Cecilia Arditto Delsoglio

Analysis

Casi cerca / Almost close (2003) – Analysis

for voice, trumpet, violin, cello, piano, percussion and wine glasses (or DX7)

This piece is based on the idea of suggestion rather than revelation. The music operates in the outer limits of perception; events are sensed rather than clearly perceived, contour prevails over detail, the respiration of music is whispered. The narrow dynamic range, the restricted instrumental timbre and the blurred effect of the rhythmical combinations aim at creating music that is slightly ‘out of focus’. Melodies are masked, melos being more important than the melody itself. “Casi cerca” (almost close) is related to something possible to perceive but impossible to touch. The word ‘casi’ (almost) is the thin dividing line that keeps these two dimensions of distance and closeness apart.

1) There is a main melody presented at the beginning of the piece by the soprano (measures 6 -9).
In m.34 the same melody is spread among the instruments. Some instruments are duplicating some notes of this single melody, so these duplicated notes should be coordinated and sound as one.
In m. 41 the same melody is played by piano harmonics.

2) The harmony of the piece is based on three regions of quartertone clusters.
Clusters distribution by instruments (there are some duplicated notes)

Ex. 1

 

3) Even the timbres of the piece are similar, everyone should have a personal color. (ex. vl arco ordinario; vc sul ponticello different from vibraphone and bocca chiusa of soprano)

4) There are repeated rhythmical patterns usually alternating two pitches (the pitch interval in quarter tones is indicated in the score: ¼, ½, etc, with a square below the staff).

From the beginning of the piece.

Progressively the instruments are changing the length of patterns, but always going from one pattern to another.


Ex. 3 From measure 25

 

Here most of the patterns alternate two notes of different duration (3+2, 4+3, 5+4, except for the cello that keeps regular.


5) The entrances of all occurrences should be perfectly coordinated.
o m.6, 5th beat- tp. and piano together with sop. and wine glasses pitch change-
o m.16, 3rd beat- sop and tp
o m.20, 4th beat-sop and tp.
o m.22, 3rd beat- sop, vl, vc and perc.
o m.30 tutti
o etc…

Trumpet and percussion in sixteens play always the same motive starting in m.12 but one of the instruments is rhythmically slide (one, two or three sixteens), so the second instrument works like an echo of the first.

 

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Libro de los gestos (2007) – Análisis (español)

El libro de los gestos notas de ejecución en ocasion de su estreno el 2 de Agosto de 2007 por el ensamble Musas en Las Jornadas de Música Contemporánea en la Universidad de Santa Fe, dirigida por Hernan Diego  Vazquez.

Estructura rítmica- una estructura vacía

La pieza esta construida en base a la idea de isorritmos. Estas estructuras rítmicas base se repiten constantemente en el discurso de la pieza, a nivel macro (forma de la pieza) y a nivel micro (fraseo).
Los isorritmos en si mismos no representan nada, ya que en la pieza aparecen con distintos “contenidos”: distinta instrumentación, tempos, armonías, alturas.
No es interesante el concepto del isorritmo en la pieza a nivel expresivo, ya que la misma estructura rítmica con un diferente contexto instrumental y musical significa algo totalmente distinto en cada nivel. Es un secreto del compositor que no es interesante difundir, pero si el análisis de estos isorritmos, pueden ser una herramienta para el estudio y el armado de la pieza.

Macro isorritmos

La pieza tiene tres secciones, cada una de tres paginas.
Sección 1: pagina 1, 2 y 3
Sección 2: pagina 4, 5 y 6
Sección 3: pagina 7, 8 y 9

En la primera pagina de cada sección se repiten los primeros 9 compases, con una pequeña variación.
Los 9 primeros compases de cada sección son exactamente iguales a los 9 compases siguientes. Generalmente uno de los instrumentos repite su línea textualmente y los otros instrumentos están filtrados[1]. Por lo que una sugerencia es tocar la repetición completa (ej.: 10 a 18) y luego repetirla con algunas zonas borradas.
Sección 1: Línea del cello se repite textual (1-9 igual a 10-18). Los otros instrumentos se repiten filtrados.
Sección 2 – línea del violín se repite textual (50-58 igual a 59-66), los otros instrumentos ídem.
Sección 3  línea de percusión se repite textual (igual a 99-107 igual a 108-115), los otros instrumentos ídem.

