Concurrent Realities: Performative Readings for Flutes with Digital Technologies

Jean Penny, mjpenny@bigpond.net.au

Abstract

As the performance practice of the solo flautist has expanded to encompass an extensive array of elements – instrument, electronics, spaces, partnerships, new exchange and computational processes – the performance has become a crucial epi-centre of exploration.  From within this ‘site of discovery’ a platform is created from which to investigate elements of enactive performance practice, transformed modes of expression, sonic and performative layers.  Through the prism of notated composition, this paper examines the significance of notation for the emerging meta-flautist entity in two contrasting works for flute with electronics: Mario Lavista’s Canto del alba (1979) for amplified flute, and Warren Burt’s Mantrae (2007) for flute and live interactive electronics, composed for this author. Performative and personal connections to score are traced through reflective narrative, journal notes, and analysis, revealing multilayered perspectives and constructs.  Entwining performative experience with responses to score from an auto-ethnographic, practice-based stance, presents a personal account of instrumentalist–digital technologies–score intersection.

1. Introduction

This paper focuses on processes of change that have occurred in the performance practice of the solo instrumentalist, thoughts on what it means to be a flautist performing in an electroacoustic environment, the transition from flautist to meta-flautist, and some experiences that occur in this environment, where acoustic instrument, technology and performance meet. Concurrent realities manifest through the instruments – the flute, computer, sound system and the performers – the instrumentalist, technologist or computer musician.  They are the interaction between these performers and instruments, and the interaction with the performance space and environment; they are the performative layers that develop in situ, and the shifts in perception and sonic expression that occur in multidisciplinary performance.

The influence of the score is considered in this transformative performance journey, where the construction of space and new layers of performance interaction may compete with the pursuit of composer ideals. Notation can be seen, amongst other things, as a convention of western art music, or a paradigm of musical identity, a representation of an idea, a mode for new works, or a set of instructions and guidelines.  The questions addressed here are implicitly concerned with all of these, but especially with styles of instrumental notation, the impact of technology on notated music performance, and how a particular score may influence the performer. Passages from auto-ethnographic narratives and performance analyses will illustrate some of the research methods the author has used to articulate this journey to performance.

2.  From Flautist to Meta-Flautist

To a flautist, the heritage of the flute is a constant companion – the thoughts we had as we studied, performed in concerts, and explored instrumental performance as a personal expression.  We probably all remember our first encounters with instruments:  

First meetings: the sight of it, the feel and smell of it, the sound of it . . . and then the music . .  I was in love with this other instrument - this flute (at age ten, I had already lived and breathed piano for six years). My first flute still sits in the back of my music cupboard – occasionally rubbing cases with my superbly beautiful top of the range Powell, my alto, piccolo and bass. It brings back vivid memories of encounter as a child, of excited awakenings towards sound, achievement and dreams.  (Penny, 2009, p.13)

These connective memories include similar engagements with notation, traced from early childhood encounters with giant written notes which eventually led on to understanding the complexities of the scores of Ferneyhough and Dench, computational texts and networked performance charts.

The continuum of change and new encounter generated through electronic / digital technology has further re-shaped the player into a new entity, if you like, a meta-instrumentalist – defined as a fusion of performative elements – a symbiosis of performer, instrument, equipment, computer, technologist, space and new performative relationships. This symbiosis creates a new ensemble of machines, spaces, sounds and musicians.  Relationships and hierarchies shift, and specific technologies and locations influence the interconnections of self, other and context. 

The meta-instrument expands roles, and generates an extended sphere of performance action, where the body, instrument and electronics evolve new performance practices incorporating new performative patterns in the body and new cognitive processes and responses.  These changes have been shown to generate changes of attitude that give permissions, controls and scope for expanded roles, expanded space and integrated narratives.  The relationship of flautist to computer may initially feel like an alien association, full of confronting and arcane features: the computer has nothing at all to do with a flute, it doesn’t look much like a musical instrument, and the sounds it may make, may, at first, seem decidedly unmusical.  The unfolding of this relationship sees a remarkable change, as the computer become the cohort, the accomplice in musical adventures, provoking new musical and performative ideas, responses and action.  Self-awareness and self perception changes occur, new presentation styles and soundscapes develop, and an extended sense of one’s performance persona emerges.  The incorporation of these elements into performance understanding and practice creates a rich field from which to consider emerging performative layers.  

