A year after our work on Mitt Jag Heidi invited me over to Skanes Dansteater to compose for a Trio she was going to develop for Jing, Tiemen and Dario. We didn't start start this process with a narrative in mind. Some themes passed the revue but the first spark was inflation and deflation. The breath of the bellows of an accordeon.
Following Heidi's rider I embarked on some research finding the sound she was looking for. I couldn't get my hands on a decent accordeon so I found the next best thing, the melodica. Which produces sound the same way an accordeon does except it doesn't have bellows, air gets pushed into it through a mouthpiece or hose.
Photo: Thomas Zamolo
(2022) Braveheartesque melodica improvisation while learning the instrument
Melodica
As you might be able to tell from the video, the melodica would probably do great in a Braveheart score but not so much for Blushing Gold. It didn't take long for me to realise that melodica's have a very nasal timbre when played regularly, absolutely dreadful. When played really quietly they can be quite expressive but the general sound was a little upsetting to my ears. After a lot of experimentation Tyst was what came out of that rabbit hole. Guess they can sound kind of decent when pitched down an octave.
(2022) Tyst - Pre Rehearsal Demo 1
Further Experimentation
(2022) Fann - Pre Rehearsal Demo 2
(2022) Regn - Pre Rehearsal Demo 3
I decided I was going to diverge a bit from the accordeon timbre and find ways to abstract this drawn out harmonic breathing. The next demo I developed was Fann, for which I used samples of a fan. Smacks, whirling the integrated clock. This approach lead me to the last demo of the package at which point I completely diverted from the original pitch. I was intrigued by the pulse of the previous piece and wanted to make a piano sound like rain. Not sure where that idea came from but it does sound sweet.
Rehearsal Music and Stage Music
So here is something Heidi and I figured out right before we got started with actually making the piece. A composer actually has to work in two major steps:
- Compose music so the choreographer has music to train, improvise and get inspired with.
- Throw out the rehearsal music and write a soundtrack for the actual piece once it's starting to take shape.
After coming to the realisation that the first musical steps are extremely disposable. It does clear the air a bit, it's most likely that 90% of the work made before the dancers step foot in the studio isn't going to survive (talking from experience here). But that doesn't matter, some of the atmospheres or elements will transform and make for a better final product. During rehearsals music is just a tool, it only becomes important once the scenes start slotting together and the dramaturgy is taking shape.
Photo: Thomas Zamolo
Convolutions
Convolutions 1 (Regn V2)
We have all seen double exposure photographs, you know the hip ones where the silhouette of a face is blended in with a tree. That is kind of how convolution in sound also works, you take one signal and blend it with the next. Heidi needed more music and I needed more experimentation so I started playing around with that concept. I convolved a piano with random rattling on my window blinds. I combined it with the Regn demo from a few paragraphs before to give Heidi more to work with.
Return of the Melodica
Convolutions 2 (Tyst V2)
I figured that I could apply the technique I developed in the previous demo to give this melodica concept a bit more nuance. I merged it together with the Fann demo (that one was a bit too abrasive). It does bring some nice distance and texture to the sound that makes it a bit less direct without feeling like it's placed in an extremely reverberant room. This is probably the most nuanced I can get with it without absolutely demolishing the sound to a state where it's barely recognisable.
Photo: Thomas Zamolo
Stops
(2022) Stops Version 1
So after allowing the melodica back into my life I wanted to play with a new concept that was a bit closer to the accordeon. In my studio I have an old Yamaha YC-45D combo organ (you know, one of those cool Terry Riley ones). Just like any organ it has stops, hence the title, each stop opens up a pipe with a different length adding harmonics and octaves. I started playing with sticking little wedges between notes to make the organ drone and using the stops as faders to expand and contract the sound. Turns out this was the sound we were looking for. Heidi hated the melodica however (can't blame her).
Bowed Electric Bass
My sincerest apologies in advance, this demo is a bit sharp on the ears. I wanted to add another layer of texture to the soundtrack by playing a cello bow over an electric bass. The first demo brings together both a new exercise on the stops concept and that technique that I was trying to figure out.
In the meantime I had stripped 'Stops' from it's melodica and it was sounding a bit baren. So I made a version with the bowed bass. I went through multiple iterations and it was the last thing I worked on before I took te train to Malmo to join the team in the studio. The recordings of Bowed and Stops presented here are the final versions, they were different to exist side by side. They didn't end up in the piece however...
(2022) Bowed Experiment
(2022) Stops, final version
(2022) Bowed, final version
Requiem for the Rehearsal Score
(2022) Blushing Gold's first demo score
When I came to Malmo for the first rehearsal it was clearly time to start replacing the rehearsal music with the stage music. Luca and Heidi had sketched with a selection of demos in a specific order the week before but most of it didn't make a lot of sense. It opened with Stops, moved into Convolutions pt2 and ended with Convolutions pt1. If you've been tracking the demo's a bit you can tell that there was a lot of emotional weight put into the piece by the music. Also a concerning lack of drive and rhythm that the piece desperately needed.
There is a saying in art: 'kill your darlings'. At this point I was ready to be a darling serial killer. Heidi and I went back and forth for a bit with some ideas. Teardrop from Massive Attack was pitched amongst other ideas. In the end we left them on the table and I came into the studio the next day with a blank slate.
Found Sounds, Noise and Rebirth
(2022) Reimagined Stops opening from my second rehearsal day
It takes a bit of confidence to replace all the music that was there before in a rehearsal space with the words: 'sorry Heidi I don't have any sound for that part yet'. We weren't doing runs at that point so that did lighten the burden on me a bit. In my flat in Malmo I recorded a bunch of found sounds, coins spinning and paper ripping to add to the collection of sounds I already had. A week before I was on a hike and recorded a little gem; hard, thick leaves trickling down from the trees. It was actually the dynamics of this recording that sparked the inspiration for most of the eventual piece when I pulled it out of the SD card in that apartment.
