The Opener - sharing the performer’s process

As a background and starting point for the the Opener, Henck Borgdorff’s definition of Artistic Research (AR) in the article The Debate on Research in the Arts sets an arena for a discussion on central topics in Artistic Research:

“Art practice qualifies as research if its purpose is to expand our knowledge and understanding by conducting an original investigation in and through art objects and creative processes. Art research begins by addressing questions that are pertinent in the research context and in the art world. Researchers employ experimental and hermeneutic methods that reveal and articulate the tacit knowledge that is situated and embodied in specific artworks and artistic processes. Research processes and outcomes are documented and disseminated in an appropriate manner to the research community and the wider public.”

What does this imply for Artistic Research and artistic reflection within the music performance field? Some questions derived from Borgdorff’s text:

• What characterizes our art practice as performers and what kind of knowledge and understanding are we talking about?
• What characterizes our creative processes as performers?
• How do we as performers employ experimental and hermeneutical methods in our work?
• What is tacit knowledge for us as performers and what can we say and articulate (verbally) and what can we show (demonstrate practice)?
• How can we as performers document and disseminate research processes and outcomes in an appropriate manner? What is an appropriate manner?

The idea of Artistic Reflection (as an artistic equivalent to the scientific thesis) and what it can be and should contain has been discussed since the beginning of AR in the 1990s. The so-called Norwegian Model is reflected in the requirement for Artistic Reflection in the regulations for Artistic PhD at UiB, which states “the artistic reflection shall be documented in the form of submitted material, and at the same time opens for that “the candidate chooses the medium and form for the reflection component and for any other documentation”. Many choose to document their reflection as written text only, that can resemble a traditional scientific thesis format. Some are also experimenting with different forms (video, different styles of texts, sound, etc.). The Opener will seek to experiment further and try out different ways of reflecting within music performance.

One of the most common exchanges of performative knowledge happens in the one-to-one instrumental teaching situation (or in an instrumental class situation). A large amount of performative knowledge and understanding can occur as an oral and spontaneous dialogue and interaction between teacher and student with practical demonstrations on the instrument. Every instrumental lesson is different and unique in that the teaching approach and methods are spontaneously adjusted to meet the needs of that specific event. In this way, instrumental lessons can be seen as highly experimental. New insights are rarely documented beyond the happening of an instrumental lesson. (Sometimes the student writes down something at the lesson or after in order to remember or symbols/words are written into the scores). If we are going to develop a stronger relevance and richer content within AR in the performance field, we have to consider the strong and intertwined relationship between the performing teacher’s own artistic work with what is happening in the teaching situation. The Opener will experiment with open teaching sessions as a laboratory for exchange of ideas and developing questions and ways of inquiring into performative issues in a dialogue between teachers and students. What kind of questions can help open up and reveal essential insight into performance and interpretation issues?

There is also the question of oral and written language. Performers are generally more oral in their communication and the academic world is traditionally based on written texts. There is reason to ask how written AR texts on performance are received in the performance community. Are they read? Are they experienced as relevant? Does the style of language communicate? Are there other ways of communicating that could be more relevant and closer to the performing world? Can we build on the strong oral tradition within the performing field and develop more dialogue-based AR-documentation through informal forms such as conversations, interviews, etc.? Can we find new models and strategies for documenting AR within the performance field?   The Opener wishes to experiment with different methods of opening up the knowledge field and finding ways of documentation that can help communicate and create a stronger sense of a community of sharing among the performance/teaching staff.  

Back to Basics

This project seeks to provide answers to the following questions:

- How may the conscious and consistent adherence to basic principles of violin playing ensure a reliable and sustainable craft for the violinist?

- How may silence enrich the craft and life (inner and outer) of the violinist?

The subproject is organized in seven sessions. The first four will explore the practice of doing nothing as a vehicle to enable intentional action. The most basic motions related to violin playing will be explored.

The content of the final three sessions will be decided in relation to the results of the first four.

The sessions will be conducted with a selected group of students. They will be open for other participants (both violinists and non violinists), who may choose to engage directly with the sessions or sit as observers.

Re-discovering Edvard Grieg’s 19 Norwegian Folk Tunes op.66   

Grieg’s op.66 is considered one of Grieg’s harmonically most original, advanced, and adventurous works, anticipating 20^th Century developments. How can the performer bring this work into a modern idiom and sound world today? Inspired by the composer George Crumb’s haunting musical spaces, this project will take a new approach to Grieg’s folk tunes and investigate how they can be seen and performed as “musical spaces” of closeness and distance on the piano experimenting with expressive means such as nuanced sound production, pedaling and tempo fluctuations. This with the goal of creating an overall artistic concept that goes deeper into each folk tune’s place as part of the composer’s implied narrative.

Rediscovering Franz Schubert through the pianos of his time

The role of musical instruments in the production of musical meaning has often been underestimated in the Western musicological thought and performing traditions. Indeed, the still popular idealistic view of music as an abstract idea contained within musical text continues to diminish the significance of the role that a performer and his/her instrument play in the music making process.

