Eliazer Kramer — ACTOR Seminar Final Report
Eliazer Kramer
April 6, 2020
ACTOR Seminar Final Report
Participating in the CORE project has been an enlightening experience that has expanded my understanding of orchestration and directed my attention to the subtleties of timbre. Working closely with the musicians, listening to the rehearsals, and studying the scores of the other composers introduced me to a plethora of extended techniques that opened a world of possibilities for future compositions.
I am fortunate to have participated in both the weekly meetings at McGill and the monthly ones at the University of Montreal (UdeM). I found that the regularity of the McGill sessions allowed and encouraged more exploration, while the gaps between the UdeM meetings impelled me to establish structure through continuity in my output. I used the first two meetings at UdeM to develop and review the exploration that I had begun at McGill and the last two to review and experiment with sections from my piece. Because so many of the concepts we explored at McGill were new to me and linked to my work with the CORE ensemble, I did not feel able to continue the piece that I had outlined in the first semester: I needed more opportunities to experiment with the EROC ensemble because the concepts were so foreign to me. This is not a criticism of the seminar’s structure but an explanation of the discrepancy between the composition I proposed and the one I produced. Having experienced both formats, I would say that this project lends itself better to weekly, albeit shorter, meetings: it encourages growth within the group and makes it easier for the participants to build on what was covered at the previous meetings.
The piece I had initially intended to write was to have been structured on different textures and ideas I associated with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. While this never came to fruition, that I even conceived of it is evidence of an evolution in my way of thinking. Before this seminar, I had not considered the possibility of structuring a piece on texture and timbre, but after the presentation by Caroline Traube and the one on aural sonology, I felt as if a new realm of possibilities had been opened to me. Simply thinking of orchestration in terms of grainy or dystonic soundscapes and reflecting on how they could apply to the symbolism of the horsemen was a large step forward for me. The piece that I did write, E-Rock, incorporates other new concepts that I had expressed interest in at the beginning of the project.
E-Rock explores klezmer-inspired music while complexifying it and imitating different instruments and musical styles. I saw the potential for klezmer-inspired music because of the ensemble’s composition: violin and clarinet are staples of klezmer music, while trombone and percussion would be easy to integrate into that setting. In the introduction phase of the seminar, I had proposed that imitating the different instruments of the ensemble could create a sense of homogeneity in this heterogeneous setting and this is exactly what I set out to do. An example of this can be seen between the violin and bass clarinet in m. 33-37 of E-Rock (Figure 1). While imitative passages such as this are not new to my compositions, the added attention to timbre (poco slap in the bass clarinet to better match the sound of the violin) is a result of participating in this project.
Figure 1 (imitation between the violin and the bass clarinet)
A more elaborate example of my focus on timbre can be found in the bass clarinet in the jazz section that begins at m. 179 (Figure 2). In this section, the bass clarinet takes on the added role of the percussion by beatboxing ts and k consonants and by playing sustained notes with a loose embouchure, allowing some air noise to pass through to imitate the hi-hat.
Figure 2 (the bass clarinet at m. 179)
I discovered this technique through a YouTube video that I came across while researching different techniques for the bass clarinet. I managed to contact the creator of the video (Figure 3) to gain further insight into this technique so that I could communicate it to Charlotte Layec, the clarinetist in the EROC ensemble. This was one of many instances in which I used the instruments to produce sounds whose conception lies in their timbre rather than their familiarity to me: a step forward in my artistic development that is a direct result of this project.
I gained much from individual meetings that I organized with the members of the EROC ensemble; they helped deepen my knowledge of each instrument and helped me tailor certain passages to the performers. While it is no surprise that collaborating with musicians on a composition promotes a composer’s growth, I believe that doing so within this project proved to be particularly beneficial because of our shared goals of investigating timbre and solving orchestrated-related problems.
Though experimenting with my composition was certainly beneficial, hearing the performers’ presentations/feedback and following the other composers’ progress have been the richest experiences of this project. The presentation given by the musicians of the CORE ensemble in the first semester of the course was extremely helpful in that it demonstrated ways of using the ensemble as a single instrument. Indeed, gestures such as the one in m. 249 of E-Rock (Figure 4) were influenced by this. Moreover, the vibraphone’s part was created in the final meeting of the problem-solving phase with the EROC ensemble by asking the percussionist to improvise something to match the gesture of the other three instruments. This is another example of the shared goals of this project allowing for more growth and discovery than ordinary collaborations would.
Figure 4 (a musical gesture inspired by the CORE performers’ presentation)
Having access to the recordings and scores from the McGill sessions in the second semester of the course introduced me to a wide variety of extended techniques. While most of these did not find their way into my piece, reviewing the other composers’ scores left me with a better understanding of the capacity of each instrument and a greater appreciation for the timbral possibilities of the ensemble. In retrospect, I think it would have been valuable for the composers to have been given assignments during the exploration phase to see how each one approaches the same orchestrated-related problem. This would have allowed us to learn from each other outside of the confines of our pieces and would likely have generated feedback from the performers and have stimulated discussions on orchestrated-related problems. In the future, it might be helpful for the composers and performers to present excerpts from contemporary music (possibly compositions by the participants) related to the analysis categories outlined by Stephen McAdams in his presentation, “Perceptual Grouping Processes in Orchestration.” This could help the participants solidify their understanding of these concepts and encourage further reflection on them during the later phases of the project.
This project has induced more change in me than any other collaboration I have taken part in. I found myself ill at ease (I still am) with much of what was introduced to us and I was concerned, during most of the project, that I would be unable to produce a composition. Although I settled for a composition using a musical language I am comfortable with, much of what I considered and many of the musical gestures I wrote stem from a deeper awareness of timbre and its relation to orchestration. This awareness, rather than specific concepts that I have learned, is the most valuable thing I take from ACTOR seminar: it has caused me to reflect in more substantial ways and has already influenced my work outside this project.
Bibliography
1) Logi Dee. “BEATBOX BASS CLARINET :)” YouTube video, 3:17. December 12, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAfQdi66-II&t=99s