HEADSET SEXTET
Joshua Fried
About this work: a concert piece for six
headphone-driven vocalists and taped accompaniment.
The movements include:
1. "8/9 Canon" Two performers deliver a strident speech (political oratory?) in a double canon after the style of Conlon Nancarrow. The two voices and two music tracks proceed at different tempos in a ratio of 8:9, catching up with each other such that all four parts end in emphatic unison. In addition, the accompaniment (based on isorhythmic arpeggiated 9th chords) decelerates dramatically over the course of the piece. Calm returns in a wistful coda.
2. "1st Cumbia" Cumbia is a dance rhythm popular in Colombia and Mexico. Here performers (unwittingly) execute phase patterns la Steve Reich, to a Cumbia beat.
3. "2 Transformations" First transformation: a heated dialogue, perhaps about free will, that gradually accelerates. Second transformation: a passacaglia or set of variations of increasing density, in which a spoken passage is gradually warped by digital processing of the headphone part. The accompaniment to the whole movement is based on the speech rhythms and pitches of the second transformation.
4. "Simple Canon" Identical vocal parts enter at staggered intervals. Rage gives way to giddiness without warning, and everyone stops with perfect timingbut they dont know it.
5. "2nd Cumbia" An original song, and finally no phase patterns or canons. A concluding blast puts the performers in a state of suspended animation.
6. "Kaleidoscope: Deep space or fiery re-entry" The performers seem to bid a fond farewell over a pulsing tonic in 8 against 9.
Performances: La MaMa Theater, New York; Lincoln Center--Walter Reade Theater, with The Bang On A Can All-Stars (two movements only); Israel Festival, Jerusalem--Gerard Behar Theatre, with The Bang On A Can All-Stars (two movements only); Paradiso, Amsterdam, with The Bang On A Can All-Stars (two movements only); Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA.
Read a review.
Version: 1995-2001
Year composed: 2001
Duration: 00:30:00
Ensemble type: Chorus, with or without Solo Voices:Chorus with One Non-Keyboard Instrument
Instrumentation: ,6 Narrator soloist(s), ,1 Prerecorded Sound (Tape/CD/Other) soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: In HEADPHONE-DRIVEN PERFORMANCE performers try to imitate vocal sounds that are played over headphones. The performers have never heard these sounds before, and yet they are asked to reproduce the input as it happens--with every word, pitch and expression accurate and
no lag time whatever. This last requirement makes the task quite impossible and the result resembles a strange, dramatic and mostly indecipherable new language--even though the source material is, for the most part, plain English. Here and there an intelligible word or phrase emerges. In some sections, simple movement directives are added, electronic signal tones cueing the performers to listen for instructions. To preserve the necessary element of surprise, each performer can execute a given role only once, or, alternatively, the headphone input must be different from night to night. Mock-up tapes are used for auditions, training and rehearsal.
Headphone-driven performance is not an improvisation. The compositions are highly structured; and yet there is not--and cannot be--a written score. Most of the input material is speech, not song, and much of it is highly dramatic. This work is characterized by highly organized interplay between performers and musical accompaniment. The accompaniment and all of the headphone parts come from a single 8-channel digital tape.