Oh Schnickeys, I Missed My Cue....Oh, Wait, Did I?

By Connect Mason Mason Blogger Emily Culley

From my previous experiences with musical performances — especially with musical performances for my school, I knew that appearance was just as important as musical quality. For performances from sixth grade and on, I stressed over every detail on my outfit; the outfit only became more important once I reached high school, where students were denied their right to perform if they showed up to competitions wearing the wrong color socks. So, during our interview about a week ago when I agreed to play “iPod 2” in Dr. Jesse Guessford's concert I was a little taken aback when he told me to show up in street clothes; just as long as I had my score, iPod, and a stop watch.

• See photos from the performances.

On my drive back to my apartment all I could think was “Wow, seriously. This is going to be awesome, I love casual performances.” And then came the email with the aptly titled PDF file “Safety Guide,” and my thoughts immediately changed to “Um, what? How? ...?!!” And all I could think of was what did I get myself, or more importantly, what did I get my iPod into? And how was I going to be able to pull off this intricate development of skipping, playing and pausing all at once?

According to the program, “Safety Guide” was inspired by the actual Safety Guide included with iPods, warning new iPod users of all the “dangers that can befall someone during the operation and maintenance of an iPod.” Keeping that in mind, I could only think back to the time where I was fiddling with my iPod in class; excessively clicking next on my playlist just to see what random songs would come up when my iPod froze. And it remained frozen until the battery wore out, which took about 10 hours. During our interview I asked Dr. Guessford what would happen if the iPod froze, he replied that it would become part of the song.

Dr. Guessford said that the beauty of this piece is the unexpected, which admittedly eased my tension about not performing up to par. The iPod players are given a score, which has endless possibilities and outcomes; it would be impossible to predict what would happen next. The score is, in essence, a map of boxes each containing three numbers, each box breaks off into two different paths. The boxes build up four levels to the climax before dwindling back down to a single box, where it repeats back to the beginning. The best way to explain it is, it's kind of like a choose-your-own-ending novella, only with the beginnings of songs. Bret Rushia, who played iPod 1, said that the piece was interesting because it brought so many different musical spectrums to the table, and opened the piece up to any generation, genre, or medium of music.

Aside from “Safety Guide,” the concert featured seven other experimental pieces, not including the “this is just background noise,” created by Rushia during the 15 minute intermission. “Sound Exploration Compositions,” was without a doubt one of the more interesting and intriguing concerts I have attended in a while. The first piece “i have found,” took the e.e. cummings “i have found what you are like,” read by choreographers Joy DiLillo and Meghan Tornai. The readings were then mixed and arranged to create a modernistic reading of the poem, creating an array of feelings and emotions within the text—but also creating a history and background of the voices.

The crowd favorite was, by far, the third piece “Within,” where, according to the program notes, Dr. Guessford was asked to tell the story of his life, which he chose to do using a variety of musical genres and textures of music. “Within,” proves that not all stories need to be told through words, sitting in the back of the auditorium I began matching up the growths and falls of the song with the standard growths and falls of life, and wondering what parts of the songs were parts of Dr. Guessford's musical life. Even minutes into the songs I lost count of all the possible musical influences and styles; only to surmise that Dr. Guessford must have one amazing musical library and a history to backup the tracks.

In contrast to Dr. Guessford's “choose your own ending” scores, Theresa Ashley presented her score for “Blut und Ere.” “Blut und Ere,” is a 20 minute short film by Aaro Keipi, Ashley wrote the soundtrack for Part 1 of the film. While the piece is more traditional in the score, Ashely broke away from the normal to have a string quintet play the score to a movie live. Which may sound a lot easier than it actually is, the musicians must have impeccable timing and phrasing, otherwise the music won't match the movie. Additionally, the musicians must pay close attention to the conductor's cues if they happen to get off beat.

The evening only got better after intermission, while one piece “Create” was not performed, it was replaced by another “choose your own ending” score of sorts. The skills of the composers and musicians kept rising with each piece performed, nearly every piece sounded as if it had been tediously rehearsed and penned to the very last note. I was almost in complete shock when I heard the musicians had just gotten their pieces Friday, three days before the concert. Even more in shock to learn that Matt Richardson would be making his debut on the viola. However, in the spirit of the unexpected, everything sounded flawless. During intermission, Brandon Harris, who played double bass, joked that as long as he and Richardson almost began and almost ended together the piece will be well-played.

The last piece instrumental piece was “Space Between Bullet and Target,” featuring a violin (Matt Richardson), a Vibraphone (Dan Heagney), and a double bass (Brandon Harris). In the program notes, Heagney added that the piece is unique because it has the players both playing together and separately.

The concert also featured visual and sound performances, which for me were a little more abstract than I am normally used to, though they were intriguing. “Debatable,” took clips from of all the presidents (or all that I counted) since the birth of the debate on television and played them over top of each other. Some of the clips appeared to have been sped up, some may have been slowed down. Either way the clips, the repetition within sound, and the similar setting and structure within the presidential debates led to personal questions, though none as poignant as the program notes; “[Ask] not what that they can say in a sound-bite, but what we should say to them.”

For me, it's challenging to say that the concert was a success, which I think it was, but it is hard because of the theory of the unexpected. If everything is a part of the piece, and unexpected portions or add-ins are welcomed to the piece, how do you rate the performances of the night? Well, for one, had I not known that the pieces were learned mostly during rehearsal and that the musicians were playing unfamiliar instruments, I would not have been able to tell. All of the musicians approached the the unexpected with full force and turned it into the most intricate pieces of music. Additionally, there was only one technical problem with all of the electronics, which for someone like me, who encounters problems checking her email, is a huge success. And looking back on the technical problem, I find it ironic that it happened in the middle of Dr. Guessford's biographical “Within.” Thus proving that the unexpected within songs is truly warranted and can be turned into a pivotal point within the piece.