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The Hell Harp of Hieronymus Bosch. the Building of an Experimental Musical Instrument, and a Critical Account of an Experience of a Community of Musicians

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The Hell Harp of Hieronymus Bosch. the Building of an Experimental Musical Instrument, and a Critical Account of an Experience of a Community of Musicians 1 (114) Independent Project (Degree Project), 30 higher education credits Master of Fine Arts in Music, with specialization in Improvisation Performance Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg Spring 2019 Author: Johannes Bergmark Title: The Hell Harp of Hieronymus Bosch. The building of an experimental musical instrument, and a critical account of an experience of a community of musicians. Supervisors: Professor Anders Jormin, Professor Per Anders Nilsson Examiner: Senior Lecturer Joel Eriksson ABSTRACT Taking a detail from Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden Of Earthly Delights as a point of departure, an instrument is built for a musical performance act deeply involving the body of the musician. The process from idea to performance is recorded and described as a compositional and improvisational process. Experimental musical instrument (EMI) building is discussed from its mythological and sociological significance, and from autoethnographical case studies of processes of invention. The writer’s experience of 30 years in the free improvisation and new music community, and some basic concepts: EMIs, EMI maker, musician, composition, improvisation, music and instrument, are analyzed and criticized, in the community as well as in the writer’s own work. The writings of Christopher Small and surrealist ideas are main inspirations for the methods applied. Keywords: Experimental musical instruments, improvised music, Hieronymus Bosch, musical performance art, music sociology, surrealism Front cover: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Museo del Prado, Madrid, detail of the Harp, third panel (Hell). 2 (114) Table of contents ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................................5 Preface......................................................................................................................................................5 Introduction..............................................................................................................................................6 Part 1 The Hell Harp, from idea to performance...............................................................................................7 Earlier piano string works.......................................................................................................................11 Bosch: Poetic oneirism throughout 500 years.........................................................................................12 Hell of noises..........................................................................................................................................14 Work plan...............................................................................................................................................14 Sketching................................................................................................................................................15 Building..................................................................................................................................................17 First test April 2018................................................................................................................................18 More building.........................................................................................................................................19 Presentation concerns: transformation and transparency.........................................................................20 First performance as a work-in-progress December 2018.......................................................................21 Second private tryout session March 2019..............................................................................................23 Heaven or hell?.......................................................................................................................................26 Success?..................................................................................................................................................27 The birth of an instrument – the exam concert........................................................................................27 Part 2 The world of experimental musical instruments and free improvisation..............................................30 2.1 EMI making and the free improvisation community from a sociological point of view.......................30 A sketch toward a sociology of the field of EMIs...................................................................................30 What is an EMI?.....................................................................................................................................33 What is an EMI maker?..........................................................................................................................39 The image of the instrument...................................................................................................................40 The image of the instrument maker.........................................................................................................41 Christopher Small's musicking sociology...............................................................................................42 The musical performance involving an EMI (sketch of an analytical method).......................................43 2.2 An autoethnographic case study, with a sketch of an ideal self-understanding.....................................45 An autoethnographic approach...............................................................................................................45 My own case study (where I am in the communities).............................................................................46 Improvisation and EMI makers...............................................................................................................49 How do I play?.......................................................................................................................................50 How do I invent? Case studies in the invention of some EMIs...............................................................52 The visual dilemma.................................................................................................................................57 Sound objects and me.............................................................................................................................59 The sociology of invention?....................................................................................................................65 2.3 The free improvisation community's attitude as a contrast to a surrealist attitude.................................66 3 (114) How I approached the free improvisation community............................................................................66 Performance rights as a way of understanding improvisation as composition........................................67 Convergent evolution, or why does it sound so similar?.........................................................................70 2.4 Analyzing the swedish free improvisation community's initial self-understanding through two contrasting texts..........................................................................................................................................75 “What is improvisation?” – the 90ies revisited.......................................................................................75 The question of genre.............................................................................................................................78 The question of newness and of tools.....................................................................................................80 The question of freedom.........................................................................................................................81 The question of topic..............................................................................................................................82 An attempt at a different angle towards improvisation...........................................................................83 2.5 A critique of the concepts of music and instruments.............................................................................88 Music beyond music...............................................................................................................................88 Musical performance art.........................................................................................................................89 EMIs as compositions.............................................................................................................................91 What music could be...............................................................................................................................93 What a musical instrument could be – into how to think and live...........................................................96 Bibliography...........................................................................................................................................99 Video files.............................................................................................................................................103
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