Singing, Speaking, Composing: Expanding the Flutist’s Field of Activity

• Singing, Speaking, Composing: Expanding the Flutist’s Field of Activity Creative collaborative processes between performer and composer affect the practice of musicians and provide an important creative stimulus for the performer. During one year (2012–13), I explored, together with two composers, the creative possibilities of using the flutist’s voice while playing. The outcome was, according to plan, innovative works by my collaborators. However, I found that there was more to develop in that field, and my experiences from the collaboration, as well as my own continued practice, stimulated further musical ideas that finally materialized in the composition of a piece of my own, Old Game (2013), which became an additional method of investigation. The new direction that the project took proved to be a challenge that pushed me beyond my usual comfort line, making me explore and overpass the well-established border between composer and performer in Western art music. One of my goals in composing was to extend the use of the expressive possibilities of the flutist’s voice explored by my collaborators. I focused on the flutist’s singing voice but also on the speaking voice, using excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (to which the title of the piece, Old Game, alludes) as basic material. For me as a performer, systematizing and writing down musical ideas in a proper score proved to have great benefits, such as increasing my motivation to explore new techniques, providing a stimulus for artistic experimentation, offering insights into processes of musical notation, and aiding in developing pedagogical tools. The findings indicate that combining the development, practice and analysis of new instrumental techniques with creative processes of collaboration and composition, can yield great benefits for the performer.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Musik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Music (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

flute

singing and playing

artistic collaborative processes

artistic research

performance technique

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)