Gravity No. 1
Empty Cage Quartet records in Brooklyn, NY, September, 2008
Gravity No. 1 is an 11-part open-instrumentation composition that was written in 2007. It was the subject of a presentation at the 2nd Annual Conference of the International Society for Improvised Music at Northwestern University in December, 2007, and funded in part by a Subito quick advancement grant from the American Composers Forum.
The composition was recorded in New York City by the Empty Cage Quartet in September, 2008. That recording (which is excerpted below) will be featured on an upcoming CD on Clean Feed Records.
Gravity No. 1 is the first in a series of compositions that examine my concept of gravity points. This system provides a method of selecting pitch and harmonic material via a conception of symmetrical intervallic relationships in which prescribed intervals above a given frequency are duplicated as a “mirror image” below that frequency. The notation is borrowed in part from musical set theory, where semitones away from a central pitch ‘0’ are numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. to 11 (the major seventh interval) and then the series starts over again.
In this composition the written material is designed to establish a systemic structure from which emergent zones of expanded group interaction become possible as new connections are discovered during an improvised performance (improvisation here having to do with the selection of material from the score as well as personal extemporization). The goal is to learn to channel temporary states of spontaneous musical activity into solidified sound-structures that are either derived from the composition or arrived at via the improvisation. As each new performance builds upon the last, these structures can be analyzed, catalogued and mapped, and the development of an ensemble consciousness can be measured against the decreasing degree of dependence upon the written material.
Download PDF: Gravity No. 1 (score + composition notes)
Excerpt – Gravity No. 1: Section 4
Gravity No. 1: Section 4 by kristiner
2 Responses to “Gravity No. 1”
[...] record two new extended works – the Tzolkien series by Jason Mears and my own first series of Gravity compositions. That recording is out now on Lisbon-based Clean Feed Records. Here is the official [...]
[...] Gravity is divided into two suites, “Gravity” and “Tzolkien,” and the quartet switches back and forth between the two, performing a section or sections of “Gravity” on one track, then a section or sections of “Tzolkien” on the next, and on and on. Honestly, without looking at the CD (Clean Feed’s releases come in really nice little cardboard folders) it’s difficult to tell which piece they’re digging into at any given time. Each has propulsive, swinging sections, and each has drawn-out, Art Ensemble of Chicago-ish, you-make-a-noise-and-then-I’ll-make-one sections. So there’s no lurching back and forth between styles, just 55 minutes or so of highly communicative improvisation. There’s a system at work—according to the liner notes, it has something to do with the Mayan calendar, or “harmonic palindromes”—but that won’t matter to the casual listener. Only the beauty of the music, which seems Chicago-esque to me, counts. (If you really want to read more, click here.) [...]