Who said you can’t get no satisfaction?
It was one hundred and four days between ensemble rehearsals (for me) as we broke on through to another side of Covid-19 isolation. Our brass quintet, for the first time since January, got together to play in the sanctuary of a local church. An ensemble restorative initiative, involving a reading session for new arrangements of Haydn and Gershwin. However, we commenced with a “no pressure” harmonic tonic of Salvation Army Band Hymns to refresh our ears and gently exercise our chops.
After so long a time it had felt special to go into preparation for a rehearsal - even putting my instrument, music and stand into the car, driving to the church – all held a heighten anticipation of experiencing something (sic), that been missing for months; while also not having the words for what had been lacking. Thus, an opportunity for making observations on how a resumption of playing in a musical ensemble may take place after a long hiatus was being presented; an occasion to test the musical reality of what had been missed.
Reflections:
It was strange-making * to gather together again while also maintaining Physical-
Distancing. The five of us are seasoned colleagues, co-veterans of numerous
concerts, but we hadn’t been together in six months. Playing within a 2-meter radius (while stretching the available performance area) was not a problem. But, restraining of our enthusiasm at seeing each other felt awkward; keeping ‘our distance’ by self-consciously remembering that we were meeting under socially proscribed circumstances. It took us a longer time to set up and prepare to play. We seemed to dally into side conversations and extended catch ups that wouldn’t have been the case in the pre-covid context; and we kept readjusting our space configuration as an ensemble. A kind of verbal and space specific ‘nesting’ seemed to be intuitively desired and needed; but also unquestioned.
However, all at once, in sounding together (again) in a resonate space, a deeply sought-after acoustical magic transpires.
An easily assumed, yet sublime moment came as we breathed together to sound our first tutti passage. A conspiratorial intake of air and release of wind in collectively producing resonate excitement in a defined space. A physically engaged, imaginative ‘presence’ of brass sound manifests. The concept of ensemble becomes epitomized in this necessary, habitual gesture of wind and song.
We breathed, we blew, our instruments sounded. Every air molecule in the room instantly responded. Resonance engages in space-time, with our very organism, in a profoundly sensate experience evoking immediate emotive satisfaction. A phenomenal, vibrationial, ‘no-thing’ called sound ensues, seemingly, from out of a voluminous “no-thing” of bounded air - space. Activated through a special agency of people (humans as musicians), ‘winding’ crafted cylinder-cones of brass.
This is a long way home in philosophically describing an acoustical experience of playing in a brass ensemble in a large space. As the word cannot be the “thing” this phenomenon remains unexplained in any binary (cause and effect) description; yet like other strong emotive stimulus (awe, fear, love, surprise) we know it when we see (experience) IT.
Information is carried in musical phenomena:
So, what can be noted from “playing” with others again after a one hundred-four- day absence?
Several embodied, visceral, phenomena are immediately apparent:
Harmonic function of acoustical overtones being reinforced and combined in an ensemble as a symphonic experience of ‘sounding’ together. Powerful, energizing and evocative.
Bass functions and harmonic progressions being coloured and reinforced by the individual timbres of the upper instruments “sounding” within the tuba’s overtone rich sonority.
A consort (be-longing together) of brass, defines excitement (of air and emotions) in molding potential acoustical possibilities in space - time. A primary phenomenal experience of active attentiveness and awe (sounds which will not be ignored).
An expression of latent, powerful, harmonic structures and dynamic expansions retaining historical information as active acoustical communication over time. “Play it again Sam”.
Acoustical space, reinforcing, enhancing and reverberating informative pressure waves, impacting every surface, shaping sentient consciousness, as an immersive presence within its environment. Gestalt properties of concert halls and performances.
Out of (relative) silence comes sound, manifested and resonant with/in our bodies as a ‘be-coming’ of mind-full-ness within space.
These are but a torrent of words pointing to an instrumental expression of a non-verbal sounding, toning, shaping of space through sound; nice work when you can get IT.
As musicians we have mostly assumed and taken for granted our ability to actively participate in “making music” together. That is until Covid -19 took those possibilities away. In response to pandemic contagion scenarios, musicians acquiesced to being “physically isolated in place” (along with everyone else) by making music solely on their own, (or collaboratively from balconies) as well as (possibly) exploring the challenges and potentials of on-line concert streaming and/or remote music teaching.
Within this novel condition - due to such an “unprecedented” situation - we experienced loss and grief in being both constrained - restrained from gathering together as ensembles to rehearse and concertize. Performance practice, as previously known to generations of musicians, mutated within this enforced hibernation, naturally taking new forms and strategies and finding much to learn in the experience.
This will also be the case for our individual and collective - just begun – long, slow, recovery.
What, why and how can we track, take note and document this novel experience of recommencing small, then larger, ensemble practices?
What was missing in this imposed ensemble-performance isolation?
Why is it important to “know” these perceived differences, effects and consequences?
How do we (not only) re-new but actually progress our musical performances in coming out of such an experience of social restraint and singular reflective focus?
Is making music together (Musicking) an accessory to our society or a necessity for personal health, well-being, social discourse or an informed cultural life?
How is music (art) an essential activity, not an expendable luxury?
These are important aesthetic, cultural and political - economic questions as our society emerges from out of pandemic re-action and towards a civilization re-boot.
This is what is partly meant by an “existential” threat.
Knowledge is power and we need to grasp this experience and promote what, how and why we (must) create such large, live music, symphonic gestalts in order to be advancing our artistic practice and help re-ignite a progressive, humanistic society; rather than only a fractured digital online simulacrum.
Big Questions; whose answers could come with recognising and appreciating whatever small, first steps appear on our way towards empowering a renewal of our ensemble musick making.
Strange Making: when something breaks down, or significantly malfunctions and opens to new opportunities for application and development
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