Orchestrating timbre - unfolding  processes of timbre and memory in improvisational piano performance

Magda Mayas

The doctoral research investigates the orchestration of timbre from a performer’s perspective. Through the dissertation, I explore orchestration as means to “unfold” improvisational processes. The foundation of the work lies in my practice as a pianist in the realm of improvised music, in which I often use preparations and objects as extensions of the instrument. Whilst timbre is often understood as a purely sonic perceptual phenomenon, this view of timbre does not accord with its use within con- temporary site-specific improvisational practice. This research grew out of the need to explore the potentiality of timbre, and to renew and situate it within my own practice. Through the research, I argue that a range of aspects that exceed the purely sonic—for instance, changing spatial circumstances, the affordances and agency of instruments and objects, and the performer’s movements and gestures— all impact upon a performance and the listening experience. All of these aspects need to be taken into account in understanding and working with timbre. In this dissertation, I introduce and argue for an extended and situated understanding of timbre in relation to material, space, and body that recognizes timbre’s complexity and embraces its potential to contribute to an ethical engagement with the contextual environment. I understand these material, spatial, and embodied relations to be non-hierarchical, inseparable, and in constant flux, and to require continuously re-configuration without being reduced or simplified. This timbral approach, which navigates multiple media beyond the sonic, radiates throughout my research. From a performer’s perspective, I define “orchestrating” timbre as the attentive re-organization of these active agents and the creation of musical structures on micro and macro levels through the sculpting and transitioning of timbre— spatially, temporally, physically, and mentally—within a variety of com- positional frameworks. Understanding timbre in this way requires that we recognize the multiple and complex roles that memory plays in contemporary improvisational practice. I therefore introduce the term timbral memory in order to describe how I use memory strategically as means to gain knowledge about improvisational processes undertaken in line with an extended understanding of timbre. In the course of the research, I conducted four investigative projects that were integrated into my practice, which were further extended through collaborations with sound engineers, an instrument builder, and a choreographer. The resulting practice-based research explores multiple, combined, artistic, and analytical approaches to timbre: I use systematic mappings to detail vocabulary and technique, explore amplification and recording in the creation of spatial compositions, em- ploy a custom-built device for live spatialization as a means to expand and deepen spatiotimbral relationships, adopt gestural approaches in composing timbre choreographies, and articulate a range of diverse perspectives through dialogues and interviews with other practitioners. Taken together, these diverse studies constitute an exploration of both timbral memory as a structural, reflective, and performative tool, and the creation of performing and listening modes as integrated parts of timbre orchestration. The thesis opposes the notion of generalizable, reproducible, and transferable techniques and instead offers detailed and intimate approaches to technique and material, describing object timbre, action timbre, and gesture timbre as active agents in sound-producing processes. Orchestrating timbre forms a hybrid compositional approach, which can be applied to various improvisational contexts and which, by engaging with dynamic relationships, reconfigures them; in this, it offers a way of understanding and using the potentials that instrument-body-space interactions afford. By reaching beyond the sonic, my research makes a contribution to the field of critical improvisation studies. It addresses practitioners and audiences in music and sound art alike, attempting to constitute a bridge from artistic research in music—which is often viewed and treated as a self-contained discipline—into multiple artistic fields, in order to inspire discussions, creation and education in broader audiences.

Back

H. Accretion

for 3 pianos and a pianist

Accretion grew out of the collaborative process with Toby Kassell, a choreographer and dancer working extensively with sound and producing original pieces, currently employed at the Göteborg Opera.

Three pianos are placed in different positions in the performance space, with the audience sitting in between and around the instruments.

The focus of the piece lies in playing with the repetition and variation of material, referencing pieces on one piano, which were previously performed on another one, and thus accumulating different layers of material and memory, which are further multiplied by the 3 instruments. Hence the title, Accretion.

I am playing inside the pianos, moving in-between them, transitioning the sound of one instrument to the next and at times perform the resonance of all three sounding bodies simultaneously. Small vibrating engines (vibrators) and EBows are placed inside the pianos operated from elsewhere in the space through remote controls. The development of new playing techniques and material plays a major part in the spatial composing of body and instrument. Resonating objects and material form a sonic and physical connection between the pianos, acoustically transforming the performance space and leaving physical traces; a spatial composition emerges and unfolds, creating different spatial and aural perspectives.

However, movement does not have a purpose in itself—it fulfils the function of getting from one spatial posi- tion within the musical performance to the next. Body movement and gestures are choreographed and at times separated from the sound they produce, but they are not a theatrical element: they function as reminders of what has happened, of musical structure, and they change the physical, temporal, and aural perspective in experiencing sound and space. They are a visualized musical thinking.

Accretion turns into an embodied performance experience. It intensifies and continuously renegotiates space-body-object relationships in composing with timbre.

I discuss the process of developing Accretion, gestural approaches in instrumental performance and movement as part of timbre orchestration in detail in chapter 8 of my thesis.

Media Example H1

Video essay "Accretion"

Idea and Concept : Magda Mayas and Toby Kassell

Performance and Music: Magda Mayas

Video and light: Katxerê Medina

Audio post production: Tony Buck

Gothenburg University, Högskolan för Scen och Musik, 2018

Media Example H2

Excerpts of a live Performance of Accretion

September 23rd 2018 at Gothenburg University

Tip

Tip