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Home , Balafon, Bara (drum), David Lindley (musician), Elliott Sharp, Henry Kaiser (musician), Lukas Ligeti

W A Y WAYS & MEANS S & M Beta Foly: Experiments with Tradition E A N and Technology in West S

ABSTRACT

Lukas Ligeti In 1994, together with sev- eral West African traditional musi- cians and German electronics ex- pert Kurt Dahlke, the author founded the ensemble Beta Foly, based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The group explores cre- BETA FOLY A group of about 15 ative musical possibilities gener- remained, however, and they ated through the bringing together Early one morning about 7 years ago, I was awoken by an un- of different cultures and tradi- expected phone call. It was the Goethe Institute, Germany’s were curious and open-minded tions, placing a strong emphasis network of cultural institutes abroad, inviting me to travel to enough to engage in a more in- on the use of both ancient African Côte d’Ivoire to conduct a workshop with African traditional depth exchange, staying together instruments and the most recent . The members musicians. I was rather surprised, as I was still a student at the throughout the entire 2-week workshop (and, in large part, to of Beta Foly compose and impro- time, enrolled in the composition program at the Mu- vise eclectic, polymetric music, sic Academy (I now live in ). Also, I am not Ger- this day [1]). These musicians, trying to combine styles in innova- man, had never led a workshop and had never been to Africa. who came from many different tive ways in order to find new av- I had, however, become more and more interested in, and in- regions of , shared enues for composition, ensemble some common aspects of a musi- interplay and cross-cultural under- fluenced by, African music in the preceding years. I happily standing. accepted the Goethe Institute’s invitation, not least for sheer cal language, but their interpreta- curiosity, but did impose one condition. Although at the time tions of a certain basic rhythm, I was starting to develop a serious interest in for example, could be very differ- and in using the computer for composition, I felt that I had ent. Dahlke and I spent a few days doing little more than be- no experience in this field. I therefore asked to take a collabo- ing attentive, slightly confused onlookers. As Dahlke and I rator with me, someone more seasoned in electronic music asked them questions, trying to understand the structural than I was. I felt that an interesting premise for this voyage makeup of their music, the musicians were trying to come to would be for me not to attempt to play African music, and not terms with one another; an intra-African cultural exchange to ask the African musicians to play in a European style, but to therefore preceded the exchange between the African and construct a “third plane” on which we could meet and inter- Western musicians. act, exploring the creative possibilities of musical electronics. After a few days, consensus between the musicians began to The Goethe Institute recommended Kurt Dahlke, an experi- emerge, and Dahlke’s and my compositional ideas began to mental /producer from Düsseldorf who had been solidify. The last days of the workshop were spent experiment- involved in the “Neue Deutsche Welle,” a highly creative direc- ing together and rehearsing pieces, and these few rehearsal tion of early-1980s German pop music, in which humorous days generated such a strong feeling of community and cohe- German were set to oddly experimental “lo-fi” synthe- sion that it was clear to all of us that we had become an en- sizer sounds. I had never heard of Dahlke. semble. On the final day, before the concert we performed A few months later, I met Dahlke; we discussed our work together to end the workshop, we decided to “officially” form and our ideas for the project and decided that we would like a group, giving it the name Beta Foly, which means “the Mu- to work together. Finally, in February 1994, we traveled to sic of Us All” in Malinké, a language spoken by a sizable num- Abidjan, the largest city in the . ber of people in northern and western Côte d’Ivoire, I did not know what to expect of Côte d’Ivoire, but what I and some surrounding regions. As Dahlke and I left Africa, found—the beauty of the country, the friendliness of the we had resolved that this group must go on working together. people, and the richness and diversity of the culture—far ex- I returned to Abidjan in 1995 to record a demo tape on a ceeded anything I had imagined. The local Goethe Institute shoestring budget, and in 1996 the Goethe Institute commis- and its director, Bernd Pirrung, had assembled some of the sioned Dahlke and me to visit Côte d’Ivoire again. By this most interesting resident traditional musicians to participate time, Intuition Music, a German specializing in in the dialogue with us. From the beginning, I tried to make it and , had also become interested in the clear that I wanted to adopt an experimental approach to this project. In September of 1996, we recorded a CD in Abidjan, collaboration, and that some of my influences came from mu- documenting our work up to that point. (The pieces discussed sical areas that were not widely known in Africa such as con- in this article, and the two pieces included in the Southern temporary composition, experimental jazz, electronica and Cones CD accompanying this issue of Leonardo Music Journal, non-African traditional music. However, I also “confronted” are all on the Intuition Music recording [2].) Much of the the local musicians with ways in which I had incorporated Af- composition of these pieces was done in the period immedi- rican elements into my work, by playing for them solos ately preceding the recording sessions, and in the studio itself. containing such concepts. Undoubtedly, what Dahlke and I did sounded quite unusual to the African musicians, and, not (), 440 West 47th Street, #3D, New York, NY 10036, U.S.A. surprisingly, many stopped showing up by the third day. E-mail: .

