rather than accept, he eliminates from the area of possibility all those events that do not suggest this at that point in time vogue for profundity. For he takes himself seriously, wishes to be considered great, and he thereby diminishes his love and increases his fear and concern about what people will think. There are many serious problems confronting such an individual. He must do it better, more impressively, more beautifully, etc. than anybody else. And what, precisely, does this, this beautiful profound object, this masterpiece, have to do with Life? It has this to do with Life: that it is separate from it. Now we see it and now we don’t. When we see it we feel better, and when we are away from it, we don’t feel so good."
John Cage (pub 1959, written 1952)
2. Narrative
2.1 CV mentioned that, without meaning to, I appear to have surfaced in a musical territory that could be described as experimental music theatre. However, the theatre occurs in a place within the mind between the extrinsic (senses) and the intrinsic (memory, imagination). As such, the internal dialogue that occurs in this dimension of each listener will be individualized, therefore the purpose of the composition is to elicit a dramaturgical flow without out a prescribed narrative direction.
3. What distinguishes it from electroacoustic composition, contemporary composition, or installation?
3.1 The intention from inception of ideation through conceptual development, etc, has always been about creating a seeing through sound and music. Furthermore, the piece is performed in a theatre environment, it has a definite start and a finish.
4. JD Does the audience need to have read the book/ report prior to the performance?
4.1 No: however, the programme notes become vital - they need to clearly establish a horizon for the minds ears to wonder and to set up a mode of phenomenological listening that can achieve this. However, it is not a problem if the audience decide to listen using their preferred mode (casual, semantic, reduced (Chion)) although it must be stressed that the composition was created to be completed by the audinece using the phenomenological listening mode.
5. AW did not get the differentiation between "about, with and inbetween"
AW proposed a explanation for his interpretation of my differentiation where a Hungarian composer has auralised the data of moon transits with the result that something from the character of the movements of the moon where captured within the music. CV negated this analogy but in retrospect AW was closer than I understood at the time for 2 reasons:
1) embeddeness - something of my report is embedded within the music
2) we should have explored the score and had tangeble and not intellectual reference.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Reflection on second rehearsal
1. Immediate reflections (with Paulo)
1.1 It is not about the report or the place within the report, but appears to be about the man in the report.
1.2 Authenticity of the narrator has a huge bearing on the validity of this project - it is hard to accept that if an actor had read the report it would offer more than a radio style play.
1.3 It is becoming more and more difficult - as the musicians become to understand the play - to discern the disembodied from the live voices. They all appear to be coming from inside the established dimension set-up by the concept and the performance technology.
1.4 If it is not about a place - as in SFM - then is still 'theatre', by that I mean a profound seeing?
1.5 Ditto ... is it still 'inbetween' the report and its music and its theatre.
2. One week later
2.1 The wholeness of the composition is the most important element with this project. Enlarging the notion brought forward from SFM regarding the library of field recording being the composition, and its performance through random generated computer software, still valid. Here, the library is extended to include re-imaginings by the composer, and the authors voice (hinting at another dimension: the man behind the voice, behind the words), and live responses by improvising musicians.
2.2 The software development appears to be allowing many ways through this wholeness exposing for exploration all manner of possibilities, that perhaps would never have been considered if 'composed' or fixed in traditional ways - or 'vogue for profundity' as Cage once said. This Ariande thread through each performance will be different each time allowing a huge variation in the experience of the audience imaginings - an ideation.
2.3 Another way of thinking about this project might be: if we take the sum imagination of all the people that have read a particular book, or have seen a particular film, or are sitting in the audience waiting for a performance of CJA, then this is the territory that this composition attempts to explore. And: if this is the case, then what is the place for linear narrative exploration? The best technology for this would be a book.
3. Further development
1. Do we need more of Alistair's vox? Current = 25%
2. What would happen if there were multiple voices in the book ... say King Lear?
1.1 It is not about the report or the place within the report, but appears to be about the man in the report.
1.2 Authenticity of the narrator has a huge bearing on the validity of this project - it is hard to accept that if an actor had read the report it would offer more than a radio style play.
