Beopgo Changshin: New Music for Samul nori

In this album, social sounds, I am interested in exploring the different levels of improvisation that are present in a musical score. The works I have chosen cover a wide continuum from those that are strictly notated to those that outline different ways in which composers have included elements of improvisation for performers to interpret. I selected these works as I feel a certain kinship with them and find them beautiful in their own distinct ways.  They reflect the way I have been thinking about sound and the way I experience the world in the moment.

Still (2006) by Dorothy Chang is inspired by the painting Red-Black (1967) by Lawrence Calcagno, which hangs in the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York. What I particularly like about Still and what made it immediately appealing was the way that Chang embellishes a beautiful simple melody with a variety of textures of sound that are created though the use of timbral tones and pitch bends. The broadened tonal colour spectrum enhances and adds depth to the line without ever overshadowing it. Chang’s subtle manipulation of timbral texture is reminiscent of Calcagno’s play with the perspective of the viewer in his painting. Throughout, the effects are evocative of the dizi—a side-blown Chinese flute—and feed into a Zen-like atmosphere.