Tuesday 3 February 2015

A lesson learned from none standard notation.

Whenever I get a piece of new music there is always the initial "shock" of notation. Over the years I have become less phased by it but there is always a period where you have to sit down and really look over the part and digest what is going on. What are the techniques, what are the effects/affects, where are the internal consistencies, etc. At the same time there is this instant focus to what is the architecture of the piece, or my part with in the score (which I want to get ASAP, to see how I interact). With the score we are looking at pitch relationships (microtonal etc, should that be unison?) am I emulating other instrumental effects (remember that internal consistency I just mentioned) for example am I trying to create the illusion of over-pressured bowing on the horn, or should it sound different. With new music these are decisions we have to make really quick since if we don't we will never get past step one of the process.

This leads me back to my post title, a lesson learned. Is this kind of process something I undertake when I receive any other more "conventional" or "idiomatic" piece. Should I? Should I do it more? All of those are questions I am reevaluating, I have my process when I get a new work, get a score, get the part, etc. But maybe I have been missing an opportunity to dig deeper into it,

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