In my research I challenge that view and argue that piano-pianist relationships play an important role in the musical meaning creation. In my research project I am going to focus on the performance practice of the piano music of Franz Schubert on the pianos of his time. Recent scholarship suggests that performance notation is rather accidental and advisable in Schubert’s manuscripts. Therefore, I propose that Viennese fortepianos play a crucial role in understanding Schubert’s poetical language and performance practice. A musical instrument with its unique timbre, sound world and tactile qualities inspires the artist revealing musical meanings and expressions hidden behind the musical text. Moreover, I intend to reflect on my artistic practice on fortepianos and find adequate solutions on a modern grand piano.

The purpose of my research is to revisit Schubert’s piano repertoire through the prism of Viennese fortepianos and create convincing and informed interpretations.

As a participant of the Opener research group I am going to endeavor to open up and articulate aspects that contribute to my artistic practice: stage presence, psychological aspects of the preparational process and performance, the role of the audience in the act of music performance, to name a few.

Language in Artistic Practice:
Examining the use of oral language in rehearsal and teaching situations within the music performance field

Performative knowledge is often exchanged during rehearsal and teaching situations. This usually occurs as spontaneous interactions and dialogues between colleagues, teachers, and students and is unique in meeting the needs of that specific event. We rarely reflect on what language we use and how language contributes to shaping the knowledge or insight we wish to communicate. This subproject seeks to give insight into language employed in teaching and rehearsal situations, and how language might influence how and what we communicate.

Co-creative Virtuosity

This project endeavors to deconstruct and challenge the conventional understanding of virtuosity in music performance, aiming to transcend its historically hierarchical nature. It proposes a paradigm shift towards a co-creative approach that redefines the roles of composer, performer, instrument, and score within the creative process. Through a series of collaborations with composers, live concert performances, and reflective analyses grounded in personal practice, this project seeks to explore the intricate social dynamics inherent in music creation.

Relations - A Duo-Workshop-Project

  As teachers we experience a connection between educational background and research on one side and the experiences as performers on another. This friction opens up for decisions that can surprise, delight or reveal discussions and questions such as: 

What characterizes our practice as teachers and what kind of knowledge and understanding are we talking about?

This is one of the main questions in our Duo-workshops- project where the main focus will on relations between: 

• Performers, song/piano
• Teachers/ performers
• Teacher/teacher
• Performers/repertoire
• Teachers/repertoire
• Repertoire/content

The workshops will contain a lively dialogue between students, content (the music) and teachers and hopefully create a path of development for all involved.

In the Name of Style or How (not) to Play Rachmaninov

In performance and pedagogical practice, including in a global context, one often encounters highly standardised approaches to well-known works and composers. These traditionally established and tested practices form that difficult to grasp notion of 'style'. On the one hand, they are a way of identifying the manuscript code of the composer; on the other hand, the easy and painless conviction of correct style and stylishness risks vulgarising and simplifying the living and dynamic organism of the work.

Just as older music often faces prejudices in the area of 'correct' stylishness, so too new music, or even music from the beginning of the 20th century onwards, is subject to simplistic views and a narrowing of the range of interpretive means, especially in the area of tone creation.

The sub-project with the working title In the name of style or How (not) to play Rachmaninov will be based on the key idea: Let's look at the old as new and the new as old.

The choice of the figure of Rachmaninov in this case represents a symbolic embodiment of the many pianistic, emotional and intellectual - eo ipso - interpretative simplifications in the name of style leading ultimately to its loss. The situations leading to the common vulgarization of the musical material and the revision of its potential will be analyzed in detail on the basis of both opuses of the pianistic Bible - Rachmaninov's Etudes Tableaux.

On the other hand, the project will also reflect on new music by contemporary composers and approaches to it based on the richness of interpretative nuances acquired precisely in confrontation with the "golden" piano repertoire of the past, in order to fulfill the main motto of the interpretative research.

Bardenklänge, op. 13 – Interpreting and the Creative Process of an Early-romantic Cycle for Solo Guitar by J. K. Mertz

J. K. Mertz's solo guitar cycle Bardenklänge musically reflects the whole conception of the Ossianic tradition, including its literary cyclical nature, and can be regarded as a musical form of Ossian's epic. There are many characteristics coming from the literary work and were successfully implemented into musical form with the intention of the same aesthetic effect on the recipient. Through musical elements and their appropriate expressive and sonoristic interpretation, it is possible to achieve an effect similar to a reading of poetic or fantasy literature, which was widely popular among great artists and the society of romantic period. The series was intended for the home environment, so it is interesting to explore the creative process, which is particularly personal and is based on the principle of playing for one's own use, in which the listener as a recipient is missing. This can be comparable to the act of reading literature, which involves a great deal of individual approach, freedom, or improvisation, leading to a natural interpretation free from the evaluative moment. The artistic research project has the intention of dealing with two questions:

1. Interpretation: explore and find sonoristic and expressive options of the guitar interpretation that would lead to the desired emotional experience and render Ossianic symbols

2. Creative process: searching and find a description of the process and contexts of the creation of music for one's own use, or just for intimate environment, as one of the important moments of the „music-making“ at the early Romantic period