5.4 Critical Reflection
There are three areas that I address here: my equipment, notation, and musical language. To begin, the system relies heavily on very specific amplifiers – Stride can be performed on several, while Doina and Yen can only be played on two that I have found so far. The Roland Cube 30 and the Behringer GM-108, the only amps that all three works can be performed on, are no longer in production, meaning despite their relative affordability (especially second-hand) they are not easy to find. This has implications for my continued work with the system and creates barriers for others to learn my pieces. I have begun to address this limitation by employing a digital equalization pedal, the Source Audio EQ2,1 which has allowed me to “tune” additional amplifiers for use in these works. Though I have had some success in this regard, the process is very much on the edge of my understanding as my knowledge of acoustic feedback is almost purely artistic as opposed to technical, which prevents me from shaping the feedback response of amplifiers in a systematic or rigourous way. In the future, working with an acoustician to understand how my system, amplifiers, and acoustic feedback all work from a technical standpoint could help address this. Such a collaboration could generate scientific analyses of my feedback saxophone practice as it exists and could translate the interactions within my analogue instrumentarium into the digital realm, such as an EQ patch within a DAW or a MAX2 software patch. Accomplishing this could allow any amplifier to be used, greatly increasing accessibility to these works, and may even expand the capabilities of the system. If this digitization was possible, it would require a laptop to be included into my instrumentarium. While there are clear benefits from doing so, it would contradict the post-digital and minimal nature of this research-creation and greatly impact the performance aesthetic.
Regarding notation, Stride could be updated using the most recent and, what seems like, more efficient system of Doina and Yen. Leaving Stride as it is better communicates the process of developing this research-creation, which is of a greater priority for this thesis than dissemination purposes. A colleague of mine, saxophonist and Doctor of Music candidate Tommy Davis, came to my studio for a sight-reading session of my feedback material.3 In comparing the two notation systems, he found the notation for Stride to be “very intuitive” for learning the required material, comparing it to repertoire such as Le Fusain fuit la gomme (2001) by Marie-Hélène Fournier. Upon his reading of Doina however, it became clear that the transcription, while accurate to what I did in a given performance, was not optimal. Some of the fingerings I used for that performance may be executed with much simpler key combinations, while others are incredibly unstable and hard to replicate (fig. 5-14). Considering this, Doina may be an effective document of my practice, but is not a streamlined pedagogical tool or piece of repertoire. Composing a non-improvised version of the work or a wholly new piece that uses more idiomatic feedback grammar, combined with the successful elements of the transcription, is one solution to this.
Recently, I premiered the first piece written for this system by another composer, Inframince: Feedback Saxophone Variations (2022) by Kevin Gironnay.5 Working with Gironnay made it clear that a compositional guide to my system would be useful. For saxophonists wanting to play any of my works, the scores should be sufficient to do so, but to compose for the determinate aspects of my system requires a deeper understanding – studying three scores is likely not the most effective way to accomplish this. There is a finite and specific grammar for the system that could be summarized between video and notation that would make the findings of this research more instructive for composers.
The last point of reflection is on the musical language. I have received some criticism that the harmonic and rhythmic grammar of these works are not adequately complex in regard to contemporary classical saxophone language. While this is true, the works’ relative simplicity is a functional aspect in their use as reflexive tools, research documents, and creative artefacts within a particular musical aesthetic. These feedback saxophone works are meant to codify the fundamental equipment and musical grammar of this system to establish a foundation on which a much larger practice is emerging. Consequently, these pieces should be understood as etudes, which are works that systematically aid performers in the mastery of particular musical concepts of increasing complexity. Polish composer and piano virtuoso Frédéric Chopin’s (1810-1849) piano etudes are among the most famous of these, transcending their role as pedagogical tools to become part of the fabric of the Western classical music tradition. Similarly, in contemporary saxophone practice, French composer Christian Lauba’s (b.1952) Neuf Études6 (1996) have become important pedagogical tools for teaching extended techniques, as well as a staple in classical performance competitions. Similarly functioning works exist in the electroacoustic world as well, one example being Suite no.14 (Suite pour quatorze instruments) (1949) by musique concrète pioneer Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995). Scholar Carlos Palombini notes:
According to Schaeffer, the traditional (or “abstract”) composer follows a path that leads him from the abstract to the concrete. The traditional piece is mentally conceived, symbolically notated, and finally performed. In musique concrète, the effects created by different manners of exciting sound-producing bodies, and by electroacoustic manipulations of recordings of these sounds, cannot be conceived a priori...The new (or “concrète”) composer can do no better than manufacture his material, experiment with it, and finally put it together.7
While the etudes of Chopin and Lauba were designed to be widely played and to advance the technical capabilities of their respective instruments, Schaeffer could not pre-conceive the sonic results of his new techniques, so Suite no. 14 was a way for the French composer to systematically explore and develop his own compositional grammar. Much like the structure of other etude collections, Suite no. 14 begins simply and increases in complexity. According to Palombini, “the suite had the following movements: prologue, courante, rigaudon, gavotte, and sphoradie. Each of these pieces was an experiment with a particular technical procedure…In the prologue, no more than reverberations, echo, doublings, and rhythmic counterpoint were added. The sphoradie in turn was meant as ‘an essay of expression properly speaking,’ freely employing various technical procedures.”8 Like Suite no. 14, my feedback saxophone works are reflexive etudes used to establish the musical grammar of my own system. In providing the exact details required to perform the works themselves and learn this practice, these etudes also function as research documents. In working with a novel electroacoustic musical system without any existing documentation, I similarly could not pre-conceive the musical results and therefore had (and have) to systematically develop it beginning with basic musical material. Instead of “freely employing various technical procedures”9 as in the last movement of Suite no. 14, these etudes document the initial stages of research-creation. Moreover, much like the first concrète pieces of Schaeffer or early pieces in a collection of etudes, my works introduce listeners, interpreters, and scholars to the fundamental phenomenon of feedback saxophone, explicitly and clearly.
