Working out a few new things for Empty Cage Quartet‘s three-day residency at Montalvo Arts Center this week. This will be the first of the third-generation Gravity compositions, utilizing only non-transposing gravity points (the longer pitch sets in the square boxes). These sets indicate two distinct intervallic relationships both above and below the central pitch ‘B’. The pitch and rhythmic material are all based on permutations of the numbers 11-11-11.

This piece is essentially a “tuning element” that will set up a harmonic space to be explored in the next few compositions.

The Transpersonal Suite is a series of compositions that I have been working on for several years. I have performed them with a number of different ensembles, but they have acquired a particular focus in recent performances by Tin/Bag, my longstanding duo with New York guitarist Mike Baggetta. During the more than five years I have been performing with Tin/Bag we have developed a musical rapport that has enabled the ongoing creation and performance of these very special compositions. The inspiration for these works may lie in the world of books and ideas, but the music itself is the product of years of exploration and dedication to the project of uncovering a very personal, intuitive, and compelling musical language for creative improvisation.

In these single-page compositions the compositional objective is to compress as much potential recombinatorial value into as few notes as possible, creating a melodic contour which can function as a theme in the traditional sense but can also be expanded systemically by the improvising performer. The individual pitch and rhythmic elements may be divided, reorganized, repeated, rerouted (via jumping repeat zones), reversed, condensed, aggregated to create distinct chords or harmonic centers, and/or otherwise elaborated upon. The outer simplicity of the composition is such that each performer may immediately and effectively grasp the basic materials, though the internal compositional logics will ultimately yield an array of possible connections.

Each of these compositions has been named in honor of a writer, philosopher, or spiritual thinker whose work has motivated the kind of intuitive and integrated processes that inform and enrich my aesthetic world: Sri Aurobindo, Abraham Maslow, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Osho, and Lama Anagarika Govinda. Within each composition I have embedded certain distinctive systemic relationships that embody some dimension of the philosophical world view of each writer.

The Transpersonal Suite (consisting of the first five compositions in this series) was recorded by Tin/Bag in New York City in January of 2010 with the support of a Subito grant from the American Composers Forum. That recording is scheduled to be released in late 2010.

The first composition from this series to be completed was “Aurobindo”. This composition was recorded by the Empty Cage Quartet in July, 2006 and released in 2007 on the CD Stratostrophic (Clean Feed Records CF103) – that recording is embedded below. It consists of flugelhorn, alto saxophone, and contrabass working from the written melodic material, with electronically processed percussion improvising on the rhythmic relationships:

Aurobindo by kristiner

“Maslow” is the next composition in the series. Embedded below is a video recording from a live performance by Tin/Bag in Boston during the Fall of 2007. The audio quality is not ideal, but it should provide an adequate representation of how these compositions work:

This performance begins with solo trumpet playing the theme, at first unadorned, then gradually expanding and improvising upon some of the repeated areas before the guitar enters with a chordal accompaniment based on pitch aggregations derived from the various melodic fragments. Both instruments then engage in a bit of free melodic counterpoint alternating with sustained tones and guitar harmonics. This opens up into a more improvisational middle section, which eventually settles back into the melodic material of the third and fourth staves. Trumpet then drops out as solo guitar meditates for a moment on the theme. When the trumpet re-enters, the pace slows dramatically, and we end by focusing on the last six written notes of the theme (G-Ab-F-G-G-F).

In this particular case the only decision that was agreed upon beforehand was that we would begin with a trumpet solo. Every other performance decision is made in the moment, with regard to the flow of the music and the information that is contained within the piece.

In 2009 I received a Subito Quick Advancement Grant from the Los Angeles/SF Bay Area chapters of the American Composers Forum to fund the recording of the full Transpersonal Suite with Tin/Bag at Systems Two studios in Brooklyn. I wrote about that session and the brief Northeast tour that preceded it in this post. Here is the audio from the master recording of “Maslow”, recorded on January 16, 2010:

Maslow by kristiner

Following are the remaining three compositions in the series in their order of completion: “Inayat Khan”, “Osho”, and “Govinda”. I would be happy to discuss these in the comments section below if anyone would like any further information.