© 2000 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 10, pp. 41–47, 2000 41

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570594 by guest on 30 September 2021 W A Y S After completing the recording, Beta MUSICIANS AND ing of his ancestral region, he has also & Foly undertook its first voyage to INSTRUMENTS adopted a heptatonic (diatonic) tuning M (some members had traveled ex- very close to the European C major (the E A tensively before this, others never at all) The African members of Beta Foly come white keys of the ), in order to be N from numerous different cultures and S and played at the Wien Modern festival, more compatible with Western musi- a festival usually devoted to contempo- ethnic groups, and many of them play cians. (A heptatonic in a major rary “classical” music. For this concert, instruments typical of these cultures. key is, however, not unheard of in this we were joined by electric guitarist Babagalé Kanté and Yero Bobo Bah are region; Malinké musicians have used , who also appears on our Peul (Fulani) musicians from the Fouta such tunings for a long time.) Keïta is CD as guest soloist (overdubbed in Ber- Djalon region in the Republic of Guinea interested in experimentation and espe- keley, California, after our sessions in (Conakry) and play pastoral flute and cially enjoys working with musicians who Abidjan). A highly creative improvisor wassamba, respectively. The Peul flute is do not share his cultural heritage. Siriki with a strong interest in traditional mu- an instrument with three holes, capable Keïta, Aly’s brother and a founding sics, Kaiser is also the producer (with of producing up to 12 distinct pitches, member of the group, died recently, a David Lindley) of very successful CDs and Babagalé has a large number of shock from which we are trying to recu- featuring the music of [3]. flutes to play in different “keys.” (De- perate. He played the , a gourd His approach is eclectic and often incor- scribing African music using European drum of flexible tuning that is character- porates unconventional uses of effects terminology is not always useful; for ex- istically used to accompany the balafon units such as harmonizers. (Kaiser does ample, it is questionable to speak of in Senoufo and Bobo music. not appear in the two Beta Foly pieces “keys” in many forms of African music, Some other members of the group on the Southern Cones CD.) as tonality in the European sense, with play instruments that are not uniquely In 1997, a further work phase took the concept of tonic, dominant and sub- characteristic of this region. Lamine place in Abidjan, in which the group dominant, is not necessarily relevant Baldé, a central figure in the ensemble, underwent the transformation from a here.) The wassamba is a pair of rattles, is from Guinea-Bissau and sings (in workshop band into a professional per- one held in each hand, in which gourd Crioulo, Portuguese, Balante, Mandinka forming ensemble. We visited Europe discs are centered on a curved wooden and other languages) and plays the again, performing at the opening festi- stick. Tchemsé Kanté, also from Guinea, acoustic ; his style, however, is val of the Goethe Institute’s new concert is an exponent of the Malinké tra- highly syncopated and infused with vo- hall in Munich, among other venues. Al- dition and performs on many instru- cabulary borrowed from accompanying though this completed our phase of for- ments but mainly on bolon, a . techniques on the and the (a mal collaboration with the Goethe Insti- This instrument