#visual score

Head Bowed,

Knees Damp,

Young Mangrove in the Mud (2020)

assemblage (cellophane, plant matter, glass)

At work. Creating my graphic score for director Tjepke Zijlstra for his film/installation Crash. At a sweaty 7 degrees…

This is a zine which documented my small experiment with sound, in particular, with listening and seeing sounds.

each movement (trace) I made is numbered, so you can match image with sound

its like a naive score

(octobre 2016)

Artist Beverley Bennett made musical/dance visual score series, Cacophony. Beverly asked me to compose music to them on the cello. I applied a different methodology for each one. These works open up music making and performing to all musicians; regardless of training, ability to read music or skill-level.

This one is MAINTAIN MOOD. To me, the most interesting method and the hardest to execute consistently. I sat in front of the image, looking into it rather than at it. Opening myself up to receive an internal response rather than an intellectual one. As I started playing my eyes scanned slowly over the image like it was a suffolk landscape, and I was a child again imagining adventures for animals and myself amongst the rolling woods and fields where I'd explore over summer holidays. And I felt this sea of sadness rise up in me. And that is exactly what you are hearing.

Artist Beverley Bennett made musical/dance visual score series, Cacophony. Beverly asked me to compose music to them on the cello. I applied a different methodology for each one. These works open up music making and performing to all musicians; regardless of training, ability to read music or skill-level.

This is JUST FIGURATIVE. The simplest and most tenuous. Basically, looking at the image I saw a picture of a mountain, and improvised a piece of music about a mountain.

Artist Beverley Bennett made musical/dance visual score series, Cacophony. Beverly asked me to compose music to them on the cello. I applied a different methodology for each one. These works open up music making and performing to all musicians; regardless of training, ability to read music or skill-level.

This one is SHADE AND SHAPE. The triangular forms are read left to right. Their height (or width up and down) informing volume. Their shading informing harmony (dark=low light=high). Where the contrast of dark and light is starker I have gone for more extreme tonal variation, bringing in harmonics and low C and scratching bowing.

Artist Beverley Bennett made musical/dance visual score series, Cacophony. Beverly asked me to compose music to them on the cello. I applied a different methodology for each one. 

This is CONTORT TO INFORM. The performer provides a phrase, then each ‘cell’ in the image (marked out by the simple lines) provides a contorted reworking of it.

I read the cells left to right, loosely using the height (width up and down) of each cell to inform tempo, the smeared makings to coda for ‘deformities’, and the shading to notate low harmonies. The cells are played in any order.