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Νotes:
-Written between March and May 2010 in Thessaloniki.
-Percussion sets:
Percussion 1: Bongos or congas, hi-hat, wooden/plastic/metal objects. Percussion 2: Sleight bell, tambourine, crash cymbal. Percusion 3+4: Wooden idiophones and objects.
Text:
Tόσα χρόνια τριγυρνώ στο μυαλό σας,
σαν τη μόνιμη απουσία σας απο παντού,
σαν την ευκολία της τάξης απέναντι στο χάος.
Και ήμουν εκει στη σχιζοφρενική σας πραγματικότητα.
Bαρέθηκα ομως να γελάω με την πάρτη σας και το πόσο σοβαρά πήρατε τις ασήμαντες ζωές σας.
‘Eτσι κρύφτηκα μέσα στη φυλακή υψίστης ασφαλείας του μυαλού σας και αυτοπυρπολήθηκα 100 φορές μέχρι να μυρίσει άνοιξη ακόμα και στα πιο θολά μπουντρούμια της ζωής σας.
-Οδυσσέας Γκάλλιος
Performers and equipment
- One performer which can improvise inside and outside the piano.
- One performer which can improvise with the recorder (any kind or even flute)
- Two percussionists (1st and 2nd) at an intermediate level which will improvise in percussion sets.
- Two performers (not necessary percussionists) that can improvise with percussion instruments.
- For tape: Cd playback system with two loudspeakers on the left and right side of the scene.
Arrangement on the scene
- Every performer must play some actions, which are described separately for each performer. When the performers understand them, they improvise their microstructural content.
- The synchronization between the performers becomes effort with stopwatches. The beginning and the end of each action is decided before and it is analog with lines’ length in the full score.
- The concrete dynamics must be unchangeable, without any crescendo or decrescendo. The Dynamic range (for example p-mf) can change freely.
Piano
Action 1:
Play single notes on the keys. Occasionally play also some short clusters.
The time distance between the notes (or clusters) is at least 3 seconds. Every note doesn’t stop before the next sound.
Keep pressed the mute pedal as you play the action and try to remove as more as possible the notes’ attacks.
Avoid the very high and very low registers.
Dynamic: pp.
Perform the action calmly.
Action 2:
Take a guitar pick. Choose a string from the middle piano’s register (triple string) and start to ‘’investigate’’ it persistently and nervously. If, due to the intense movement, one other close string will be hit, this is acceptable. The hand with the pick plays continually, while the other mutes frequently the string in multiple spots (not always both the three strings, some of them can remain open). It will be produced the sound of open strings, percussive sounds, random harmonics etc.
Use freely the sustain pedal.
Dynamic range: pp-mp.
Persistence and nervous sense.
Action 3:
Play clusters on the keys (also analyzed clusters - middle registers are preferred), clusters on the strings inside the piano (with palms, arpez or rubbing with the fingernails – the register with the double strings is preferred) and percussive sounds in the body of the piano (hits with or without mallets, sound of the pedals, etc).
Change between the below continuously with a theoretical tempo = 80, while accelerations and decelerations can also happen temporarily.
The sustain pedal can be used freely to differentiate the durations and to create asymmetric rhythmical shapes from the cutting of the sound mass, that the material creates.
Sometimes you can import a version of the material that seems like you are ‘’searching’’ or ‘’testing’’ the sound of the piano.
Dynamic range: pp-mp.
This action must happen calmly and unforced. For this reason pre-categorize your movements.
Recorder (any type or even flute)
The performer stands near to the piano.
Action 1:
Play long tones without attack. Can be single notes or multiphonics, and also can be occasionally combined with the voice (singing and playing). Include microtones.
The duration of each tenoute is at least 5’’.
Dynamic: pp (you are always lower from the rest ensemble)
Perform the action calmly.
Action 2:
Make a tremolo with both hands to the single strings inside the piano.
Dynamic: p
Perform the action calmly.
Action 3:
Improvise melodic phrases. Every phrase is independent from the other and there is not any kind of direction in them.
Between the phrases can exist short rests or long tones.
Don’t follow the others’ movement, have your own rout that coexist in the same place with the others.
Dynamic range: pp-p (you are always lower from the rest ensemble).
Intense mobility with a calm sense.
Action 4:
Use the other timbre possibilities of the instrument except of the clear tones. Investigate the different versions of the air in the instrument. Use also the timbres of voice inside the recorder.
The mobility varies from sparse until intense apposition of the above material. The changes in the mobility can happen suddenly or gradually.
Dynamic: free.
The sense varies.
Action 5:
Play freely, combining the above situations and adding new by yourself.
Percussion
1st percussionist
Set: Bongos, 1 Hi-hat, at least 2 metal objects, at least 3 wooden or plastic objects.
Instructions: All the percussions are well-muted, so there is not any vibration. They are placed in a way that the performer can hit simultaneously until 4 instruments. All the percussions are played with mallets, hold two hard (plastic) and to medium mallets.
Action 1:
Interact with the percussionists 3 and 4 by playing simple sounds with middle-high density, or fast figures.
You can hit more than one instrument simultaneously.
Dynamic: pp.
The sense varies.
Action 2:
Differentiate rhythmically from the action 1 by playing isochrony in a middle velocity.
Insist more time on each sound by repeating it.
Action 3:
Create a perforated moody environment by hitting the percussions continuously with a random order.
Don’t differentiate the articulation between the sounds.
The hits are isochrones while accelerations or decelerations can occasionally exist.
You can hit until 4 percussions together.
Dynamic: pp.
Agitated but controlled sense.
Action 4:
Play simple sounds.
Every sound lasts at least 3 seconds from the next one.
Perform the action calmly.
2nd Percussionist
Set: Sleigh bell, Tambourine, suspended crash cymbal.
Instructions: Apply a thin chain along the crash cymbal. You will need a soft pair of mallets for the crash cymbal.
Action 1:
Take the tambourine and improvise free but austere rhythmic patterns.
Effortlessly, with a middle velocity of ideas’ alternation.
Dynamic range: pp-mp.
Perform the action calmly.
Action 2:
Use the tambourine, the cymbal and the sleigh bell.
Make tremolos with each of them, continuously or with small interruptions. Make alternations between the three instruments freely.
Use the mallets for the cymbal and try to remove the attack as much as possible.
The tremolo must be absolute constant in dynamic and the sound must not have ‘’edges’’.
More than one instrument can be used simultaneously.
Dynamic range: ppp-p.
Perform the action calmly.
Action 3:
Make tremolo on the crash cymbal.
Use the mallets for the cymbal and try to remove the attack as much as possible.
The tremolo must be absolute constant in dynamic and the sound must not have ‘’edges’’.
Dynamic: p.
Perform the action calmly but with full concentration.
3rd and 4th Percussionists
Set: Any kind of wooden idiophones (for example castanets, wooden spoons, woodblocks, templeblocks, slapsticks, guiros, waldteufel, homemade percussions etc.) and some mallets-accessories.
Action 1:
Interact among you by playing simple sounds, alternating the density that it is generally high.
The sounds are single, or short phrases of maximum speed, or short and perforated (in the instruments like guiri or waldteufel etc).
Change freely the instruments and wherever is possible, use more than one simultaneously.
Dynamic range: ppp-p.
Intense mobility.
Action 2:
Play simple sounds.
Every sound lasts at least 3 seconds from the next one.
Use different accessories or mallets for variable timbres.
Dynamic: pp.
Perform the action calmly