Micro-isorritmos: expansión y contracción del tiempo

Encada sección (1, 2 o 3) cada instrumento repite exactamente la misma frase rítmica 7 u 8 veces, (depende del instrumento). La frase en bloque se expande o se contrae rítmicamente.
violoncelo compases 10-15. La misma frase se repite dos veces. La primera vez (compases 10 y 11) la unidad de tiempo corresponde a la corchea de tresillo, la segunda, a la corchea (el tiempo se expande).


Cada instrumento expande y contrae temporalmente su isorritmo. Esta estructura rítmica básica se va transformando cada vez en algo distinto por los cambios efectuados en los otros parámetros (cambian las alturas, la orquestación, los gestos, etc), pero las duraciones no se alteran.
Expansión /contracción del pulso en el cello:

  1. corchea de tresillo (c. 10-11)
  2. corchea (c. 12-15)
  3. negra de tresillo (15- 19)
  4. negra de tresillo + semicorchea de tresillo (19-24)
  5. negra con punto (c. 25-33)
  6. negra ( 34-40)
  7. negra de tresillo (41-49)

Esta serie de secciones sucesivas en expansión y contracción están notadas en una grilla de cuatro cuartos. El compás es solo una grilla convencional y no representa ningún tipo de acento.

Recuerdos

En la sección 2 de la pieza hay motivos musicales que pertenecen a la sección anterior y que están “cortados y pegados” en forma idéntica y en el mismo lugar en relación a la sección 1. Son citas textuales del pasado de la pieza, o juegos de la memoria. Cada instrumento tiene una recurrencia y debe ser tocado exactamente de la misma manera que en la sección anterior. Pero los recuerdos o rememoraciones son individuales, por lo que el contexto de estas memorias es ahora diferente en relación a los demás instrumentos.

violín: 88-98 cita de 39-49
cello: 74-82 cita de 25-33
percusión: 68-71 cita de 19-22 (¡esta es la razón que vuelve a tocar con baquetas!)
piano: 80-82 cita de 31-33

Horizontal versus vertical

Parafraseando la polifonía medieval., lo importante es que cada línea horizontal es bastante autónoma, teniendo a la vez algunos  puntos de encuentro con  las otras voces.[2]
La dialéctica de esta pieza se basa en las cuatro voces individuales que se expanden y contraen y en los puntos de encuentro que cada uno tiene con las otras voces.
Estos puntos de encuentro están “congelados” y funcionan como una estructura superpuesta (impuesta) sobre la dinámica de movimiento de las voces individuales. Están marcados en la partitura con flechas verticales.
Estos puntos de encuentro tienen un rasgo diferente en cada una de las tres secciones:
Sección 1: un mismo acorde mi3-fa3 (y sol 4)[3], con distintas disposiciones  y colores instrumentales, pero siempre con las mismas alturas. La idea es que es el mismo objeto bajo diferentes perspectivas.
Sección 2: respiración (inhalar o exhalar) compartida.
Sección 3: acorde con la letra [m], bocca chiusa. La altura de este acorde es siempre variable, el timbre homogéneo.
Los puntos de encuentro deben ser siempre precisos en el ataque.

 

 

La pieza es una deriva horizontal “atada” con nudos  verticales.

 

La alquimia de los materiales

La expansión y contracción rítmica de la pieza sirve como una estructura elástica que “soporta” diferentes materiales a lo largo de la pieza.
Sección 1: scordaturas extremas, siempre en armonía de cluster. La altura progresivamente va desplazando en bloques de la zona de G2 a la zona de C3, ida y vuelta en algunos casos.
El acorde “nudo”, mi-fa (sol), que nunca se traspone. 
Sección 2: frotados y sonido de aire
Sección 3: textos, uso de la voz y luces.
Cada sección se va “transformando” en la siguiente de forma mas o menos progresiva.
Si bien cada una de las tres secciones es clara y distintas, el paso de una a otra no debe ser brusco.

