Back to Dialogues
take over
see what you can make of it
handle with care
listen carefully
spend time inside it
pass it to someone
be generous
let me continue
trust that i’ll take care of it
Dans les arbres (DLA) is an ensemble comprising Christian Wallumrød (prepared piano/electronics), Xavier Charles (clarinets), Ivar Grydeland (pedal steel guitar) and myself (percussion). We have been recording and touring since our formation in 2006, and, over time, have developed a unique sound predicated on trust and listening. There is no hierarchy in Dans les arbres. Each of us brings a personal palette to the table and plays an equal role in shaping the band’s sound as a whole.
In his dissertation “Accident and Incident: experimental music practice and the contemporary composition improvisation continuum,"(Spence 2018), Australian pianist and researcher Alister Spence observes the following about our manner of musicking: “DLA is directly involved with disguising the timbral nature of their instruments and manipulating the unstable, indeterminate materials of sound in order to enable contingent events.” Over the years, our approach and material have slowly changed as a consequence of the members’ individual shifting research interests, which they then have brought back to the collective. In Dans les arbres, we prioritize collectivity by sharing a vast palette of sounds.
Introducing my solo material
I waited quite a while before introducing any material from The Vibrating Drum to Dans les arbres. I didn’t consider that work to be ensemble material, at least not Dans les arbres material. I saw my individual research—resulting often in dense orchestrated sonic layers with slowly unfolding harmonic shifts —as unproductive for the ensemble's fluid, democratic musical discourse. My vibrating drum material often covers a wide range of frequencies, which in my experience usually complicates the process of group playing.
Ivar Grydeland reflects on similar terrain when he addresses collectivity versus individuality in Dans les arbres: “…[C]ollectivity seems to be best achieved through a great deal of self-centeredness and individuality. Or is it perhaps [achieved] in spite of [it]? My own playing, and my interpretation of the band members’ playing, is that it is both self-centered/independent and collective/highly dependent at the same time. In a dialectical process of opposing forces, we are operating in a mindset that is both individual and collective-oriented at the same time. Collectivity depends on individuality, almost selfishness. Composites depend on interference between collectivity and individuality in order to become attractive."(Grydeland 2016).
In Grydeland’s view, a push-and-pull between individual and collective thinking is essential for ensemble work. I do think the ensemble needs this duality in order to enter new terrain and to maintain attentive listening to the collective sound. We can’t fall asleep in our own delightful habitats. Nevertheless, I was still uneasy about ruining something precious that we have built together over such a long period of time. When this uneasiness takes over, I can hear it in the energy of my playing. I call it “audible doubt,” which contaminates the democratic interplay. Usually we manage to avoid audible doubt in DLA. But my lack of conviction weakens my contribution to the democracy, and the music sounds uninteresting to me as a result.
In autumn 2022, Dans les arbres’ idea was to work on developing music for an imaginary dance floor—a music with some of the attitude, immediacy, and beat of a club dance floor that could ground our work with long forms and ambiguous rhythms. Though I had my doubts about this idea, I decided to give the Vibrating Drum material a try. I brought all three drums this time, with a vibrating speaker for each. Prior to this session, I had been preparing frequencies in close relation to each other, creating an orchestrated version of individual pulses with contrasting velocities. I imagined the other members adding a cacophony of pulses to my proposed material. In my head it sounded wonderful. However, I couldn't control the other members' contributions, and I didn’t want to instruct them on what to play. Dans les arbres is a collective with a long trajectory in musical co-creation, built on mutual trust and responsibility. We are equal. The music is created collectively as we play.
To set up my vibrating drum work in Dans les arbres required patience that I thought I didn’t have. I thought I was occupying an acoustic space to which the others wouldn’t know how to relate. But my notion that my material was going to overpower the others was all in my head. They did their thing as usual, keeping their faith in what everyone was bringing to the table. The problem was me. I didn’t trust my own proposal from the start, or perhaps I was so captivated by my own sonic ideals that I forgot to listen to what was actually happening. We are used to making each other’s material sound good. We share our sounds. I seemed to have set that idea aside. On the other hand, perhaps this was a sign that I need to question the way we work in DLA. I wanted to discover alternative angles and strategies for music-making in the ensemble, and I was not sure if we were ready for it. Could this have been a start of a crisis?
