/open/control/1
for two soloists, bassist, percussionist, and open ensemble
composer: Michael Edwards
/open/control/1 is note music. Big deal you might say, but in what some may consider a regressive move away from rigorously-defined combinations of instrumental colours and extended playing techniques, /open/control/1 concerns itself with structures made merely out of pitches, rhythms, and—to a lesser though still structurally significant extent—dynamics. Radical?
/open/control/1 leaves the designation and choice of instruments to the performing ensemble, thereby connecting loosely to the Real Books of jazz standards. It is, however, more Baroque in its conception. The pitch and rhythmic structures themselves are a million miles away, but the Baroque period's concentration on note music is clearly a link. And this is underlined by the designation of a concertino of two unspecified soloists plus unspecified bass and percussion parts, along with a ripieno of an open instrumental type and number.
1. instrumentation
1.1. ranges
- The soloists' range is from sounding G3 quarter-sharp (the first one below middle C) to E6. So, for example, if electric guitars are used, as in the software-generated demo, then they should play an octave above written. This would mean a 24-fret instrument would be appropriate.
- The bass should go down to written E2 but will generally sound an octave lower than written. The highest note is written A4.
- The open ensemble's highest and lowest notes are sounding E1 and F7, but more flexibility on octave transpositions is possible.
- Octave-transposed parts, as well as parts in B-flat, E-Flat, F etc. can be requested from the composer: m@michael-edwards.org
1.2. percussion
The mapping suggestion at the beginning of the score correlates standard drum kit instruments to notated pitches. By no means should this be seen as the ideal. Any other instruments could be substituted in a standard or extended kit, and the instruments could change throughout the piece, with, for example, groupings changing and reappearing on section boundaries. The concept of the drum kit could also be completely or partially abandoned, using non-standard sounding objects or instruments instead.
In several sections, +wild fills is indicated. What is meant here is a short, dense, improvised passage using whichever instruments and rhythms/techniques are deemed by the player to be most suitable in the musical context. +wild fills is sometimes placed over an inactive bar, and thus fulfils the function of traditional pop/jazz/rock fills. In any case, where this is indicated, improvisation is expected for the complete duration of the line extended to the right, i.e. over rests and even complete rest bars. When this is placed over exact notes and rhythms, the fill should be inserted in the rests or around the given notes; furthermore, the notes can be modified ad lib., or even ignored and replaced by the fills.
1.3. electronics
There are no explicit electronic parts or resources required for this piece, but a generally electric sound would be very appropriate. Thus a mixture of electronic instruments, such as keyboards/synths or electric guitars, would work well with amplified acoustic instruments.
Amplification could be organised locally, with onstage amplifiers or speakers next to the players, or could be implemented with microphones and line-level signals via a PA system.
A completely acoustic version is, however, just as foreseeable.
1.4. the open ensemble
Although some fairly dense chords/passages are assigned to the open ensemble, the number and type of instruments used is left to the musicians to decide. Some notes in chords can be left out if necessary, thus the open ensemble could range from just four or five available instrumentalists to a complete string section, for example. Very heterogeneous groupings are also very welcome, as are ensembles made up of a mixture of acoustic and electronic sources.
The open ensemble's notes are specified on four staves: two for treble and two for bass notes. In both ranges, notes are separated out onto microtonal and chromatic staves, so that instruments with and without microtonal capabilities can address and find their notes more easily.
Sustained notes can be held by single instruments or passed around the ensemble ad lib., i.e. players can join in the note after it starts, but in general not with an audible attack, rather smoothly instead.
1.5. heterophonic unison
In the last section of the piece, the open ensemble is required to play in heterophonic unision with the soloists. What is meant here is that all or some of the open ensemble plays along with one or more of the concertino parts, but irregularly, i.e. breaking after just a few notes, varying the rhythmic precision, holding onto some notes here and there, etc., etc. Do however retain enough resources to play the short sharp chords notated throughout this section.
1.6. microtonality
As is clear from the score, this piece is highly microtonal insofar as the score is riddled with quarter tone symbols. However, the quarter-tones can be seen in two ways: as part of an equally-tempered 24-note scale (as audible in the demo sound file); or as expressive deviations (by bends or extended fingerings) from the nearest chromatic note. Lack of easily-achievable microtonality on any particular instrument should not immediately be seen as a deal-breaker. For example, microtonality on keyboards could be accomplished via two pedals and a Max/MSP or Pure Data patch feeding a software synthesiser. Contact the composer for suggestions or with queries: m@michael-edwards.org
1.7. accidental policy
Accidentals carry throughout the bar but are repeated in parentheses as deemed necessary.
1.8. playing techniques
Depending upon the instruments selected and the insights and desires of the performers involved, various playing techniques may be used ad lib. in the interpretation of the score. A few of these are indicated in the score but many more could be introduced. For example, harmonics, the occasional tremolandi/flutter-tongue, growling (wind), various pizzicati and other plucking/slapping effects, playing on different parts of string instruments' necks and fingerboards (sul pont., sul tasto), using (different) plectrums/mallets/sticks/objects to strike the instrument, etc., etc. Similarly, if electronic instruments are used, quite radical programme/synthesis/sample-bank changes can be introduced to underline the structure of the work.
