for voice and guitar

i. Sang I
ii. Played I
iii. Sang II
iv. Played II
v. Sang III

Voice - Rylan Gleave
Guitar - Finn Patrick McLean
text from Ulysses by James Joyce.

James Joyce Sang and Played Guitar (2022)

In this research project I attempted to arrange rebetika songs from the guitar repertoire of “tsimpita” or plucked rebetika for electric guitar, voice, electronics, and samples from field recordings in Glasgow and in Cyprus. The specific repertoire has an immigration and sociocultural background and was developed in the 1930s in America from Greek immigrants. My approach to this research focuses on the idea of contextualisation of the music elements from Asia Minor to Greece and from Greece to America such as the capture of makam as “dromoi” or roads and an adaptation to equal temperament system instruments such as the bouzouki, the guitar and the mandolin. In America, the bouzouki is capture as the guitar which is tuned in the same way. Another example of adaptability is the use of the taqsim, the free improvisation that is also used in rebetika, adopting a specific style and a way of Middle eastern improvisation. Moreover, the adaptability of these folk musicians leads to the technique of African- American blues, where musicians adopted special tunings that they found in America and thus they create an original way of performing. Considering the above, this research focuses to examine if there is still space for contextualisation and adaptation in tsimpita. Moreover, this project deals with how the electric sound can reshape sounds of the past and escapes the fact that the last years, the folk guitar became electric in bouzoukia (or clubs) and in paniyiria (or festivals) as a rhythmic accompaniment. The choice of this particular research is based on my research for my musical identity through a collection of memories of sounds from the past, my current influences of a contemporary context and my correlation to my expatriation.

sound map: earth.google.com/earth/d/12XMNmlg…EBjg?usp=sharing

many thanks to performers: 
Antonis Hadjiantonis - voice, electric guitar 
Fidias Ferekidis - drums 

Antonia Kattou - composition, voice, electronics, sampling 

produced in Nicosia, Athens, Glasgow
*This research project was part of my Master's research and portfolio. 

read more about the project: https://www.kattouantonia.com/electronic 

gear used: jampedals - Red Muck vol.2, Korg MicroKorg Vocoder
 
Happy listening!

4. at the basement- Excerpt

3. blues And twoes- Excerpt

This example was a  demonstration of processing audio through some custom MaxMSP Patches, recording the output and layering the results in Reaper. 

Some examples of sampling with Reaper's inbuild sampler towards the end and some Max BEAP modular.

Processing Audio

Performed by Angeliki Giannopoulou on 27th April 2022, as part of the Plug 5: Keyboard concert at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

PROGRAMME NOTE
Ingénue began as a piece about beauty,  and the way in which beautiful things decay. I'm often drawn in by the prospect of reconcilling opposing themes, and the opposition between beauty and decay is certainly one fit for artistic plunder, but so too does it contain a remarkable unity. So many beautiful things seem to resist the prospect of decaying through their beauty itself - we are often too struck by a beautiful work of art, for example, to even consider that one day it may fade and crumble - yet so much of the promise of decay finds itself present amongst beauty. It's often in the imperfections, like the subtly faded hues of an old photograph, or the wrinkles on the face of a loved one, that we're able to find true beauty.

Accordingly, Ingénue exists always as music in decay (it feels presumptuous for me, the composer, to label it beautiful - perhaps only in an arch-modernist fashion); the musical lines are torn and compressed, the strict internal logic of the piece disrupted by an ever-increasing magnitude, towards a final collapse seemingly prophesied in the first few moments. Yet within that collapse, a tender silence is found, where echoes of what once was sing forth into the emptiness, the last reminder of everything we have just experienced.

The ingénue seemed a fitting namesake, and I considered the myriad ways she might fit into the present dialectic; the traditional view might be that her innocence is in danger of being corrupted by the latent sexuality often present (yet unacknowledged) within the archetype. Yet another perspective presented itself, that to craft this artificial purity of femininity, a living, thinking person must first be displaced - the beauty of internal life, and the decay of being reduced to a hollow parody of yourself.