3. The performance as the site of discovery: unravelling performative layers

The diagram below (Figure 1) indicates elements of the meta-flautist observed through a variety of exploratory streams.  The focus is on developing awareness of extended performance identity: mental and physical awareness, spatial awareness, defining styles of music and presentation, interactions with place and people, and the impact of drawing these elements into a single meta-instrument entity.  Layers are revealed by drawing out responses through the mind map method, a search in which multiple choices and pathways present themselves in extended linear form – a n entirely intuitive, brain storming exploration of processes and approaches, taking as a starting point common elements of performance reflection and development.  These pathways then become the areas further explored in the context of specific performance experience.  

Figure 1: Meta-flautist entity-identity map

Charting processes of change is most effectively explored through examining the performance itself.  Taking the research right into the midst of the act of performance can reveal its elements – the interactions, the responses and processes – and provide authentic material for research. The focus turns in on the self in a search for the understanding of how a performer engages with the music – the encounters with notes, the gestures of breath, and the provocations of electronics.

Exploring the impact of electronics reveals the insider’s experience – the lived experience of performance.  Articulating this experience through dissecting responses to performing specific works, exploring the separate parts of performance – the learning, interpretation and execution of the music – gives a snapshot of these processes in time, improved understanding and sharing of information.  New layers of interaction, new sonic and performance identities, new immersions and separations in the performance space emerge as the performance is investigated.

The learning processes, interpretative development and sonic projection familiar to all musicians becomes entwined with the encounters with computers as performance partners, the influence of computational techniques on musical experiences and the discovery of new performance potentials, sensations and responses.  Physical changes created by adapting sound and breath to sonic manipulation, using hardware such as pedals or switches, and re-positioning oneself in the often ambiguous performance space creates a new sense of place and a new set of instabilities and powers.  The emergence of these new performative layers creates the basis of the performance analyses discussed below.

4. Score to Performance Journeys [1]

Initial encounters with scores – what they look like, how the notation is set out, what expectations are aroused and how the performer may be drawn to explore the works – are crucial moments. 

Sometimes a score may look overwhelmingly complex, or enticingly so; or it may be disjointed, full of text or diagrams, or clear and flowing like a pen and ink drawing, or just plain and rather blank. 

On encountering the two scores I am discussing here, my initial reactions were very different. One of these score is very beautifully laid out with drawn out, sustained phrases, evocative poetry and expressive instructions.  I felt drawn to this piece as soon as I opened the page. The other piece is intensely blank, dense and monochromatic – it took me much longer to find affinity with this piece. 

Some scores present immediate restrictions.  For example, in works for fixed sound and instrument, the tempo is prescribed by the recorded sound, and the performer is virtually imprisoned within it. Other scores can be exceedingly maximalist, with a multitude of instructions describing every phrase.  Still others may have inherent challenges, where, for example, an improvisatory style is encouraged, but is written out and essentially controlled by the composer.  The performer’s freedom, or illusion of freedom can be questioned as long periods of engagement and discovery merge the performative reality and composer ideals in a shared expression of the work.

4.1 Canto del Alba

Mario Lavista’s work for solo amplified flute, Canto del alba (Dawn Song) (1979) explores acoustic extended techniques and timbres to create a work of startling sonic beauty. Subtle amplification of micro-sounds magnifies these fragile flute techniques, creating a sense of immersion, introspection and interconnection with the inner self, and an evocative sense of place and tranquility.  Encountering this work for the first time engenders a strong sense of anticipation of musical discovery.  Visually, the score looks appealing, with great clarity in the print and explanations of notation, including fingerings for multiphonics and glissandi throughout.  There is a poem, quoted at the start of the work, that immediately evokes a vivid sense of place through visual and aural allusions: 

Seated alone, amongst the bamboo, I play the ch’in, and whistle, whistle, whistle. Nobody hears me in the immense forest, but the white moon illuminates me. (Wing Wei, Tang dynasty)

A solitary remoteness is educed.  The instructions at the beginning of the music also add to this aura: ‘. . . grey light before dawn . . .’  The mood is thus clearly suggested to the performer before sounding a note.  In this liminal world between first impressions, imagination, anticipation and reality the sounds begin to imprint themselves on the psyche. 