Considering this, the expressive and technical scope of feedback saxophone far exceeds what I have formally explored, and three short pieces only begin to realize its potential. However, to carry out this research-creation in a thorough manner, complete with background and contextual research, as well as detailed descriptions of my methodological framework and the creative processes and products, limiting myself to these three pieces for my doctoral research seemed appropriate. Although composing relatively simple works served the purposes of this research, and perhaps suited my own skill as a composer of classical music, I am eager to perform and hear further “essays of expression” for my feedback saxophone system by other composers.
Before concluding, I have some comments on further developing this research. I have pages of notes of different feedback pitches and gestures I discovered while improvising that have yet to be used in formal pieces. Without changing anything about my system, this could yield a large body of work. There are also natural extensions to the system that would expand its potential. For example, the Roland CUBE 30 amplifier has several built-in effects that can easily be engaged. Amazingly, the tremolo, reverb, and delay all act as intended without compromising the current feedback grammar. This has led me to “play” the amplifier on its own: using a single feedback pitch and manipulating the amplifier’s effects and other settings to create musical gestures. Drawing from the work of Davies, I am excited to send various waveforms through the amplifier to try and replicate the ring modulator effect used in Quintet. I am also curious about how performing with multiple amplifiers and/or multiple microphones would expand the system. At the beginning of this chapter, I mention that the smaller alto saxophone did not yield convincing feedback pitches, but what if I used this equipment on a larger baritone, or even bass, saxophone? Such ideas would take years to fully explore, whether by me or someone else.
Even without these potential extensions, this research innovates on contemporary saxophone and electroacoustic practice in several ways. There are other works that feature saxophone-controlled feedback, notably Agostino Di Scipio’s Modes of Interference / 2 (2006).10 Like many of his predecessors interested in feedback, such as Davies (see Chapter 3), Di Scipio employs a graphic score to lead the performer in a process-based feedback piece, meaning the sounds are indeterminate. Like Davies’ Quintet, Modes of Interference / 2 is a microphonic piece unconnected to broader instrumental practice. John Butcher’s feedback saxophone is an ongoing practice but still employs indeterminacy, so his work remains esoteric. In contrast to the indeterminate feedback works of Di Scipio, his classical forebears, and Butcher, my research systematizes the feedback response so that through-composed and otherwise determinate works may be created. Furthermore, through codifying feedback saxophone through these determinate works, I may develop and disseminate feedback saxophone in ways that are distinct from Butcher.
Though Butcher is my closest peer regarding the fundamental technical innovation of this research, Colin Stetson is an important aesthetic influence. His avant-pop style combines the microphonic process, virtuosic extended techniques, and popular musical forms and material. I consider Stetson to be one of the most important saxophonists of our time, yet his output has largely been overlooked by academia – likely due to his position within popular music (a bias seemingly shared by Stockhausen). In drawing from Stetson’s practice, I hope to bring more academic attention to his work and contribute to avant-pop as a useful aesthetic in research for its documentary and pedagogical clarity. Moreover, like Stetson (and Butcher) I employ the microphonic process under the guiding principles of post-digitalism. Rather than maximally augment my saxophone with digital media, I instead minimally augment it with rudimentary analogue equipment, and then harness the noise and idiosyncrasies of the instrumentarium through new techniques. Such an approach engages with technology without falling victim to the negative consequences of the consumerist “sound” paradigm, instead using instrumental technique or “style” as the driving creative force. This demonstrates how post-digitalism and minimally augmented instruments can innovate performance practice and provide a meaningful alternative to digital modes of creation.
Lastly, these works demonstrate a particular approach to AGNI, which I carried out using methods that suit my musical expertise. My iteration of AGNI could be used for creating works or practices involving new electronic or electroacoustic instruments, new acoustic instruments, or newly discovered acoustic instrumental techniques. This research also demonstrates how improvisation can be a useful tool in artistic research. Despite Henk Borgdorff’s assertion that “Inadvertent (fortuitous) contributions to knowledge and understanding cannot be regarded as research results,”11 improvisation was a primary method in this work. While the results of improvisation (or comprovisation) may be serendipitous, they are not inadvertent, as they are sought after in a systematic way. My feedback saxophone discovery is a useful example of this distinction: while the encounter was unexpected, I immediately and intentionally employed it as a musical device, leading to the discovery of the finger-to-feedback relationship and, eventually, this research.