[Emsan-l] greetings for EMSAN day

Sat Oct 24 12:49:52 MDT 2009

Thank you. I too send my best wishes for a successful and fruitful  
meeting and future.

My own experience here has been described as a 'caucasian in qi  
pao' (traditional chinese dress, cheongsam). My interests in the  
composition of four pieces for guzheng and fixed media, was in  
presenting new music to an audience that did not have contact with  
"new music" -- the owners and patrons of restaurants in a western  
"Chinatown".

In response to Dr Ishii's comment

> Nowadays, composers of electroacoustic music  have a powerful tool;  
> the computers. Using the digital technology, we can go farther.  
> Composers can transform any sounds in various ways, even to produce  
> remote characteristics from their originals.
>
> Here, however, composers will face a question; In what way process  
> sounds? and why? In what way structure music?and why?
>

These pieces (linked below) are not "new musics" in the [western]  
experimental music tradition, but are 'new' when placed in the context  
of, for example, the Twelve Girl Band. It was not my intention to  
invade or steal from oriental cultures, but (partly because of the  
audiences), to respect the cultures I was coming in contact with, and  
to in a sense pay homage to both east and west.

The first three are based on traditional chinese melodies, and are in  
effect ea accompaniments to established pieces. I did not compose the  
part played by the guzheng, and (merely) sought to 'enhance' and  
provide (another context) for the existing works. I asked the  
performer to help me understand what to do, and how to do it. She told  
me stories. I took the images, titled the pieces, and created the ea  
elements using only the sounds of a guzheng. As Dr Ishii notes  
however, some of these sounds appear as quite distant from the source,  
for example the opening "gong", and later, the "crickets".

The three pieces:
Temple
http://www.sonus.ca/app/ui/more.php?Language=en&MediaID=971
http://cec.concordia.ca/electrobox/sonus02/Austin_Chou_Temple.mp3

High Moon
http://www.sonus.ca/app/ui/more.php?Language=en&MediaID=972
http://cec.concordia.ca/electrobox/sonus02/Austin_Chou_High_Moon.mp3

Moonlit Night
http://www.sonus.ca/app/ui/more.php?Language=en&MediaID=973
http://cec.concordia.ca/electrobox/sonus02/Austin_Chou_Moonlit_Night.mp3

will not be programed in concerts of new music, nor in concerts of  
traditional music, in either east or west, for they fall outside of  
the aesthetics of new music in the west, and of traditional musics in  
the east

Waves and Tides of Time is a more complex situation for it builds upon  
my experiences with the first three pieces. In Waves, I composed the  
guzheng material, and with the collaboration of Chih-Lin Chou, was  
able to turn my sterile notes into living musics. The structure is  
multi-cultural being based on the five (eastern) elements, clearly  
audible, and five modalities of a non-chinese pentatonic structure. I  
was surprised to hear comments that the most "fearful" part of the  
piece was that of "earth". Many in the audience who had lived through  
earthquakes in Taiwan related directly to the sounds in ways that I  
had not ever considered.

http://www.sonus.ca/app/ui/more.php?Language=en&MediaID=1501
http://cec.concordia.ca/electrobox/sonus03/Austin_Waves_performance.mp3

This work was also programed for a similar event in Beijing in the  
autumn of 2004, Qi and Complexity: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=19170&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

A number of works that Dr Ishii may be making reference to regarding  
oriental composers working with western (orchestral) idioms are  
available inexpensively on Naxos CDs. I recommend them highly for  
their historical and cultural importance. And I must not forget, The  
Map, by Tan Dun, available in both chinese and english versions on  
Deutsche Grammophone DVDs.

Best wishes to all on the second day of shuangjiang, the arrival of  
hoar frost.

Kevin

A fifth piece in this series is for guzheng, chinese percussion,  
violin, video by Freida Abtanm and 12-channel sound, is far removed  
from traditional oriental roots. http://www.sonus.ca/app/ui/more.php?Language=en&MediaID=1844
and http://cec.concordia.ca/electrobox/sonus03/Austin_Masks_Mirrors_Shadow.mp3

The guzheng is tuned in a scordatura fashion as is now not unusual in  
the advanced guzheng repertoire, and there is a Berg Violin Concerto  
quote near the end.

On 2009, Oct 24, at 1:36 PM, hiromi ishii wrote:

>
> Dear EMSAN colleague composers,
>
> All the best for the EMSAN day Beijing on 28/10!
> Hope the EMSAN day will be successfully productive.
>
> Since the encounter of Eastern and Western cultures, many Asian  
> composers experienced distortions through the aesthetic difference  
> of the two and have been seeking ways for coexistence.
> For example, there was a big wave in 20 century Japanese  
> contemporary music in which composers of Western style music coped  
> with this theme enthusiastically. They applied traditional Japanese  
> instruments to their works as 'pure' sound materials ignoring their  
> tradition and aesthetics. They composed music by juxtaposing  
> traditional instruments together with western instruments (including  
> electronic sounds), by inventing new playing techniques to produce  
> never-heard sounds, and even by applying this distortion itself to  
> structure music. Many innovative works have been composed, but on  
> the other hand, many composers re-found traditional Japanese music,  
> because they found that music appears more powerful when an  
> instrument is used based on its own sound aesthetics.
> Nowadays, composers of electroacoustic music  have a powerful tool;  
> the computers. Using the digital technology, we can go farther.  
> Composers can transform any sounds in various ways, even to produce  
> remote characteristics from their originals.
> Here, however, composers will face a question; In what way process  
> sounds? and why? In what way structure music?and why?
> To answer these, establishing the originality of Asian EA music is  
> essential. Researches and investigations from the viewpoint of EA  
> music on our traditional music & sound cultures are indispensable  
> for its future development.
>
> Our Asian aesthetic-based electroacoustic music is surely a part of  
> (Western-origined) electroacoustic music, but at the same time, it  
> will be as a 'new' genre of Asian 'traditional' music in future  
> centuries. Only electroacoustic music enables us to bridge between  
> different sound cultures and musical traditions, as it offers quite  
> an innovative context of music in which composers can create a very  
> delicate and close relationship between them.
>
> With my best wishes to all participants,
> Dr. Hiromi Ishii
> Composer/Curator of media art & visual music
>
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