There are three different versions of this piece:
1. The Original Improvisation
2. The Transcribed Version
3. The “Non-Tremolo” Version
This set of compositions was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to play around with the effect that can be created by layering lines played in tremolo on the violin: so far it is the closest way I have found to achieve something sounding vaguely orchestral with just a violin.
I started by recording lines of tremolo, one on top of the other (i.e. recording one, listening to it while recording the next, then aligning the two and listening to the combined recording while playing the next and so on). It was inevitably somewhat improvisatory in nature, which is why, in the first recording, the chords do not necessarily all change at the same time. I quite like that effect: it creates some interesting suspensions and resolutions. So I tried to keep it later on.
I then recorded two very improvisatory “melodic” lines, one high and one low. I used the same principle as for the “Ostinato” series to combine all of these lines into a piece of 6 minutes or so (10 repetitions), including shifting the melodies relative to each other to create a canon. (It was more by luck than judgement that the rhythms just about aligned!!)
The resulting audio file is (1) above. Up to this point I had not written anything down.
Transcribing this was not easy, and I accept that my transcription is not entirely accurate but hopefully I have not changed too much. I re-recorded everything from the transcript while listening to a metronome, which was an interesting exercise. Although I did not consciously alter the speed I lost a full minute somewhere along the line, which shows how much more flexible the rhythm was when I was improvising, and I think that comes across in the overall spirit.
The transcribed version ((2) above) feels much more constrained even though the rhythm does not really conform to much idea of a beat or bar lines. The time signature and bar lines in the transcript are really there just for the sake of counting: I had no intention to put 3 beats in a bar and the intention is that it should sound improvisatory, which is why some chords change on the first or last quaver of a bar rather than “on the beat”. I intentionally limited the rhythm to quavers, which meant some compromise in terms of what changes where, so some of the effects that you hear in the improvised version are not present in the transcribed version and vice versa, but I think that makes for an interesting comparison.
Finally I decided to try a version without the tremolo ((3) above). I suspected that the tremolo “blurs” the harmonies to some extent and I wanted to see how it would sound if the chords were brought out a bit more. I think this version is interesting because you become much more aware of the dissonances and resolutions within the chords, and the melodic lines are much less prominent.
I am not sure which I prefer, although I think there is a lot to be said for the improvisatory nature of the first one. To some extent the loss of this in 2 and 3 is an inevitable consequence of playing with a metronome in order to line things up: I think if this were to be played “in real life” the aim would be to achieve enough flexibility in the rhythm to give the impression of improvisation while keeping in time with the other parts…
Julia Sherriff 