Microtonal Sunday
Sounds Like Now
A blog by saxophonist Brian SacawaArchive for New Music
Pairings
Good Vibrato, the occasional blog of Ronen Givony’s forward-thinking Wordless Music Series, pairs paintings with all manner of music, including my recording of Piece in the Shape of a Square by Philip Glass. Check it out here.
How to learn a microtonal piece
(a/k/a SLN’s biannual microtonal post.) So I’m practicing James Bergin’s new piece today for next Sunday’s concert with the Boston Microtonal Society, and I’m suddenly inspired to draft a post about learning and practicing any new microtonal piece. Then I think to myself, Wait a second, don’t I get inspired to write a post about microtonal things every time we’ve got a concert coming up (which happens to be twice a year)? Yes. Yes, I do. However, for past BMS concerts, I’ve always been familiar with the works I’m preparing. Not so this time. James’s piece is brand new, and as a result the steps I go through to learn a new microtonal composition were very apparent. Really. It was like reading the instructions on how to assemble a bunk bed from IKEA. So I thought it would be a great service if I imparted this wisdom and (ssssshhh!) shared the secret.
So here it is. Brian Sacawa’s guide to learning a(ny) new microtonal composition:
- Pick your microtonal fingerings.*
- Write your microtonal fingerings above the notes.^
- Practice.â€
Just follow these steps and you too can learn a microtonal piece!
Footnotes
* An important first step, and one that must be effected with each new microtonal composition you learn. True, one may have in one’s fingering repertoire many “stock” microtonal fingerings—that one that you use to lower that high C# (1, 2, plus palm key D and side Bb) when you’ve got that note as the third of a major triad because everyone knows that the third of a major triad must be played 14 cents low, a virtual microtone—but in some situations, say like when you’ve got to have three microtones between each semitone, let’s say 16, 33, and 50 cents high/low, there’s a little tinkering that needs to take place.
^ Also an important step that, if effected with each new microtonal composition you learn, is proven to alleviate extreme anger and sudden obscenity laden outbursts.
†Repeat step 3.
Slate of the union
Has anyone (besides my lovely assistant) been following the dialogue between Alex “Savior-of-Classical-Music” Ross and Ben Ratliff over on Slate? I found this comment by Alex, which kind of ties in to a couple of my recent posts, interesting (well, more like, good because it jibes with what I said):
A jazz club finds the perfect middle ground between the aren’t-we-serious atmosphere of some concert halls and the aren’t-we-having-fun-now vibe of your more poseur-ridden pop venues. There is a lack of pretense. People are listening closely, and yet there’s a looseness about the whole thing.
Playing unfettered
A lot has been written recently about the phenomenon of classical musicians performing in spaces usually reserved for indie rockers, folkies, and beer drinkers. And much of what’s said focuses on what it means for classical/new music that this is happening and what it might do for the music’s popularity among the younger set or folks who simply wouldn’t consider listening to the music otherwise. Like I said of HGP’s modus operandi in a previous post, “Part of the reason we like to perform in spaces like those is precisely because it takes a bit of the edge off of a musical genre that could sometimes use a drink or two to loosen itself up. At the same time, bringing new music into those venues hopefully communicates that it’s not just for jowly, cranky old men and turtlenecking professor types.” And that’s good for business. The performer perspective is what’s been missing in that discussion, so I thought I’d offer my own contribution.
For me, playing in “non-traditional” spaces is extremely liberating. The concert hall with all its protocol and convention (for both audience and performer) can be a little stifling, even when making an attempt to break from established norms. There’ve been times when my efforts to loosen up a stuffy recital atmosphere fell a little flat, not because I wasn’t incredibly charming, but rather because we’re programmed to behave certain ways in certain situations. The club setting, however, comes without the weight of those solemn rituals. And as a player, that’s often times been an extremely welcome change.