This initial encounter sets the scene for dreaming, and the establishment of process.  The first run through is a revelation, as strands of multiphonic sounds spring from suspended tones, floating, implying pitches and anticipating resolutions. These sensations are mirrored in technical demands: smooth and steady physical control, extreme mental calm, intense active listening, sustainability of breath, tone and focus, and a zen-like spatiality. The flautist is compelled to re-appraise tone production and intensity, defining ambivalent micro-sounds, micro-tones, multiphonics, altered fingerings and ethereal whistle tone passages, all of which require extreme precision and control.  A methodology is generated: the cyclic processes, the confrontations with the aural, physical and psychological demands needed to succeed with each technique and phrase. 

Articulating the personal account of the instrumentalist / technology / score intersection, has for me encompassed practice based research and auto-ethnographic methodologies.  These include the presentation of insider / outsider perspectives, and the inclusion of narrative to create the presence of the author / performer in the discourse.  The aim with this approach is to take the reader / listener through a virtual or imagined performance journey, or the lived experience of the piece from the player’s point of view. 

In my analysis of Canto del alba (Penny, 2009, p.145), the feeling generated by engagement with the music and the impact of the various techniques, such as the amplification, is the main performative story, and allowing the expression of thoughts as they come up in rehearsal or performance the main writing focus.  It is based on the score and the performer’s response to score, presented as interpretative notes and observations which arose whilst learning and performing the work - informal and without traditional structure - but representative of the pencil scribbles of many practice sessions and rehearsals.  This analysis style came about as a response to certain permissions I allowed myself in the research process.  I wanted to describe how it felt to be in the middle of performance; I wanted to share thoughts about each part of the music as I encountered it; and I wanted to challenge the structures of analysis that I was used to reading.  Importantly, I feel that I allowed myself to write in this way because I had taken myself through some investigative processes that seemed to remove the outsider’s evaluation. 

The following is a short extract from the start of the analysis.   The notation is divided into phrases, creating the discussions through observations designed to reveal a process of elucidation, the unfolding and materialization of the piece. 

Figure 2: Phrase 1, Lavista, Canto del alba (Cited with permission of the publisher, Smith Publications, Baltimore, Maryland 21207, USA.)

This first phrase instantly creates the mood, the aesthetic, the performance style and the sound world of this work; it evokes place and it demands attention through an immediate plunge into extended techniques. The words in the score – lontano, come “la luce incerta e grigia che precede l’alba” – inspire a transformation of verbal descriptions into sounds in the room, through timbre, balance and nuance. An intensity of purpose wells up in the body, as the anticipation of raw feelings, of aural, physical and psychological confrontations form. 

The delicacy, the uncertain projection, is revealed in the initial multiphonic (C quarter # and F#), which emerges from silence via a carefully directed airstream, relaxed embouchure focus and breath stability – leading to a further D harmonic-based multiphonic more difficult to secure. Placing the A, the top note, becomes a priority; working with the instability, practising alternative note projection, discovering timbres, striving for maximum focus and accuracy.

With the addition of amplification, the first example of revelation occurs: the discovery of micro components, the impacts of slight shifts in breath or muscles, the degree or levels of flexibility available, the muscular control required for fragile techniques, the potentials of expression and projection. The intent of the amplification here seems to articulate and emphasize the sonic aura, to facilitate the projection of sounds that tilt towards fragmentation.

Physical gestures develop expressive connections: embouchure, throat, mouth, fingers, and arms work in tandem with tongue positions, breath lightness or intensity, and rhythmic energy. The tempo is extremely slow: this phrase is 41 seconds long. The challenge of sustained breath, of stamina, of entrainment is already present in the first phrase.

