Heiner Metzger04 October 2020
Heiner Metzger
Country: Germany
Title of Piece: 20200408
Medium: CLARINET, COMPOSITION
Duration: 6m 42s
Seven recordings of my clarinet playing on April 8, 2020 are the material of track 20200408. The recordings with a duration of 35 sec. to 4 min 42 sec. Each have characteristic musical parameters such as tempo, articulation, pitch, timbre. I examined these for short track snippets, which should represent the entire recording in the shortest possible duration. The division of the recordings resulted in 400 snippets with a length of 0.2-10 seconds, with the concept that every moment of the recordings occurs. For the compositional placement of the recording snippets, I chose an elliptical surface that was created by randomly distributing the snippets.
CHRISTOPH FUNABASHI, KRIS KULDKEPP, FELIX MAYER, HEINER METZGER
Country: Germany
Title of Piece: DEC52 TRACK 1
Medium: 12 STRING ACOUSTIC GUITAR, FX, DOUBLE BASS TROMBONE, BASS CLARINET, MIX
Duration: 5m 20s
DEC52’ offers a new version for the Earle Brown’s famous graphical score December 1952. The concept is driven by the current situation, of not being able to rehearse properly with the ensemble. Even though the internet offers possibilities to meet, there are always problems with timing, misunderstandings and, freezing. Therefore, DEC52’ tries to deal exactly with these peculiar online particularities. It is 4 musicians, in their homes, with their sounds and their time. The only predetermined agreement is that the piece lasts in total 5min 20s and every player records her/his own version at their home. As there are 30 characters in total in the score, each recording consists of 30 sounds, and 4 people have 4 different interpretations of these 30 signs. Then the 4 versions, that are completely separated — conceptually, visually, musically — were mixed together. As the playing as well as mixing can be relatively different, depending on the player’s perception, the 4 different versions of the same piece are presented here. Even though completely personal at the individual player’s perspective, the project deals with the impersonality that internet and network often represents. Virtual body, without having a physical one, makes also the players to play perhaps more freely or oppositely, more restricted. In following, this situation gets rather strange, as musicians have lost the one thing that really matters in making music together — listening to each other.