2. text
At four points towards the end of the score, a single word is to be (optionally) shouted during pauses. This should always occur at the very last moment before the downbeat of the following bar, but if the text box is placed over the bar line, then the second syllable of the word should occur on the downbeat.
The text is "aspire forever never retire", which is a translation by Derek Mahon of Samuel Beckett's "rêve / sans fin / ni trêve / à rien". This could be shouted by all musicians involved, by just the concertino, or by single musicians: either one for all four words or one word each for four musicians. Even starting with one musician and increasing over the four words to the full ensemble could work well.
Depending upon the instrumentation chosen and the acoustic of the performance space, the text could be shouted into microphones or left unamplified. The choice in all of this is, of course, left to the interpreters; as is the choice not to shout at all, if preferred (but either all four words or none should be shouted).
3. demo sound file
This sound file was generated via a MIDI file exported from the Dorico notation software. Such things are always somewhat horrible: Not only do the sampled or synthesised sounds fall way short of the richness of acoustic instruments played by humans, but the phrasing, timing, and dynamic shaping that human musicians bring to interpretation are all pretty much non-existent in the MIDI version.
On top of this, composers' notions of ideal tempi are often very much influenced (upwards, as a form of compensation) by the machine's precision and lack of finesse. With all this in mind, however, MIDI renders can help, particularly in this piece perhaps, where the notation is so standard as to appear potentially boring.
To create the demo, I used two different Native Instruments electric guitar sampling instruments for the solo parts, plus a different one for the bass. The percussion part was rendered using a custom Native Instruments Battery drum kit. All the ripieno parts were synthesised with an electric piano physical model from pianoteq.
Please bear in mind that the beginning of this piece is tentative; it doesn't show its real character until Letter B in the score (1:54 in the sound file).
N.B. due to a range limitation on one of the sampling instruments used, this demo sounds a minor third below the written pitches. My apologies to listeners and score followers with perfect pitch.
4. historical context
Gross Generalisation Alert: We can see the history of Western music as proceeding over the centuries from instrumentation that is ambiguous and debatable to that which is structurally indispensable, precisely defined, and highly variegated.
For example, the discourse around the use of instruments in the performance of medieval music—whether they should be used at all and if so which? played simultaneously with the voices or alone/in alternation?—underlines the implicit and more important aspect of this music: its exclusive emphasis, besides text, on pitch and rhythm structures (i.e. it is note music). Despite the explicit instrumental groupings in Monterverdi's Orfeo of 1607, the exclusive reliance on pitch and rhythm organisation to define an instrumental work is still evident more than a century later in, for example, the keyboard works of J.S. Bach. We can argue about whether playing these works on the piano is sacrilege or not, but we cannot deny their robustness: Whether played on the piano, harpsichord, or any other instrument(s), these pieces work no matter what, even in the hands of relatively inexperienced musicians.
As we progress through the late Baroque and Classical periods—and the orchestra begins to expand at the same time that the dynamic possibilities of the piano transcend mere affect to achieve formal significance—we arrive at, for example, Schubert's unique pairing of the clarinet and oboe in unison at the beginning of his Unfinished Symphony. Clearly, by this point, the combination of instrumental colours is starting to assume a structural role in Western composition. We can further witness this as the 19th century moves through the stunning orchestration of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique; Wagner's operas and their instruments as agents; and landing at the beginning of the 20th century in Debussy's La mer, which lives and pivots on orchestration techniques such as oboe and pizzicato double basses playing together over a span of several octaves. Just a few years later, in Schönberg's Farben from the Fünf Orchesterstücke of 1909, we reach the apotheosis, Klangfarbenmelodie, where melody is reduced to a single pitch played on instruments of different timbres.
The importance of precisely-defined instrumental and vocal combinations, shadings, and—progressively more important—extended playing techniques, can be seen as increasingly essential to the expression of the musical idea as the 20th century advances. By the time we reach Sciarrino's Capricci for solo violin in 1976, it is the detailed colours of highly virtuosic extended instrumental techniques that are bearing the main structural responsibility of defining and forming the music. Transferal of this music to another instrumental group is at this point almost unthinkable, even if it were technically possible; leaving it in the hands of inexperienced musicians is equally implausible.
In summary then, but without even hinting at a value judgment, we have moved from, say, Bach's keyboard Inventions and their the highly robust organisation of (merely) pitch and rhythm—with what we might call a signal-to-noise ratio so high that it's almost impossible to destroy this music no matter who plays it on which instruments—to highly fragile structures that even the best musicians must struggle to convey adequately—and the attendant signal-to-noise ratio so low that it's sometimes hard to extract the music out of the background noise of the instrumental techniques demanded (and that is exactly the point). But in the name of reinvigorating the New/Contemporary Music scene, is it time to take a fresh look at note music again?
Michael Edwards, July 2025