Whereas musical notation is most composers’ preferred tool, written, symbolic notation is not the only way to build a composition. The previous section describes how, inspired by the practice of stimulated recall, we used video capture and review to create a shared vocabulary and a record of our exploration. When it comes to structuring the piece, we use a technique borrowed from dance and theatre known as ‘devising’.

Aubiome was developed over an extended period of time, between 2017 and 2018. Much of the creative work was done while Adrián and I were working together in our music studio in Vienna. We eventually arrived at quasi-fixed versions of the original eight movements of the piece using video recording and devising strategies, and we filmed performances at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. These videos, combined with performance notes taken by Adrián during rehearsals, provide a form of documentation that is more or less sufficient to reproduce the movements.

Adrián’s performance notes, or ‘cheat sheets’ as we like to call them, compile some of the invented terms that we have used along the way, as well as reminders about the movement’s structure. On the right, you can see an example. Furthermore, the performance of manifold on the public presentation page demonstrates how the cheat sheet corresponds to the music.

We worked through 21 variations to find the final layout for the movement while devising the structure for manifold, and we used our video recording approach to document and review each ‘attempt’. We did not plan on doing a specific number of versions when we recorded these videos; it was an open-ended process. We gradually honed in on the version we wanted as we recorded each version and then reviewed it immediately afterwards. A few excerpts from that working process are shown in the video below.

Depending on the working relationship of the musicians involved, composer-performer collaboration can take various forms. In Alan Taylor’s article (2016), he proposes four categories: hierarchical, consultative, co-operative, and collaborative. His categorization focuses on two aspects of the working process: ‘hierarchy in decision-making’ and ‘division of labor’. Historically, composers of western art music have relied on Taylor’s ‘hierarchical’ and ‘consultative’ methods, which are distinguished by the composer’s power to ‘decide on contributions.’ This composer-as-sole-author method remains dominant today, and it is used by most composers. For example, in his interview with Adrián Artacho (2021), Karlheinz Essl’s description of his collaboration with toy pianist Isabel Ettenauer would fall into Taylor’s ‘hierarchical’ and ‘consultative’ categories. He emphasizes that the score he delivers before the first rehearsal is “always a finished text.” 

Real-time electronic music collaborations are becoming more common, with composers, performers and improvisers working together to explore musical implications of the new technologies available to us. Kaiser/Borgo, Ressi/Benes, Bogner/Mlekusch, Baticci/Zalech, Prins/Deutsch, Adachi/Walshe, and Yao/Chan are a few examples.

Collaboration in aubiome

Adrián and I were drawn to this type of collaboration because we both have an interest in live electronics, which is present in both the composer’s and the performer’s domains. What began as a kind of ‘collision,’ to borrow Joel Ryan’s term (2021), evolved into an overlap of competencies (Diegert and Artacho 2021) as I took on a co-creative role in the process and Adrián began to join me on stage. My primary expertise remains as a saxophonist, and Adrián’s as a composer, but our collaborative method, which blurs the traditional boundary between composer and performer, has led us to produce music that neither of us ever would have individually.

The composition phase of the working process is where we turn our attention to determining a structure for our piece, which will be built out of the musical material from the previous phase. The order of the phases reveals our preference: to begin with an open-ended period of experimentation, allowing the musical material to lead us to relevant structural questions. As our 'reservoir' of material grows, potential relationships and small-scale structures emerge, eventually leading to a discrete piece of music with its own larger architecture.

The order of phases proposed here is not meant to be a rigid method, but rather a way to orient ourselves within the larger working process. If the inspiration for a piece is more structural in nature, some composers may prefer to begin with the composition phase and allow that to drive decisions about which musical material to employ. Movement between phases may also occur quite fluidly, as structural problems may have material-based solutions and vice versa. For example, during our composition-focused working sessions, we often find it necessary to go back and spend more time looking for material to fill in structural gaps that were not apparent previously. At times, it may be convenient to quickly switch between these modes of operation, or even to treat them as a single process.

We are drawn to this type of co-creative working method because it treats composition as a shared task done together by the artists in the same space. Adrián and I frequently refer to this as ‘shared presence’: simply being present to witness creative events as they occur.

In dance, for example, the value of spending long periods of time working together in the same space is well understood. The classical contemporary music world appears to have shifted in the opposite direction, where a strict divide between composers and performers is common.

Taylor’s third and fourth categories suggest that there is room for the performer to play a more active role in the creative process. Working in a ‘cooperative' manner would be non-hierarchical with divided tasks, whereas working in a ‘collaborative' manner would be non-hierarchical with shared tasks. Vera John-Steiner uses the term ‘integrative’ to describe a similar type of collaboration (John-Steiner 2000). These working methods call into question the concept of authorship, as there is no single person with the ‘final say’ on how the piece should be. Torrence considers the performer in this role as co-composer as the “most radical practice a performer can assume” (Torrence 2018) in the contemporary music world.

The concept of co-authored music is not new. One notable example is John Cage’s celebrated collaboration with David Tudor in the 1950s, which evolved into an effective co-authorship as the pianist became increasingly involved with the material and the development of a live electronics system for Variations II (Iddon 2013). George Lewis (2014) refers to Foucault's essay What is an Author? (1969), and even suggests that computers or other non-human agents could act as co-authors.

Composer-performer collaboration

In recent years, collaboration has become a hot topic in a variety of fields both inside and outside of the arts. Authors such as Vera John-Steiner (2000), Pollard (2005) and Montiel-Overall (2005), Hayden and Winsor (2007), Gyger (2016), Gorton and Östersjö (2016), and Torrence (2018) have proposed various taxonomies for collaboration.