has a body consisting of -like plucked tute, Beta Foly lives on. Dahlke and I a large gourd, with a curved neck stick- found mainly among the Bambara in were in Abidjan again in 1998 and an- ing out, and usually has three strings. ). Wendé K. Blass, a Mossi from other tour took the group to several Lassiné Koné, our djembé player, is also , plays ; our concerts in . In 1999, we again Malinké, but grew up in Côte d’Ivoire. singer, Maï Lingani, also hails from rehearsed in Abidjan, with the emphasis The djembé is the most widely known of Burkina Faso and sings in French, Moré on beginning a new repertoire to bring West African hand ; it is a one- and Dioula. Hervé Blé Yao, the bass gui- our cross-cultural understanding and headed wooden drum in the approxi- tarist on our CD, is Bété from Côte our use of technology to a higher level mate shape of 2⁄3 of an hourglass. d’Ivoire; Sylvain Dando Paré of Burkina of sophistication; the year 1999 took us Mamadou Dao, from the south of Faso has since replaced Yao. to Burkina Faso, Germany, Belgium, Burkina Faso, is ethnically Toussian and I perform on two instruments in Beta Holland, Austria and . speaks Dioula as his main language, Foly. One is the drum set. I keep my Throughout this time, Beta Foly has placing him in a cultural/linguistic area setup rather conventional: a , also performed in Côte d’Ivoire, some- very closely related to Tchemsé and a , several tom-toms, a hi-hat times without me. Several of the group’s Lassiné. He plays the soku, a monochord and some . I do this, among members are among the most renowned , but also performs on kora (lute) other reasons, in order to be able to play in the region and have, outside of Beta and guitar. Like Bobo Bah and Tchemsé, our pieces on the drum sets with which Foly, worked with groups and musicians he is also a singer (Bobo Bah and I am provided in Africa. I also perform such as Alpha Blondy, Sekouba Bambino, Babagalé are also excellent dancers). A on electronic drums. My live electronic Adama Dramé, Super Mama Djombo, Wolof from ’s Petite Côte, setup usually consists of an old Awana, Ki-Yi Mbock and Pharoah Sand- Amadou Leye M’Baye plays a typical Macintosh PowerBook, an Opcode Stu- ers. Although when performing without Senegalese , the dio 4 MIDI interface, an Oberheim Dahlke and me the group may be less sabar: an assortment of several drums Echoplex digital delay and, as my main electronic and may focus somewhat more that the player strikes with one bare sound source, an Akai S-3000 sampler. I on traditional music, it retains a basically hand as well as with a stick held in the control all these machines using a experimental attitude. Both in Africa other hand. Our balafonist, Aly Keïta, DrumKat, a MIDI controller employing and abroad, Beta Foly performs at a wide was born and grew up in Côte d’Ivoire, 10 force-sensitive resistor (FSR) playing variety of venues, from concert halls to but his family comes from the south of surfaces that may be hit with sticks. Ad- neighborhood clubs, and the reactions Mali. He is of Bobo ethnicity, and the ditionally, the DrumKat allows the use of of audiences have always been extremely balafon (West African ) music nine external pads; I usually limit positive. We have also received quite a lot of the Bobo is traditionally pentatonic. myself to two (in the form of HatKat of radio airplay, including in African Though as an instrument builder he has foot pedals, a type of piezo-electronic countries where our CD is unavailable. retained the tradition of balafon build- trigger).

