Behind the transparent surface
- Submitting institution
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The University of Huddersfield
: A - Music
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies : A - Music
- Output identifier
- 69
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
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- Year
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- This piece explores the following research questions: In what ways can the specialised instruments of Harry Partch be composed for today, outside the unique soundworld for which they were originally designed? What is the sonic potential for combining them with unaltered ‘standard’ instruments in a chamber ensemble setting? What compositional methods can be developed to bridge the harmonic and timbral gaps between these instruments? The work embraces the complex performance and notational techniques associated with Partch’s instruments through a collaborative compositional process of listening, recording, playing and experimenting with the instruments; through discussions with the performers of Ensemble Musikfabrik – who hold the world’s largest collection of Partch replica instruments – during residential visits in 2019, including consultations with the collection’s instrument builder Thomas Meixner. Integral to this process was an investigation of the instruments’ qualities as handmade works of art with unique aural qualities. The instruments employ tunings that are more approximate than their underlying mathematical principles might suggest, and they create complex spectral and harmonic features that require time spent experimenting with specific sounds. The piece was written for a unique performer/instrument set up wherein each member of Musikfabrik also plays a number of Partch instruments. This interchangeability between standard and Partch instruments informs the musical language of shared gestures and sounds that blurs the boundaries between the two categories of instrument, inviting the Partch instruments to operate in an equal capacity alongside the standard instruments and combining the harmonic systems of equal temperament and just intonation, the chromatic scale and the 43-tone scale, and standard notation and Partch notation. The collision of these very different musical systems, and the search for common ground between them, results in a fragile landscape of shared resonances and overtones, and delicate percussive sounds, that is far removed from Partch’s own soundworld.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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