1.3 It is becoming more and more difficult - as the musicians become to understand the play - to discern the disembodied from the live voices. They all appear to be coming from inside the established dimension set-up by the concept and the performance technology.
1.4 If it is not about a place - as in SFM - then is still 'theatre', by that I mean a profound seeing?
1.5 Ditto ... is it still 'inbetween' the report and its music and its theatre.
2. One week later
2.1 The wholeness of the composition is the most important element with this project. Enlarging the notion brought forward from SFM regarding the library of field recording being the composition, and its performance through random generated computer software, still valid. Here, the library is extended to include re-imaginings by the composer, and the authors voice (hinting at another dimension: the man behind the voice, behind the words), and live responses by improvising musicians.
2.2 The software development appears to be allowing many ways through this wholeness exposing for exploration all manner of possibilities, that perhaps would never have been considered if 'composed' or fixed in traditional ways - or 'vogue for profundity' as Cage once said. This Ariande thread through each performance will be different each time allowing a huge variation in the experience of the audience imaginings - an ideation.
2.3 Another way of thinking about this project might be: if we take the sum imagination of all the people that have read a particular book, or have seen a particular film, or are sitting in the audience waiting for a performance of CJA, then this is the territory that this composition attempts to explore. And: if this is the case, then what is the place for linear narrative exploration? The best technology for this would be a book.
3. Further development
1. Do we need more of Alistair's vox? Current = 25%
2. What would happen if there were multiple voices in the book ... say King Lear?
Notes from Second rehearsal
Extract 6 - voice only improvisation
1. 10mins of voice improvisation
1.1 je - became aware of the Zorn-esque abrupt changes to the visual score.
1.2 cv - did je follow this? Yes
1.3 The addition of the blue did affect the improvisers
1.4 je: Does it matter where the audience are taken ... (each version we do perform feels very different)
1.4.1 je: What is the composers intention? Does he have a fixed idea of how the end result will be?
1.5 je: Is the performance environment allowing flexibility for the improvisers to achieve what the composer desires?
1.6 cv: the voice only experiment appeared to allow more playfulness from the musicians ... exploring more of the definitions of the word 'play'. Q: Is it important to include this list of definitions in the performer notes?
2. 10mins of minimal improvisation
2.1 Abandoned as the minimum amount the live musicians could do was nothing
3. Extend duration of CJA
3.1 Ran out of time - did not attempt
4. Third run through (see video below)
4.1 je surprised how different it is from the last versions
4.2 At 11'50" the direct musical underscore accompaniment of the 'seal' story caused a split, je felt the 'sound painting' was 'weak' and predictable, cv didn't object to it
4.3 je and cv feel they are understanding the 'play' and the concept more
Screen Grabs from new colour images
1. 10mins of voice improvisation
1.1 je - became aware of the Zorn-esque abrupt changes to the visual score.
1.2 cv - did je follow this? Yes
1.3 The addition of the blue did affect the improvisers
1.4 je: Does it matter where the audience are taken ... (each version we do perform feels very different)
1.4.1 je: What is the composers intention? Does he have a fixed idea of how the end result will be?
1.5 je: Is the performance environment allowing flexibility for the improvisers to achieve what the composer desires?
1.6 cv: the voice only experiment appeared to allow more playfulness from the musicians ... exploring more of the definitions of the word 'play'. Q: Is it important to include this list of definitions in the performer notes?
2. 10mins of minimal improvisation
2.1 Abandoned as the minimum amount the live musicians could do was nothing
3. Extend duration of CJA
3.1 Ran out of time - did not attempt
4. Third run through (see video below)
4.1 je surprised how different it is from the last versions
4.2 At 11'50" the direct musical underscore accompaniment of the 'seal' story caused a split, je felt the 'sound painting' was 'weak' and predictable, cv didn't object to it
4.3 je and cv feel they are understanding the 'play' and the concept more
Screen Grabs from new colour images
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