Soundbath

Solo violin in an empty swimming pool. AKA a giant super-sonic amplifier

The sound in this building is absolutely insane! The acoustics are equally apocalyptic and crystal clear. The sensation when performing is like nothing else ever experienced. Everything you hear under your ear is as clear as day, but cast your attention wider and it’s swirling and bouncing and performing all sorts of sonic madness. It makes for basically an entirely new instrument.

I really wanted to play with this more in my performances, but sad to say, I did actually chicken out a lot of the time and default to a pre-written melodic idea.

But when I didn’t, and went off-piste and just did some crazy sound experiment. Well that’s where it’s at!

At the core of the piece the is a melody that sounds really simple, folk-like even, but ends a semitone higher than the starting tonic each time. It’s to signify having a second home. There’s a bluesy B section too, more for the feels, and then it usually goes back to the tune. Unfortunately the battery on the camera ran out, so you’ll have to imagine that loop back to the tune.

And then another of my favourite bits. Arpeggiated chords that start out quite clearly harmonically pitched but then descend into some sort of madness. Listening back though, because of the conventions of hearing so much tonal music, it just sounds unintentionally out of tune when I go up high (and I default to trying to pitch them!). But I invite you to cast that aside, because actually I was really trying to block patterns without regarding the usual 12-tone limitations, and keep the rhythm going. And it does loop around back to tonality, but in a more unconventional way.

I hope you enjoyed these little vignettes.

I’m looking forward to finding more amazing spaces to play in. And maybe even just coming back here another day (preferably when it’s a bit warmer!)