UCLA Contemporary Music Score Collection Title Bloodwork Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2kv8r49h Author Lowrie, James Publication Date 2020 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 4.0 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California BLOODWORK For String Quartet James Lowrie Bloodwork, for string quartet James Lowrie, 2018 Written for the Rolston String Quartet as part of the Soundstreams Emerging Composers Workshop Duration: ca. 6” Program Note: This quartet is based off the statistics drawn from my bloodwork taken over my entire life, where 1 second = 1 month. This process manifests quite simply in the viola, where the C-string acts as a chart of my creatinine. When the creatinine value goes up, so goes the violist up the C-string of the viola. This set-up reflects my interest in the paradox of the “intuition vs. system” divide when it comes to contemporary classical music. The system here is the very height of the ‘personal’, but, is also simply a set of numbers to work with. The Viola: Bloodwork rules The viola part is guided by a set of performance instructions that are unrelated to instructions for the rest of the quartet. This is because the viola is a literal-minded sonic representation of my creatinine tests since birth where a date and a creatinine quantity become a timepoint and a pitch . These are the Bloodwork rules. Bloodwork rule 1: All unbracketed notes that represents a data point will glissandoed toward the next note in the data point series, with a steady rate of change. The arrival at one of these data points can be represented by a slight accent at the moment of arrival if you feel so inclined. Bloodwork rule 2: If a note is in round brackets it is not a real data point, rather it is a guidepost so that you know where you should be in the glissando. These will have a cents number above them but don’t need to be completely accurate so long as the overall effect is a slow, gradual glissando to the next data point. Bloodwork rule 3: The part must be performed entirely on the C string. Bloodwork rule 4: The part must be performed non-vibrato. Bloodwork rule 5: The general volume should never go above mezzo-piano. However, you should drop down quieter whenever there is a worry of drowining out the rather quiet effects of the rest of the ensemble. This should be done in such a way that maintains autonomy from the rest of the quartet. Bloodwork rule 6: The part should be played with imperceptible bowing as if the part is under one long slur, including the transition into silence in the middle. Violins and Cello Bloodwork involves several non-traditional playing methods, each of which have some notational quirks to them: 1. Pizzicato with Tension Screw slide: Playing with the tension screw on the end of the bow is employed to be a pizzicato effect that can also glissando between one note and the next. In this method, the right hand reaches over the left and places the end of the bow at the notated pitch. This technique is often employed with glissando lines between the pitches. This means the tension screw is dragged along the string to the next notated pitch. If there is no line, just go to the next pitch by removing the bow off the string. This effect should be played, in general, as loud as possible without creating distortion. The cello may need to back off a little bit to balance with the violins. This will be a quiet effect. The X-notehead: Pizz. with the right hand to re-articulate the note. Note in parathetical: The tension screw should be at this pitch at this time. Do not re-articulate. Wavey gliss. line: Similar to a vibrato. Instead of just moving the tension screw in a regular gliss, wabble it up or down the string to create a wobbly effect. 2. Bowing Col Legno CLT: Col legno tratto is accompanied by the following techniques. Triangle noteheads : Play high up on the string as possible. The sound created is like a white noise of an LP. The notated pitch will correspond to the string that is being played. This effect should again be as loud as possible without destroying the blank LP effect. Sometimes the note will be written above the staff along with a roman numeral. This is logistical, so that the gliss. down to a notated pitch will make more sense. An accent in this context (and this context only) should be performed by suddenly and forcefully pulling most/all of the length wood side of the bow across the string, creating a bit of a (!) inside of the soundscape of the blank LP. Then, a sudden resumption of the slower bow speed on the next note. CLB: Col legno battuto (jété) A upwards line means bounce the bow towards the bridge, making the pitch go up. A downwards line is a movement away from the bridge. 3. Flautando Bowing This “airy” sound should be about 80% the white noise created by bowing and 20% pitch. It is a quiet effect. Right hand technique: A fast bowspeed combined with underbowing Left hand technique: The pitches are touched lightly akin to playing a harmonic, except extra fingers are placed behind the touched pitch in order to avoid any harmonics being produced. Diamond noteheads: Play flautando. The “half filled” diamond represents a black notehead, while an empty diamond represents an empty notehead. In 2013/14 there are flautando noteheads in the pizzicato section. Here, you are to use flautando left hand technique while pizzicatoing normally. These are differentiated from harmonics in that the DO NOT have the circle above them. 4. Pick notation This is spatial clef: The pitches in this section are all very high up, with the hand between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge, in the general position outlined by the vertical position of the notes in relation to the clef. Whenever this clef is in use, you will also be playing with a pick (or your fingernails if you have long ones on your right hand!) The effect will not be clear pitches, but rather clunks/clicks. This clef will be accompanied by a 1-line staff in order to emphasize the approximate/percussive element of finger positioning. The number above each note tell you which string you should be playing. The number for all subsequent notes until a new number follows (kind of like accidentals). Drag the pick quickly across all four strings, muting the strings with your palm somewhere between the fretboard and the bridge. Up arrow means from low to high, down arrow means from high to low. This effect turns up a few times outside of the context of the spatial clef but is played the exact same way, in these contexts it can be played with the back of the nail. Miscellaneous playing techniques + notation marks for the whole quartet. Bow bridge: This should be a quiet white-noise effect without any pitch. This can also be moved in and out of imperceptibly from regular bowing, as if the pitched material is being subsumed into the white noise. The main example of this being the white noise in the violin in bars 70-71. Hand : Use hand to rub body of instrument in a continuous circular or figure eight motion. Overbow: Use extreme bow pressure to get a white noise grunt. Depending on the instrument etc. you may want to mute the strings with the left hand high up the finger board to better achieve the sound. Bow Positions ESP: Multo Sul Ponticello, almost on the bridge. SP: Sul Ponticello norm. or N: Normal bowing position ST: Sul Tasto MST: Multo Sul Tasto This effect only occurs once in 1991/92. The RH finger moves up the G string shaking back and forth to produce somewhat random quiet pitches as it moves of the string, pushing into the fingerboard. Hair twist: Turn violin around, and press the bow against the back of the body of the violin, and twist the bow so that the hairs create a crunch sound. It’s not as scary as it sounds! However, if you’d rather not, you can replace this effect with a sharp staccato overbow on the G and D string behind the bridge. Note on dynamics: Generally, since many of these techniques are so quiet, your dynamics have often been left unspecified and should be assumed to be “as loud as possible without causing distortion to the desired effect” whenever using one of the quiet extended techniques (pizz screw slide, CLT, flautando bowing). Accidentals : accidentals used in this piece work like quarter tone accidentals, but, signify a somewhat less specific point (near the middle) between the two semitones. However, if you prefer to think of them as quarter tones that is fine too. These accidentals are not used in the viola part because the cents are being specified exactly. Mute: Mute all strings suddenly with palm of left hand Arrow: A gradual change from one mode of playing to the next L.H. Martellato : Quickly hammer into the string with the left hand at written pitch to produce a quiet, pizz-like effect. Score Bloodwork JAMES LOWRIE q = 606060 ... 1990 to mark the passage of time pizz., slide with tension screw 333 Violin I '' sempre pizz., slide with tension screw 333 Violin II ' ' sempre 0c 0c 'Bloodwork' rules are in effect for the whole viola part Viola col legno Cello 333 '' sempre 1991 4 pizz.