I re-recorded a version of Stops with a virtual organ using faders on a controller to open and close the stops. I was inspired by the articulation of the choreography and the falling leaves and how they gelled together. It's a bit skittish, insecure but it feels as if what it is going to blurt out eventually is going to be great.
Especially the early demo's had great noise scapes that I transplanted into the new piece along with these waving noise patterns. So everything was coming along quite well, building the score up again brick by brick until we did some runs by the end of the week.
(2022) Field recording at the Spiegelplas (Below) Polaroid shot just after taking the field recording
Darling Carnage pt. 2
After doing a few runs we were struck with a conundrum. Conceptually, everything should work out, it sounded great, great ideas and great discoveries but somehow it didn't feel right. We just knew something was off. After the absolute darling carnage of my first day in the studio we had to start doing it again. Heidi asked me to cut out pretty much everything but the noise tracks for the last run and use that as a starting point.
This worked like a charm, taking out all of the conceptual crap and making space for the choreography. Intuitively I faded in some little elements from all the demo's and works I made before. This was the groundwork of the eventual score.
Photo: Thomas Zamolo
(2022) Blushing Gold Final Score
A Stream of Flow
From this point on there weren't any more forks in the road. Through this very rough sketch the feel and the flow of the piece had a clear outline. I used the video recording I took from that rehearsal as a reference to work over the next few days and weekend. This is the best part about composing, sometimes it just happens in a complete state of flow, I just knew what the piece needed and did I had to do.
All the different techniques I had explored during the process I was now able to apply with enough care and nuance to make them shine at the right times. It's interesting to see that if you are bold enough the darlings you kill eventually reincarnate into something even more darling if you give it time.
Photo: Thomas Zamolo
Happy Accidents
Ever since our work on Odon Hodo Heidi and I have been obsessed with 'happy accidents'. Heidi's choreography isn't set to a pulse, beat or rhythm in the music. The timing is determined by the flow of the dancers. This means that any form of rhythm in the music have to be approached delicately from my side. Putting in a lot of sweeping, abruptly breaking motifs allows ample opportunity for the dancers to hit a different happy accident during every run. Because it happens accidentally it doesn't become a 'bit' it's just an exiting little moment that happens on the music. It gives the performers a sense of them controlling the music instead of the music controlling them.
Tiemen finessing himself a spicy little happy accident followed by a reset. Good job Tiemen!
Shuffling the Deck
In Blushing Gold Heidi took the concept of these happy accidents a step further by allowing the dancers to reset the piece. The three dancers were allowed to call for a do-over during the piece, jumping back and forth in time and repeating at will. This would also mean that different parts of the piece could land on different sections of the soundtrack. In a way entire sections danced to other parts of the music could be happy accidents to those in the know (us and the dancers). This keeps the piece fresh, exciting and new for the dancers every time they hit the stage and I have the firm believe that you can sense that as an audience member. Even though it might seem that things are going as they are supposed to go if you see it for the first time.
Intermission Before the Nerd Stuff
Allright so by now you have probably gotten to the seven minute mark on the soundtrack and are wondering how those last ten minutes of music came to be. Admittedly, as said before the flow was strong on this one so on some parts I don't completely remember but I'm going to try to paint the picture on how it was done.
Booms and Tippy Taps
The 'booms', are always a part of our pieces, they were already present a lot of the original demos. I layered with them with time-corrected paper rips, knocks on loose wood and other folly effects. To keep the movement but avoid having it feel like techno every single boom has a different layering and articulation. Keeping these straight rhythms as organic and unpredictable as possible prevents the audience from feeling like the dancers are supposed to be on-beat while really aren't. The booms serve as a happy accident machine and a pulse to bring more energy into the composition.
One of the studio days I introduced the 'tippy taps' into the mix, originally tapped with my fingers on the desk in my apartment, hence the name. I layered those with the noise of a classic drum machine, the Syncussion SY-1, manually adding different decay articulations and delay timing sweeps. Following the same ethos as I work the booms, ever changing so they don't envelop the dancers but do speed up things. Like a clock ticking in the background instead of a drummer forcing it's rhythm on the space.
Stops V9? and Easter Eggs
When the pulse was set I played the stops weaving it through the rhythms, twists and turns. Kind of like we originally planned with the accordion, pushing and pulling the piece along. I layered this with some patches I made on the Hydrasynth (dork) I brought with me to Malmo and topped it off with some of the bowed bass layers.
Now to the good part, there are some fun nuggets hidden in the composition. The most obvious one is the recording of the dancers that I wanted to get into the soundtrack. Tiemen uses his voice in one of the sections of the piece so I felt like I wanted to have that echo-ed back to him later in the composition. You can also hear Dario and Jing talking about their resets and laughing. I really like putting a bit of the process with the dancers back into the soundtrack.
Also I managed to weave a bit of the Regn/Convolution demo back into this part. Just like I sneaked in some melodica in the opening minutes of the piece. There is also this distant kalimba noise in the beat. This was from a really rough demo that got lost in the process. And last I snuck myself into the composition with a sustained note which sometimes weaves in and out.
Photo: Thomas Zamolo
Round Up
So that's it, that's all, that's Blushing Gold for you! We put a lot of love and effort into this piece it's one of my all time favourites. I hope you enjoyed reading this write up on the process and if you have any questions or inquiries you can contact me here. Thanks for reading and hopefully see you in the theatre again soon!
Choreography:
Heidi Vierthaler
Dancers:
Dario Minoia, Tiemen Stemerding and Jing Yi Wang
Lighting design:
Thomas Zamolo
Music:
Tom van Wee