WIP: Nostalgia Instrumentation

I've been thinking this week about the instrumentation for this work on nostalgia. When the idea first presented itself to me I'd thought of writing for a string ensemble. Probably as I was working on a string quartet at the time. I'm still attracted to the idea of using traditional strings, but I wonder if an ensemble consisting of more iconic instruments from the various musical movements from which I'll be drawing my source material.

I also wonder if, should I choose to use the guitar in the ensemble, if I should consider myself as the person to perform in the ensemble. The composer as member of the performing ensemble is pretty well established at this point in Western concert music, but I question whether or not I would be able to bring sufficient energy as a performer, conductor and composer. Much less art director, promoter, publicist, etc....

Right now, I'm mulling over the use of a live percussionist verses someone using a sampler or laptop (laptopist, samplist, ??). I love the modern drum kit, but I don't want the work to be perceived as pop or rock music. It will certainly have elements of both, but I'm not interested in contributing to the garbage heap of either genre, and certainly not interested in more "arty" forms of either. That perception may be unavoidable if there's a drum kit and a guitar.

I watched this interview with John Zorn last night. I've always found his focus on working in a community to be interesting. At one point he talks about a piece he'd written that wound up being orchestrated and performed in numerous ways before he found what he considered the proper instrumental combination. I wonder if I shouldn't just start writing and wait to see who actually wants to participate in the work. This could prove an interesting approach.

WIP: Work update

This is just a quick entry, mostly for my benefit, to keep my momentum going. Starting this blog has certainly helped me focus my ideas for this work. I gave myself a goal of writing here at least once a week. It's amazing how a simple task like that reap such great rewards.

So on to the work... I think that the ideas about performing in geographically diverse areas is one that should be put on the back burner. If this idea comes to fruition and my interest doesn't wane, I may revisit the idea. I also think that using visuals may prove to be more distracting from the intent of the piece, as my focus is on exploring and (hopefully) eliciting nostalgic responses through music. However, I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea of using sampling and other technologies.

I was speaking with a friend about this project and he brought up an interesting potential for the piece. He thinks that this has the potential to prove, in some ways, how separate we all are from each other. We were talking about how unique the American culture of the past fifty years has been. For the first time, perhaps, we have people from completely different generations, locations and cultures that have consumed the same art and entertainment. My example being the fact that my parents' generation grew up with the Beatles and their music often elicits strong nostalgic responses. And just as that music was a soundtrack for their lives, so it has been for the succeeding generations. So, it's possible that members of both generations could have nostalgic responses to the same music. Now, this was possible before, but not to the same degree.

Audio and visual recording technologies have made this possible. Now a musical piece is no longer confined to the span of its initial performance and those witnesses. However, what I find truly interesting is that subsequent generations can experience the same events almost as if they were happening now. For instance, my mother saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. So did I, in reruns and documentaries. To my mother, the Beatles were a group of young men from England that played rock 'n' roll music. And they were to me as well. When I was a child, without the benefit of television and film, rock 'n' roll would have been my parents music and the music being created by my peers would necessarily be labeled something else (and quite possibly sounded completely different). I wouldn't want anything to do with rock 'n' roll as that would be 'old people' music. So, in some ways, my relationship to the Beatles is much the same as my mothers.

I find this interesting, also, in light of the essay on music as 'Time Travel' which I wrote about previously.

P.S. - My mother didn't really like the Beatles, so our relationships to the Beatles are fundamentally different. But I think you get the point.

WIP: Nostalgia Ideas, part deux

Why
have we had to invent Eden, to live submerged in the nostalgia of a
lost paradise, to make up utopias, propose a future for ourselves? -Julio Cortazar

Location

• Performance in a public space. Musicians could be stationed at specific locations or, if able, could be in motion. Their route could be personally chosen, plotted or determined by a set of rules (e.g. turn 90-degrees to your left when a dog crosses your path). This could also be done in a private space, but a certain amount of randomness is lost in a controlled environment.
• Work is divided into N parts. Each part is performed in a different location. This could be adapted to small spaces (e.g. the hallway, the bathroom, the stage) or to almost any larger scale, although in different cities/states/countries could prove extremely difficult to stage (or experience in totality by any one person).
• Video or stills projection of locations with great cultural importance (e.g. Berlin Wall, Ground Zero, Kent State, Perl Harbor, etc.) could be either viewed on a screen on stage or in various locations in the performance space.
• Use of amplification and signal processing could be used to affect the perception of location (e.g. reverb to create a sense of distance, monitors located about the performance space).
  

Experience and Identity Narrative

• Setting could recreate a "common" event for which people are nostalgic (e.g. Thanksgiving dinner, a birthday party).
• Audience participation: a set of cues could be devised from common actions (e.g. someone coughs, turns to their left, etc.).
• Audience members could be queried for songs that evoke nostalgia. Performers could then improvise renditions or play in the styles of.
• A game of "Memory" could be devised as part of the piece a la Zorn's game pieces