in trails players are required to translate a purely electronic composition into acoustic sound. i.e. instead of being reproduced through loudspeakers, the synthesised musical gestures are interpreted and brought to life by humans, re-imagining techniques for physical instruments in order to translate electronic sounds. developed as an alternative method of music notation, the score constitutes a more holistic, perception-based representation of its musical objects and their gestural movements rather than the necessarily parametric visualisations of traditional notation.
the source is never revealed in its entirety to the audience and the source recording, available to the performers only during rehearsals, is withheld from digital distribution – access as a formal device, addressable through composition, as well as an instance of falsification of claims of universal and uninhibited exploitability of digital content.
optionally, parts of the work can be assigned to live electronics, revealing elements of the original source in varying degrees. thus the line between composition and performance is further blurred and becomes an aesthetic parameter in its own right. through the improvisational nature of instrumentation and technique in trails (while movements in time and spectrum are fixed) decidedly diverse acoustic conversions in subsequent performances are not just encouraged, but practically enforced.
the electronic score which consists of an electronic audio recording + a rhythmic notation-only score for rehearsal purposes translates only as a contour, imprinting itself onto each performance.
trails for 3 percussion players and live electronics
commissioned by ny musikk for only connect festival 2013: ‘machine dreams’
first performance: june 8, 2013 at kunstnernes hus, oslo, norway.
players: pinquins and stefan goldmann.
german first performance: now festival / zollverein essen, november 9, 2013 with stephan froleyks, matthias engler and gereon voss (percussion).
stefan goldmann 