INTRODUCTION     WORKS    IMPROVISATION    ROOMS    RESONANCE    CONTRIBUTION    INSPIRATION    THANKS

"A room can be perceived as a kind of container for memory, and also as a physical space. I experienced that both were enlarged in your performance: I was physically moved, but also in the clouds of my mind. I was transformed by the music in the room” 
— Lene Tranberg, architect

 

In this section, I describe the different physical rooms where I conducted the research project. Concurrently, I analyze the entire process of alternations between reflections and process concerts from two methods: digital logbook and interdisciplinary listening.

 

SEARCHING ROOMS:
Before planning any process concerts, I listed what kind of rooms I needed to experiment in, to reach an answer to my primary question:

- Rooms where I could amplify using existing objects
- Rooms where I could introduce new vibrating objects
- Setups where I only focused on music
- Setups where I made interdisciplinary collaborations
- Setups where I tested the sound and potentials of different materials and elements.

With these parameters in mind, I planned 16 different ‘process concerts’, a concept I use to describe a string of unique concerts as an iterative process. In this way, these concerts all became milestones in the project and fed into the next level of reflections and actions. The technical setup was always developed from place to place. In this film you get an introduction to how it was, during the making of “Stille, stille hjerte”:

THE DIGITAL LOGBOOK AS A FORMAT FOR REFLECTION:

The digital logbook evolved to be something I wrote before, during and after each process concert, using a four-step method:

Status: Before each process concert, I wrote down the technical status; things I needed to research, buy, connect, install or plan in order to realize the process concert.

Intention: Before each process concert I also wrote down which intentions, reflections and expectations I had for the process concert. This was valuable to do, in order to make myself aware of what I wanted to pursue and also a great way of encouraging a team effort, by making the people involved aware of what we were aiming for.

Immediate outcome: Just after the process concert, and sometimes even while making a process concert, I wrote down what I believed was the most important outcome. This was helpful in order to be able to recall a problem or feeling of my insights at that exact moment, when reflecting later or qualifying decisions in post-production.

Subsequent reflections:  Either reflections I made on my own or shared with others who would give me new inputs, ideas and nuances. These notes fed into the next "status" and "intention" and therefore continuously contributed to the development of the project. 

This logbook format helped me track developments before, during and after each event. I used the program "Pages", which made it easy to paste videos and pictures along with written reflections. There will be an example of this, a little later on in the text. The initial idea was to post this logbook online here on “Research Catalogue” during my process, but when I did that it made me want to write reflections on my reflections and methods: I became too self-aware, and wanted to let the potential readers know that I was on track. Ironically, this sidetracked me from my focus on actually doing something, and I ended up deleting the public logbook in favour of developing and realizing the artistic project.

 

INTERDISCIPLINARY LISTENING AS AN ANALYTIC APPROACH:
My initial idea was to use "critical listening" as my primary method for analyzing my process and the sonic artistic potentials. The method originates from my colleagues’ artistic research at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory, where it has been developed and customized through different artistic research projects. The method features in Søren Kjærgaard’s research on “
Multilayeredness in Solo Performance” sound-recording of immediate reflections when listening to documentation material. These recorded reflections were then subjected to further analysis and reflection. I used this method as inspiration for developing a new approach, which I have chosen to call “interdisciplinary listening”.

 

The method entailed inviting practitioners from other fields of art to experience the setup live, and then I used their feedback to attain new nuances and fresh perspectives. It came about because I missed having conversations and getting feedback about the artistic potentials and not only musical potentials. “Artistic potentials” was a wording I also used in my primary question. Although I did get useful feedback from students and colleagues, most of it focused on technological, technical and music contextual aspects. As an example I made a screening of “Stille, stille hjerte” with fellow-practioners from RMC, and the main discussion was the relevance and aesthetical consequences of playing a Danish folklore song in any improvisation, instead of talking about the actual experience. I wanted to have conversations where the musical aspects where bypassed, in favor of talking about the artistic potentials.