Playing a show in an alternative space doesn’t alter my approach—I still practice the same amount and bring the same integrity to the performance as I would if I was playing at Merkin Hall or Miller Theater, for example—but it does make me feel different, in a good way. It’s not that peoples’ expectations are lower, but the environment, to me, seems much more relaxed and inviting. I’m not a player who tends to get nervous before my shows, though there’s always that moment of anxiety immediately prior to going on stage. Yet when I play in non-concert hall spaces, I’ve yet to experience any trace of those feelings. Similarly, during the performance of a work in an alternative venue, I feel a lot less pressure. Suddenly, one missed note seems a lot less earth shattering. I’ve found that there’s a big benefit to being able to say, Whatever. . .” to yourself to add a little levity before and during any performance, no matter whether it’s a concerto solo in front of thousands of people, a recital when you know a reviewer is out in the crowd, or chamber piece with first class musicians. It’s kind of a little mental trick because obviously I care deeply about whatever performance I’m giving, yet placing too much weight on it, I think, freezes a little of the freedom in performance that you might have, say, in just a rehearsal when nobody’s listening. And that’s really it: when I play with Hybrid Groove Project in a bar or club or on the sidewalk in front of a skate shop, I feel completely free as a player. Not that I haven’t learned to get myself into that mental space in the recital hall, but it’s a different kind of feeling. So I guess what I’m really trying to say is: Playing in non-traditional venues—good for classical music and I like it too.
Background music
I had an interesting performance experience recently. Hybrid Groove Project was invited to perform at the Baltimore Contemporary Museum’s opening night party for their new exhibit Broadcast. However, instead of doing a set where we were the central focus, we performed in a smallish room off of the main exhibit area, which also featured an open bar and hors d’oeuvres. So rather than have peoples’ rapt attention for a performance of pastlife laptops from start to finish, partygoers wandered in and out, stopping to absorb a few minutes of HGP while chit-chatting and washing down small plates with wine in little plastic cups. What made this performance interesting was not that John Waters loitered at a cocktail table very close to us for a decent 5 minutes, but that instead of being the main focus, which classical/new music performers usually are for any given performance, we were background music.
I didn’t experience this as a negative, but rather as a realization during our performance that I filed away into the mental folder labeled “Things I’ve Never Encountered In Performance As A Classical/New Music Player.” Clearly this is not a sensation foreign to classical musicians—I think of the string quartet at a wedding reception or that piano player in Nordstrom—but for me it was something new. While classical music of the old dead-guy variety is often used as background music to create the perfect candlelit dinner mood or lend some (upper) class to an event, new music is generally presented in a manner that asks audiences to engage with it on a more than superficial level. And as a new music player, I’m used to feeling (and feeding off of) the audience’s attention and energy. So becoming aware, quite keenly, that people were checking us out for only a few minutes (sometimes coming in after we began a piece and leaving before its conclusion) threw me a little off balance.
Of course, I didn’t expect to have a captive audience at the event. And I wasn’t taken aback by people coming and going, talking while we played, gorging themselves on cucumbers stuffed with goat cheese, or generally just not paying attention to us. HGP plays in a lot of spaces where people eat, drink, and talk while we’re performing. Part of the reason we like to perform in spaces like those is precisely because it takes a bit of the edge off of a musical genre that could sometimes use a drink or two to loosen itself up. At the same time, bringing new music into those venues hopefully communicates that it’s not just for jowly, cranky old men and turtlenecking professor types.
So it wasn’t so much the setting that was alien to me. What was unfamiliar was that I suddenly had to find a way to channel some energy despite the fact that most of the people in the room were listening passively. It’s something I’m sure I’ll grow more accustomed to as HGP continues to perform in “non-traditional” spaces. Or maybe I won’t have to if new music takes over the world in the near future.
Instant replay
Rob Deemer, the venerable host of The Composer Next Door radio program informs me that he’ll be replaying the program that I was featured on a few months ago. In case you missed it the first time, check it out tomorrow at 4 p.m.
