Same Steps
Same Steps
solo clarinet & any combination of violin, cello, electric guitar, accordion & optional auxiliary instruments
Commissioned by the TRANSIT Festival in Leuven (Belgium)
and Ensemble Plus Minus.
Performances:
• Plus Minus: Vicky Wright (solo clarinet), Alex Waterman (cello), Tom Pauwels (electric guitar), Mark Knoop (accordion), Matthew Shlomowitz (auxiliary instruments)
- 27th October 2007, Stuk. Leuven. Belgium
About Same Steps:
I am attracted to heterophony. The same story recounted by many voices, the same scene observed through many eyes. I like plurality in music. Internal plurality: the clash of different logics, of different life-stories unexpectedly interacting and external plurality: the work itself an object open to a multiplicity of viable perspectives. As such, Same Steps is one of a number of my recent works in the tradition of ‘open-form’ music.
There are two facets of ‘openness’ that pervade Same Steps. In Part 1, rather than provide the musicians with a score that represents specific technical instructions to execute a singular sonic image, the score includes a selection of unconventional interpretive markings designed to elicit a more open and evaluative response from the performer. I have adopted a system of “physical” indicators modelled on Rudolph Laban’s Theory of effort-actions. In Laban’s theory there are eight physical movement types, each based on combinatorial descriptions of space, weight, and time. Although usually found in choreographic practice, the musicians interpret the markings to describe the transference of physical energy from the performer to his or her instrument.
The second part of the work is modular in nature and represents a different logic applied to the same materials. The focal clarinet part is merged with an accompaniment built by the performers in rehearsal. Different subsets of violin, cello, electric guitar and accordion play out a repetitive scene sometimes in concert and sometimes in opposition to the clarinet.
Access Same Steps
An audio excerpt and the score of this work may be available to download on the Music page