 

These thoughts were something that evolved during the project, and the importance of this approach was not clear to me before the interviews were completed. Since the awareness of the method is new ti me, it is very likely that there are existing methods using this approach, that I just have not come across yet.

 

Some of the key participants were sculptor Ingvar Cronhammar, dancer/choreographer Emilie Gregersen, bishop Elof Westergaard, driver developer Kamlesh Prajapati, sound designer Morten Groth, photographer Fryd Frydendahl, artist and art communicator Annette Skov and architect Lene Tranberg. I met with them individually and in a setting where I had something new and concrete to show. I did not realize the importance of these meetings in terms of development and reflections for this research project before I was done with the physical part of this research project. This affects the material I had from these meetings; I did not record our meetings, but I did take notes. Some of their feedback and reflections are used as opening remarks for each chapter in this exposition. By conversing with these highly competent people who are not musicians, the focus was on the artistic experience and potentials in a field of common interests. Obviously speaking to a bishop and architect brings different topics forward, which on the whole helped me see broader perspectives concerning the artistic potentials. One of the first conversations I had was with Annette Skov, who works as an art educator at Copenhagen Contemporary, who said: “It is evocative! I feel drawn towards something in this room I haven’t experienced before, and paradoxically it is something I recognize on a deep level; I am experiencing something I did not know was already here and in me.” I wrote her words in my notebook, but did not know at that time that this feedback and conversation was very important. But when I started to tell other people about my project, I started to adapt Annette’s wording; that this project was more about creating an evocative musical experience, than to showcase my research in using drivers. That my aim was artistic, and not musical. I also met several times with Ingvar Cronhammar, whom I often met with to share ideas and develop common projects. In the first meetings where I was working with transducers, I just explained the technology and idea without showing it in real life. He was interested, but not on the level I expected him to be. So I chose to bring my clarinet and drivers, and convert his desks and doors to a speaker. This was a milestone. For me to realize that even an artist which was known for a unique ability to imagine ideas, needed to experience my vision in real life, in order to fully understand it. That this vision is natural for me to imagine, but hard to translate into just words.

 

EMPIRICAL METHOD AND ANALYSIS:
In the following section, I will go through a selection of my process concerts chronologically, and analyze them by applying material from the digital logbook and “interdisciplinary listening”. In the two project concerts that also became my audio-visual works, I will expand the logbook by also describing the post-production process.

 

Nov 2019 - First breakthrough at Feonics showroom
See a screenshot of the actual logbook by clicking here (written in Danish)
Status:
 I had done online research on different types of drivers, and kept on going back to the products of a company called Feonics. What made the company stand out was its high-end products, which in comparison to other drivers were able to play fairly loud, with a wide and precise bandwidth. So I decided to travel to Hull in England to test their products in their showroom.
Intention: My aim was to learn more about the technology and test if their products were able to create an output that was louder than my acoustic instrument, and evenly represented all frequencies.
Immediate outcome: I brought a clarinet + microphone and made tests on different materials. The drivers had a very good and clear response to my audio-signal, and instantly created resonating possibilities for interplay between the vibrating objects and me. I also learned that to Feonics' knowledge, no other customers had used the drivers in a live improvised setting before.
Subsequent reflections:  I wondered if it was possible to create a relevant listening experience. It seemed challenging to make a setup, where the listeners would not spend their energy on experiencing the technology, rather than a more immersive musical event. 

 

Dec 2019 — Common canvas at Alice
Status: Alice is a venue in Copenhagen, where I did an audio-visual performance with photographer Fryd Frydendahl. My plan was to play through regular speakers, but three days before the event I received two drivers from Feonics and decided to test them. Two days before the show I coincidently ran into someone who was throwing out four 1,5 x 3 metre metal plates attached to a wooden frame. I attached the drivers and tested if the metal walls could also double as a canvas by projecting Frydendahl’s visuals on them, which all seemed to work.

