The Garden of Forking Paths: material-indeterminacy driving open-form composition for clarinets

在2018年的一次关于实践研究的演讲中，作曲家Liza Lim开玩笑地问道：当我演奏大提琴时，我怎么知道它不是在演奏我？她指的是越来越多的研究(来自音乐、哲学、心理学等)。围绕音乐生态，以及乐器如何像一个假肢(贝特森1972)，通过身体和世界延伸“演奏”心灵(小1998)。林的声明转述了1580年米歇尔·德·蒙田(Michel De Montaigne)的话，他问道，当我和我的猫玩耍时，我怎么知道它不是在玩我？关键是用一把惰性的、没有生命的大提琴取代了活着的猫，在这里，大提琴被提升到“活的”状态，作为一种思维实验。对我来说，这很有趣，不是因为大提琴可能真的有思想，而是因为对这个问题的追问：大提琴在世界上的中介是什么？允许各种有趣和创造性的创作可能性。例如，“大提琴想要发出什么声音？”可以通过尽可能以最中性的方式演奏它来回答，只需将能量放入带弓的大提琴中观察会发出什么声音。尝试不同的方式为大提琴注入能量，很快就会揭示出它的喜好。通过限制人类音乐品味的强加于大提琴，大提琴自己的音乐出现了。下一步是问乐器如何“演奏”演奏者？我的项目继续这个问题，从根本上扩展到问我如何才能在乐器引导演奏者的地方作曲，最终允许乐器定义音乐在演奏中如何展开。与基本稳定的大提琴不同，这个项目专注于单簧管，这是一种天生不稳定的乐器，通过多年的训练，演奏者学会了控制。当我们研究单簧管“想要”发出什么声音时，我们发现了一系列令人眼花缭乱的噪音--声音和“多音”音色；其中，不是一个音符，而是多个同时相互竞争的音符，所有这些都相互干扰，在微妙的平衡中创造了一个复杂而模糊的声音世界。这些声音本身现在在新音乐和实验音乐中无处不在，作曲家们以不同的方式使用它们，从不加批判的“音效”到对声音的仔细和细微的操纵。然而，尽管人们熟悉不稳定和非标准的声音，但占主导地位的范式是控制，在这种模式中，作曲家定义声音，表演者每次都努力准确地产生它。我的项目走的是另一条路，问如果我们用“支持”取代控制，会打开什么样的组合可能性？作曲家的角色不是定义特定的声音，而是创造一个系统，在这个系统中，演奏者总是对乐器的偏好做出反应，允许它引导她通过复杂的声音迷宫。在这里，演奏者的主要作用是给乐器注入能量，让偶发和不稳定的声音占据主导地位，使用他们的技术来支持复杂声音的微妙平衡，并让乐器发挥主导作用。例如，这可以通过指导玩家专注于在任何给定的声音中提出两个相互竞争的音高中较小的一个来实现：就像洞穴探险者探索复杂的洞穴系统一样，避免走最常走过的道路可能会导致一个圆圈，或者它可能开辟出全新的未探索区域。该项目的目标是寻找和传播组合策略，将无限的可能性限制为有意义的--和新颖的--形式，而不损害该工具的机构和物质重要性。通过与专业单簧管演奏家、声学家和平面设计师的密切合作。我将为一支和两支单簧管谱写多首曲子，概述各种策略和符号。所有这一切都被严格和持续地在线记录下来，以最大限度地提高公众参与度。

In a 2018 talk on Practice Research, composer Liza Lim asked playfully 'when I play the cello, how do I know it's not playing me?' She refers to the growing body of research (from music, philosophy, psychology etc.) around the ecology of music, and how an instrument is like a prosthetic limb (Bateson 1972) that extends the "musicking" mind (Small 1998) through the body and into the world. Lim's statement paraphrases Michel de Montaigne asking in 1580 "how do I know when I play with my cat that it's not playing with me?", crucially replacing the living cat with an inert and lifeless cello, here elevated to "living" status as a thought-experiment. For me, this is interesting not because cellos might actually have minds, but because following-through on the question "what is the cello's agency in the world?" allows all sorts of interesting and creative possibilities for composition. For example, "what sound does the cello "want" to make?" can be answered by playing it in the most neutral way possible, simply putting energy into the cello with the bow to observe what sound comes out. Trying different ways of energising the cello soon reveals its preferences. By limiting the imposition of human musical taste on it, the cello's own music emerges. The next step is to ask how can the instrument "play" the player?My project follows-through on that question, radically extending it to ask how can I compose music where the instrument leads the player, ultimately allowing the instrument to define how the music unfolds in performance. Unlike the largely stable cello, this project focusses on the clarinet, an inherently unstable instrument which, through years of training, a player learns to control. When we examine what sounds the clarinet "wants" to make, we find a bewildering array of noise-sounds and "multiphonic" timbres; where instead of one note, there are multiple simultaneously competing notes, all interfering to create a complex and ambiguous soundworld in delicate balance. These kinds of sounds in themselves are now ubiquitous in new-music and experimental music, with composers using them in different ways across a continuum from uncritical "sound effects" through to a careful and nuanced manipulation of the sounds. However, for all this familiarity with unstable and non-standard sounds, the dominant paradigm is that of control, wherein the composer defines a sound and the performer strives to produce it accurately every time. My project takes the other path to ask what compositional possibilities are opened-up if we replace control with "support"? If rather than defining specific sounds, the composer's role is to create a system where the player is always responding to the preferences of the instrument, allowing it lead her through the labyrinth of its sonic complexities. The primary role of the player here is energising the instrument and allowing the contingent and unstable sounds to dominate, using their technical skills to support the delicate balance of complex sounds and allowing the instrument to lead. For example, this can be achieved by directing the player to focus on bringing out the lesser of two competing pitches in any given sound: like a spelunker exploring a complex cave system, avoiding the path most travelled may lead one in a circle or it may open up whole new unexplored areas. The project's objective is to find and disseminate compositional strategies that constrain the infinite possibilities into meaningful-and novel-forms without damping the agency and physical materiality of the instrument. Through working closely with specialist clarinettists, an acoustician, and graphic designer. I will compose multiple pieces for one and two clarinets that outline a variety of strategies and notations. All of which is documented rigorously and continuously online to maximise public engagement.