 

La obra detrás de la obra

Puedo hablar acerca de mis intensiones al escribir la obra, pero sabemos que las intenciones de los compositores y el resultado musical son a menudo mundos bastante disimiles. Me gusta mucho hablar de mis ideas musicales un poco como si fuera literatura, o ficción, pero gusta mucho mas ver las distintas interpretaciones que los músicos tienen sobre mi trabajo.
La historia de esta pieza es el intento de escribir una música que se va desprendiendo de sus rituales.
La obra comienza en el “borde” de los instrumentos. Es la zona donde los instrumentos pierden su familiaridad, pero todavía son reconocibles. Son “instrumentos’, pero en un limite de imposibilidad: extrema scordatura, piano preparado, percusión que se expande a las partes menos resonantes de los instrumentos. 
En la segunda sección, los instrumentos son mas “periféricos”. De las partes resonantes nos desplazamos al cuerpo de los instrumentos, de las baquetas a las manos.
En la tercera sección, los instrumentos son abandonados. La voz, las luces del atril, algunos objetos encontrados como el papel de embalaje abandonan todo gesto tradicional. Los instrumentos son contendedores, cajas de resonancia de otros sonidos externos.
Es posible recrear un escenario diferente al final de la pieza: el pianista esta debajo del piano, el cellista para producir las resonancias dentro del instrumento puede también recostarse sobre el piso al lado de su instrumento, o recostar solo el instrumento o buscar cualquier otra posición escénica  que no remita a la posición tradicional de tocar el cello. Lo mismo para la percusión y para el violín, que pueden buscar otras posiciones en el escenario diferentes a las habituales (dar la espalda, pararse, sentarse en el piso, etc). Lo que es importante es elegir el momento de hacer los cambios, que deben ser graduales y nunca forzados. Tal vez es bueno tocar sin zapatos para no hacer ruido al desplazarse y con ropa cómoda, para evitar crear situaciones extrañas o que generen una expectativa extra.
A rasgos generales la pieza comienza con una situación de concierto standard, y termina con gente “desparramada” en el living de una casa.

Es una sugerencia. La obra también puede ser tocada en forma casi convencional del comienzo al fin.

Las luces:

Cada instrumento hace su aparición con la luz de atril que se prende, una a una, como un ritual decadente de una situación de concierto que se va a fracturar.
La pieza se empieza a  desprender de los músicos  en un momento, las luces se convierten en un material, que existía desde antes, pero que ahora tiene un significado musical diferente (el “afuera” de la pieza se vuelve “adentro”).
También las luces funcionan como la expresión de mostrar un ritual ya vacío de contenido: la luz del piano se prende y se apaga, pero el pianista NO esta en el banquillo. La luz alumbra una partitura que nadie lee. Lo mismo se puede hacer con los otros instrumentos (no necesariamente con todos, con el piano es suficiente, tal vez seria lindo agregar también el cello).
Finalmente, la obra termina en la oscuridad. La función de la luz de atril se desprende de la función de la música, que sigue sonando sola. La salida sincronizada de las cuatro voces que apagan los interruptores sucesivamente, uno a uno, sigue poniendo la pieza en un marco de pensamiento organizado.
Habría que determinar el rol del director en este contexto. Una opción es que el director siempre dirija mas allá de que la pieza se desbande, al final termina dirigiendo un ensamble que no lo ve. Otra opción es que el también acompaña el proceso de desmaterialización, y sigue cumpliendo su rol de una manera anti funcional (ej., dirigir de espaldas o cualquier otra cosa).

Seria lindo que ustedes formulen su propia propuesta del comienzo al final en caso de que quieran profundizar en una puesta escénica. Estas son solo algunas sugerencias.