On the second day of the recording, I changed my setup. I returned to my original configuration with my orchestral bass drum as the main sound source, with two vibrating speakers on the bass drum’s membrane. I remember thinking, I don’t have to give up on the idea. Even though I didn’t think the first attempt was worthwhile, the result didn't mean that I can’t use vibrating material in the ensemble—it just meant that I need to discover how to adapt and interact in the same way I have previously suggested new material: little by little. I need to treat the vibrating material for what it is: a new color of my acoustic sound. In the session, I would try to keep my focus on listening. I aimed to quiet my worries about the group’s uptake of the vibrating material, and rather tried to relate to the sounds as I would any other material.
The music flowed nicely. I enjoyed the physical aspect of the playing, and I registered that there are several ways for me to incorporate the new developed material. I realized that I didn't have to create intrusive sonic layers or drones. The material could be abrupt, physical, sparse, and ambiguous. Sometimes I became too absorbed by my own processes, not considering that the three other members were undergoing their own similar challenges. We hadn't played together for a year, and I still sensed an uneasiness. I started to wonder if I was bringing this discomfiting material precisely because I was trying to escape a process that felt overly familiar and comfortable. Our approach has perhaps become too predictable for me, as unpredictable as the sounds it yields might be.
More questions arose around the question of whether to amplify or not. Over the years, we've worked occasionally with amplification, and now we probed the idea of doing so again in order to manage my vibrating drum material. Also, this time Christian was working with a synthesizer that needed amplification, so we looked for solutions to introduce this amplified sound into an acoustic environment. Balancing the acoustic and the amplified is tricky. Christian’s material contained subfrequencies, which the amplification needed to transmit, yet without disrupting the lower threshold frequencies I was creating in the same register on my Gran Cassa. This meant that I also had to be amplified through the sub speakers to be able to have the same possibilities as Christian. Ideally, we want to achieve a natural, balanced symbiosis between the amplified sound coming from the speakers and the acoustic sounds from the instruments in the room. We strove to find the right balance, and I must admit that for the first time I found a way to connect and respond to the amplification. This surprised me, and I still don’t understand why I was able to do this as, since the amplified sound was projected from a source separated from the instruments and the performer—a situation that is normally confusing for me, even disturbing, as the size and intention of a sound is not located within the person playing it, thus changing the acoustic balance between us and in the room.
I raise concerns around the introduction of the vibrating material in this particular recording in the conversation above. However, I am not sure I am any wiser after the conversation. I have the feeling that I perceive my use of the material this way because I listen differently to our musicking, knowing that I am forcing the entry of the vibrating material as a rigid part of the discourse inside the band. Christian points out in this discussion that he develops his material within DLA as result of a slow collective process during our years of playing together. It doesn't seem like he aims to adapt his solo material for DLA. I feel differently: parts of my material are also developed in the collective process, but I haven't necessarily seen it as exclusively DLA material. I have introduced the same material—if one can to some extent isolate a part of a collectively developed material—in other contexts, where I can develop it further and perhaps give it a different function. This is also the case with my vibrating solo material. I add a palette of vibrating material to all contexts in which I work, and I try to adapt the material according to how the composition and internal chemistry work in the given context. This time, I may have been too rigid in my thinking. Perhaps the material needs to be more elastic, or perhaps I should find another context for this particular material—a context where the chemistry between the various components has a different dynamic.
I have a wish to shake the group out of its comfort zone, and perhaps entering with my vibrating material could instigate that process. However, listening back to it, and also while playing, I don’t dare to go for it. I seem to have too much respect for the comfort zone we have created, and maybe I suspect that none of us are prepared for a change like the one I heard in my head, hence the uneasy, awkward attempts to keep pursuing this shift, but only halfway. I don’t think it is good to do something halfway. I gave up and fell back on the old comfortable way of playing, which is always “nice,” but I still think that some interesting music can come out of my initial idea. Something is holding me back, something that is unspoken of within the band. That unmentioned territory runs deep down, and I suspect that it is going to be hard for us to talk about without disturbing the internal trust.
At the end of the day, I must accept that we are four different individuals who think differently about the ensemble's internal processes. That is perhaps the reason why the ensemble sounds as it does, both despite and because of these differences.