weimerhead

David’s latest workshop instalment included pieces by Jack Vees, Ingram Marshall, Michael Gordon and most intriguingly, himself. To commence he played ‘Surf Music II’ by Vees, which vividly reminded me of last week’s piece. As such, the instrumentation of the works are somewhat analogous, both containing the bowed electric guitars, in Vees’s case, a single electric bass. The piece primarily explored a juxtaposition of very low and high frequencies. The deep bowed notes of the bass created a sort bedding to listen to, allowing overtones to infrequently bounce in and out. In some ways this reminded me of a point made by Mark in Foundation of Music History, how the ‘tenor’ voice in early times derived its name from the Latin word tenor which meant “to hold” (referring to the way the lower voice persistently held notes for longer lengths). Despite the fact that Vees, or any other modernistic composer, would deny any parallel between their music and anything pre-1950 (let alone 10^th century), I think it’s suffice to say that the human ear prefers held lower frequencies as the held bedding with higher frequencies sprinkled more lightly over the top, or at least it has been embedded into us thanks to this stylistic choice of 9^th century+ musicians. One thing I’ve particularly enjoyed in these ambient works David has presented us with, is the great lengths the pieces go for, establishing dispositions that sound alike throughout the work (repeating similar samples over and over), yet nothing about the works are rhythmatically repetitive. So in one light, the pieces sound similar throughout, however nothing in particular really ever repeats. This is, I think, what allows minimalist composers to establish such unique, colourful sound environments, which personally are exciting toys for the imagination. I like.

Not unlike with Surf Music II, which he quoted as inspiration, ‘piano piece’, the first composition David shared with the class was another investigation of harmonics created by low notes. From where I sat, a metre from the lid of the grand piano, the rapid low notes of David’s song created a wealth of different overtone situations. During this performance I was able to really intensely tune into hearing the web of harmonics created by rapid low notes, and was very excited by this. I have both David’s compositional purpose and the quality sound generated by that particular grand piano to thank for that. I didn’t get into his other pieces as much, especially the work for two violins. Personally, I find the sound produced by violins a little aggravating. This combined with a composition which explores notes and intervals outstanding from the conventional 12-semitone scale ultimately created a sound which was just too irritating for me to get into. Nevertheless, my respect for both his taste in music and unique style of composition seem to escalate every Thursday.

Bibliography

Harris, David. "Music Technology Workshop." Workshop presented in the EMU (Schulz Level 5), University of Adelaide, 16 March (2006).

Carrol, Mark. "Foundations of Music History - Lecture." Lecture presented in Hughes Lecture Theatre, University of Adelaide, 17 March (2006).