Description
Book SynopsisA revealing study of the physical presence of the musician in musical performance. Fingers slipping over guitar strings, the tap of a bow against the body of a cello, a pianist humming along to the music: contemporary composers often work with parasitic, non-conventional sounds such as these. Are they to be perceived as musical elements or do they shift attention to the physical effort of music-making, contact between a body and an instrument? Composer Paul Craenen explores ways in which the musician’s body is revealed in musical performance. He leads us from Cage, Lachenmann, Kagel and their contemporaries to a discussion of how today's generation of young composers is writing a body paradigm into composition itself. Micro-temporal physical gestures and instrumental timbre provide the key to unveiling the physical presence of both a musician and a ‘composing body’. The author's concept of ‘intercorporeality’, along with the idea of an alternating linear and non-linear relationship of the composing body to time, casts new light on the relationship between musicians, composers, and music consumers.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter I: Music from Here and There Metamorphosis of the Sounding Space
Music in the World
The Space surrounding the Music The Space for the Music The Space of the Music
Music from Here and There Eye and Ear Music from Somewhere Points, Lines, Spheres Resonance Discipline Resistance Interruption Concrete Music, Moving Sound Music from There Music from Here Travelling between Here, There, and Somewhere
Chapter II: The Body Resounds The Silent Body Collective Tension Spatial Frustration
The Sounding Body Instrumental Theatre Contact Microphones and EEGs Between the Abstract and the Concrete The Voice Exposed
A Concrete Turn Ideology, Rediscovery, Experiment Audible Processes Sound Art Musique concrèteMusique concrète instrumentale Ambivalences
Chapter III: Composed Instruments A Mediated Relationship The Ecology of Hearing The Dynamics of Resonant Presence
The Instrumental Extension An Invisible Instrument Isolation and Selection Inspiring Effort
Playing Technique and Musicality The Virtuoso Body
Instrumental Thinking
Music-Making as Performance Instrumental Intentions Instrumental Imagination
Instrumental Identity Striking and Bowing Bowing Striking Seeing, Hearing, Feeling Mirroring the Strike, Voicing the Instrument Enacting and Subvocalising Multi-modal Gesture Plucking
The Point and the Line
Sequenza V “Why?” The Trombone as Percussion Percussive Silence Sequenza V, Section B
Composed Instruments Dynamic Identity
Chapter IV: The Composed Body The Composer's Perspective An Impossible Object Access to the Body
Compositional Strategies Revealing Enlarging Synchronising Demonstrating Conceptualising Projecting Infecting Interacting
Linearity versus Nonlinearity Patchworks From Composition to Design
The Composing Body The Writing Body The Signature of the Composing Body The Body's Touch The “Now” of Timbre
The Body as a Strategic Zero Point—Beyond the Body The Body as a Filter The Body as Memory Kinaesthetic Explorations Beyond the Body
Refences Index About the author