42 Ligeti, Beta Foly

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570594 by guest on 30 September 2021 W A Y Kurt Dahlke performs exclusively on hesitate to consider Beta Foly an experi- During the course of Balarama, I move S electronics, controlling his samplers mental group. Though our stance is through a progression of tuning tables, & (mainly a Roland S-770) using a Buchla quite unusual in a region where music executed using the Akai S-3000’s tuning M E Lightning controller. Occasionally, he usually serves one of three clear purposes feature. At the opening of the piece, I A N also uses a Buchla Thunder and a minia- (ritual, entertainment or political propa- use drastically de-tuned samples of both S ture Yamaha keyboard; another old ganda), we believe that we have a role in ; the live balafon played by Keïta PowerBook completes his lineup. The society. We hope to show people new stands in stark contrast to these Lightning is a MIDI controller for which ways of thinking, to open up new worlds tunings. Then, little by little, the the player holds a “stick” in each hand. for them. If we give people an impetus to samples converge on the original The space in front of the player may be think creatively and to come up with ways tunings of their respective instruments. subdivided into eight imaginary zones, to improve their personal, social or artis- The samples of Kouyaté’s instrument and the player moves the sticks in the air tic outlook or situation, we have suc- reach their destination first, where- within these zones to generate trigger- ceeded in our efforts. On tour, we hope upon they drop out. Those of Keïta’s ing information. The Thunder MIDI to bring African culture—far too little continue to change until they, too, have controller is an assortment of tiny, known—to people’s attention, along with reached their original tuning. It is only highly pressure-sensitive surfaces; it is the innovative potential of that conti- now that I can play in unison with Aly; best played with hand and fingers. nent, and to make a statement in favor of here, the piece ends. We try to keep our setup simple, light communication and exchange between This tuning progression and, more and rugged, since climatic and travel different cultures and ways of life. generally, my route through a series of conditions in Africa are not always easy. In the following paragraphs, I explain sample setups (different tunings are Nevertheless, we have experienced sev- in some detail the compositional paired with different pounding, whis- eral problems. The Lightning, for ex- makeup and use of musical electronics tling and humming sounds) are all that ample, uses infrared sensors and is in several of our pieces, beginning with is pre-determined in Balarama. Every- therefore very sensitive to sunlight. We the two that are featured on the Southern thing else is open to improvisation, and have played numerous daytime open-air Cones CD. even after having performed it many concerts during which this instrument times, Keïta and I keep finding new proved very difficult to use. Balarama rhythmic and melodic potential in this Balarama is a duo of Aly Keïta on balafon piece. The most interesting aspect, and me on electronic drums triggering though, is the change and the ON SEVERAL OF OUR PIECES samples. As always, Keïta’s balafon is new harmonic relationships attainable tuned close to a C-major scale, where by the process of wandering through General Remarks the a above middle c has a frequency of gradually changing tunings. Some of the pieces in Beta Foly’s reper- 440Hz. The samples I use include a re- I do not use a calculated tuning sys- toire are principally composed; others cording of me pounding on a metal rod, tem; the tunings used are merely the re- are nearly free-improvised. In every some whistling, and my humming a sult of “tweaking” knobs and listening. piece, we seek to explore different melody I thought of after listening to Although I am very interested in rhythms, melodic styles, forms of inter- the Pokrovsky Ensemble, a Russian microtonality, I have come to gain play. All band members are invited to men’s choir. The vast majority of my greater appreciation from systemless contribute pieces, and most do; I have sound material, however, consists of microtonality than through complexly composed roughly half of the reper- samples of two balafons: One is Keïta’s; constructed tuning systems. At some toire thus far. Group members bring in the other belongs to Kaba Kouyaté, who points in “Balarama,” the tunings include pieces at different stages of completion, was a member of Beta Foly for roughly octaves, at others they do not; some- but at least some arranging is usually the first year of the group’s existence. times, there is no apparent logic to the done when we are together. We try to Kouyaté hails from Guinea and plays tuning at all. The only rule I followed was avoid clichés typical of contemporary music in the Malinké tradition; his in- that in every subsequent tuning table, African productions, such as certain strument was tuned in G major. The tim- each sample must be closer to its original sounds. bres of Kouyaté’s and Keïta’s