Considerations surrounding performer agency are: how much of the performative aspect of the composition should be controlled? How much agency should be given over to the performer? What are the creative boundaries inherent in these collaborations? And how is control and freedom of agency communicated through the score?
Ben Opie with Cameron Lam at Tempo Rubato Brunswick. Photographer Caerwen Martin
In my conventional notation scores, agency is typically controlled. Fermatas are absent, and spaces are timed with rests and notes of long duration, and bars are extended with increased counts added to the time signatures specifically to delay the bar line and musician’s mental shift in attention towards the oncoming material. This ‘contains’ the musician in the feeling within the bar and delays the psychological abandonment of the musical gesture and Ma. Complex rhythms are used to create the effect of rubato phrasing, but little or no agency is provided to the performer to create that rubato themselves. However, in graphic and alternative notation scores, a large amount of agency is provided to the musicians, and instructions for the performative control of the work is delivered through text, loose temporal indications, and graphics. Compositional control is exerted, however; the focus of control is shifted from pitch and rhythm to the expressive layer, which in this context, serves my intended musical outcomes far better.
Regardless of how much control is exerted over a piece, performers can choose to alter these instructions to fit their own expressive agenda or personal level of comfort with the premise of the piece. In a public performance of one of my earlier works, which was based on the complexities of maternal abuse, while introducing the piece, the soloist likened the feeling of the work to the joy of seeing her young daughter dance. As touching as this was to hear, this was an inappropriate association. I had no control over this conveyance of interpretation and the way this may influence audience reception, however; the piece was written in conventional notation, and the notational control of the pitch, time, space, rhythm, dynamic, phrasing, instrument relationships, and harmonic contexts, exerted sufficient control over the expressive content, and successfully maintained the underlying, disquieted feeling of the work. The original, darker qualities of the piece carried through regardless of the player’s more optimistic interpretation, despite the performer’s significant expressive capacity. It is possible that the disparity in performer interpretation and composer’s intention created a bittersweet tension that may have been beneficial to the expressive outcome of the work, just as masked layers of psychological meaning often do.
Potential for compositional enhancement through unintended dark irony raises questions that lead to other fields of research, such as the psychological impact of the expressive interpretation of sound, and the impact of combined layers of psychology in collaborations. The limits of this dissertation do not allow for deep investigation into either of these further interests, however; at this stage, it could suffice to simply suggest that the greater the interpretive directions or limitations a composer sets on a work through expressive and technical detail, the greater control the composer has over the expressive outcome of the performance, but due to the collaborative nature of composer/performer relationships, there are no guarantees in expressive outcomes.
Working with large amounts of performer agency doesn’t necessarily result in handing over control of the expressive content of the work, however; collaboration can involve intensive negotiation with the premiere performers, and necessitate a flexible approach to notation in order to serve both the stylistic needs of the composition and the performer. For this reason, I am highly intentional about who I write for and what kind of scores I write for them.
Musicians such as oboist Ben Opie[1], double bass player Miranda Hill, and percussionist Daniel Richardson are extremely diverse and flexible in their performative capacities and can adapt to, advise on, and inspire, many stylistic genres and notation systems in the contemporary classical field. I have written for these individuals and their respective ensembles multiple times, and the collaborative relationships have heavily informed the works I have written for these players, some of which are included in this folio and dissertation. An enormous degree of trust exists in these collaborative relationships, and the inspirational contributions of the performers is acknowledged in full. Once the premiere has been given, the work enters the broader ownership of musicians in the community. Other musician’s interpretations are valued for the integrity they bring to the piece. Contributions to the dialogue surrounding the works are gratefully received.
[1] I have written for Ben Opie so many times, and the collaborations have been so inspiring and fruitful, that I respectfully consider Ben to be my muse.
Comments