Playing the Electrophonic Saxophone

Kjetil Traavik Møster

'Playing the Electrophonic Saxophone' explores the expanded role of the instrument and relations made possible by such expansions. In and through artistic practice I research the many processes, tensions, and artistic possibilities that emerge through interplay. How can exploring possibilities and conditions for the acoustic saxophone in interplay with electric and electronic tools and sounds pave the way for new music, new insights, and expand the conception of what the instrument can be? How can playing with electrically and digitally manipulated sound facilitate the instrument’s ability to connect to musicians and artists from other fields of practice? The research’s main artistic outcome is the sum of a series of artistic projects presented in this exposition. The two texts Playing Air and Playing Parasitic constitute the ethical and methodological basis for the research and my practice and transfers to the projects’ two basic elements: roles and their relations. The band Møster! acts as the main project ensemble, and the PhD research is finalized with a public artistic presentation at the Nattjazz Festival, Røkeriet USF, Bergen on June 1st, 2021. 'Playing the Electrophonic Saxophone' utforsker instrumentets utvidete rolle, og relasjoner som en slik utvidelse åpner for. I og gjennom kunstnerisk praksis forsker jeg på de mange prosesser, spenninger, og kunstneriske potensial som vokser frem gjennom samspill. Hvordan kan utforskning av muligheter og premisser for akustisk saksofonspill i samspill med elektriske og elektroniske verktøy og lyder lede til ny musikk, ny innsikt, og utvide forståelsen av hva instrumentet kan være? Hvordan kan det å spille med elektrisk og digitalt manipulert lyd legge til rette for samhandling med musikere og artister fra andre kunstneriske felt, med ulike kunstneriske praksiser? Forskningens kunstneriske resultat er presentert som en samling prosjekter i denne eksposisjonen. De to tekstene 'Playing Air' og 'Playing Parasitic' utgjør det metodologiske og etiske grunnlaget for forskningen og min praksis, og kan leses inn i forskningens to hovedelementer: roller, og deres relasjoner. Bandet Møster! fungerer som hoved-ensemble, og PhD-prosjektet ble avsluttet med en offentlig konsertfremføring på Nattjazz, Røkeriet USF i Bergen, 1. juni 2021.

Audio-visual performance by Kyrre Heldal Karlsen, Lars Vaular, Frode Kvinge Flatland, Jørgen Træen and Kjetil Traavik Møster

Pyramiden (The Pyramid) is the result of a chain of incidents that started when I discovered the many-leveled semantics in Norwegian rapper Lars Vaular's lyrics, which, through various circumstances, led us to collaborate since 2012. Through our collaboration, I also learned that Vaular worked with spoken-word-like writing in addition to his rap lyrics. I thought this side of Lars would be worth exploring further and suggested to Henie Onstad Art Gallery's music programmer Kristoffer Kinden to present this aspect of Vaular's work within a staged performance setting. During a concert tour with Vaular, I introduced the idea to the tour's crew, which included Vaular's light designer Kyrre Heldal Karlsen, Vaular's music producer and live musician Frode Kvinge Flatland, and sound engineer Marty Brown.

Karlsen's light pyramid idea became the performance's center force: A 4 x 4-meter plexiglass pyramid covered with light-diffracting Twinwall polycarbonate sheets, illuminated by sound-responsive led wall elements laying on the ground inside the pyramid.

The music, lyrics, and dramaturgy of the performance were created during the five preproduction days. The instrumentation entailed two modular synth setups, and my instruments ranging from acoustic clarinet and bass clarinet via electrophonic saxophone to an AKAI EWI1 processed through effect pedals. The instrumentation faced me with the challenge and privilege of being the only acoustic instrument in the room except for Lars' voice. This gave me the opportunity at an early stage of the research period to freely explore the interaction with the machinic behaviors and timbres of synthesizers and sequencers. They invited me to a more minimalistic playing style than I often engage in. The synths' incessant repetitions and gradually evolving timbres provided me with a reliable foundation to play on. It allowed for a thematic improvisational style where a slow development of sound and texture could be explored through the use of different instrumentation and processing effects. I could also explore the challenges connected to sonic coherence between the saxophone and the exclusively synthesized sound. I tended towards using the clarinet for acoustic playing due to its more sinusoid waveform blending more naturally with the synths. The fuzzy timbre of the tenor sax was more challenging to navigate within the soundscape. I also perceive the saxophone to have more connotational bonds when it occurs with certain electronic music textures like floating synths pads and arpeggiators, which also made me choose to process the sax sound in an attempt to escape such associations.

Performing within the Studio at Henie Onstad gave me valuable experiences for facilitating immersive concert experiences, both from my and an audience's perspective. The notion of being in the same space as the listeners evokes a sense of shared experience which I also found when we played the release concert for States of Minds with Møster! in the same room two years later. These experiences have informed the choice of setup during the final presentation concert at Nattjazz.

Video recording and editing: André Løyning

Video sound mix: Jørgen Træen

Poster design: Martin Kvamme

Live sound: Marty Brown

Performances: Dec 2-3, 2016

Streamed via Henie Onstad Art Channel May 7-14, 2020.

Supported by Norsk Kulturråd and Henie Onstad Art Center

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