Click on a thumbnail image to view the larger version:

This is the first of the second-generation Gravity compositions which will utilize non-transposing gravity points (the longer pitch sets in the square boxes). The emphasis here is on symmetry, hence the repetition of 4s and 3s (major and minor thirds). These intervals yield a non-transposing set that duplicates the octave at 12, returning to A in order to re-route back into the piece.

The ascending version of this set (A-C-C#-E-F-G#-A) is basically the “Bitches Brew” scale transposed to A; the descending version incorporates the same intervals going in the opposite direction (A-F#-F-D-C#-Bb-A).

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

Ele(jg)y was written on April 25, 2008 as a memorial to the great clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer  Jimmy Giuffre, who died the previous day. It is based on a single, dirge-like descending melody which is broken apart into 11 additive fragments: A, AB, ABC, ABCD, ABCDE etc. When played by multiple instruments, the effect is of a unison pitch that is continuously falling apart and being returned to.

Ele(jg)y was premiered on April 26, 2008 by myself along with Vinny Golia (clarinet) and Nathan Hubbard (percussion) at the Lira Concert Series at Los Angeles Harbor College Recital Hall:

The composition was also recorded in June, 2008 by the Empty Cage Quartet with guests Aurelien Besnard (clarinet) and Patrice Soletti (guitar) in Montpellier, France. That recording will be released in November, 2009 on the Rude Awakening Présente label.

Tin/Bag Quartet performs in New York City, January, 2007

Recourse to Unison was written in February, 2006 and later recorded by the Tin/Bag Quartet (Kris Tiner-trumpet, Mike Baggetta-guitar, Brian Walsh-clarinet, Harris Eisenstadt-percussion) in Los Angeles, CA. Premiere performances took place in Los Angeles in July, 2006, and in New York City in January, 2007. It was released on the CD And Begin Again (Evander Music Em 044) in April, 2007.

The composition utilizes an open-clef expandable staff which may be played by any number of unspecified instruments; the recorded version was arranged specifically for trumpet/clarinet/guitar/percussion.

Download PDF: Recourse to Unison (score + composition notes)

Excerpt – Recourse to Unison (opening)

Recourse to Unison by kristiner

Kikuchi's percussion/electronics setup for the Stratostrophic session

Don’t Hesitate to Change Your Mind was written for the Empty Cage Quartet in 2006. It was premiered and recorded in Los Angeles in July, 2006 and released in 2007 on the CD Stratostrophic (Clean Feed Records CF103) – that recording is embedded below. A three-part video from the premiere performance at Cafe Metropol in Los Angeles is posted on YouTube: part 1, part 2, part 3.

Originally the composition was designed to feature the acoustic quartet plus two overdubbed tracks of electronics: one to process the percussion and another for the horns. Once the music began in the studio, however, it became clear that drummer Paul Kikuchi’s immensely gorgeous sound palette of drums, gongs, metal bowls, and amplified hand-made percussion instruments with applied electronic effects (ring modulator, delay, etc) were enough to supply all of the “extra” sound that was needed to make the composition work. There are at least two channels (panned L-R) of Paul’s electronics in the final mix (in addition to his acoustic percussion); in some parts a third channel of electronics (panned center) was added to create a more dense sonic field.

The parts for the acoustic instruments are based on several permutations of phrases inspired (rather indirectly) by Woody Guthrie songs. Periodic thematic sections for the full ensemble give way to several instances of structured improvisation for different instrumental configurations within the quartet.

Download PDF: Don’t Hesitate to Change Your Mind (score + composition notes)

Excerpt – Don’t Hesitate to Change Your Mind

Don’t Hesitate to Change Your Mind by kristiner