The concept for the piece, besides mimesis and the toughest ear-training exercise I have ever completed, was to use repetition of the one-minute tape and a buildup of instrumental clarity over time. Trainbegins with solely the field recording, and then introduces the instruments with a subtle transcription during the second loop, and by the end, the instruments take over the music of the train. With each iteration, the transcription becomes more clear and rhythmic to transition from a blended sound with the tape to ensemble sound that stands on its own. It is an attempt to “shine a flashlight” on specific sounds I heard by using the instruments to direct the listener's ear through mimesis. This process takes time and repetition: the listener must first grasp the field recording's complex layers and events to then be able to hear sonic relationships between the ensemble and tape. In the same manner, the performing musicians are challenged to listen closely and match the sounds of the train.
Chapter 3
Train
In September 2014 I travelled by train from Germany, where the paternal family lives, to The Hague, Netherlands on a high-speed Deutsche Bahn ICE train. I was excited to begin my studies at the Royal Conservatoire with the support of a Fulbright grant, and had bought myself a new H4N Zoom recorder to collect the sounds of this new place. Trains have often been integrated into music, be they Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrète tape music or the chugging rhythm of a country song, and that day I heard the train's long melodies, harmonies, and chaotic rhythms, which prompted me to pull out my audio recorder. I quickly posted a segment online. Months passed, and I continued to add to my collection of field recordings, posting one- to three-minute segments on my “Audio Postkaart” Soundcloud page. Far from family and friends, I wanted to share the sounds of feasting seagulls and public transit beeps, snippets of soundscapes and objects: my audio postcards.
Part of my goal for the Fulbright study was to combine instruments and electronics, and to find a way to bring my passions for electroacoustic and concert music closer together. In December I remembered a conversation, a lesson, I had with Joanna Bailie at Darmstadt that past summer about transcribing the sounds and gestures of my electro-acoustic music for instruments to discover a new instrumental music vocabulary. Still obsessed with that first audio postcard from the ICE train, I decided to notate the field recording's melody, rhythmic layers, and other sounds. I must have listened to that one-minute excerpt hundreds of times, each time discovering more intricacies. The next step was to figure out how to translate and orchestrate it for an ensemble of seven players. This was the beginning of Train.
The ensemble consists of flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, cello, electric guitar, and percussion. The transcription breaks the audio down into three layers: 1) a static high layer played by the flute, oboe and violin 2) a rhythmic layer of percussion and electric guitar 3) the inside layer of harmony and countermelodies played by the clarinet and cello. These layers are numbered from most prominent to least. Certain sounds and events are clear in the foreground, and others only appear the more you listen to the audio. The structure of the piece thus reflects the effect of repeated listening. The sonic result has a challenging and somewhat hypnotic effect, with repeated harmonies creating an unexpected drone. Many audience members stated they wanted the piece to continue on. In response, I created a longer version, “Train II,” using additional repetitions to induce a more gradual process than the original 4-minute piece. In August 2015 I completed the expanded version of twelve minutes.
The field recording functioned as my sound source for the instrumental music through transcription. To create the sounds required to emulate the train I had to do some research of extended techniques and apply them in different ways to transition from noise sounds to clear music in three minutes. In the first Train, each minute/cycle after the introductory field recording alone is labeled A, B, and C. In the first layer, the flute uses air tone with very little pitch in Rehearsal A, adds in more pitch and tremolo at Rehearsal B, and full tone in Rehearsal C, with even more rhythmic oscillations of pitches present. The oboe oboe enters quietly during Rehearsal A with alternate-fingered A5 to join the flute and violin, high-lighting certain rhythms. Subsequent tone-color changes oscillating between normal A5 and alternate-fingered-A provide the rhythmic pulsations heard in the consistent, high, A5 layer. The violin also focuses on this top layer beginning with sul ponticello harmonics, and tremolo at Rehearsal B, and in closing normale octaves and thirds. In this layer, oscillating effects and slides are important. In the second layer, the percussion covers some of the main rhythmic moments that have percussive sounds. The instrumentation is basic, with snare drum, woodblocks, and cymbal. The electric guitar accentuates the loudest clattering moments using muting and pop/slap/pizzicato effects for a percussive sound. In the third layer, the clarinet and cello form the inside layer that is most difficult to hear. It is basically an oscillating, sometimes rhythmic, minor third. The cello employs tremolo and sul ponticello, and the clarinet fluttertongue to mimic the noisiness of the train.The conductor has an in-ear click track of 60 beats per minute.
Part of the challenge and delight of transcription was to discover sounds in the refined orchestral instruments that could emulate the noise of the train. The tape provided a clear sound image that I then attempted to achieve in the notation. The fact that I used the tape and transcription simultaneously also made clear the desired sound and the piece more accessible to players who may not have been accustomed to extended techniques or soundscapes.
Along with the transcription, working with this one-minute field recording allowed me to experiment with the structure of a passacaglia. The tape loop provided the ground upon which I layered the transcriptions. The first structure for Train was four loops with each transcription becoming more clear. Train II's structure divided twelve loops into two main phases (4+4) where layers are introduced one by one, plus the third phase which was the first version of train.
Train II Structure (Total duration 12 minutes, in three main phases)
0'-1' A - [Field recording only]
1'-2' B - High sustained sounds introduced
2'-3' C - Rhythmic layer introduced
3'-4' D - Middle voice introduced
4'-5' E - [Field recording only]
5'-6' F - High sustained sounds developed
6'-7' G - Rhythmic layer developed
7'-8' H - Middle layer developed
8'-9' I - [Field recording only]
9'-10' J - All layers, less direct
10'-11' J - All layers, more clear (original section of Train(Jan. 2015)
11'-12' K - Full transcription
The structure of Train II worked and was very clear to the listeners, but I found that the introduction of the materials was in the end too gradual. Listeners could grasp the concept quickly, and removing instruments after they had been introduced seemed to work against the buildup of the piece. Thus I am in the process of creating a third version, slightly shorter, that introduces and sustains the layers in a more concise way.
While reading Wishart's “On Sonic Art”, I reflected on his thoughts about “lattice-based” music, limited to main parameters of pitch and duration. It appears that since I come from the Western tradition of music, I first looked for exactly these notatable elements in the noisy field recording of the train: melodies, rhythms, and timbres matched by orchestral instruments. These are elements considered very important in classical notated music. So in a way, I picked out the traditional 'music' out of the complex recording. Some of the noise qualities I did try to imitate, especially with the air tone of the flute, but one could claim that I took a “lattice-based” approach to the transcription. Wishart argues that there are so many details of music that are left out/to the performer in standard notation, so I am curious how much I left out that I could not or chose not to notate. What events or musical elements did I fail to notate? Since I provide the audio for the players to perform with I believe some gaps are filled by the musicians who learn the source sound and can imitate details not in the score. (ex. The tuning of the melody, which is not exactly 440 Hz. The oboist of the premiere in particular stressed matching the tuning with the predominant pitches in the tape.)
A recent paper by as James O’Callaghan, “Mediated Mimesis: Transcription as Processing” (2012), discusses computer-assisted transcription that he has used in his compositions, as well as that of other composers. Programs such as SPEAR or Open Music enable composers to analyze the spectral content of recordings, data that can be used to notate music for musicians. I personally did not use such software since I was transcribing elements by ear at the time. I did look at the spectrogram of the field recording I had transcribed and found that the amount of information gleaned from these programs can be staggering, especially if the recording is particularly noisy or complex. One would need to develop a method to filter and translate (with several programs) this highly-detailed information.
