for a contraforte player (2022-2023)

In collaboration with bassoonist Olivia Palmer-Baker

“Artefact 3” is an experiment for a contraforte player. Unlike in the double bass experiment, where one can visually see the movement that causes the sound, here the physical actions are happening for the most part within the body of the performer. In this case, space is turning inwards instead of outwards and, in terms of perception, space is not being seen, but being felt or even imagined. In our sessions the experiment focused specifically on observing breathing and airflow quality, muscles participating in the production of sound in and around the mouth, as well as how intention, i.e. the mind, can affect and shape the music and the quality of sound. In regard to the instrument, the aim was not to explore the contraforte’s virtuosic abilities, but rather to bring to the foreground the natural tendencies of the instrument, accept and interact with its instability, unpredictability, as well as its “faultiness”. Because of the idiosyncratic nature of the contraforte and the extreme physicality that goes into playing the instrument, which in this context requires building up one’s stamina, the way certain actions or sounds feel within the body has become an important component of the composition. Therefore more abstract concepts such as creating different spaces for the sound and various levels of tension could be implemented into the compositional vocabulary.

In this experiment notation does not seek to describe sound or action in any precise way, nor does it intend to depict a fixed time structure. The notation consists of ‘ideograms’, which express condensed conceptual ideas and serve the purpose of stimulating the performer’s memory of the embodied material developed during the practice with the composer. That means that the score is closely interwoven with the interaction between composer and performer, because its abstractions become concrete through the process of rehearsal and the performance is being wrought through time and practice. The notation system consists of three main elements: a) the sound basis, b) the additional events, and c) the quality parameters. The later also involves four separate elements that inform the quality of performing a) and b), namely intention or focus, breathing quality, tension degree and expression of space.

The experimentation took place within a period of fifteen months and was divided into three phases, each one of which has been followed by a performance of the piece in its respective state. The first phase was mainly a process of observing and exploring through constant improvisation, mostly concentrating into defining patterns around the basic sounds. During the second phase we zoomed into the sound and the physical behaviors with the purpose of shaping the sounds through a variety of qualities and small or big differentiations of those. Working in that way resulted into the sculpting of time and sound. In the third and last phase there was some reduction and minor change of symbols and material, but more importantly, we could focus even more on zooming in further into the more controlled details of the sound and the physical actions.