For the sketches of my collaboration with Gaspar, see Appendix 1

For the sketches of my collaboration with Jasper, see Appendix 2

This chapter gives an overview of the two processes analysed in this study. (Scroll down and right to discover their chronology)

Session focused on the flute repertoire. 

I play some pieces and excerpts and tell him what is difficult and why.

Specifically, I show him  the difficulties of Luciano Berio's Sequenza I for Solo Flute. This annotated score is the result:

We individually compose miniatures based on Toti Scialoja's short poems as an exercise. During the sessions, we share our work and Gaspar coaches me on notation and general composition matters.

We also try to compose from each other's ideas.

We try to compose starting from musical material we choose during the sessions.

From a "polyphonic" idea, Jasper writes a Passacaglia where the bass is represented by the fundamental note (correspondant to the real fingering) and the "melody" consists of long high register harmonic notes. The same note can be an harmonic of different fundamentals.

Starting from this concept, we collaboratively compose during the session for the first time. We want to list which notes are possible and how easily they can be played.

I complete the list for the following session, where we try to join the material in the piece.

We collectively compose starting from an ornamentation by Quantz. During these sessions, we really compose together, starting from our flutes and writing down what we come up with.

Before the summer break, we discuss some possibilities and agree on a plan to compose the final outcome of our collaboration. It will be a duet for two flutes, since we are both flutists.

We choose to:

• Individually compose some raw musical material and share it with each other;
• Individually elaborate the musical materials composed by both of us, creating phrases, effects or gestures we like;
• Meet from September on to collaboratively join, change, add material and to finally get to a piece.

During the summer, Jasper composes three pieces originally conceived as three movements of the same piece:

I like the summer pieces, especially Psalm! I take note of all the doubts and questions I have about the score.

Experimenting some effects for the duet:

A first approach to La notte bella, recorded at the beginning of the first meeting with Jasper about this piece. 

Jasper composed another piece, Lamentoso, with the idea of making it part of a wider piece together with Psalm and La notte bella.

While experimenting with Lamentoso, we find a new expressive tool on the flute (extended technique? "wrong sound"? We do not know, but we thought it could be used for specific effects).

We did not know how to notate, but even just describing it was problematic:

We choose to keep Psalm as final outcome of this collaboration, since we both like it. I really enjoy practicing and playing it!

The final outcomes of our collaboration.

In the last session Gaspar and I agreed that leaving space for our personal takes on the duet was interesting for the aim of the research, and that we would have chosen how to deal with the differences only in the eventual rehearsing process of the piece.

The two final versions are very similar; the only differences are in the notation and in the degree of freedom left to the interpreter in the fluttertongue section, higher in Gaspar's version of the piece. 

I chose to record both version to show the differences between them.