Experimental and the Avant Garde: "Mood Swing" (2014)

Today, I present to you my most recent composition, a graphically notated work for my American Avant Garde class. Entitled Mood Swing, it is based around a game of frisbee. The frisbee we will be using will function in four capacities, to be explained later:

1) to instruct method and vague details of sound production
2) to create of real-time, spontaneous, interpretive scoring via flight patterns
3) as a "found" graphic score
4) as an instrument in the work

The skeleton of the piece is fairly simple: 3 or more people throw the frisbee to one another, in any order. Each person produces vocal sounds to interpret the frisbee's flight pattern as real-time score (#1) (for example, height = pitch, speed = intensity). When the frisbee is thrown, each person makes sounds as it flies to represent the flight, then repeats these sounds when it is in the catcher's hands. The types of sounds each person produces are determined by the notation on the frisbee when they catch it (#2).

The frisbee contains two types of instructions: emotions, represented by facial expressions, and types of vocal production (hum, shout, etc.) Before the piece begins, each person tosses the frisbee in the air several times, choosing an emotion and a vocal production method by the randomized pictures near their hand where they catch the disc. For the entire piece, each person has an emotion and a vocal production method. Each time a player catches the frisbee, he or she changes their emotion or vocal method to whatever symbol is closest to his or her right thumb or index finger. They use these emotions and vocal methods to vocalize the real-time notation of the frisbee's flight. Each time it is thrown, everyone vocalizes. Then, it is caught, and while the catcher examines his/her new result, the others repeat the same vocal flight path. Next, that person throws it to the next person, and the process repeats.

There's an additional wrench thrown into this piece/game format. There is one additional symbol on the disc: three exclamation points surrounded by a spiky bubble. If you land on this symbol with a catch, then you perform a very brief solo. To do so, toss the disc to yourself quickly. Wherever your right thumb or index finger lands, look at the printed design on the frisbee in that area. Use this as a small chunk of graphic score to perform, using any vocal production method, as well as the frisbee as an instrument (#3 / #4). This printed design is thus being used as a "found" graphic score, as I realized after beginning to conceptualize this piece that the design on this particular frisbee is RIFE with capabilities as an interesting graphic score.

The person performs this bit of score as a solo, using the frisbee instrument and their voice however they want (approx. 3-10 seconds). Next, the other players mimic the solo while the player starts to throw it to the next person, and the game continues.

When a player has performed 2 solos, he or she will sit down. They have finished performing the piece, and wait for all players to finish. When only one remains, he or she must continue to throw it to him- or herself until they too have performed two solos. They must vocalize each of these throws on their own, making the ending of the piece likely to be a long solo by one person. As such, the work begins with all players, then gradually peters down to just one, until all are sitting and the game is over.

I'm sure some of this is a tad unclear. All will be clarified with the work's performance in class today.