Electronics As Accompaniment
Electronics As Accompaniment
In the 1950’s, as sound departments at film studios and TV stations were rapidly accelerating the development of audio mixing and technology, John Cage questioned how long it would be until we had works for truly abstract instrumentations (a trio for car horn, gunshots, and coffee grinder for example). In many ways we have seen his vision come to life through electroacoustic music for fixed media, but a slight pivot from that takes us to what may be the most important development in solo music performance—soloist and electronics.
For so much of my musical education works with electronics were integrated just as a cool new thing that was by someone alive, that would be pretty abstract, and that the audience will think is cool, but never really seemed to be programmed with a degree of serious musical intention. As I’ve grown into working as a composer and performer, I have not only performed a number of works for instruments and electronics, but I’ve written upwards of 15 of them. What I’ve learned is the piano is limiting. When I sit in audience I want to hear variety. It’s wonderful seeing the vast array of composers on display, but in a solo recital with piano the orchestration is likely to be constant and the accompaniment—if there is one—is limited to what the piano is capable of achieving. What if it didn’t have to be? What if the soloist wanted to play a slow ambient piece that was just a slow crescendo of long notes for 10 minutes? What if you could play a concerto and not have to reduce the accompaniment? What if you wanted to have a clear narrative in your piece without having to make the audience read program notes? This is the beauty of music with electronics. With the correct samples, an infinite number musical forces and choices are placed at your command.
One of the greatest works for soloist and electronics is Jakob Her Veldhuis’s masterpiece “Grab It!“ This work showcases all of the great attributes for this kind of piece. It includes narrator, use of panning, overdrive, tonal gestures in the soloist and accompaniment, a drum track, a serious hip-hop groove, and numerous other audio effects and processing. This work has more musically complex sound, color, and texture than the vast majority of the standard solo repertoire for any instrument. Its use of speech pattern for rhythmic influence allows for a more complex rhythmic language, and its use of narrator allows for an integrated narrative. While it still requires a good amount of extended technique, this is supplementary and brings about a new sonic dimension—especially given the contrast to the sounds in the electronics rather than just piano. If anything, the extended techniques become less striking.
In my personal writing I have found that my voice in the soloist and electronics medium is more on the ambient side. I like exploring thin and sometimes dissonant sustained textures with lyrical solo melody and narrator. In much the same way that a documentary can tell a much more complex narrative than a feature film with a lot less, so can these ambient works with narrator express the ideas I find myself drawn to—especially subconsciously—in a more clear and effective fashion. Like many other compositional concepts, though, its even more fascinating to use electronics for individual sections of a work rather than the whole piece—especially for chamber groups. This allows for a complete exploration of each of the instruments as a soloist, soloist with electronics, duet, duet with electronics and electronics alone. In many ways it allows for an almost intimidating amount of creative freedom.
What are your favorite works for soloist and electronics?