Work
Wallpaper Music IV (prepared piano)
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Digital Audio Album
Wallpaper Music IV / Erik Griswold.
Work Overview
Returning to the Wallpaper Music series after 13 years,
I wondered how I could extend it, when I had already altered the
sound of the piano beyond recognition in volumes 1-3. I knew I
wanted to create a really unusual sound, and to create a
durational experience that would stretch one's sense of the
passing of time.
Earlier in the year, I had been working closely with pianist
Margaret Leng Tan (long term collaborator of John Cage and George
Crumb), creating the music for her one woman show "Dragon ladies
don't weep." One of the elements we worked on together was bowed
piano, and Margaret generously showed me her techniques and
methods. During the COVID 19 lockdown I had plenty of time in my
home studio to further experiment, constructing and practicing
with my own bows, and this became my focus for WM4.
In Wallpaper Music 4, I use 11 "bows" (actually rosined strands
of fishing line) to build up accumulating layers of tones across
the piano - a giant, pulsing chord. There is an organic quality
to the sound; within each tone is a detailed world of grain,
texture, shifting harmonics and strange undertones. I introduced
a slow breathing cycle into the sustaining notes, using an
arithmetical pattern - 6 bows /
breath / 5 bows / breath / 4 bows / breath / 3 bows / breath, 2
bows / breath, and then the reverse. I used prime numbers to
offset the lengths of the rhythmic cycles, ensuring that each
would be always out of sync with the others, creating constantly
new relationships.
In the same way that one has to "look away" to see certain
constellations of stars, or to see dark patches in the Milky Way,
one can "listen away" - or deflect one's attention away from the
individual tones and surface details, in order to hear the
shifting aural patterns of overtones, undertones, phasing, and
modulation of sounds.
I'm very grateful to Brisbane Festival director Louise Bezzina
and series curator Lawrence English for commissioning this
work.
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