Music for Humans: Writing for Choir

Waking Up tells the story of a consciousness being born within a brain chip implant. Musically, I wanted to convey the "humanizing" of chip by starting the season with very digital textures, and ending with only human voices. The challenge for me: record the score the last episode with a real choir.

My main sources of study in writing for choir were the books Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov and Writings On Music by Steve Reich, as well as several scores written by Gyorgi Ligeti, Nico Muhly, and Caroline Shaw.

The Performers

I was lucky to find the Micrologus Studio led by Guilherme da Fonseca and Juan Klas. They were completely enthusiastic about my crazy ideas and helped deliver exceptional results in the recording. More about them:

The Music

Q Train: https://articles.ghan.co/score-q-train-waking-up

This is the music that plays during a scene in a subway car. The writing for this section is inspired by Terry Riley's In C. I gave a field recording of the Q Train crossing the Manhattan Bridge to the choir along with the score, which provides several snippets of music to be interpreted and performed at will during the recording.

This was my first serious attempt at writing for humans. I scrapped several ideas before coming across the score to Terry Riley's In C. I was using it to practice cello, since it's a joy to listen to and you can very easily play along -- you get to play at your own pace, as much as you want. Such is the direction from Mr. Riley. I love the idea of offering more interpretive license to the musician, of creating instructions that result in magic, unpredictable and different every time. Coming from a place of digital music production, this felt liberating and far more exciting than writing prescriptively and expecting musicians to perform the work rote. 

With that inspiration, the score I wrote is meant to be recorded by any number of musicians in layers. The first musician receives a reference track -- a three minute field recording clip of the Q Train crossing the Manhattan bridge. They then layer their voice over it, choosing whichever line of music they'd like to perform at that moment. There are some wacky -- "contemporary" if you're feeling academic -- techniques thrown in, to mimic the sounds of the train. When they're done, they hand the sum to the next person, and repeat.

Apartment: https://articles.ghan.co/score-apartment-scene-waking-up

This is the scene where you, the main character, stumble into your apartment and meet your brain chip's consciousness in your reflection. It is traditionally scored (not aleatoric) because the timing of events is very specific. I introduce some novel articulations though, including chest thumping and rapid alveolar consonants ("nuh-nuh-nuh").

I'm lucky to have found Juan Klas and the Micrologus Studio Choir. Juan was very helpful in providing tips -- what is possible, what could be simplified. Truly, an invaluable musical education. He advised, "try to find the simplest path to achieve the sound you want." This was my guiding light for the rest of the writing. 

When I Write By Hand: https://articles.ghan.co/score-when-i-write-by-hand-waking-up

This scene involves a flashback to your childhood where you confront a difficult vision involving your father. I originally wanted to use a poem by Rupi Kaur as the lyrics, but she didn't give me permission, so I asked Maria Teutsch. Maria was delighted and delivered a poem called "When I Write By Hand." It describes a recent experience she had noticing that her dead mother's handwriting started showing up in her own writing. 

The music begins with the performers answering the question "describe something you've inherited from your parents." It moves between aleatoric and traditionally notated sections. 

This writing and the next one, We Are All In, were written at the same time. I employ a mix of box notation and traditional score for both, I feel like the result is unpredictable and fun while still being grounded in a sense of direction. 

We Are All In: https://articles.ghan.co/score-we-are-all-in-waking-up

I suppose this is the title theme to the entire season. In addition to the themes of "wave motion" that are found throughout Waking Up, the form of this composition is essentially the repetition of "We are all in the process of waking up", first stretched out over several minutes, then gradually sped up. It mostly employs box notation (a technique found in contemporary film score). 

Gyorgi Ligeti's Lux Aeterna is a major inspiration for the beginning of the piece, but after reading his score, I felt I could approach the same effect a bit more simply. From what I've seen, lot of Ligeti's writing seems to directly challenge Juan's advice to "keep it simple." For example, Ligeti's Galamb Borong for piano indicates 12/16 time, 𝅗𝅥. = 40 tempo. What. Perhaps, since it's an etude, part of the lesson is doing math? Who knows, he was known for having a sense of humor. At any rate, he's one of my absolute favorite composers and I can't help but borrow from his musical ideas (if not his engraving).