 

Intention: I wanted to physically connect the sound and image so it became one. I used substantial sound-effects on my signal, in order to create a feeling that the canvas/metal walls had their own mystical audio-visual identity. I did not tell the audience what the setup was, because I wanted it to speak for itself. 
Immediate outcome: Overall, the setup proved to possess the potentials I was hoping for. But, my computer and the amplifier were not stable, so the concert did not go as planned. After the show, I spoke to a professional sound designer who said: “I was overwhelmed by the sound; it was more than surround, it felt like the sound was everywhere – what was it?!”
In terms of uniting canvas and sound it was also very convincing, but the last-minute timing was stressful and not conducive for an artistic collaboration.
Subsequent reflections: When listening to the recording, it was clear that the setup would benefit from having more drivers in order to play louder and make the listener physically feel the sound. I think using audio effects like reverb, echo and pitch made Frydendahl’s visuals and the music blend together on the canvas, but listening to the audio alone gives a polished and opaque feeling. There were some "mistakes" where the effects turned off, and those parts gave a strong and present sense of listening to the material - I wanted more of that! 

Dec 2019 - Cohesion at Copenhagen Contemporary:

Status: I took the setup from Alice, except the metal walls and carried out my first experiment at Copenhagen Contemporary, with two drivers.
Intention: I wanted to test the potential of using the ventilation pipes. Could I convert them into a kind of breathing/singing/screaming artery?
Immediate outcome: Even with this small and rather unstable setup, the room was very musical and inspiring: The room was big, raw, the ventilation system resonated, the acoustic sound was beautiful and the room exuded history. I was hooked, and I got promising feedback and had great conversations with the staff at Copenhagen Contemporary.
Subsequent reflections: I recorded the sound as documentation from four perspectives, and by playing it back, I learned how different the sound was depending on where one was positioned. The audience should be able to move around. I need to rehearse playing very sparsely in order to make the room “play” more. I need to listen and then react, just like I do when I play with humans.

Jan 2020 – Empty words and enclosing sounds at RMC:
Status: 
I want to present a two-hour presentation for all graduating bachelor and master students: One hour for an oral presentation and one hour with music. Just received amplifiers and four more drivers that I try out, making this the first time I will experiment with a setup that is bigger than stereo. 
Intention: I want to talk about my project even though it is in its early stages. I want to see if I am able to communicate my process and vision. I also want to test if the setup makes the listeners curious, and makes them want to walk around and listen from several perspectives.  I want to test approaches; one where I play with effects and another one without, and then ask which version they prefer and why.
Immediate outcome: In terms of effects or not, almost everybody responded that they liked the acoustic version best, because they felt a stronger presence, transparency and honesty in the sound. The listeners were very curious, and I learnt that they were more interested in interacting with the room than watching me; that I became a sort of medium for their own physical listening experience. In terms of the oral presentation, I was well-prepared, but being so buried in the actual work made it much more difficult than expected. 
Subsequent reflectionsI spent a lot of time thinking about why I was not able to present the project better. I have decided to switch my thoughts and notes to English, maybe that will help?

 