Cuestiones prácticas:

Esta es una idea base que cada ensamble debe adaptar y reinterpretar de acuerdo a sus ideas y posibilidades musicales y técnicas.
Es mejor aprender algunas secciones de la pieza de memoria, para tener mas independencia de la partitura (sobre todo en las posiciones no convencionales de los instrumentistas: abajo del piano, sentados en el piso, etc). Otra opción es tener una segunda partitura en la nueva locación, o un ayuda memoria.
El tema de los interruptores, creo que se puede trabajar de la siguiente manera.
1) Luces de atril normal, pero con un interruptor de pie para el cello y el piano. Si ambos están en el suelo, o fuera de su silla, todavía pueden alcanzar el interruptor.
Hay que establecer un código de entradas para las secciones donde los instrumentistas tienen ataques conjuntos y no tienen contacto visual entre si y tal vez tampoco con el director. Es un problema a resolver.

[1] Filtrado significa “borrado por zonas”.  Es un filtrado por bloques  donde simplemente se escinden algunas secciones. Las secciones que quedan son exactamente iguales al original, no están transformadas.

[2] Al momento de armado de la pieza, es importante que cada instrumentista se concentre en su línea. Cada frase debe sonar mas lenta o mas rápida que la anterior siempre en relación si mismo, estableciendo puntos de encuentro con las otras voces. En el ejemplo anterior, si el cello entra tarde en el compás 12 es un “mal menor”. Lo importante es que los dos motivos rítmicos de su línea, primero en tresillos y luego en corcheas  conserven una relación exacta (uno es mas rápido que el otro, pero ambos son la misma cosa a distintas velocidades). Acortar el silencio interno de un motivo es desfigurar el motivo y eso es un mal mayor. Si la sincronía con el violin esta desfasada, no importa tanto como que el motivo rítmico se desfigure.

[3] el sol 4 aparece esporádicamente

Libro de los gestos (2007) – Análisis (español) Read More »

El libro de los gestos / The book of gestures  (2007 revised 2008) – Analysis

El libro de los gestos / The book of gestures  (2007 revised 2008)

Notes for performance

Four musicians in a room play music. Each one has a lamp. Besides the music, the performers “play” the lights on and off during the piece creating different scenes. The space of the stage is always changing because of the lights. This music suggests a counterpoint of different layers: the rhythm of the music, the rhythm of the lights, the rhythm of the room: spaces to be seen, spaces to be heard, spaces to be imagined. Some music is played in the light, but also there is other music coming from the dark in a room full of presences.
This music suggests a counterpoint of different layers: the rhythm of the music, the rhythm of the lights, the rhythm of the room…
There are spaces to be seen, spaces to be heard, spaces to be imagined. Some music is played in the light, but also there is other music coming from the dark in a room full of presences.
The musicians are switching ON and OFF the stand lights creating different scenes on stage. Some actions happen in the dark and should be played by heart following other musicians’ cues. 



1. Violin:

1. The IV string is a 5th lower. It is easier bowing the string lowering the II string  with the left hand. Sul tastissimo means exagerated sul tasto. The sound is rather opaque, very dumped.
2. m16. Turn light ON and m.17 OFF. This cue you should be learned by heart following the violoncello. It would be nice if you are familiar with his/her part. Once your light ON. don’t look at her, look at your score.
3. m. 105 glissando in the dark. It is in the IV string, starting very high and ending in the violoncello note unisono (real sound and not effect). You should check the starting point (with percussion) and ending point (with violoncello) with your ear. You are playing in the dark.
4. m196 pop bubble wrap. It is better if you leave the instrument aside in a safe place, (on a pillow) and pop the bubble wrap, casually,  with both hands.

2. Cello:

The I string is a 5th lower. It is easier bowing the string lowering the II string  with the left hand. Sul tastissimo means exaggerated sul tasto. The sound is rather opaque,  dumped. 
2. The beginning of the piece is a long solo for the cello. The cello is illuminated and the rest of the instruments are playing background things in the dark. In fact the cello plays almost the same melody repeated many times but slightly varied. In every repetition the melody becomes a little bit longer. This sections should be extremely cantabile, but NO VIBRATO at all.
3. Turning the pages in mm.4 and mm.8 should repeat the exact gesture the two times. Not very theatrical but a very clear action and rather exaggerated. 
4.  mm.177 whistling inside the instrument throughout the sound holes. There is a picture in the score that may be useful. The singing inside the cello works better than the whistling. 

