Elliott Sharp: Orchestra Carbon-LARYNX

Elliott Sharp: Orchestra Carbon—Larynx

Larynx is an analogy formation; the orchestra as a throat. A reverse conclusion from the fact that the throat can also be an orchestra: as in the throat chants of the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, in the Khöömej chants of Mongolia, or in the distantly related oral cavity technique of the Jew's harp, which can be found everywhere found in the world. The natural series is the melodic basis for much of this music - and for large parts of the larynx.

For the tuning of the strings, brass, slabs, pantars, and double-neck bass guitar, I derive numerical ratios from the Fibonacci sequence; I also get melodic-harmonic material for these instruments and rhythmic material for the whole ensemble from it. Thoughts from fractal geometry provide inspiration and further basic material. Here I tie in with classification systems that I have already used in pieces such as Marco Polo's Argali, Self-Squared Dragon or Tessalation Row. In a given section, some of the musicians should exclusively evaluate these systems, while others should develop their own individual playing styles at the same time. Coordinated improvisations are superimposed and intertwined with composed passages - allowing the players to expand on the given material and comment freely as well.

In 1985 I learned about Benoît Mandelbrot and his fractal geometry from an article in Scientific American, which I became more and more enthusiastic about from then on. It appealed to me how Mandelbrot related the curves of mathematical functions to natural phenomena such as turbulence, chaos or apparent randomness, and I felt that "ideal music" could also have something to do with thinking through these forms and phenomena. As I explored the many regions of a Julia set on my Atari ST computer, I thought I was looking at an effigy of time—not linear at all, but jagged, with net shapes and loops.

For the album Fractal (1986) I began constructing pieces loosely related to various aspects of fractal geometry. In each piece there were shifting structural elements and coordinated improvisation, there were layers of intertwined order and chaos. What I was looking for in mathematics was an acceleration of my ideas, were inspirational impulses rich in allusions. I had no interest in using fractal tables to synthesize musical material - that would have been too mechanistic, too academic for me.

At that time I also connected the guitar neck of my double instrument (guitar/bass guitar) to a sampler for the first time – with a MIDI converter. I sampled sounds, tonal progressions and phrases based on unusual playing techniques - they should form the sonic core of my pieces - and I used the sounds of homemade instruments; this allowed me to retain a level of retrospection and return in the final mix while expanding my sonic gamut fantastically.

An important expressive organ integrated into the Orchestra Carbon in the realization of Larynx is the Soldier String Quartet. The rhythmic cunning of these four and their enthusiasm for the special playing techniques that I demanded in the composition made working with them a pleasure. Their instruments were tuned entirely to natural tones, according to the ratios of 1:1, 3:2, 8:5 and 5:3 (approximately C, G, Ab and A) obtained from neighboring Fibonacci numbers.

These tunings were carried over to the slabs, pantars, and bass guitar as well. To keep the intonation "clean" during the long piece, only open strings with the respective overtones are played on all these instruments. It is similar with the brass, they play the corresponding pedal tones plus overtones. (Nevertheless, there are also vacancies in Larynx where players can produce a wide variety of system-independent sounds.) "Slabs" are horizontal bass instruments with a sliding bridge in the middle of the stretched string and pickups at both ends.

Light metal sticks with rubber tips are used for playing. In order to produce overtones, the played half of the string must be muted by hand; this way two people can play at one slab. You can also bow slabs or perform glissandi with a bottleneck. The "Pantars" are lids of metal barrels, each equipped with four tunable strings, a pickup and a bridge or resonator made from the bell of a cymbal. Pantars can be plucked, struck, bowed or vibrated with an E-bow.

Larynx consists of six major parts and five interludes. In the first and last part, four drummers play together. In the parts in between, one of them is the focus as a soloist; the others meanwhile play slabs or samples. The solo drummers in parts 2 to 5 are: Noyes, Previte, Bennett and Linton. Each of them has developed their very own style; I like the contrasts between them and I like how they take what I'm expressing as a composer. This applies to all musicians in the Orchestra Carbon. I give them instructions of varying degrees of detail for the different parts of the piece (ranging from exact rhythmic or technical specifications to general thoughts on density and structure).

As planned, the same algorithmic rules are applied to each part; they create - although they produce radically different sound structures each time - something like cross-references. You get to a new part through an interlude – the ground you are walking on is different, but you still realize that the new place is functionally identical to the previous one. As in mathematical topology: a torus (»swimming ring«) is a torus is a torus. The interludes connect the main parts, but also form an independent cycle; it successively applies the same techniques to groups of instruments that are distinctly different but can operate in a similar way in thought and structure. In the interludes one hears in sequence: brass, pantars, string quartet, slabs, bass guitar.

Larynx was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the Next Wave Festival in 1987; the composition was completed in June, shortly before the start of the recording work. The piece was recorded and mixed at BC Studio in Brooklyn (New York) from June to October 1987; Sound engineer was Martin Bisi. The realization took place in individual layers and sections. My budget was severely limited; I paid for the recording out of my own pocket. Whenever I could afford to get players and rent the studio for a few hours, I would finish a part or add a level.

The musicians worked almost without context: They played over certain passages that I had previously recorded for orientation - with my double-neck guitar or as a brass player together with the drummers. The musicians were only able to understand how their parts were connected to those of the others when they listened to the entire recording (it then also helped the ensemble when we were rehearsing for the live premiere). The studio recording was first released in 1988 on the pioneering Californian indie / punk rock label SST.

When performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (November 13-14, 1987), Larynx displayed a musical vitality all its own - a power that came from the inspired contributions of all the performers. The music moves lightly on the floating border between a geometry derived from the harmonic Fibonacci progression and a fractal geometry of turbulence, chaos, disorder. Strictly ordered building blocks are embedded in a dense field of diverse developments. Throughout the piece, melodic micro-structures are in motion simultaneously; they influence each other, connect with each other, jump out and show themselves openly.

As the elements shift, new landscapes emerge and in them development can take new directions. It wasn't about stubbornly deriving my musical parameters from fractal tables or treating mathematical functions as if they were artifacts. Fractal geometry, as I use it, is meant to be a mental flamethrower that burns away conventional notions of structure and development - allowing the larynx to be perceived as a bundle of extra-musical processes as well. It is like a sounding hologram: you can listen to it from different sides; the parts and the whole are simultaneously revealed as their form and function are redefined.
(Records from 1987, revised 2007.)

Translation: Michael Herrschel