PESO by Sean Clancy
For several years, I have been trying to bring the presentation of my music as close as possible to Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, or perhaps more specifically, the instructions on how to execute these works. Of course, LeWitt’s instructions are already incredibly close to a musical score, but there is something in the utter clarity, simplicity, and refinement of these instructions that has captivated me for many years.
In my most recent work, I have been working with musical matter in a very focused way, mostly examining location recordings, timbre, and pitch. The absence of prescribed rhythm suggests the removal of figuration (as I see it), and allows things to be more abstract with a focus on texture and timbre in a similar way to paintings that have foregrounded these principles over figuration.
Presently, in various different pieces, I am thinking of my musical material as being continuous, omnipresent, or simply as always being 'on'. At various different times, either the composer or performer (or both) has the ability to turn (unchanging) material on or off, fade it up or down, or to modulate the timbre, drawing attention to different layers, and kinds of materials. By so doing, a music is created that welcomes happy accidents; that can draw attention to different kinds of sonorities, depending on what voices happen to be sounding at the time; and that changes rather than develops. I think of this process as 'Timbral Counterpoint', and is perhaps similar to the work of Shōzō Shimamoto, particularly his 'Holes' series, in which a number of sheets of newspaper are topped with a sheet of brown cartridge paper, and pasted together with a glue made with flour and water. These pieces are then painted, and their surfaces pierced irregularly to reveal the different layers underneath and the painting’s wooden backboard.
On Sunday 11 December 2022, while my family and I were all at home nursing winter viruses in various stages of convalescence, I set up 13 oscillators (7 analog oscillators and 6 FM operators) and tuned them in a way that I thought would give rise to an engaging sonority for roughly an hour. Leaving the oscillators running, I went about doing household tasks: making breakfast, giving my son medicine, hoovering, doing laundry etc. When I had completed a task, I came back to the synthesizers and very gradually turned down an oscillator, exposing a different aspect of the tonality. I continued this practice until only a single oscillator was left alone bringing the piece to its conclusion, in a manner not too dissimilar to Joseph Haydn’s 'Farwell Symphony', György Ligeti’s 'Poème Symphonique', or my own 'X lines of Music Slow Down and Eventually Stop Series'. I wasn’t completely happy with the results of this recording, so on Monday 12 December 2022, I set the oscillators up again, and got on with admin work attached to my academic job. On this occasion, each time I sent an email, I very gradually turned down an oscillator until the piece ran its course and came to a logical conclusion. This is the version available here. (2 minutes have been edited off the start of the piece to comply with Bandcamp's upload limit.)
Peso is a penguin character from the children’s TV show Octonauts, which my son was watching when I recorded this piece. Peso is a kind-hearted medic on the show. He values community and looking out for each other. He is shy, cautious, can frighten easily, and demonstrates the least bravado of all the characters; however, whenever there is a real emergency and another animal is hurt or in danger, Peso is always the first to respond. I like this about Peso…
Happy Winter Solstice 2022. Things will get brighter from here…
Tracklist
| 1. | peso | 58:02 |
| 2. | peso (radio edit) | 13:01 |
Credits
Performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Seán Clancy on 12 December 2022.
License
All rights reserved.
I am an experimental composer & performer from Ireland. I write music for electronic instruments, acoustic instruments, & environmental sounds. For the most part, my work is involved with the act of translating non-musical things into music. My music is often long, repetitive, and contains sustained drones. I am also Ad Astra Fellow Assistant Professor in music at UCD in Ireland.