Between the Song and the Silence: Banff Iteration - Graphic Score
it's like a conversation between people - sometimes you speak slowly, other times more quickly, and you may even step onto another person's sentence ...
Between the Song and the Silence : Graphic Score installation views
Photos Rita Taylor, the Banff Centre
Photos Rita Taylor, the Banff Centre
Between the Song and the Silence
Instructions for play…
The dynamic graphic score consists of 23 small paintings which can be configured to suggest conversation – a structured improvisational piece for musicians.
Each small painting has rare-earth magnets on the back. They are to be attached to a wall or panel with a smooth, flat surface (dimensions variable) painted with white magnetic paint. This allows for them to be easily rearranged.
Prior to performance, the panels are to be arranged into a conversation. Different flocks have different hierarchies, which can influence how a particular flock will sound.
There are five parts: each colour represents the flight path of a bird.
The number of musicians or vocalists involved may be variable: each colour may represent more than one musician.
Birds of a feather, flock together.
If there is just one musician, they can choose to play one colour, or even successive colours. A solitary bird may choose to sing a simple phrase, or an entire repertoire.
It is possible to designate a moderator, or conductor of the discussion. This person would then be responsible for the arrangement of the conversation. They would not necessarily have to be a musician. A single bird can lead a flock through action, and not sound.
The individual paintings may be moved around as the piece is played. The flight paths wrap around the sides of the paintings and indicate where the conversation can lead next, much like tangential discussions. The direction a bird flies in may influence its song.
Each panel is a phrase. It's like a conversation between people - sometimes you speak slowly, other times more quickly, and you may even step onto another person's sentence. Within a flock, a bird will not necessarily wait for another bird to finish before it begins to sing.
The spaces between the paintings are breaths or stops – like the moments when a bird falls inexplicably and abruptly silent for variable stretches of time.
The panels are different sizes and depths – as sentences differ in length and profoundness. Bird song may last only a few seconds or be sustained for a few minutes. It may consist of a single note, which may be repeated, or be achingly complex.
The background of the painting represents atmosphere. In the same way that we interpret the expression on someone’s face as they speak, the background of each panel is indicative of emotional tone. What one member emotes can change the emotional timbre of a flock. Weather also affects emotion.
The piece should feel like a conversation, with the tangents and rhythm of talk between friends and family. It need not always be harmonious – the sound of a flock can swoop into cacophony.
About the Images below:
These are "flattened" composite photographs of the paintings which comprise the Between the Song and the Silence score.
They are presented in this way so as to help convey the manner in which the flight paths lead off each painting and on to the next one.
These images have been created to create a folio for a conductor's score.