balafons, tuning than in the preceding one. At the core of our efforts is the idea of while related, are not identical; the creating a music that could not be done range of Keïta’s instrument is a fifth be- Brontologik 3.44 without the collective know-how of this low Kouyaté’s. The balafon Keïta built Brontologik is a flexible, interactive particular selection of people; we strive has a larger frame and uses larger gourd four-voice monophonic sequencer, pro- to understand each other’s cultures as resonators. Musicians all over Africa add grammed by Dahlke in Max, an object- best as we can and to base our music on elements to their instruments to pro- oriented programming environment this understanding. This is done by show- duce a certain buzzing sound (the Afri- widely used by musicians in the creation ing one another a wide range of can sonic ideal includes sympathetic vi- of interactive applications (Fig. 1) [4]. and thinking analytically, and by asking bration, unlike Occidental sound Brontologik generates variable patterns each other about the reasons, the history culture); Keïta’s balafon buzzes much that can be controlled via MIDI instru- and the societal meaning behind certain more strongly than Kouyaté’s. On the ments; its basic concept is akin to analog customs and conventions that we happen other hand, Kouyaté used harder mal- sequencers and deliberately includes upon in our exchange. Though we like lets. Overall—and I use this comparison some of their limitations, such as limited to entertain, it is more important for us with great care—Kouyaté’s instrument sequence length. to find new ways of music-making, to give may sound slightly more like a xylo- In Beta Foly, Brontologik is used as a food for thought. I would therefore not phone, Keïta’s more like a . kind of “duo partner” for balafonist

Ligeti, Beta Foly 43

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570594 by guest on 30 September 2021 W A Y S & M E A N S

Fig. 1. Kurt Dahlke, screenshot of the Brontologik 3.62 program, made with Max (Opcode).

Keïta. The balafon is miked using con- musician plays a rest of pre-determined ther controls include “play more/less on- ventional microphones. The data thus length (e.g. one bar at tempo M.M.=100 beats than off-beats” or “vary x% of the generated is fed into a pitch-to-MIDI or the like), a new table is started imme- played material with other notes belong- converter, which relays the MIDI data to diately; the old one is stored in a “coll” ing to/not belonging to said key.” A Brontologik, where it is stored, trans- (collective) to create a memory data- great advantage in using the balafon as a formed and played. Keïta hears these re- base. The patterns played by Keïta are partner for Brontologik is that Keïta’s sults via loudspeaker and reacts to what then analyzed for several immediately balafon is diatonic, eliminating the need he hears, generating new data, and so recognizable properties: Does the for key recognition; differentiation be- the piece develops. melody contain a line of three or more tween notes belonging to or not belong- The strength of the system is based on notes ascending or descending in pitch? ing to a key was therefore unnecessary. the assumption that short, repeating se- Are arpeggios being played? Does the These melodies are then fed into quences are more easily influenced than melody contain repetitions of short Brontologik’s actual playback modules, a large and complex sequential system. phrases? Does the range of the melody which determine dynamics, MIDI chan- The individual building blocks of the exceed an octave? After having done this nel and sound. In this case, a conven- music produced by Brontologik can be analysis, the program looks at the previ- tional Extended General MIDI module seen as small modules of musical data ously classified “coll” memory and can was used as a sound source. that are flexible and easy to play back thus play back similar melodies that were Keïta learned to interact with and change. In terms of the Max pro- played by Keïta at an earlier point. Brontologik very quickly, giving it pat- gramming language, this means that the Note selection is further influenced by terns and melodies it could easily under- input note values are stored in tables the use of numerous “fuzzy” controls. For stand and transform. We enjoy playing that can vary in size depending on the example, one can slide back and forth this piece live, as it often succeeds in length of the phrases Keïta plays but can- between the extreme values “play notes generating new and surprising musical not exceed 16 notes. At this stage, it is that are as closely related as possible” twists and turns. The next step is to im- already possible to select notes for stor- and “play values that are as unrelated as prove Brontologik’s capabilities in age according to certain criteria, for ex- possible.” Therefore, the operator of the rhythm recognition, as the program cur- ample, repeated notes may be input into program has direct influence on the re- rently assumes the presence of a fixed, the system or may be ignored. When the sults generated at any given time. Fur- pre-determinable rhythmic pulse.

