Piece For 4 Traditional Musicians III

Here is an early attempt at one of the graphic scores. It is performed by 4 fiddlers from Border Fiddles
1. Innes Watson
2. Rachel Cross
3. Carly Blain
4. Shona Mooney

You will hear that the musicians veer off the score especially in in the improvised sections. They were sight-reading the piece and I didn't give them very much instruction, I wanted to see what they would make of it.

I actually envisaged that they would stick to the same pulse and make it more of a traditional jig sound but I think the idea of an experimental piece and the instructions to improvise pushed the musicians to perform not as themselves. It was interesting that in a subsequent take the musicians wanted to pick another fiddle player to play as - they made it into role play. I really wanted them to be themselves...

This practice run has given me a clearer idea of how I will approach the piece, what information needs to be provided and how it might be received by traditional musicians.



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The New Traditional Composer

Billy Jackson and his The Wellpark Suite mark the beginning of the proliferation from noted composers such as William Marshall or J.S. Skinner into a movement of new larger scale composition and experimentation from traditional musicians in Scotland. In the past 30 years over 100 new works have been produced and this continues to increase with support from schemes such as the Celtic Connections New Voices Series and the Distil Showcases and workshops.

Stuart Eydmann and myself are compiling a database of new works, their composers and performers - if any composers would like to contribute their information please get in touch.

Composers with information to contribute to the database of new compositions please email me at lori@loriwatson.co.uk with any of the following information:

Title of work
Composer
Commissioner
Performance dates/years
Instrumentation
Performers
Record/Document
Description

Thanks.

Graphic Scores for Traditional Musicians

I am experimenting with Graphic Scores as a platform for traditional musicians to be immediately creative in their own musical accents. By putting readers and non-readers on the same level these pieces give performers the freedom to play their own sounds within a structure. These pieces plays to the strengths of traditional musicians in listening and responding to each other in performance.

Here are some examples, any thoughts?