Orchestrating timbre - unfolding  processes of timbre and memory in improvisational piano performance

Magda Mayas

The doctoral research investigates the orchestration of timbre from a performer’s perspective. Through the dissertation, I explore orchestration as means to “unfold” improvisational processes. The foundation of the work lies in my practice as a pianist in the realm of improvised music, in which I often use preparations and objects as extensions of the instrument. Whilst timbre is often understood as a purely sonic perceptual phenomenon, this view of timbre does not accord with its use within con- temporary site-specific improvisational practice. This research grew out of the need to explore the potentiality of timbre, and to renew and situate it within my own practice. Through the research, I argue that a range of aspects that exceed the purely sonic—for instance, changing spatial circumstances, the affordances and agency of instruments and objects, and the performer’s movements and gestures— all impact upon a performance and the listening experience. All of these aspects need to be taken into account in understanding and working with timbre. In this dissertation, I introduce and argue for an extended and situated understanding of timbre in relation to material, space, and body that recognizes timbre’s complexity and embraces its potential to contribute to an ethical engagement with the contextual environment. I understand these material, spatial, and embodied relations to be non-hierarchical, inseparable, and in constant flux, and to require continuously re-configuration without being reduced or simplified. This timbral approach, which navigates multiple media beyond the sonic, radiates throughout my research. From a performer’s perspective, I define “orchestrating” timbre as the attentive re-organization of these active agents and the creation of musical structures on micro and macro levels through the sculpting and transitioning of timbre— spatially, temporally, physically, and mentally—within a variety of com- positional frameworks. Understanding timbre in this way requires that we recognize the multiple and complex roles that memory plays in contemporary improvisational practice. I therefore introduce the term timbral memory in order to describe how I use memory strategically as means to gain knowledge about improvisational processes undertaken in line with an extended understanding of timbre. In the course of the research, I conducted four investigative projects that were integrated into my practice, which were further extended through collaborations with sound engineers, an instrument builder, and a choreographer. The resulting practice-based research explores multiple, combined, artistic, and analytical approaches to timbre: I use systematic mappings to detail vocabulary and technique, explore amplification and recording in the creation of spatial compositions, em- ploy a custom-built device for live spatialization as a means to expand and deepen spatiotimbral relationships, adopt gestural approaches in composing timbre choreographies, and articulate a range of diverse perspectives through dialogues and interviews with other practitioners. Taken together, these diverse studies constitute an exploration of both timbral memory as a structural, reflective, and performative tool, and the creation of performing and listening modes as integrated parts of timbre orchestration. The thesis opposes the notion of generalizable, reproducible, and transferable techniques and instead offers detailed and intimate approaches to technique and material, describing object timbre, action timbre, and gesture timbre as active agents in sound-producing processes. Orchestrating timbre forms a hybrid compositional approach, which can be applied to various improvisational contexts and which, by engaging with dynamic relationships, reconfigures them; in this, it offers a way of understanding and using the potentials that instrument-body-space interactions afford. By reaching beyond the sonic, my research makes a contribution to the field of critical improvisation studies. It addresses practitioners and audiences in music and sound art alike, attempting to constitute a bridge from artistic research in music—which is often viewed and treated as a self-contained discipline—into multiple artistic fields, in order to inspire discussions, creation and education in broader audiences.

Back

Legend

Below is a legend that describes the 50 sound names and their abbreviations that were used in “Performative Timbre” and represented in the perceptual timbre maps. The videos in the Introduction also show how these sounds are produced.

Bl Stone ball rolling sideways on strings

BlKy Chord cluster played on keys with balls

resonating on hitch pins

EbBl Ebow placed on string with balls resonating on

hitch pins

Ch Scraping along bass string with chopstick

Ch2 Striking chopstick in between two strings in fast motion producing a tremolo

Fk Fork stuck in between strings vibrating high register

Fk2 Fork stuck in between strings vibrating low register

Fk3 Fork stuck in between strings and same string

plucked with fingers

FkBlKy Fork stuck in between strings; trill played on

respective keys with one hand while sliding stone ball

along same strings with other hand

Ha Bass string stopped with one hand harmonic plucked with

other hand

Ha2 String mid register stopped with one hand harmonic plucked

with other hand

Ha3 Strumming strings mid register

Ha4 Plucking strings at hitch pins with hand

HaKy Tapping and bending bass string with one hand

and pressing respective key with other hand

HaRn Longitudonal bowing along single bass string with

rosined fingers

HaRn2 Longitudonal bowing along multiple bass strings

with rosined fingers

Mg Column magnet sliding along metal frame

Mg2 Striking the metal frame with a column magnet

Mg3 Column magnet vibrating on string

Mg4 Striking metal frame with round magnet

Mg5 Round magnet tapping and releasing string

Mg6 Round magnet thrown on strings

Mg7 Throwing cube magnet on string

MgKy Column magnet placed on string and played with

respective key

MgKy2 Multiple round magnets placed on string and

played with respective key

MgKy3 Round magnet placed on string and

played with respective key mid register

MgKy4 Round magnet placed on string and played with respective key high register

MgKy5 Round magnet placed on string and played with respective key low-mid

MgKy6 Round magnet placed on string and played with respective key high register

no pedal

MgKy7 Rubber coated magnet placed on string and played with respective key low-

mid register

MgKy8 Small cube magnet placed on string and played with the respective key

MgBwBl Holding and moving magnetic bowl with metal balls rolling inside it

MtBl Striking Bass strings with mallet with balls resonating on hitch pins

Ny Bowing bass string with nylon tied to string

Ny2 Nylon bowing several strings mid register

Ny3 Nylon bowing several strings mid register with high harmonics

Sk Multiple thick bamboo skewers stuck between strings bowed with hand

Sk2 Multiple thin bamboo skewers stuck between strings bowed with hand

Sk3 Single thick bamboo skewer stuck between strings bowed with hand

Sk4 Single thin bamboo skewer stuck between strings bowed with hand

Sk5 Single thin bamboo skewer stuck between strings bowed with hand and bent

Sk6 Multiple thin bamboo skewers stuck between strings vibrating and striking each