Please, memorize when you will have to turn your light ON, because being in the dark (OFF) won’t allow you to follow the score. Get familiar with the other instruments actions.

Light ON:
1. Measure 77 after violin motive
2. Measure 112, after the pianist turn three consecutive times the page.

3. Percussion:

Instruments: You have two spots on stage. One with all the instruments and the stand light, the second towards the front with only a flash light, a cowbell without stand and a timpani mallet. All the mallets in this piece are just 2 timpani mallets. The lion’s roar should have a 3 meters string.
There is a motive mm. 49/51 exactly repeated in 103/105. The second time is in the dark, so you should memorize it (it is very easy and short).
In mm.100 also you have 4 beats in the dark. Take the cue from piano breathing in mm.99. It is better if the piano is not making a cue gesture because it is anticipating the surprise.
mm.121 on, the lion’s roar has a kind of solo. The instrument seems “like talking in an incomprehensive language”. Should be expressive.
mm.134 errata. There is a missing 16th rest at the end of the measure.
The second spot on stage could be a little carpet on the floor, very intimate and casual setup.
Please, remember when you will have to turn your light ON, because being in the dark (OFF) won’t allow you to follow the score. Get familiar with the other instruments actions.
Light ON:
Measure 43 after long cello solo, and second long voice glissando.
Measure 112, after the pianist turn three consecutive times the page and cello turn her light ON.

 

 

El libro de los gestos / The book of gestures  (2007 revised 2008)

Notes for performance

Four musicians in a room play music. Each one has a lamp. Besides the music, the performers “play” the lights on and off during the piece creating different scenes. The space of the stage is always changing because of the lights. This music suggests a counterpoint of different layers: the rhythm of the music, the rhythm of the lights, the rhythm of the room: spaces to be seen, spaces to be heard, spaces to be imagined. Some music is played in the light, but also there is other music coming from the dark in a room full of presences.
This music suggests a counterpoint of different layers: the rhythm of the music, the rhythm of the lights, the rhythm of the room…
There are spaces to be seen, spaces to be heard, spaces to be imagined. Some music is played in the light, but also there is other music coming from the dark in a room full of presences.
The musicians are switching ON and OFF the stand lights creating different scenes on stage. Some actions happen in the dark and should be played by heart following other musicians’ cues. 



1. Violin:

1. The IV string is a 5th lower. It is easier bowing the string lowering the II string  with the left hand. Sul tastissimo means exagerated sul tasto. The sound is rather opaque, very dumped.
2. m16. Turn light ON and m.17 OFF. This cue you should be learned by heart following the violoncello. It would be nice if you are familiar with his/her part. Once your light ON. don’t look at her, look at your score.
3. m. 105 glissando in the dark. It is in the IV string, starting very high and ending in the violoncello note unisono (real sound and not effect). You should check the starting point (with percussion) and ending point (with violoncello) with your ear. You are playing in the dark.
4. m196 pop bubble wrap. It is better if you leave the instrument aside in a safe place, (on a pillow) and pop the bubble wrap, casually,  with both hands.

2. Cello:

The I string is a 5th lower. It is easier bowing the string lowering the II string  with the left hand. Sul tastissimo means exaggerated sul tasto. The sound is rather opaque,  dumped. 
2. The beginning of the piece is a long solo for the cello. The cello is illuminated and the rest of the instruments are playing background things in the dark. In fact the cello plays almost the same melody repeated many times but slightly varied. In every repetition the melody becomes a little bit longer. This sections should be extremely cantabile, but NO VIBRATO at all.
3. Turning the pages in mm.4 and mm.8 should repeat the exact gesture the two times. Not very theatrical but a very clear action and rather exaggerated. 
4.  mm.177 whistling inside the instrument throughout the sound holes. There is a picture in the score that may be useful. The singing inside the cello works better than the whistling. 

