THE LABYRINTH
How can one use their experience as a musician to engage in interpretations that stem not from previously heard recordings but from who one happens to be? The answer might seem obvious, but when you think about it it is quite difficult to separate what one really wants to do with the voices from one’s past telling one to sound like someone else. Most of my schooling was about sounding like my teacher or a previously experienced recording, as if these were the only ways of being a violinist. Since I play new music, I look at scores in a more collaborative way than I did when I played the so-called classical repertoire. What would happen if I took the same attitude towards historical pieces of music?
The Labyrinth is a project stemming from a desire to create a performance and a recording that stems from my own experience more than what I was told to do growing up. It is based on Locatelli’s 23rd Caprice, The Harmonic Labyrinth, and consists of a group of measures that repeat randomly and are never the same version twice. The way I went about this, and the why, is described in an article in the artistic research journal RUUKKU. You can find that here.
There are two versions of this project that depend on apps created in Supercollider by the estimable Fredrik Olofsson. When I perform live, an app showing a filmed version of the score is shown for the audience. This is also my score, and new versions of each measure are generated randomly in real time, so that neither I nor the audience know how many times I am going to repeat a measure until it shows up.
The other version is a web app that contains a recording that plays a randomized amount of measures each time, from 1 to 143 times per measure, and different reverb effects can be chosen by the listener to create an experience that fits what the listener is looking for at that moment.
You can choose your own version here. Just click and play.
I have no idea if this is new music, old music, my music or Locatelli’s. Or perhaps none of those questions should matter.