During three days Marcus Bergner and I rehearsed the parallel pronunciation of a text on unison, which was written by Samuel Vriezen, composer and poet, in commission for this project.
In the shop for experimental music and poetry we sat opposite each other at the table in front of an audience and pronounced the text in as perfectly as possible unison, which means that we intended to have our words and melody of speaking sounding exactly parallel in pitch, rhythm and intonation.
year
2012
location
Rumpsti Pumsti (Musik) Berlin
brief description
Samuel Vriezen's text on unisono 'Sharing Multiplicity' was pronounced in unisono by Toine Horvers and Marcus Bergner in front of an audience.
performed by
Toine Horvers and Marcus Bergner
further information
During a recent residential stay in Ireland I suddenly realized how Irish traditional dance music - which I already know from many visits to Ireland over the years - is always performed in unisono, or monophony, which means that various instruments play exactly the same tune.
This parallel playing, in conjunction with repetitive musical patterns, has a somewhat hypnotizing effect and I became aware of the similarity with Gregorian Chant as well as classical Arab and Islamic music, where this monophony has a more contemplative and spiritual connotation.
I found out that in many musical traditions the parallel performing of one melody originates in the concept of the one-ness (one-being) of the human voice. For instance, where in western classical music polyphony was celebrated, in Islamic music it was repressed, due to the central Islamic statement of 'Tawhid', or the one-ness of Allah, the model being the lone voice reciting the Quran. Monophony here is called 'heterophony' in which the performing musicians have the freedom to make small personal variations on the melody.
Also the monophony in Irish traditional music probably finds its roots in the melody of the one voice, singing a dance-tune.
I am fascinated by this musical phenomenon, which on the one hand is stupefying and hypnotizing, at the same time it stands for an extreme musical purity due to the fact that there is no influence of harmony, no emotional built up, and, (maybe for that reason) all poetic expressiveness and beauty stems from the one-line pattern of the melody.
I started looking for a technical/philosophical/historical text about Unisono, which text I intended to vocalize in unisono with other voices.
I received very interesting lines and thoughts from composers and musicians, and finally I asked Samuel Vriezen, composer and poet, to describe his ideas about this item.
Thanks to Samuel Vriezen, Barbara Ellison, Taylan Susam, Theo Loevendie and Peter Jan Wagemans.