I just learned this afternoon that there’s a spot on the last concert for one of my recent pieces to be performed, a trio for piccolo trumpet, violin and contrabass. Except, that particular concert doesn’t actually have a string contrabass but it does have a contrabass clarinet. So I’m in the process now of transcribing and revising the piece for new instruments, which I think is what I wanted to do all along. In anticipation, I thought I’d share what came up when I googled “contrabass clarinet.”
I’m going to go out on a limb with this one: long before the moonman, Phill Niblock arguably had the market cornered on the music video intermedia. And by this I don’t mean the concert footage, or the shot of the band jamming in the garage, but the thing that really makes MTV what it is, which is the nonsequiteur visual combined with general, or abstract sounds. The music coming over the speakers now bears no relation to the video behind Niblock’s head, except maybe it does. Beau Sievers, one of the students at Ostrava Days, asks if maybe there’s a connection between the two media. “No,” says Phill; “I’m not convinced,” says Beau, “I think the theme is work.”
This is choreography. The motion is silent, and the sound is its companion, but not necessary its analog in another medium. And in the same sense, the beauty of the motion is in the work, in the hard labor that is required but hidden. The constant circular breathing into some reed or brass instrument, and the incredible muscle control required to sustain a constant pitch of 197 Hz, ideal for the cloud of tones created: this is a dancer on one leg, arched over uncomfortably, so that grace required strength more than anything.
A clip from the Darmstadt Essential Repertoire Festival from 2009, performed at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn.
Except it’s not quite that either. Because the interest in Niblock’s music comes from the failures, from the imperfections in the drone. In fact, the most beautiful moments are moments of erring. The cellist shifts a finger just a bit, or a wind player takes a breath and doesn’t quite hit the pitch again instantly. These create the form of the piece.
Finally, a recent video shot in an Osaka fish market: “There was one man with an axe, chopping a huge tuna, chopping bones away from the flesh. It was amazing, like a sculptor working.”
Just about to leave the Prague main station for Ostrava (“To end up in Ostrava would be my worst nightmare,” to quote a taxi driver Petr once had) and Ostrava Days has already started. I’m in the first class lounge, and dripping in sweat as I think one of my carry-ons weighed around 80 lbs. (The checked bag made it under the 50-lb limit by three.) Almost dropped that one on an old lady’s head, but then thought I would kindly ask her to move aside for a moment.
