More Bass Ballet

LCDS: the second year

So the thing about walking through the wind tunnels that are the streets in the City, is that when you're carrying a bass it is kind of like para sailing.



That is neither here nor there- the London Contemporary Dance School project has begun again! I'm excited for this year, some of my favorite musicians from past projects (last year's LCDS and Globetown) are back again for this project and we're already having fun.



Interestingly, there is only one female choreographer, last year I think they were all female. The composers and choreographers have been having their initial meetings and showings of their work all this week. This afternoon they're deciding what the pairings will be for the collaboration. I'm happy to find that there is much more talk this year about how to use the instrumentalists in the dance space which would make us more visually integral to the performance. Last year there was only one piece that didn't involve the whole band playing in the back like it was a pit orchestra.



We warmed up together and moved about the space as an entire group to get the session started. Then the instrumentalists gradually picked up their instruments and began improvising. I moved diagonally across the room playing pizzicato on the bass (a not very subtle attempt to get the day started off with a "musicians can be dancers too" feeling) and then realized that what the music really called for at that moment was arco which meant that I had to walk all the way around the room back to the piano in order to get my bow. This I actually tried to do subtly, which didn't work as a couple of the dancers came and walked with me. So: success for the first thing I was trying to do!



We broke into three groups and were given half an hour to make a piece based on "boundaries" and the breaking of said boundaries. Since I had the largest instrument our group got to stay in the room we would be performing in. (The bass is actually fairly portable, but I'm not arguing.) We discussed briefly how many ways we could set up barriers to break such as having the audience sitting in a semi-circle and walking through them. There was a closet off to the side of the room that I really wanted to see if we could use since it was (I'm going to use the word indigenous even though that is sort of out of place, you know what I'm getting at though, right?) indigenous to the room and making things specifically for specific spaces is always fun to do.



Then the composer, Aaron asked me if I could play while the bass was in the air...so we tried that out and decided that it would be easiest if we just used open strings, but we wanted a different feeling than Tonic Dominant Tonic Dominant over and over again so we de tuned my A string so that we had a tri tone double stop in the middle which meant that when we made an ostinato there was this lovely, gritty, funereal air to it.



So. Closet, semi circle audience, hoisted up bass, ostinato.



We started in the closet with the door closed and me playing. This was very quiet through the door which was brilliant because it meant that the door squeaking open was audible. Then Louis (the choreographer) started processing out while I continued playing and Aaron began lifting up the bass, still behind the, now open, closet door so that the audience still couldn't really see what was happening. Then we began processing across the room, causing the audience to scramble out of the way when it became clear that we were headed straight for them. (The bass was at this point nearly parallel to the floor, my right shoulder got very tired from bowing at that angle- directly out in front of me) We walked through the rest of the room and then out into the hallway where we continued for another 10 seconds or so.



Barriers broken: physical barrier of the audience, barrier of the various doors, using a dancer as something other than a dancer, preconception of how the bass could be played, and if we're looking at the dramatic feeling of the piece- the barrier between life and death. So deep. Aren't we cool?



There was more, but I have errands to run so that is all you get for now.

Ow.

I spent today in rehearsals for the London Contemporary Dance School project. You may recall that this project involves 5 composers and 5 choreographers creating pieces for two (three?) performances coming up.

The composers are now "done" composing and their music ended up in my school mail box last friday. I spent this weekend looking over the parts and realizing that a: I haven't played the upright bass in months, and b: I haven't *learned* music from sheet music in over a year...I've barely even read any sheet music in the last year. In any case it was a struggle and I was really concerned about embarrassing myself in the rehearsals today. I am in 3 of the 5 pieces and as of last night I was pretty sure that I would be fine on Jane's piece, be able to fake Matthew's, and horribly butcher Rupert's.

I don't know that I needed to freak out as much as I did though because two of the composers brought in brand new parts today and all of them took the pieces at much slower tempos than what they had marked.

As it turned out what I'm really going to need to work on is Jane's piece because the opening line is supposed to be a very fluid bass solo and is totally exposed. Unfortunately I am back to playing timidly on the contrabass.

Matthew needed me to be a jazz player because he wrote an entire page of pizzicato driving 8th notes. His piece hurts to play, so I convinced him that it would be better for everyone involved if I did that page with the bow and he agreed. (He even claims now that he likes the sound better! Of course, before there was no sound because I would just stop playing...so maybe take that with a grain of salt.)

I was terrified of Rupert's piece. The tempo markings were swift to say the least, the rhythms are intricate and random and change every bar, and there are all sorts of harmonics that I wasn't entirely sure how to find on the bass. It turns out however that the tempo is slower than he was claiming on the paper and the piece is very well constructed so that even though the rhythms are crazy- it works together with all of the other parts and is quite a bit easier to play with the entire ensemble rather than by ones self.

Rupert has also clearly had someone teach him how to treat his musicians at some point: he offered us his snack, said "thanks" frequently and sincerely, was very clear in his conducting, gave constructive criticism when needed, listened to the musicians when we pointed out that something was unplayable, and ended the rehearsal with the firmest handshake ever.

We are recording these peices for the dancers to rehearse with on Tuesday and Thursday. We start actually playing for the dancers starting at the beginning of March.


Oh, and the reason that this post is titled "Ow" is because even though I didn't embarrass myself playing wise (yes!) I did manage to have the bass slip in such a way that the tuning pegs fell (hard) onto my forehead. I haven't done that since 1996.

I did it twice today.

I have twin raised bumps on my forehead now that look like a V.