Please, memorize when you will have to turn your light ON, because being in the dark (OFF) won’t allow you to follow the score. Get familiar with the other instruments actions.

Light ON:
1. Measure 77 after violin motive
2. Measure 112, after the pianist turn three consecutive times the page.

3. Percussion:

Instruments: You have two spots on stage. One with all the instruments and the stand light, the second towards the front with only a flash light, a cowbell without stand and a timpani mallet. All the mallets in this piece are just 2 timpani mallets. The lion’s roar should have a 3 meters string.
There is a motive mm. 49/51 exactly repeated in 103/105. The second time is in the dark, so you should memorize it (it is very easy and short).
In mm.100 also you have 4 beats in the dark. Take the cue from piano breathing in mm.99. It is better if the piano is not making a cue gesture because it is anticipating the surprise.
mm.121 on, the lion’s roar has a kind of solo. The instrument seems “like talking in an incomprehensive language”. Should be expressive.
mm.134 errata. There is a missing 16th rest at the end of the measure.
The second spot on stage could be a little carpet on the floor, very intimate and casual setup.
Please, remember when you will have to turn your light ON, because being in the dark (OFF) won’t allow you to follow the score. Get familiar with the other instruments actions.
Light ON:
Measure 43 after long cello solo, and second long voice glissando.
Measure 112, after the pianist turn three consecutive times the page and cello turn her light ON.

 

 

El libro de los gestos / The book of gestures  (2007 revised 2008) – Analysis Read More »

Palabras / Words (2005) – Analysis

Palabras / Words (2005) – analysis

for 1/16 tone piano, saxophone, viola and voice commissioned by Fonds Scheppende Toonkunst

I. Intro

Palabras (words) is a piece which work with words in two different ways: a) “Palabras” as sounds: the texture of the spoken language, the inflections of the human voice. Words as colors; b) “Palabras” as syntax: words combination create structures and musical grammar: linearity, polyphony, etc. Words as architecture. 
The piece is divided in five different blocks of spoken language that goes from the proper spoken voice (Part IV) until a melodic line (part II) which is sung by the four instruments. Every block, or surface has a different quality in relation to different kinds of discourse.
Julian Carrillo,s  1/16 tone piano was a primary inspiration for this piece and its relation to the spoken voice. The microtonal divisions of the piano can give and illusion of words. I neither try to “copy” specific words, nor  reproduce with the instruments a spectrogram (which is a “picture” of the sounds frequencies). I took these ideas as  musical material to be developed with musical rules.

II. Sections

1. Inicios/Starts

Is a music made of intentions where the gesture is more predominant than the speech (sound) itself. We can find beginnings of phrases, whose energy is dissolved as soon as they start.

2. Discursos/Discourses

The four instruments share a melody which represents a linear discourse. This clear melodic line has some depth movements in relation to perspective:  the instruments moves from foreground to background in this continuous but sliding line.

3. Rizoma/Rhizome

Based in “Rhizome” by Gilles Deleuze, this section of music is about multiplicity and multiple connections. Every instrument has an independent line but the four of them  flow at the same time. Sometimes the individual lines meet in a brief chord creating  a web of  multiple connections without hierarchy. These meeting points represents the “anti-chords”, the “anti-accents”, as a subterranean  pianissimo rhizome (root) among the instruments.

4. Montaje/Montage

I compose this section cutting and gluing pieces of papers wich talk about neurological disfunctions in the language area of the brain. Anyway the texts are only partially recognizable: they are as a piece of paper able to be tear to pieces. Also the meaning of the words is crumple, wrinkled, fragmented.

5. Filtro/Filter

The same melody of section II is reduce to its basic points. It was my goal not to build the points but the space between things: to compose the silence with the sounds as a frame. This section is also about synthesis and memory and how we can reconstruct the whole through few significant  points.