Ingénue

What if the most intensely heated features of our individual structure and inner experiences remain hidden unless an interference of heavenly enormity occurs? Like the sun’s corona during an eclipse.
Are there aspects of you that only become visible when others are prevented from shining?
Please find a quiet space. Put on headphones. Close your eyes and immerse yourself in the world that is revealed within.

What Was Revealed

Let sound artist Jez riley French take you on a self-guided journey of Beechenhurst (Forest of Dean) in this soundwalk - The Secret Sounds of Trees.

For more information, visit:
https://www.sounduk.net/events/soundwalk-secret-sounds-trees/

Soundwalk - The Secret Sounds of Trees - Feathered Pink Botanic_MP3

'readymades' explores the sounds of broken, disused, and deconstructed musical instruments. The ensemble programmed for this performance have been recorded and reshaped as granular textures that crack, splinter and degrade as the piece progresses. Whilst the tape part explores the inevitable breaking down of ordered structures, the live aspect of this work demonstrates the potential for re-invention. For this piece I built instruments constructed from old, rejected and broken bits of instruments that I have collected, and the material for this composition was the result of improvisation and experimentation with these curious amalgamations, using amplification to explore their most microscopic sounds.

Performed by Calum Huggan as part of PLUG Festival 2024 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Readymades - Live Recording From PLUG 2024

The bandoneón (sometimes known as fuelle, which refers to the bellows of the instrument) is an iconic symbol of Tango music. In 2010 I witnessed a performance by a young Orquesta Típica in Buenos Aires, and was stunned to experience such expressive performances of Tango music.

In composing La Voz del Fuelle, I looked to recreate the physicality of the bandoneón which is at the forefront of many modern interpretations of Tango music. In the work, recordings of the instrument are woven in amongst other typical instruments of the style, as well as extended and manipulated sounds from bandoneón, piano, violin, and cello, combining to form waves of tension and release that underpin the work. The use of pulse and rhythm is crucial in weaving the gestural content together, and clarifying a link to the authentic sound of Tango. 

The work contains a brief reference to Astor Piazzolla’s Fugata (No. 2 from Silfo y Ondina), published by Tonos Music GmbH. 

La Voz del Fuelle was commissioned by the Fundación Destellos, Argentina. 


La Voz del Fuelle

The lyrics from Company by Stephen Sondheim, in alphabetical order.

Lyrics From Sondheim's Company In Alphabetical Order

Fredrik Rasten: acoustic guitar, voice

Svevning is a Norwegian word meaning levitation or flying, in the sense of flying without
effort – like when a bird is fully supported by the airstream, merely gliding.

Svevning also refers to interference or beating, the acoustic phenomenon that occurs when
two tonal sounds differ in pitch only slightly. When two tones are sustained with stability, their difference in frequency manifests sonically as a pulsating pattern of vibration. As the difference in frequency between the two tones increases, the speed, or frequency of the pulse increases correspondingly until a point or
area is reached where the difference is no longer heard as a pulse, but as a tone. This is
what is known as a difference tone.

I do not know how the two meanings of ‘svevning’ (in German, Schwebung) relate to each
other etymologically, but I find a latent poetry in their combined meanings and connotations.

Svevning is an extension of my earlier piece Limn. The music unfolds as an ever-changing continuum of chords, propelled by open strings and their harmonic nodes, slowly interwoven by retuning, patterns of plucking and occasional
voice.

Fredrik Rasten, July 2021, Berlin




all rights reserved 
credits
released October 5, 2021

Recorded by Fredrik Rasten at CityLAB Berlin on March 3 & 5, 2021.
Mixed by Sam Dunscombe.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
Cover artwork and design by d’incise.
Thanks to Marcus Pal, Mareike Lee, Adam Asnan, CityLAB Berlin, Sam, Giuseppe and
d’incise.

Released on INSUB records

buy download or cd here:

fredrikrasten.bandcamp.com/album/svevning

Readymades - Live Recording From PLUG 2024

Tom Macfadyen

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