44 Ligeti, Beta Foly

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570594 by guest on 30 September 2021 W A Y African Loops Europe and the . In Groove generates an excellent sound. Using S During our rehearsals, Dahlke sampled Magic, 11 musicians play live while lis- these amps, each musician can control & each member of Beta Foly playing char- tening to click tracks via headphones; headphone volume individually. I em- M E acteristic phrases on their instruments. each player has his own individual track, ploy open, Walkman-style headphones, A N Some of these samples were made with and the conductor, coordinating these because they allow musicians to hear S the musician playing at a pre-deter- tracks, is a computer. The ensemble sounds coming from “outside,” enabling mined tempo; others were made freely. plays at many different speeds at once, them to maintain the listening habits From the material thus collected, or at the same tempo but with the beat commonly associated with musicianship. Dahlke assembled a soundtrack in his staggered from one instrument to the It seems to take most musicians about 5 sequencer, arranging the music in a style other. Impossible to perform without or 6 hours to get so used to this setup loosely related to techno, house and clicks, the piece is challenging even us- that they “forget” their “isolation” and trip-hop. He combined this soundtrack ing them, but entirely possible, even start treating the click as a “friend” in the with live vocals contributed by Bobo within the rehearsal time constraints background, allowing them to concen- Bah. This , called Beydo and sung in usually present in the contemporary trate on listening to their fellow musi- the Peul language, speaks of how a man “classical” world. cians in a nearly normal fashion. I have should strive to please and satisfy his The click tracks for Groove Magic were used such setups on many occasions, in wife and was composed by Bobo Bah originally made using the program compositions and improvisations, and with Babagalé Kanté’s assistance. , written by Frank Baldé of do not limit myself to “click” sounds: As the only other non-sequenced ele- Amsterdam’s STEIM electronic music in- spoken word samples can be used to imi- ment in the piece, I play a short elec- stitute. Made exclusively for the compila- tate speech rhythm; samples in certain tronic drum solo. The idea here is an tion of click tracks (originally for Den keys can be used to influence the har- extension of the piece as a whole: the Haag Percussion Group to help them monic direction of an improvisation, for composition uses pre-recorded samples play pieces by Iannis Xenakis), Poly- example. When I first used clicks in Beta from the rehearsals and my solo uses rhythm allows the programming of the Foly, the musicians would either isolate pre-recorded samples from the rest of “wildest” metric configurations but has themselves completely or simply ignore the CD. Thus, this solo was the last ele- several drawbacks: MIDI output possibili- the clicks if they gave different musicians ment of the entire CD to be recorded, at ties (choice of note numbers, dynamics, different tempos, but since then, many a point when much of the rest of the CD etc.) are limited, rests are difficult to pro- have developed a remarkable degree of had already been mixed. gram, and Polyrhythm runs only on Atari skill in this area. computers. Having entered my click Sound of No Restraint was the first piece Sound of No Restraint tracks into Polyrhythm, it was clear that in Beta Foly’s repertoire to employ click In Sound of No Restraint, as well as in sev- my 11 highly complex tracks far exceeded tracks, and its use of them here was eral others in our repertoire, we use a the capabilities of the little Atari I used: quite a simple one. Whereas African headphone setup that helps us listen in the result was chaos. I therefore copied music usually has a fixed tempo (excep- performance to information that the au- the tracks one by one into a Cubase se- tions exist), Korean music is often very dience is not privy to. This practice is a quencer running on a Macintosh. Not flexible in its temporal structure. Musi- result of my long-standing interest in only was playback now precise, the MIDI cians “breathe” together, expanding and click tracks as an aid for polymetric en- output choices were much better, and ed- contracting the flow of time to facilitate semble performance; I would like to ex- iting became easier. Since then, I have the performance and “feeling” of their plain this in general terms before focus- tried to write my click tracks directly in a musical gestures. I was interested in ing on Sound of No Restraint in particular. sequencing program such as Cubase, al- what would happen if African musicians In the world of commercial music, a though there are occasions when this be- tried to imitate this Korean way of per- piece is generally expected to have a comes tedious due to the simultaneity of ceiving tempo. After describing some of steady tempo. Since the advent of such different meters: I still find myself revert- the features of Korean music to the technologies as drum machines, the ing to Polyrhythm from time to time. members of Beta Foly, we gave it a try, steadiness in execution expected of the My PowerBook is connected to an and the results were interesting and recording musician sometimes exceeds Akai S-3000 sampler, which plays the weird, even more so after I played them what is humanly possible. To help musi- click sounds, usually cowbells (a timbre examples of Korean music, most notably cians here, or in the execution of rhyth- that proves to be pleasant to listen to and the CD Unrestrained Sound by Park Byung mically demanding material, metro- is clear due to its fast attack). The sam- Chon [5]. Our results did not sound Ko- nomes are often used. Usually recorded pler is programmed in such a way that rean at all, but they do not sound exactly on one track of a multitrack tape on each individual track is routed to a dif- African, either. One of the most enlight- which the musicians record their “over- ferent sampler output (my Akai has ening moments in all the time I spent in dubs,” these metronomes have come to eight individual mono “outs” in addition Abidjan was when Yero Bobo Bah, be known as “click tracks.” Though I am to the stereo pair; should I need more Babagalé Kanté and Lamine Baldé not necessarily a fan of the obligation to tracks, I set up another sampler). From played a traditional tune from Guinea play at a steady speed, I am a great fan of here, the sound travels to headphone arranged in a “Korean” way: the result click tracks and have been experiment- amplifiers. I usually give musicians a was some of the most peculiar music I ing with them, often in live situations, small amp—known as either CB-Labs have ever heard. for many years, beginning in earnest in Performer or Epiphone Headjammer. To give our Korean improvisations an- 1993 when I composed a piece called Originally intended as a practice amp for other level of cohesion, I decided to in- Groove Magic, which has been performed guitarists, this is the smallest and lightest troduce a very simple use of my click by a number of excellent ensembles in headphone amp I have ever seen and track setup. Sound of No Restraint is an

