'Arkanar: A Report from the Interior' (2016 rev. 2018) for microtonal tuba and live electronics (14’)
- Submitting institution
-
Royal Northern College of Music
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 16A
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2018
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
1 - Composition
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Framed within music research in composition, instrument development, technology, and collaboration, ‘Arkanar’ builds on the research of tubist Robin Hayward, who designed a set of valves added to the standard tuba to achieve microtones and glissandi more accurately. The piece contributes to a growing repertoire instigated by tubist Jack Adler-McKean, my collaborator, which seeks to shift the negative preconception of the tuba to become a virtuosic, expressive instrument. Collaboration with Adler-McKean was essential in exploring the tuba’s new harmonic capabilities and extending the sounds of the instrument through experimental performance techniques (for example, pouring water inside the valves and amplifying the sounds of the mechanism).
‘Arkanar’ is a successful test case for the composer’s bespoke software programme, Tempus in Machina (TiMa), which calculates complex notated metrical relationships, (evidenced in the changing tempi in the score). TiMa allows one to plan and control seamless complex tempo trajectories with precision while maintaining a straightforward approach to metre. This contributes to recent practice-as-research in complex musical metre and control by artists including Aaron Cassidy, Matthew Sergeant, and Robert Dahm. Due for open-source release, TiMa will allow musicians to perform in a familiar manner with click tracks and allow composers easier access to a higher level of metrical flexibility.
This work also engages with ongoing research into deriving musical materials from concepts in literature, cinema, and visual art, here enacting the claustrophobic atmosphere of Aleksei German’s film ‘Hard to be a God’.
‘Arkanar’ was premièred at the 2016 Darmstadt Ferienkurse, with performances in New York, Berlin, Hannover, and Manchester. It is published by Edition Gravis and a recording will be released 2021/22. Cited in Adler-McKean’s book ‘Techniques of Tuba Playing’ (Bärenreiter, 2020), ‘Arkanar’ was the point of departure in Markus Böggemann’s overview of my recent work (‘MusikTheorie’, 2019(4)).
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -