UNIVERSITY of CINCINNATI August 2005 Michael Mckenney Davidson
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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ An Annotated Database of 102 Selected Published Works for Trombone Requiring Multiphonics By Michael McKenney Davidson Bachelor of Music Education, University of Florida, 1986 Master of Education, Centenary College of Louisiana, 1994 A Research Document Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Musical Arts University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music David Vining, Committee Chair August 2005 ABSTRACT The purpose of this document is to provide a resource from which trombone instructors can obtain information about 102 published works for trombone that use the avant-garde technique of multiphonics, as generated through a variety of means. This annotated database will include general information about each published work that includes composer, title, arranger/editor (if appropriate), publisher, copyright date, commercial availability, range, trombone(s) required for performance, accompaniment instrumentation required, other performance requirements (electronics, mutes, specific venue, etc.), print quality, known misprints in the score or parts, level of difficulty, and a synopsis of the work. It will also include specific information on the multiphonics performance practice required such as the consonance or dissonance of the multiphonics produced, specific intervals to be sung, resultant chords, and tessitura of played and sung pitches. It will specify whether the performer must sing above or below the played pitch and if multiphonics are generated in other ways besides the more traditional method of simultaneous singing and playing, such as lip multiphonics, multiple sonorities produced with mutes, by varying the oral cavity shape, by vowel sounds, etc. In addition to the individual database record generated for each published composition, chapters will include a brief explanation, history, and science of multiphonics performance practice and an explanation of database categories. Compositions will be indexed by composer, chapter entry, trombone(s) required, and specific multiphonic performance technique. It is hoped that the information in this database will allow trombone professors and students to make informed decisions about the personal performance viability of a particular work. ii iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my supervisory committee for their input and guidance. I would like to thank the many individuals and publishing houses that provided copies of materials for review for this project, free of charge. I am especially grateful to Professor David Vining, as I would not have finished this project without his support and encouragement. I owe my mother, Yvonne Davidson, a great deal of thanks for giving me my earliest musical training and for her prayers and financial assistance during this educational adventure. I owe my children, Colin and Morgan, many years of attention for the many hours, days, and even months I was away from home attending graduate school. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, Amy, who moved far away from Louisiana and supported our family while I attended graduate school full-time, played golf part- time, and wrote this paper. This work is dedicated to the memory of my father, Leonard F. Davidson. Although he was not a musician, my father loved the sound of the trombone, most especially those sounds made by one young trombonist in particular… Throughout his life he taught me all about the significance of sacrifice, the value of patience, the importance of perseverance, and the power of a father’s love. iv Table of Contents Page Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv List of Musical Examples from Annotated Compositions vi List of Figures vii CHAPTERS 1 History and Explanation of Multiphonics Performance 1 Practice and Notation 2 Background, Significance, and Methods of Data Collection 8 3 Database Field Explanation 12 4 Database Entries: Trombone Alone 24 5 Database Entries: Trombone and Keyboard 106 6 Database Entries: Trombone in Chamber Music 136 7 Database Entries: Trombone and Recorded Sounds 195 8 Database Entries: Trombone and Orchestra 208 APPENDIX A Works Indexed Alphabetically by Composer’s Last Name 221 B Works Indexed by Chapter and Page Number 225 C Works Indexed By Trombone Type(s) Necessary for Performance 228 D Works Indexed by Specific Multiphonic Performance Practice 232 E Publisher Contact Information 236 Bibliography 243 v List of Musical Examples from Annotated Compositions Borden, Lawrence. The Conditions of a Solitary Bird, trombone and piano Example 5, page 109. Buss, Howard. Camel Music, trombone alone Example 1, page 37. Chave, George. Trombonics, trombone and piano Example 6, page 111. Dedrick, Christopher. Prelude and March, trombone alone Example 2, page 43. Frith, John. Ode to a Happy Bunny, trombone alone Example 3, page 56. Kenny, John. Sonata for Alto Trombone, trombone alone Example 4, page 71. Klein, Joseph. Goblin Market, trombone in chamber music Example 9, page 178. Krenek, Ernst. Five Pieces, op. 198, trombone and piano Example 7, page 125. White, John. Dialogues for Trombone and Piano, trombone and piano Example 8, page 133. vi List of Figures Page A. Harmonic Series for B Flat, partials one through eight 4 B. Multiphonic Combination Tone: Major Chord, Root Position 4 C. Multiphonic Combination Tone: Seventh Chord 5 D. System of Pitch Name Designation Used, From New Harvard Dictionary of Music 14 E. Notation Directions: Vinko Globokar, Discours II 21 F. Notation Directions: Howard Buss, Camel Music 22 vii Chapter One History and Explanation of Multiphonics Performance Practice and Notation The performance practice of creating simultaneous multiple pitches on a wind instrument, specifically the aboriginal didjeridu,1 dates back perhaps several millennia.2 The technique is called “multiphonics,” defined in The Oxford Companion to Music, as “sounds in which more than one distinct pitch is discernable, but produced on instruments traditionally considered monophonic.”3 Multiphonics use in brass performance practice is well-documented in solo and jazz literature and dates back to 1806, when Carl Maria von Weber called for the technique in the cadenza of his Concertino for Horn, Op. 45. Researchers note that some of the great concert band brass soloists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed multiphonics in their cadenzas.4 Multiphonics production is now an established extended technique for brass instruments, used by many jazz trombonists and also employed in the standard solo repertoire of alto, tenor, and bass trombones. 1 Jeremy Montagu, “Didjeridu” in The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Alison Latham (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 364. 2 Stuart Dempster, The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms (Rochester, New York: Accura Music, 1994), 95. 3 Stephen Muir, “Multiphonics” in the Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Alison Latham (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 811. 4 Milton Stevens, “Vocalization - An Introduction to Avant-Garde Techniques,”Instrumentalist 28 (February, 1974), 44. 1 Nathaniel Shilkret’s trombone concerto, an unpublished work5 written for and performed by Tommy Dorsey in 1945,6 may be the first twentieth century trombone concerto to incorporate multiphonics as a performance practice. Luciano Berio’s Sequenza V (1966) is cited as the first avant-garde composition to use multiphonics throughout the work.7 Different methods of multiphonics production are possible. For example, Benny Sluchin,8 Giancarlo Schiaffini,9 and Stuart Dempster10 note the possibility of producing multiphonics without singing, in effect “splitting” the tone between two neighboring partials in the harmonic series; this is also called a lip multiphonic. Performing on a double reed that is placed in the mouthpiece, substituting a woodwind mouthpiece in place of the trombone mouthpiece, saying vowel sounds while performing, mute usage, and changing the shape of the oral cavity have also been cited as ways of producing multiphonics.11 It should be noted that with these techniques it is usually impossible to execute specific, predictable intervals or chords (sometimes even specific pitches) due to performance difficulty. In fact, Benny Sluchin states that the sounds derived from these types of multiphonics-generating techniques differ according to each listener’s aural 5 On 15 May 2005 the author received an e-mail correspondence from James Pugh, trombone virtuoso and professor at SUNY Purchase, confirming the Shilkret estate’s wish to keep the work unpublished. At the time of this writing, Professor Pugh is the only person known to the author to actively perform this work. 6 Milken Archive of American Jewish Music; available from http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=190; Internet: accessed 16 May 2005. 7 Robin Gregory, The Trombone: The Instrument and its Music. (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973), 144. 8 Benny Sluchin, Contemporary Trombone Excerpts - A Practical Introduction to Contemporary Trombone Techniques (Paris: Éditions Musicales Européennes, 1995), 13-14. 9 Giancarlo Schiaffini, The Trombone - Increasing Its Technical and Expressive Capacities