Spring Forward: Part Three
Am so grateful to my brother for coming down with his car to take me hiking! It’s so beautiful here and I’ve only barely begun to explore all that Oregon’s nature has to offer.
Special Note: Later this month, SANS; duo will be premiering their commission from this project on May 27th—be on the lookout later this month for a link to their livestream! You can also RSVP to their Facebook event.
After taking April to finish up several projects, I’m so excited to finally share more about the final two pieces for Spring Forward these next two weeks! It has been such a rewarding and dynamic experience to write for such different ensembles—and based in such different locations! From a middle school in rural Wisconsin to a professional, bi-coastal duo, it’s been a great set of challenges to work through.
My next project series, planned for this summer, is still in the planning and funding stages. In the meantime, you can read more about it at the link here and check back for updates!
Cross-Talk
When I was approached by SANS; duo to create a new work for guitar and sax, I was already looking forward to the opportunity to keep working on my guitar writing—but there was another challenge as well. While they had played together as a duo while they were living in same city, they have also managed to continue putting on virtual performances while one half of their duo had moved to the East Coast. They accomplished this by commissioning and performing works that can be done over Zoom—combining non-synchronous-dependent works (such as graphic scores, aleatoric pieces, etc.) with works in which they recorded their parts separately. When they mentioned their desire to do more of the former type of works—pieces that could be performed live on Zoom—I was really excited to tackle the challenge!
It didn’t take long to figure out what I wanted to write about. Thinking a lot about communication and online interactions already, I was really interested in writing a piece that both 1) captured the idea of miscommunication and isolating feedback loops, and 2) leaned into and exploited the live Zoom performance setting. The idea of “cross-talk” seemed like a natural choice.
Sketching the Piece
Initial sketch for “Cross-Talk”
Crosstalk in a communications context refers to when someone makes a comment or starts a conversation (usually in the form of an interruption) about something other than the main topic being discussed; it’s usually done in an attempt to take control over the conversation. On the internet, you see this happen all the time—real people are reduced to content-makers who speak past one another, seeking both engagement and approval; vying for attention and clout rather than sincerely attempting to discuss or deliberate topics. In an audio context, crosstalk is when audio from one channel bleeds into another (radio channels blending together, telephone calls picking up strange signals, etc.); the effect is usually considered undesirable. In my piece, I use the latter as a structural basis to capture the feelings of the former.
Starting with an initial sketch, I organized three or four simple ideas for each instrument and assigned each of them a distinct color. Next, I then took the material from the opposite instrument and put it in reverse order (the saxophone’s first half of material went from orange to red to yellow to purple, so the guitar’s second half went from purple to yellow to red to orange). Then, since the material wasn’t always specifically appropriate for the other instrument, I changed the materials to make them more idiomatic. Not only did this help make the gestures more playable, but this also demonstrated the idea that material was being manipulated, misremembered, or somehow lost-in-translation between the two players. The result is a structure that was both easy to understand as a listener, as well as translate easily to a livestream performance!
*Note: As of the writing of this blog, I am still working out the correct fret and fingering numbers with the guitarist, so some of the guitar notation may be inaccurate!
Writing for Zoom
Giving ranges of durations for each gesture helps to give the performers a lot more agency in how this section is shaped.
Using a healthy mix of aleatory, metered music, and open-ended instructions, I was able to ensure there was still plenty of opportunity to interact, change leadership, and freely improvise while still creating a feeling of forward motion. The opening section is all about leaving space—the guitar slowly adding in variations on a simple gesture that hangs in time, while the saxophone is given a few liberties with rest and sustain durations. Giving the saxophone a greater variety of gestures to choose between will naturally make the guitar a more secondary voice, and allows the saxophone to lead the charge into the next section. The next section (not pictured) gives metered material to the guitar, while the saxophone simply moves between different unmetered trills—allowing the guitar to lead the section, and giving the piece an unexpected-but-convincing rhythmic drive (since the saxophone doesn’t have to time their gestures to the guitar, it creates the illusion that they are playing together, even though they won’t need to match tempos over the livestream).
One of the trickier sections follows at rehearsal 5, in which the musicians need to time their changes together. By giving both the saxophone and guitar similar material in each bar, however, this can be accomplished over the livestream with relative “convincingness.” Here, both guitar and saxophone fill the space equally, cross-fading dynamically to guide the listener’s focus throughout the harmonic changes. As the guitar continues a similar texture in rehearsal 6, the saxophone jumps out into a series of syncopated, bouncing gestures. The sudden shift from smooth, running notes to a rhythmic gesture punctuated by short articulations will help not only provide a contrast to the previous section, but allow the saxophone to gradually take control again by rehearsal 7.
At rehearsal 7, the saxophone now has the metered material, while the guitar is given the liberty to gently respond in its own time. A quick transition as the saxophone fades and the guitar leaps to the foreground prepares us for the relative cacophony of rehearsal 8.
Here at rehearsal 8, while the gestures are somewhat reminiscent of their predecessors, the overall effect is quite different. This section represents a kind of peak isolation between the voices—playing in different tempos, articulation styles, gestures, and coloristic effects. Leading into the final section, you can see the saxophone is given deconstructed versions of the guitar gesture from the opening (split between two cells). The guitar, continuing on from the previous section only breaks free from this texture in the final section of the piece, finally slowing down to a single chord strummed ever-slower into a niente.
While this piece doesn’t work very well for providing MIDI renderings, the work is going to be presented on May 27th by SANS; duo! Follow them on Instagram (@sans.duo) for the latest updates on their upcoming performances to check out the other unique pieces they perform—and check back here soon for a livestream link to hear Cross-Talk’s premiere! You can also RSVP to their Facebook event.
Happy music-making, everyone!
