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a metastable harmony

This research-through-practice piece was written in 2012 for Quatuor Bozzini as part of their Composer's Kitchen workshops in conjunction with Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (HCMF). The work investigates spectral part/whole relationships in experimental music for strings, and can be contextualised in relation to Lucier, Grisey and Radulescu especially. In my own research this work extends research into non-linear resonant structures in acoustic music as determinants of harmonic form. The work is highly rigorous as it is almost exclusively a realisation of this idea, and significant for extending spectral research in applying bounded indeterminacy to the physical structure of the cello spectrum.

The research dimensions include:

- emergent and ephemeral harmonic structures derived reflexively from resonant characteristics of the specific instrument in performance. This derives from empirical research, both by the composer and in collaboration with performers, into bowing technique and the physical response of strings as non-linear systems; including the level of indeterminacy in the string response to various stimuli.

- performance techniques specific to bowing practice for sustaining ambiguous whole/part relationships between note/harmonic.

- development of an aesthetic for ambiguous whole/part relationships as an extension of Spectral techniques.

- mixed notational strategies (text/symbolic) to locate levels of specificity and indeterminacy.

- original notation system that scales the effort required by the player to produce the partials. Target partials are not specified, effort (not simply force) is represented by a height scale, whatever partial emerges from that effort is considered licit.

Dissemination: The work was performed in 2012 in Montreal and at HCMF. The score and recording are freely available on the composer's website, and in the Irish Music Information Centre. Published on portrait CD by Ergodos Records.