4.2 Mantrae

Warren Burt’s Mantrae for flute and live electronics (2007) is an interactive work that transforms physical movement into sonic forms, activated through motion capture and sound modification, using Plogue Bidule as the host program for the processing and Cycling 74’s Hipno sound processing modules – Amogwai, Spuntorrt and Modulator. V Motion.  It is for concert flute and consists of three Mantrae that are broken up randomly in performance as the player changes from one to the other throughout.  Burt is a composer who lives in Australia and works intensely with electroacoustic media and performance.  He has written several works for flute. Below I describe some of my personal journey with this work, but first Warren’s story of his own inspiration:

The piece was inspired by watching, hearing and experiencing the single-minded focus of the Hindu priests at the local Hindu temple as they chanted their mantras.  Hindu temples do not have the hushed and reverent single-minded focus that, say, Catholic Churches do, so there can be all sorts of stuff happening around the temple as the priest concentrates on his task.  Just a few weeks ago, we went (at 8:30 am) to hear a particular priest chant a Gana-pathy Sahas-ra-namam - that's a chant of the 1000 names of Ganesha.  It was early in the morning, and there was a very big ceremony following - so lots of setting up around him, and lots of activities with families etc.  But he stuck to his musical and metaphorical guns, and pushed on regardless of anything else.  Quite an amazing performance! I think there were about 10 of us who were following him all the way through.  There were, off and on, crowds of about 200 at times in the temple during the hour of his chanting. (personal correspondence, 6/6/2010)

Burt has transferred this setting in the Hindu temple to the concert venue through the representation of the intense focus of the chanter to the flautist, and the surrounding activity to chaotic sounds generated by the electronics.  These electronic sounds are generated by full body gestures of the flautist, activated through the motion capture and sound modification platforms.  The meaning of the piece, the trajectory of flute chanting, the (dis)connections to the outer world become focused through the image of performer.  Intensity of purpose, sensed through musculature and postures of concentration, disclose the conceptual basis of the work, the centrality of the individual within the disarray of life.  From the outside, the body becomes the visual prompt, the revealer of process, the audience informer.  The invisible presence of the technologies, the motion tracking and effect triggering, are representations of perceived connection, a linking fabric between gestures of exchange.  The flute sounds are traditional at the source, resonant, articulate, and impelled.  The altered sounds emanating from the flute bear little relationship to this; they are nebulous connections, the sounds of otherness. 

The experience of performing Mantrae is an unfolding focus on motion and location.  New balances and sensations are felt, challenging acquired performance knowledge, and merging with the desire to be completely free within the circle, to attempt to move with abandon, swiftness and grace, to dissolve into the music, to become the meditation through a semi-immersion.  The movements, however, are sharp and fast, turning with seeming unpredictability from one stand to another.  There is some awkwardness, some difficulty sustaining vision of the scores, moving without unraveling basic flute playing techniques and postures.  An intensified experience evolves, as the desire for control transforms into a response, as the individual turns away from outside events, embracing the vortex created by the technology. 

4.2.1 Pathway to performance – A personal journey [2]

June 2007 in Kallista, Victoria, Australia: 

On this day Warren comes to my house in the mountains just outside Melbourne, and hands me three sheets of paper – “here’s the piece”. . . I quickly scan through – wow, I think, this is really straight.  The score looks blank, expressionless, blunt – a visual impression hard to ignore (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Burt Mantrae, opening section (Cited with kind permission of the composer)

Warren begins to chant in a loud, sharp manner: “this is how it goes .... would you like to try it?” Dadada, da, da, dadi – da ... it must sound like Hindu chanting speech rhythms. We set up the computer, sound system and the video camera that is to capture my movements as effects triggers. I play through, hoping to pick up some ideas – immediate issues here are tonal projection, articulation clarity, rhythmic sharpness and getting a sense of the mantra.  The sound effects are wild and wonderful, but do nothing to allay my sense of unease – I’m sure this is meaningful, but I’m just not there yet. 

