Incorporate

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This wiki page serves as a multimedia research documentation for the piece Incorporate by Chris Lortie and attempts to analyze its compositional rhetoric. Incorporate was written in early 2018 (premiered March 10, 2018) for a subset of Ensemble Proton consisting of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello. The piece makes use of very minimal electronics that are entirely fixed and non-interactive. Although the premiere of Incorporate made use of a fifth performer (designated as the “Operator”) as well as theatrical staging and costuming, these elements will not be reviewed here. The piece is largely improvisatory and makes use of audio score(s) as the primary means of composer-performer communication. A supplementary written PDF is provided as a verbal reiteration of contents from the audio score(s).


Audio Scores and Affordances

The piece was inspired by my research with Charlie Sdraulig into the various affordances and limitations of the audio score format. An audio score can be defined as a score which employs sound as the primary means of communication between composer and performer. As opposed to conventionally-noted written scores, audio scores represent information and instructions within the same domain as the performed product (Sdraulig and Lortie, 2018).

Many of the arguments in that paper, and some of the arguments in this documentation, are posited within the context of affordance theory. Affordances can be defined as “the potential actions made possible by an object or environment to a given individual,” a concept that implies a mutually-influencing, transactional relation between actor and object (Gibson, 1979. p. 172). A material format alone does not wholly determine the action possibilities it affords; composers and performers (i.e. the actors in this context), as well as audio scores (i.e. the object), are themselves situated and dynamically shaped within wider networks and histories of cultural practice. These practices mediate and constrain potential relations: for instance, the act of deploying a sound recording as if it were a score suggests a translation of prior scoring practices across media; equally, functioning as a score is just one of the many potential use cases afforded by sound recordings. Nevertheless, at this particular intersection of cultural practice and material format, audio scores representing information and instructions in sound afford some distinct and different possibilities to composers and performers when compared to scores which deploy some form of symbolic visual representation of sound or sound-producing movement. Incorporate was conceived as an applied study of these affordances, along with an exploration of possible new applications for this medium.

 case studies referenced in Charlie Sdraulig and Chris Lortie, An Investigation of Affordances and Limitations in Recent Audio Scores, 2018
 - Cassandra Miller — Guide
 - Carola Bauckholt — Zugvögel
 - Louis d’Heudieres — Laughter Studies 1-3
 - Carolyn Chen — Adagio
 - Laura Stanic — Open Air Bach

The Sdraulig/Lortie paper surveyed a collection of recent audio scores primarily associated with experimental art music as case studies. Among these, we identified two primary sub-categories associated with the temporal relations composed between performer and audio score: reactive and rehearsed. On the one hand, performers primarily react to the audio score during performance; on the other, the audio score shapes the performers’ interpretations in rehearsal, well before public performance. In practice, these two categories may be combined, weighted, and hybridized to varying degrees. After this research, I became interested in this hybridized deployment of the audio score object and sought to create a piece which features several layers — or modes — of audio scores simultaneously.


The Four Modes of Audio Score in Incorporate

The symphony has five movements, rather than the four typical of symphonies of the Classical era. Beethoven wrote a programmatic title at the beginning of each movement:


The third movement ends on an imperfect cadence that leads straight into the fourth. The fourth movement leads straight into the fifth without a pause. A performance of the work lasts about 40 minutes.

MODE 1: Instructions

- Category: Rehearsed
- Format: Fixed Audio Files (7) and Video Overview
- Contents: Narration, Instructions, Exercises


MODE 2: Sound Files

- Category: Rehearsed
- Format: Fixed Audio Files (60)
- Contents: Concrete Sounds, Field Recordings, Sampled Material

MODE 3: Shocks

- Category: Reactive
- Format: Fixed Audio Files (15) with randomized timings
- Contents: Sampled Material

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MODE 4: Operations

- Category: Reactive
- Format: Live Performance
- Contents: Improvised material from ensemble


Name of Operation Description (simplified)
I. Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande
II. Szene am Bach
III. Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute
IV. Gewitter, Sturm
V. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm

In film

References