June 2020 – “Stille, stille hjerte” at Vestjysk Fritidscenter:
Status: 
My initial plan was to make several short tests in water during the spring, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic it was difficult to obtain access to an indoor swimming pool. I got permission to access the swimming pool at Vestjysk Fritidscenter for three evenings in late June, and thus needed to prepare thoroughly and be ready for a “one-shot” chance instead of my original plan of doing several tests.
We experienced a lot of technical issues in terms of recording sound and image both below and above water, and, of course, making an object vibrate and resonate below and above water. I bought two galvanized metal plates (3 metres tall, 1.5 metres wide and 3 mm thick) and built a rack on which the plates were placed vertically, with 50% of it above water.
Intention: My primary aim was to test the potentials of amplifying an improvisation in air and water at the same time. I had beforehand written questions like: How will it sound from my perspective? How will it affect my playing? How will the metal walls sound? What kind of sound will the different microphones pick up? What were the overall potentials in terms of creating an artistic output? To answer this, I wanted to document it as a one-shot video, where the viewer would get a point-of-view impression of a trip around the pool. In this way, I would also cover the potentials for making a live concert and an audio-visual work.
Immediate outcomeI did not have any answers before we started the experiment. I was curious. As a concert format, this setup has many potentials: As Simon mentions in the presentation video, the sound under water is “out of this world”. This setup has the potential to wake the listeners’ curiosity towards sound. Since the audience is moving, even between elements, they become co-creators of the experience. Furthermore, if you touch the metal plate while the music is playing, the vibrations pass through your body, which amplifies both tactile and auditory sensations. 
As an improvising musician in this setup, I needed to move my mindset from only reacting to what I heard, to what I thought Andreas and the microphones might pick up. I therefore needed to pay close attention to where Andreas was, how the acoustics were and how the metal walls were reacting to the input.  This changed my way of playing, and it also affected my choices; I would never usually start off an improvisation with playing a known melody like I did here. Usually, it would limit my imagination to do that. But in this case, where I needed to be just as much in contact with “the room” as with myself, it felt and came naturally. Reasons could be that the song gave me a strong sense of direction because there was a melody and tonality. It also gave me an emotional anchor, because I sing this specific song to my boys each night and, while playing I was literally watching what the song is about - the sun going down on the heath.
Even though this project required a lot of work, I approached it as an experiment and not a potential piece of art. I created the project as my own showcase to test potentials, to see how others would react to the idea. To my knowledge, this showcase approach is the biggest mistake I made in this artistic research project. I should have focused more on listening and reacting to what I actually experienced, instead of showcasing different potentials for later reflections. Consequently, my performance feels rushed to me, and that a feeling of resonance is absent.
Post production: My idea was that I could shoot the raw video and make a stereo mix. I spent many hours on this with Simon Mariegaard Wetterstrøm, a music production student from RMC, where we tried to match the camera’s movements with the audio we had captured above and below the water. We had no microphone on the camera, so all movement needed to be simulated. While mixing on some large speakers, we felt a deep rumble (which is what you for example hear around 02:20 in the setup video in this section). We did not hear this while recording and if I knew that it was there, I would have played differently. It almost sounds like a whale singing along, but is a combination of sub-vibrations and resonance, which occur at specific frequencies. While mixing, Simon and I developed a method where we used volume and equalizer to define how close or far we were to a sounding object. This took a long time, and when we were done, I still felt we needed a stronger sense of being present in the room. Meanwhile, I was also mixing my score for a feature film, where I met sound designer Morten Groth. Together with Simon we started to convert the stereo mix to surround sound, and also installed some Foley sounds that imitated the camera moving below or above the surface of the water. This moved the sound from being documentary to being enclosing and sensuous. 
Subsequent reflections: I met with the bishop of Ribe Domkirke, Elof Westergaard, and I was curious to talk to him about tradition. If he sees a religious tradition in my way of expressing myself, because I feel a strong relation to my beliefs while playing. Elof spoke about the trinity, and how we, from thinkers like Grundtvig, can see the trinity as an invitation to artistic creation, and Protestant Christianity as a religion that offers a dynamic and creatively empowering way of life. Later Elof said; "It is similar to what Per Kirkeby (red: Danish painter) used to say: There's a lot of avant-garde in tradition". I think that quote fits your work: Your output seems rooted in music, art and even your religious culture, and at the same time it pushes the boundaries – that is why it also resonates with me.  

December 2020 – Potentials at Copenhagen Contemporary:

Status: The setup now consists of eight drivers placed in all corners of the room, which create a surrounding sound. At this point most technical issues are solved, and I know the acoustics of the room well. I made a channel plan for the recording. (Which you can see by clicking here.)
Intention: The aim is to prepare an exhibition for February 2021, where I will play 28 concerts in 14 days as a final experiment for this project: How will it affect my playing? Will the drivers sound similar all the time?  How will the audience receive it? I am planning to do some listening sessions with volunteers from RMC, but it looks like it will be cancelled due to Covid restrictions.
In terms of the audio-visual work, I want to make a one-shot point-of-view perception of a 30-minute improvisation. This will be the final digital documentation for this exposition, and also serve as promotion for the physical events.  I want to see if I can make a digital output that gives an artistic sensation of the actual experience. Andreas Johnsen will be filming, Simon Mariegaard Wetterstrøm will be recording and Morten Groth will be the sound designer. With this team and setup I can make a 360 degree audio mix of the video, which means that while I improvise I can see what Andreas is filming, and try to make the sound surround him in multiple ways. Will this knowledge and approach make a stronger audio-visual presentation, compared to the one we carried out at the swimming pool?
Immediate outcome: After rehearsing in the room, I kept on hearing Redman reciting “Music — the most elegant of travelers” in my inner ear. Each of the eight drivers sounded different, and even changed response on some tones during a day. This was perhaps due to differences in my playing or because the temperature changed during the day, which in turn affected the tin pipes. There is also a connection to where Andreas stands, as his weight changes the resonance of an object. The room is sonically designed as a clarinet, physically going from enhancing low frequencies in the bottom of the room, and vice versa. The large number of drivers has the effect that the overall volume is louder than my acoustic output. All this implied that the interplay between the room and I was enhanced compared to previous experiments. Before filming, I managed to play two presentations, where architect Lene Tranberg attended the first and Emilie Gregersen, the second, where she responded: "The room invited to movement; I could touch the vibrations from the music in the room.  I felt, that there was a circle of sound around me and around you, which I could interact with - logically this makes no sense, but it is how I experienced it: I changed my listening perspective by moving around the hall in these invisible circles. I didn't think about how it worked technically until afterwards - I was just present and curious." 
Post production: The post production is split between two physical rooms: mixing the video with Andreas and grader Elliot Becheau in one mix cinema, and mixing the video in an audio cinema with Morten Groth. My job is to see the potentials in how I can develop a total mix by combining the two mixing processes in a way that gives the most sensuous experience. Just after we made the first raw version, I gave an online lecture at the Danish School of Performing Arts where I shared my first mix of the video. At that time, the visual side had not become abstract yet. The response was that the sound was engaging and surprisingly rich, but the images felt like a reduction. That, combined with conversations I had with architect Lene Tranberg about how a room can been perceived, made me decide to let the image move between being documentary and abstract. This gave a feeling of something arising, which connects to how it feels to be in the room. It also gave me the option of dividing the music into chapters, which personally reminds me of experiencing a very short Lila, which are ceremonies in Moroccan Gnawa music. Groth and I further developed the method with having a point-of-view feeling, by building an expectation that when you see what is on the screen, you hear sound from the screen. And, when you start to enter a sort of cloud, the sound becomes more enclosing. This latter approach is radical and only works because the image is abstract. The goal is to give the audience a feeling of alternating between being in a room and in an abstract sensuous world - that a world arises/reveals/uncovers.
Subsequent reflections: I am very proud of the physical sounding room and the feedback I got, and therefore also similarly saddened that my solo exhibition was cancelled due to Covid19. Right now, I have high hopes that it will be re-scheduled for 2022. My initial idea and intention was to develop a physical exhibition, which an audio-visual work could promote. I basically wanted to put a disclaimer on the digital works saying; you need to experience this in real life, it is your choice to do it or not. But our reality has changed dramatically, and I therefore needed to adapt to it. In the beginning, I was extremely frustrated and approached RMC about options for postponing the project, until I had a fair chance of disseminating my results. But after reflecting on what I had learned from the interdisciplinary capacities, I got the idea about the black and white clouds, which opened up a new perspective. As Morten Groth said: "This approach is a game changer, I feel like starting all over and hunting the potentials we suddenly have". I am very satisfied with the result, especially when watching it on a surround sound setup - so the disclaimer is still there; you need to experience this in optimal circumstances, in order to fully relate to the intention behind the work.

(Sound from clarinet pick-up microphone) 

ROOMS

 (sound from stereo microphones)