Over the following weeks, with the sound of Warren’s voice in my head, I begin concentrated explorations of Mantrae.  At first I ignore the switching from one page to another, to concentrate on connecting with each mantra as an individual – to get to know it, achieve an easy confluence and discover the rhythms and pitches of each.  This proves to be an engaging process, as elements surface or submerge, demand attention or drop into the background.  I find myself playing them over and over, just enjoying the flow, the continuity, the endlessness.... 

We add the electronics. These are still in embryonic form, but already give a good indication of the scope of the piece. The flute begins solo, after a static, frozen 15 seconds, with the electronics appearing after the first thirty seconds of music. These sounds are like none I have ever made before with my flute: they are outrageous, startling, diverse and stimulating.  Where does the flute stand in this? How can I get control of the events? How do I approach a broad interpretative development?  Stamina and focus continue to provide the energy as the layers of meaning begin to unravel. Technological processes are becoming more apparent, and the sonic material is establishing a sense of the space, the surrounds to the chanter / flautist.  Speech rhythms and articulations are beginning to adopt the character of the Indian chant. Further explorations occur, but the main sound in my head is still Warren’s voice and the aura he projected.

Focusing on the physicality of this work, I begin to draw what I can from the meaning and functionality of the gestures, to incorporate these further into my playing and to see if there will be a change in my sense of identity, a loosening of previous perceptions or an emergence of new ideas . . .  A new sense of physical awareness develops simultaneously, as postural ideals of keeping an upright equilibrium, and optimum breathing state, are balanced with a leaning towards each page, a creation of space, motion, swirling music lines.

Our first rehearsals with full sound occur at the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane. The stage is blank, but spacious, the speaker arrays are far above my head. The sonorities are re-balancing in my head, the flute seems to be a silver thread, shooting through the prism, the vagaries of the sound effects seem unsettled and disconnected – but strangely enveloping and becoming closer. I explore the breadth of the performance gestures and my sense of presence in the performance space, the links to the outer field.

A week later: Warren is in Brisbane for our dress rehearsal.  Adjustments to movements occur. Adjustments to the computer occur.  An intensification of entrainment evolves from the influence of the freezes. These form an entrance to and exit from the site of the piece. This enhanced sense of place, the sharpened connection to the spaces of the movements, the rhythms, the connections to computer and sound world revitalize my thoughts and performance energy.

The next day is the premier performance. The music stands are re-arranged, the camera is checked, the computer is set, the sense of anticipation rises.  The freeze at the start is a most wonderful moment – enforced stillness, focus, the slide into the world of these Mantrae. It goes, it plays, it twirls, it slides, it jumps.  The cloud of effects create an envelope of otherness, the flute bears downs on the stage, chanting away in its own world.  The final freeze . . . and it’s done.

5. Concluding Remarks

The performative journey as research journey invites versatile and perpetual investigation.  As a flautist/researcher, my explorations of encounter with electronics continue to provide rich material for discovery of multidimensional performance ontologies, as the diverse experience of performance emerges as the most compelling means of unfurling understandings, enrichment and development of personal performance practice.  Notational charts, or scores, reflect and generate aspirations and performance imperatives; the construction of performative habitats, relationships and responses inspire myriad methodologies and stances.  The auto-ethnographic narrative styles of the research examples above, prompt in this researcher an urge to transfer, expand and define new approaches in this evolving research field.

Notes

1. The two performance analyses presented here are based on more extensive discussions in the author’s doctoral thesis (Penny, 2009)
2. These journal notes represent part of an auto-ethnographic study of personal performance response. (Penny, 2009, p.153)

References

Burt, Warren (2007). Mantrae for flute and movement controlled live electronic processing.

Lavista, Mario (1979). Canto del Alba for amplified flute. Smith Publications, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Penny, Jean (2009). The Extended Flautist: Techniques, technologies and performer perceptions in music for flute and electronics, doctoral thesis accessible online at http://www.griffith.edu.au/music/queensland-conservatorium-research-centre/students/recent-graduates