Ligeti, Beta Foly 45

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570594 by guest on 30 September 2021 W A Y S improvisation for up to eight musicians, beats, one shifted relative to the other by & each listening to an individual track. one unit of a fast basic pulse common to M Most of the time, no information is re- all players, and both of these beats are E A layed and the musicians improvise equally valid. Listening to the fast melody N S freely. At certain points, they hear a suc- formed by the combination of the two cession of six beats. During melodies played, one hears new melodic these beats, they play a crescendo, with a figures emerge in different frequency loud accent on the last beat. After the bands. These figures, called “inherent Fig. 2. Lukas Ligeti, tabulature notation for accent, they pause for a few seconds, patterns” by Gerhard Kubik, are not drumset (with a rhythm pattern written into then resume their improvising. Since played by either musician in the gestalt the tabulature diagram) as used in Langage the musicians do not necessarily have in which they are heard by the listener. en Dessin. their accents at the same time, strange After first reading Kubik’s papers on instrumental combinations and accent this music and listening to some of the distributions become possible. few recordings available, I tried translat- now write my movement patterns on this ing these concepts to the drum set, us- one small diagram; the pattern thus illus- Langage en Dessin ing complex ratios of phrase length be- trated can be sight-read quickly. The The same headphone setup is used in tween the patterns used. (I should add drawback of this notation, as of most this piece. (On the Intuition CD, nine that the xylophone music was originally tabulatures, is that it does not allow any musicians play the piece; our live rendi- played by the two hands of one player conclusions to be drawn about the tion is different and does not use clicks.) on a harp, the ennanga, and that my rhythm. Initially, this was not a problem, The piece is based on a drumming style drum technique therefore bears simi- as the rhythm was always assumed to be a I developed, inspired by Kiganda xylo- larities to ennanga playing). This led me chain of interlocking notes of equal phone music, a form of traditional court to a choreographic, motion-based way of length. Recently, however, I have started music from , played on xylo- playing very long patterns, repeating to create patterns with rhythmic irregu- phones called amadinda. (For an in- only after hundreds of beats. Assume, larities, rests, etc., so my tabulature nota- depth analysis of this music, see the ar- for example, that I play a pattern with tion might be due for an overhaul. ticle Xylophonspiel im Süden von Uganda my left hand, describing a certain In concert, we enjoy playing “poly- by Gerhard Kubik [6] or one of the “route” around the drum set. I might hit metric improvisations” where I play such many other papers on Ugandan music the hi-hat, then the snare drum, then a drum patterns and individual musicians by the same author). Suffice it to say tom-tom, then another tom-tom, then a select different components of my drum that in this musical practice one musi- cowbell and then go back to the hi-hat, kit to play along with. For example, Leye cian begins a piece by playing a melody starting to repeat the figure. This might try to hit his sabar whenever I hit at a fast tempo, whereby all notes have “melody” around the drums is a cycle of my ride . When I change my pat- the same length (in Western terms, one five notes. With my right hand, I could tern, he might go along with me or stay could speak of a steady eighth-note play a figure that is seven beats long. in his previous pattern. The result of this chain). A second player then joins in Playing them together, it would take the type of interplay is a complex hocketing with another melody, at the same resultant figure 5 × 7, or 35 pulse units, structure [7]. tempo, also in eighth notes. However, to repeat. But I do not hit simulta- Such is also the result of the recorded the notes of this second melody fall neously with my hands: one hand repre- version of Langage en Dessin. In keeping right between those of the first; thus, the sents the first xylophone player, the with a certain drum pattern I play, musi- resultant image is a single melody at other the second, interlocking with the cians receive click tracks, some parts fall- twice the speed of those melodies played first hand. Therefore, the pattern lasts ing together with my right hand, some by any one musician. Since the tempo is 70 pulse units. Now, I can add my bass with my left. The musicians play on either very high (M.M.=500 for the resultant drum on, say, every third pulse unit, and every third or every fifth beat of their melody is an average), the question play the hi-hat using my foot pedal on click, depending on the meter the click arises: how is the second player able to every eighth. At this point, I already provides. Later during the piece, rests of syncopate so quickly? need 5 × 7 × 2 × 3 × 8 = 1,680 pulse units various lengths are inserted, “pushing” The answer is: not at all. Rather than until the first repetition! All the while, I the clicks “out of sync” and giving the assuming the first player’s melody to be am not counting; I know where I am music an ametric feel; in reality, everyone “on the beat” and proceeding to play a within my pattern at any time due to the remains coordinated by the computer. series of off-beats, the second player lis- relative position of my limbs. Towards the end, the clicks gradually re- tens to the first, understands the speed, While not straightforward to play, vert to the original structure, creating the and then “slips” between the first such patterns are by no means as diffi- complex interlocking hocketing present player’s notes to start his melody. That cult as they might seem. What turned at the piece’s beginning. very first note could be considered syn- out to be next to impossible, however, copated, but from that point on, the sec- was reading them when notated in con- Samaya and Other Pieces ond player convinces himself that it is he ventional “five-line” music notation. This Samaya combines two sections: one by who plays on the beat, and the first is questionable practice for drum-set Babagalé Kanté, in the Fulani tradition player who is syncopating. music in general; here, all my attempts of Guinea; the other by me, slightly re- This method of metric cognition, fea- led to an indecipherable mess. I there- sembling Austrian traditional music. turing a relative notion of the beat, is un- fore created a tabulature notation system Electronics are used in two ways in this known in Western music. In this style, and had a stamp made, displaying my piece: there is an solo, there are at least two different basic drum set as seen from the top (Fig. 2). I and the was conceived us-