other

SkBl Skewer stuck between strings, bowed with one hand and rolling stone ball

sideways over same string with other hand

SkBl2 Single thin bamboo skewer stuck between strings bowed with hand with

balls resonating on hitch pins

SkKy Single thin bamboo skewer stuck between strings played on respective

key

SkSBw Single thin bamboo skewer stuck between strings bowed with hand

and small metal bowl resonating on same string

SkMt Single thick bamboo skewer stuck between strings struck with mallet

Sl Bowing across bass strings with plate out of slate

Sl2 Bowing across bass strings with plate out of slate no pedal

W Whisk scraped along hitch pins

F. Perceptual Timbre Maps

The “Performative Timbre” study articulated an understanding of timbre as it relates to material, gesture, and playing method, through an extensive listening exercise and the comparison of 50 selected sounds.

The four sets of data that were generated in the study in response to the guiding questions were visualized into graphical represenatations, in collaboration with Palle Dahlstedt, employing a multi-dimensional scaling method (MDS)—a common statistical tool that is widely used to visualize the level of similarities in a data set—in order to produce four perceptual timbre maps. The graphs exclusively use distance values—the closer the sounds and their names are in the spatial graph, the more similar I perceived them to be; the further apart they appear, the less similar they were perceived to be.

Taken together, the perceptual timbre maps describe objects, gesture, and action in relation to timbre

and to each other, visualizing the complex interdependencies of the active agents present in timbre orchestration. The maps constitute snapshots of my subjective perception and listening, and they show the way that I understood timbre relationships at a given time. They can also be viewed as a score to be performed, or as the record of a performed listening.

For a detailed reflection, work process and analysis of the maps refer to chapter 5 of the thesis.

50 Sounds

I named the 50 sounds according to the objects that were used to produce them. I further labeled them according to playing methods or actions, represented in different colors, with a color legend displayed on the side of each map. Sometimes, a sound is produced with one single object; at times, there are up to three different objects used to produce and describe one sound. In total, there were 15 different objects utilized in the study and the following abbreviations are used to describe them:

Fk Fork

Bl Ball

Mg Magnet

Sk Skewer

Ha Hand

Ny Nylon

Ch Chopstick

W Whisk

Eb Ebow

Ky Keys

MgBw Magnetic Bowl

SBw Small Bowl

Mt Mallet

Rn Rosin

Sl Slate

“Hand” is used when the sound was produced with no additional ob- ject but my hand(s). “Keys” is used whenever keys were used additionally to other objects.

The descriptions of playing methods are not universal definitions of playing methods, but terms I chose to describe the actions which produced the 50 inside piano sounds used in this study.

Sounds produced using two playing methods simultaneously are rep- resented with the two respective colors—e.g., a purple dot (tapping/ releasing) with a smaller yellow dot (bowing) inside it. Here, the main playing method is represented by the bigger dot and the secondary playing method through the smaller dot, although the borders be- tween main and secondary methods often blur.

Media Example F1

The Object Timbre Map shows the perceived (dis)similarity of sounds in terms of the objects that were used to produce them. Sounds that were produced using the same object are represented as being closer to one another in space. Sounds were also differentiated between in terms of the way in which the objects were used, which also affected the distance between sounds. The color labels the sounds according to playing methods.

Object Timbre Map

How similar are the sounds to each other, in terms of the objects used to produce them?

******click on each dot to stop and start sound file*****

Action Timbre Map

How similar are the sounds to each other, in terms of the playing methods used to produce them?

******click on each dot to stop and start sound file*****

Media Example F2

The Action Timbre Map shows the perceived (dis)similarity of sounds in terms of the playing method used to produce them. The clusters of sounds are quite consistent with the colors, as both represent the different playing methods. Sounds produced by means of multiple playing methods (represented with two colors) are further away from these groupings.

Media Example F3

The Gesture Timbre Map shows the perceived (dis)similarity of sounds in terms of the physical gestures used to produce them. The sounds are highly scattered, pointing to a vast variety of largely independent gestures. Few groupings can be observed regarding playing methods (striking and plucking), which are represented in the color allocated to each sound.

Gesture Timbre Map

How similar are the sounds to each other, in terms of the physical gestures used to produce them?

******click on each dot to stop and start sound file*****

Sonic Timbre Map

How similar are the sounds to each other, in terms of their timbre?

******click on each dot to stop and start sound file*****

Media Example F4

The Sonic Timbre Map shows the perceived (dis)similarity of sounds in terms their timbre. The sounds appear quite scattered and are only partly grouped according to playing methods or objects, often combining different techniques

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