Deceptively difficult
This year’s birthday will certainly be one to remember. Nevermind that I’m turning 30. I’ll be celebrating this October 4th at the Gallerie Icosahedron in TriBeCa with a concert as part of VIM: TriBeCa, a series curated by pianist Kimball Gallagher and composer Judd Greenstein. On offer on the first half of the program will be music by David T. Little, Michael Djupstrom, and the premiere of a new arrangement of Judd’s piece A Moment of Clarity. Dubble8 will join me on the second half of the program, when Hybrid Groove Project will form like Voltron to pass out samples of what we’ve been cooking up in the lab all summer long. Maybe I’ll bill this show as the official CD release party for the album since the quest for an earlier party date at some big place in the East Village has pretty much ended. Hell, maybe my lovely assistant and I should get married that night too. Birthday, concert, CD release party, wedding. I can multitask.
Anyway, that was a pretty big setup for the real subject of this post: the deceptive difficulty of A Moment of Clarity. But first, a little background on how this arrangement came to be. As I was trolling the internet one night looking for the next big thing, I actually found it. (And if you were wondering, as I wrote that last sentence I did, in fact, successfully resist the urge to make a horrible pun with the name of the piece as it related to the feeling I had upon discovering the work.) It was a piece that Judd had written for flute and piano. I was actually so taken with the composition (and the lovely performance given by Alex Sopp and Michael Mizrahi) that I listened to the piece obsessively for the next couple of hours. And then on my iPod before going to bed. And in the car during the next morning’s commute. That’s when I emailed Judd asking him if he’d be game for doing an arrangement of the piece for soprano sax and piano. I was, of course, thrilled that he agreed.
I knew Clarity would be quite a challenge on soprano due to the extreme register demands. Yet I was excited to be the catalyst for getting a new piece into the repertoire that would exploit the soprano’s altissimo range tastefully, tunefully, and not just for show as some recent compositions have been prone to do. In other words, I wanted to push the envelope but without the piece doing the pushing being gimmicky or ego-driven. While most of the altissimo was within range and playable, there were a couple of measures that needed to be changed completely—an altissimo E may be possible on soprano, but it is certainly not desirable. Yet there’s still a lot of altissimo in the piece. I have to admit that I was also excited for the arrangement because it would give me an opportunity force me to seriously confront some substantial altissimo on soprano without having to round up three other people to play the Xenakis quartet.
Like the Xenakis quartet, Clarity has a lot of altissimo. But unlike Xenakis, Clarity’s lines are tuneful and intuitive. (No disrespect to Xenakis.) The fact that you can actually whistle many of the lines in Clarity despite their technical difficulty execution-wise sets up an interesting dilemma. That some of the lines seem so simple—nursery rhymish, really—makes it somewhat dispiriting to practice. In my head I think, This should be so simple!, but the new technical situations in tandem with the extreme register demands belie the phrases’ accessible affect. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Listen to the first score sample given in this post (performed at a practice tempo about 3/4 of the actual performance tempo). Making that straightforward-sounding lick sound effortless, and not to mention in tune, is complicated by the range. However, I’m not complaining in the least. Clarity is exactly what I was looking for—a new piece that is fun and accessible to the listener and also exciting, challenging, and fun to learn and perform. Compositions like this help us to redefine what our instruments are capable of while at the same time reminding us that a piece needn’t be unconventional or out of bounds to expand those possibilities.
On the streets
This past Sunday was the last day of Artscape, the largest free art and music festival in the United States, and the Pramus skate shop decided go guerilla and have an unsanctioned, impromptu concert on the sidewalk in front of the shop at the corner of Mt Royal Ave and Calvert St. As pictured above, Hybrid Groove Project was on the front lines, turning heads and making them nod. It was a nice end to the weekend’s festivities, which also saw HGP perform on John Berndt’s exciting and super-ambitious Exotic Hypnotic series (the events of which have been blogged wonderfully by new Baltimore transplant, composer and audio guy Devin Hurd, over at Hurd Audio).
Oh, and HGP isn’t the only thing on the streets—American Voices is now officially released.
