Instrumentation
Alto Flute
Oboe
Bass Clarinet
French Horn in F
Trombone
Violin
Violoncello
General commentary
This work aims to challenge the relationship between acoustic, electronic and sampled instruments. In my personal experience of hybrid orchestration for film scores we, as composers and orchestrators, typically use traditional acoustic sound-worlds as the foundations around which we use electronic synthesis and samples to embellish and augment the audio-musical experience. Often, material that would traditionally have been performed acoustically is later replaced with
electronic instruments. This idea of electronic music replacing the acoustic is one that in a vast majority of cases is utilised over the reverse. This work aims to see whether a reversal of that relationship is possible.
Only the performers can hear the pre-prepared electronic material and interpret this for their audience. The reason only the performers hear the material is because it is the result of the process and not the means that should be presented to the audience, in the same way the reverse is often done. As an adequate notation system to allow the performance of electronic music does not exist as of yet the performers must use their own ears to interpret the sounds and create what they deem to be a reasonable response. There is no real replication of sound (even when responding to samples) only an interpretation. Replication is not the goal of the work, merely the interpretive transformation of electronic music. This is ultimately, for the audience, electronic music without electronics.
The ultimate goal of this work is to explore an alternative world of texture. The varying electronic soundscapes created throughout the work are structured in such a way that the centre of the work is texturally the most dense with the sections before and after leading to and from this respectively. The structure of this work is thus a variation on an arch form with the final section being a semipalindromic version of the opening. Appropriate extended techniques are given to the performers to utilise where necessary but are indicated only to aid in the purpose of interpreting the electronic textures.
Performance notes
The idea behind this work is to explore how acoustic musicians can respond to electronic music by using their ears as well as notation to attempt to imitate (through interpretation) the sound/aesthetic of the electronic textures without the audience being able to hear the original electronic/sampled stimuli. Each performer has their own individual audio track they respond to, sometimes with other players and sometimes alone. They are not attempting to copy the sound, rather imitate its qualities in a way that each performer deems appropriate. Some sections do require a mimicking of samples, but these places are indicated for the performers on their part. All notated performance directions, dynamics, articulation, rhythm and pitch (where indicated) are for guidance and should always be secondary to the performer’s interpretation of their audio files.