Program
|
Attunement mm - oo - oh - ah |
|
The Frame Stimmung |
|
The Persuance Stimmung - Karlheinz Stockhausen (1968) |
I remember when I first learned about overtones. It was my senior year of high school in Southern Oregon and I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop by Los Angeles conductor Donald Brinegar who gave a masterclass in Just Intonation tuning using Morten Laurdsen’s O Nata Lux as the primary workshop material. During the masterclass he gave a demonstration of overtone singing, and when I heard the tell-tale whistle of vocal harmonics in the air, I was thunderstruck.
Here, embedded in our singing, and in all sound vibrations, was an entire harmonic dimension hiding in plain sight, and once I heard it, I couldn’t unhear it. Suddenly overtones were everywhere, in the drone of a bus, the hum of a generator, the buzz of hair clippers, my electric toothbrush. This hidden world was revealed to me and I couldn’t get enough.
The perfectly ordered, mathematical relationship of overtones to the primary vibrating object seemed to hint at some greater macro-truth about the organization of reality itself. I thought: if we could unlock this thing, the inner structure of sound, if we could understand more completely the implied meaning behind it, we would uncover something profound, mysterious, maybe even miraculous. But the deeper I looked, the more elusive this mystery seemed to be. If there is any intrinsic, universal meaning to music or sound itself, it has eluded me.
Sound is just wiggling air, a vibration against the thinnest membranes in our ears. How we experience this wildly emotional phenomenon is incredibly specific to this planet, this atmosphere, to our culture, upbringing, and particular human perception. And yet, I would be a fool not to acknowledge the experience of music is dripping with the emotional, philosophical, and spiritual significance of the highest order.
That significance is not inherent in the music, it is inherent in us. The drama between music’s juxtaposing forces, dissonance and consonance, tension and release, suspension and unity, echo the dramas of the human experience, the imperfection of physical reality, the longing of the soul.
Paul Hillier writes “Stimmung implies not only the outward tuning of voices or instruments, but also the inward tuning of one’s soul. When people feel in tune with one another they are said to be in a good Stimmung.”
Stimmung emphasizes that the very concept of tuning is, in the end, relational. How any two notes relate to one another is, by definition, the study of tuning itself. Tuning does not exist as a binary, it’s not that any given harmony is in or out of tune, but rather a question of where these notes lie on a spectrum of consonance in relationship to one another. It’s not such a big leap to see the parallel of musical tuning to our interpersonal lives, or between ideas, or our spiritual selves. When we talk about a harmony being ‘out of tune’, that is only by the standards of any given tuning system. Similarly, when we are out of tune with each other, or with society, it is only when compared to a preconceived set of values and expectations.
But if we can move beyond those rigid structures and experience these relationships as they are, we can, to quote Emily Levine “make friends with reality”, and therein find another miraculous truth hidden in plain sight - that of the world as it actually is.
Rather than seeking a universal truth through tuning, something clean and perfectly aligned, crystalline, shimmering, and divine, we can embrace a physical world that is chaotic, messy, and unrefined. Maybe it’s this crude imperfection that makes it beautiful, makes it human and relatable. Maybe it is in the drama between dissonance and consonance, noise, and sound, that we find a relatable, human drama. Stimmung, the art, and practice of tuning, is about finding alignment within ourselves and between each other, a celebration of where we are, right now, in our human story.
Program
|
Attunement mm - oo - oh - ah |
|
The Frame Stimmung |
|
The Persuance Stimmung - Karlheinz Stockhausen (1968) |
I remember when I first learned about overtones. It was my senior year of high school in Southern Oregon and I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop by Los Angeles conductor Donald Brinegar who gave a masterclass in Just Intonation tuning using Morten Laurdsen’s O Nata Lux as the primary workshop material. During the masterclass he gave a demonstration of overtone singing, and when I heard the tell-tale whistle of vocal harmonics in the air, I was thunderstruck.
Here, embedded in our singing, and in all sound vibrations, was an entire harmonic dimension hiding in plain sight, and once I heard it, I couldn’t unhear it. Suddenly overtones were everywhere, in the drone of a bus, the hum of a generator, the buzz of hair clippers, my electric toothbrush. This hidden world was revealed to me and I couldn’t get enough.
The perfectly ordered, mathematical relationship of overtones to the primary vibrating object seemed to hint at some greater macro-truth about the organization of reality itself. I thought: if we could unlock this thing, the inner structure of sound, if we could understand more completely the implied meaning behind it, we would uncover something profound, mysterious, maybe even miraculous. But the deeper I looked, the more elusive this mystery seemed to be. If there is any intrinsic, universal meaning to music or sound itself, it has eluded me.
Sound is just wiggling air, a vibration against the thinnest membranes in our ears. How we experience this wildly emotional phenomenon is incredibly specific to this planet, this atmosphere, to our culture, upbringing, and particular human perception. And yet, I would be a fool not to acknowledge the experience of music is dripping with the emotional, philosophical, and spiritual significance of the highest order.
That significance is not inherent in the music, it is inherent in us. The drama between music’s juxtaposing forces, dissonance and consonance, tension and release, suspension and unity, echo the dramas of the human experience, the imperfection of physical reality, the longing of the soul.
Paul Hillier writes “Stimmung implies not only the outward tuning of voices or instruments, but also the inward tuning of one’s soul. When people feel in tune with one another they are said to be in a good Stimmung.”
Stimmung emphasizes that the very concept of tuning is, in the end, relational. How any two notes relate to one another is, by definition, the study of tuning itself. Tuning does not exist as a binary, it’s not that any given harmony is in or out of tune, but rather a question of where these notes lie on a spectrum of consonance in relationship to one another. It’s not such a big leap to see the parallel of musical tuning to our interpersonal lives, or between ideas, or our spiritual selves. When we talk about a harmony being ‘out of tune’, that is only by the standards of any given tuning system. Similarly, when we are out of tune with each other, or with society, it is only when compared to a preconceived set of values and expectations.
But if we can move beyond those rigid structures and experience these relationships as they are, we can, to quote Emily Levine “make friends with reality”, and therein find another miraculous truth hidden in plain sight - that of the world as it actually is.
Rather than seeking a universal truth through tuning, something clean and perfectly aligned, crystalline, shimmering, and divine, we can embrace a physical world that is chaotic, messy, and unrefined. Maybe it’s this crude imperfection that makes it beautiful, makes it human and relatable. Maybe it is in the drama between dissonance and consonance, noise, and sound, that we find a relatable, human drama. Stimmung, the art, and practice of tuning, is about finding alignment within ourselves and between each other, a celebration of where we are, right now, in our human story.
Performers
HEX |
Described by the L.A. Times as "a luminous ensemble of singers", HEX is an award-winning contemporary vocal sextet based in Los Angeles dedicated to performing new works that reimagine the expressive potential of the human voice. Our group features critically-acclaimed singers who have been featured soloists with LA Opera, LA Philharmonic, Long Beach Opera, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, and Industry Opera. HEX has performed with Brightwork Newmusic, theatre dybbuk, and the Resonance Collective, and at venues such as the Broadstage, Meng Concert Hall, Tuesdays@Monk Space, HEAR NOW Music Festival, Sound and Fury Concert Series, Master in the Chapel Series at First Lutheran Church in Venice, and N.E.O. Voice Festival. In 2022, HEX was nominated for the San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Choice awards in four categories, including Favorite Choral Ensemble and Favorite New Music Performance, and received the award for "Best Orchestral Performance" for their premiere performance of Oratorio of the Earth. |