III. Texts used in Palabras

The design of language is based on two components: words and grammar. A word is an arbitrary association between a sound and a meaning. For example, English speakers use the word cat to refer to a certain animal, not because the word has any natural connection with this animal but simply because it is a shared convention used by a community of speakers who have all, at some time in their lives, memorized the connection between that sound and that meaning. Words in the huge open-class vocabulary refer to a vast number of concepts, such as objects, states, events, motions, qualities, people, paths, and places and include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and some prepositions. Words in the much smaller closed-class vocabulary have a more restricted set of meaning related to time, logic and the relationships among the content words. They are used primary to define a sentence’s structure and include articles, auxiliaries, prefixes and suffixes, particles, and prepositions[1].
Neurology’s favourite word is “deficit”, denoting an impairment or incapacity of neurological function: loss of speech, loss of language, loss of memory, loss of vision, loss of dexterity, loss of identity (…) For all of these dysfunctions we have private words of every sort- Aphonia, Aphemia, Aphasia, Alexia, Apraxia, Agnosia, Amnesia, Ataxia-[2]
The tip of the tongue state involves a failure to recall a word of which one has knowledge. The evidence of knowledge is either and eventually successfully recall or else an act of recognition that occurs, without additional training, when recall has failed.
For several months we watched for “tip-of-the-tongue” states in ourselves. Unable to recall the name of the street on which a relative lives, one of us thought of Congress and Corinth and Concord and then looked up the address and learned that it was Cornish[3]. 
Modern psycholinguist studies have shown that people who have Broca aphasia comprehend sentences whose meanings can be pieced together from the individual meaning of content words and prior knowledge of how the word works. For example, these patients can understand The apple that the boy is eating is red. Boys eat apples, but apples do not eat boys; apples are red, but boys are not. They cannot understand The boy that the girl is chasing is tall.[4]
Patients with Wernicke aphasia often shift the order of individual sounds and sound clusters and add or subtract them to a word in a manner that distorts the intended phonemic plan. These errors are called phonemic paraphasias.[5]
Patients with Conduction aphasia comprehend simple sentences and produce intelligible speech but, like those with Broca and Wernicke aphasias, they can not repeat sentences verbatim, cannot assemble phonemes effectively, and cannot easily name pictures and objects.[6]
Saxo:
Dr P. was a musician of distinction, well-know for many years as a singer, and then, at the local School of Music, as a teacher. It was here, in relation to his students, that certain strange problems were first observed. Sometimes a student would present himself, and Dr P. would not recognize him; or, specifically, would not recognize his face. The moment the student spoke, he would be recognized by his voice.[7]
Piano:
But if he is interrupted and loses the thread, he comes to a complete stop, doesn’t know his clothes-or his own body. He sings all the time-eating songs, dressing songs, bathing songs, everything. He can’t do anything unless he makes it a song.[8]
Viola:
I think that music, for him, had taken the place of image. He had no body-image, he had body-music: this is why he could move and act as fluently as he did, but came to a total confuded stop if the “inner music” stopped.[9]

[1]Kandel, E. Schwartz, J and Jessell, T. “Principles of neural science”; Mc Graw-Hill Companies, 2000.

[2] Sacks, O. “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”; Duckworth, 1985

[3] Norman, D. “Memory and Attention”; John Wiley & Sons, inc, 1969.

[4] Kandel, E. Schwartz, J and Jessell, T. op.cit.

[5] Kandel, E. Schwartz, J and Jessell, T. op.cit.

[6] Kandel, E. Schwartz, J and Jessell, T. op.cit.

[7] Sacks, O. op.cit.

[8] Sacks, O. op.cit.

[9] Sacks, O. op.cit.

IV. Text-map instructions in #IV. Montage (preliminary sketch)

V. List of performances:

  • Hortus Ensemble – Alfrun Schmid (sop), Elisabeth Smalt (vla), William Raaijman alt sax), Maarten van Veen 16th tone piano (Julián Carrillo’s piano)
    5 aug 2005 (De oude Hortus, Lange Nieuwstraat 106, Utrecht)
    6 aug 2005 (Hortus Botanicus, Rapenburg 73, Leiden)
    7 aug 2005 (Koningszaal Artis, Plantagemiddenlaan 41a, Amsterdam)

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• Video (excerpts)
• Program notes/related works
• Press

 

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