46 Ligeti, Beta Foly

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/096112100570594 by guest on 30 September 2021 W A Y ing a sequencer. The latter helped me to which changes? How much can, say, a posers and musicians interested in both S design a transition between the two rhythm be altered until the musicians of these areas at the same time. I feel & parts of the piece, where musical mate- are no longer able to play along? This very privileged to be able to combine M E rial (belonging mainly to the section kind of research could lead to valuable these interests in collaboration with A N composed by Kanté) is superimposed in conclusions as to what is relevant in this great musicians from Africa, in adventur- S two different tempos. Henry Kaiser music, what the musicians are listening ous and hopefully innovative ways. bridges this transition with an electric for, and what degrees of tolerance they guitar solo. My electronic drum solo, have, in which areas, when it comes to References and Notes which is unaccompanied, makes use of deviations from the convention. Since 1. The members of Beta Foly have included: Yero samples of other instruments in the audio-to-MIDI conversion is often diffi- Bobo Bah, wassambe, vocals; Lamine Baldé, acous- group, some again deliberately detuned. cult to execute in a clean and accurate tic guitar, vocals; Wendé K. Blass, electric guitar; Kurt Dahlke, electronics; Sylvain Dando Paré, bass We used the sequencer as an arranging way, the process could be done by hav- guitar; Mamadou Dao, soku, kora, guitar and vo- tool in numerous pieces in Beta Foly’s ing the musicians play MIDI controllers cals; Babagalé Kanté, pastoral flute; Tchemsé repertoire. It is a good notation tool, to begin with, using sampled sounds of Kanté, bolon, vocals; Aly Keïta, balafon; Lassiné Koné, djembé; Lukas Ligeti, drums, electronic since most of the musicians do not read; their instruments, and thus avoiding the drums; Maï Lingani, vocals; Amadou Leye M’Baye, its flexibility is much greater than that of, conversion. This approach would neces- sabar. say, a cassette deck. We used the com- sitate careful selection of MIDI control- 2. Lukas Ligeti & Beta Foly (Intuition Music & Media puter on many occasions to experiment, lers and would pose high demands on INT 3216 2, Cologne, Germany, 1997), distributed test-drive and compare different arrange- the quality of the samples used. It seems in the U.S.A. by Allegro. ment proposals and as a means of sup- to me that both methods still contain 3. A World out of Time (Shanachie Entertainment port when learning segments by rote. numerous flaws; as a general direction, Corp., U.S.A., 1992), as well as numerous other titles on the same label. however, I find the idea interesting, and it is definitely a road less traveled by mu- 4. This section is based on explanations by Kurt SOME PRESENT AND FUTURE Dahlke. sicologists, who usually rely on taped EXPERIMENTS performances that do not enable one to 5. Park Byung Chon, Unrestrained Sound (Nices/ Samsung Electronics SCO-024CSS, S. Korea, 1994). Some time has passed since the record- edit the music in quite the same ways ing of our CD; we would like to record once it has been recorded. 6. Gerhard Kubik, Xylophonspiel im Süden von Uganda, part of the anthology Zum Verstehen our next one soon. Lately, we have been Be it for artistic purposes or for re- afrikanischer Musik (Leipzig, Germany: Verlag creating new pieces and looking for new search, in our future work in Beta Foly Philipp Reclam jun., 1988). uses for electronics. we need to afford the African musicians 7. The term “hocket” is derived from the Latin One example is yet another applica- more time to experiment with MIDI hoquetus, or hiccup, and refers in music to a struc- tion for the click-track setup: rather ture of short phrases, distributed among different controllers so that they can develop instruments and interlocking like the cogs of syn- than having a sequencer play the clicks, their own playing techniques and ap- chronized cogwheels. which are then relayed to the musicians, proaches, some of which will certainly I play them on my drum pads. Every pad be based on experiences from their triggers the same sound, but from each “original” instruments. Since African pad, the sound is routed to the ears of a playing techniques are sometimes very Manuscript received 17 March 2000. different musician. I can play patterns different from Occidental ones, I hope on my pads and in so doing conduct the that this might lead to interesting ideas musicians as they play a hocketing rhyth- for MIDI controller design, software mic structure. We would also like to ex- possibilities, and ensemble interplay and Lukas Ligeti was born in Austria and studied pand the interactive use of the com- improvisation. composition and jazz drums at the Vienna puter in our music. Working in Côte d’Ivoire has made me Music Academy. As a drummer playing impro- I am also planning to conduct experi- intensely interested in the area of cul- vised music, he has performed and/or recorded ments to better understand cognitive as- tural exchange. I have many more ideas with Henry Kaiser, Gianni Gebbia, Benoit pects of African music-making. I would for the future, feeling that the exchange Delbecq, , , Mari like to record some members of Beta that is going on in Beta Foly be led to Kimura, George Lewis, , John Foly as they play certain traditional even greater depths of inter-cultural un- Tchicai and many others. He has been a mem- pieces. The resulting information can derstanding. I believe that two of the ber of numerous bands playing rock, jazz and be converted to MIDI data using audio- most interesting areas of exploration for improvised music, and frequently performs solo to-MIDI conversion; then, individual contemporary are the possi- on electronic percussion. Since 1994, when he musicians can listen to music played as bilities created by advances in technol- co-founded Beta Foly, Ligeti has been active in MIDI files and play along. While they do ogy and the ways of thinking about and the field of cultural exchange, working in Zim- so, I can edit the data: change rhythms, approaching music that exist in various babwe with Batonka musicians and in add or leave out parts, detune instru- traditions around the world. For some with musicians from Nubia, and performing in ments, etc. How will the musicians react reason, there seem to be too few com- , and Burkina Faso.

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