//score without music, music without score//

My installation/happening took place last night, March 5, from 10pm-midnight in Harper Hall. I created three sculptural lantern scores out of sticks, colorful tissue paper, and torn-up fragments of the score to Songs Without Words; created three graphic scores made by layering tissue paper and glow in the dark mod podge on torn-out pages of Songs Without Words; composed an ambient electronic track that underscored the duration of the happening; and brought the rest of Songs Without Words for participants to tear up as part of the happening. I kept the lights very dim - almost off - so that the lanterns, and the lights placed inside the piano, would be visible. I also brought some materials for piano extended techniques - superball mallets and fishing line - so people could experiment with unusual means of sound production. 

My goals were to create an otherworldly space for people to experiment with sound and movement through the use of lighting, sound, and sculptural elements, in order to question the nature of scores and whether we can fully move beyond the restrictive qualities of scores; and to disrupt the ways in which musicians usually interact with Harper, a space that enshrines a very strict idea of creative expression. This was personal for me - Harper has given me so much anxiety over the course of my time at Lawrence because that's where studio class performances happen, where juries happen, where most of my recital performances have happened. Part of my purpose was to overwrite the negative associations I have with that space, to take it back from the dominant musical traditions at Lawrence. One of the big questions I wrestled with in creating this happening was in how to communicate my intentions to my participants clearly, but also in a way that allowed them to step beyond the framework I set up if they so chose, since the point of my project was to break anything and everything that stands in the way of completely free creative expression, be it a book of sheet music or a post-modern score.

I found that people ended up referring to the sculptural and graphic scores I made infrequently, preferring to just experiment with sound production, but I think having all the artifacts I created in the space was so important for creating the atmosphere in which the particular sound experiments emerged. People actually really enjoyed tearing up the old scores I provided, and one other person brought their own old sheet music to offer up for tearing purposes. Paper sounds - tearing, crumpling, waving - were a throughline of the sonic environment just as the electronic drone was. I also found that almost everyone spent the entire time on the stage, or just offstage in front of the first row of chairs. I love that the stage was the place where everything happened, that everyone felt comfortable enough to take up space on the stage, but I'm curious what it would be like if people brought their sound-making out into the seats as well - what if I had lanterns placed throughout the 'audience' space, brought in more speakers that could be placed at the back of the hall, and completely disrupted the stage/audience divide?

I hope to be able to do this happening again sometime during spring term. In this iteration, all of my participants were musicians, and most were experienced improvisers, so they took to the space with ease (this was actually very helpful for my first time experimenting with a happening, because it all went so smoothly). In a future iteration, I'd love to have mostly non-musicians - dancers, visual artists, makers of words - since they don't already have an musical improvisation language that they've practiced for a long time, and I think they would be even more free and creative in figuring out sounds to make in the space, with the provided scores and sound-generating materials. I'd like to make so many more lanterns (they turned out to be very time-consuming to make, alas, hence why I only had three this time) and completely fill the space. This is so exciting for me to think about because I would never have thought to create an installation/happening before taking this class, but it was such a productive practice on Tuesday that it's now something I want to keep working with, refining. 

After the happening, two people expressed how much they had needed an opportunity to do something like this. I think for some, this was a meditative space that helped them destress; for one, this was her first time improvising publically after being intimidated by the prospect; for me, it was a rare occasion when I felt completely at ease improvising, taking up space, just existing in Harper. Most, if not all, of us got something valuable from the experience of doing this sound-making practice regardless of the baggage we brought with us. 

The poster I made for my happening.

The information sheet I placed at the entrance to Harper.

My three graphic scores.

A dim view of the stage.

Eli playing violin, me tearing up paper, lantern score!

Inside the piano.

Isaac at the piano with spooky lighting.

Lanterns with a score for listening.

Lanterns with Eli's legs.

Isaac at the piano again.

Isaac, Eli, Helen, and me.

Last but not least - the electronic track! This track is an almost-14-minute-long loop that cycles very, very slowly through a palindromic interval progression. 
https://soundcloud.com/lucian-baxter/score-without-music-music-without-score 

Even more last - the recording from Tuesday night! Lightly mixed and mastered, slightly truncated.

https://soundcloud.com/lucian-baxter/score-without-music-music-without-score-march-5-live-recording