Elliott Sharp: Spring & Neap - RE:ITERATIONS

Elliott Sharp: Spring & Neap - RE:ITERATIONS

Spring & Naples

In 1996 I went on a tour of Japan with Orchestra Carbon; a highlight was the Music Merge Festival in Tokyo. A colorful selection of wonderful musicians from the international scene met there for three days at the Shinjuku Pit Inn: Michiyo Yagi, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Jim O'Rourke, Yumiko Tanaka, David Grubbs and others. In addition to performing with Orchestra Carbon and my solo Tectonics, I was allowed to develop a new algorithmic template for a small orchestra of festival soloists under my direction.

I chose a curve that describes the course of the tides in Tokyo Bay over 24 hours. Based on this, I formulated rules for melody, dynamics and density. The curve is a frame of reference for both personal expression and the suspense of the whole piece, and it influences the improvised solos arranged along the timeline. In the ensemble, we combined traditional Japanese instruments with western ones, completely dispensing with electrical and electronic means, and we mixed traditional and modern playing techniques.

RE:ITERATIONS

I was delighted when, in January 1986, Paul Dunkel (Associate Conductor of the American Composers' Orchestra) asked me if I would like to compose a commissioned piece for his orchestra - because at the time I was thinking about how to use Fibonacci sequences in my work a string orchestra could transmit, and in particular how I could orchestrate ideas that I had developed on the guitar.

As I was completing Re:Iterations, another encounter came to my aid: David Soldier had founded the Soldier String Quartet and asked me to write a piece for his debut concert at New York's Miller Theater - thus Tessalation Row was born. In both pieces I derive moods, rhythms and other formal elements from the Fibonacci sequence.

All tones are played on open strings (they are tuned in the ratios 1:1, 3:2, 5:3, 8:5), or as overtones of these open strings. The score works with graphic modules; These provide information about the actions that are to be carried out and provide exact specifications for rhythm, cues and pitches. At times the players can vary the overtone melodies and colors of a section, but not in the form of free improvisation, but by observing the notated parameters. I was very interested in the question of “identity” – I wanted there to be a lot of personal scope for sound flow and spectral detail in each performance, without destroying the character and exact proportions of the piece.

Re:Iterations was originally intended to be a concert of sorts, with drummers Bobby Previte and Charles Noyes as soloists (and myself on double-neck bass guitar). We played from a graphic score to be synchronized with the orchestra. It had only one performance, in June 1986 at New York's Merkin Hall, and it highlighted both the play's potential and its problems. The main problem with the orchestral version of Re:Iterations may have been the lack of amplification.

I would actually have liked lapel microphones or pickups for all string instruments to break down the inner subtleties of the sound. But the orchestra's willingness to cooperate was limited; The musicians had little joy in a piece for which they had to tune their instruments differently and learn to read the score, and certainly not in working with amplifiers and playing together with an electric guitarist and two drummers! They came on stage with big white fluffy earplugs; and after the generous applause had died down, one of the first violinists was heard saying, "Why didn't he just ask us to stomp on our violins?" (a tempting idea in the unlikely event that I ever get another commission should receive from the ACO).

Unfortunately I have to admit: the dense sound and noise impulses of the drums and electric guitar (it was in pure tuning) had obscured the delicate "phantom instruments" suggested by the resonating combination tones of the strings. Our ability to produce transparent sound was incredibly limited; This resulted in a version in performance that was far less intuitive than I had imagined.

In the studio I had more control over the result and was able to achieve what I wanted. First, the Soldier String Quartet (Laura Seaton, David Soldier, Ron Lawrence, Mary Wooten) recorded Tessalation Row on 24-track tape. We recorded two versions and the second had the fire and precision I wanted. The quartet used stereo clip-on microphones and additional piezoelectric pickups; connected to each was a distortion (Ibanez Tube-Screamer) with pedal. This gave us some nice overdrive effects with overtones.

We repeated the whole thing as a quintet, with the double bass player Ratzo B. Harris - in this line-up, two more versions were played over the quartet version, one after the other, so that in total one hears a fictitious chamber orchestra of 14 players. During the stereo mix, the distortion boxes were run parallel to the microphones. A slight reverb effect - by pickups plus surround sound - gives the impression of an even larger ensemble.

At the end the two drummers and I played our parts along; but then I felt like we were still drowning out too many of the desired sounds in the studio - so I decided to release Re:Iterations in the strings only version. Tessalation Row was released in 1986 by SST Records and can currently be heard on a (available) Tzadik CD with my string quartets 1986-1996. Re:Iterations was also included on the 1986 SST CD (discontinued in 1992).

(Translation: Michael Herrschel)