NO-MUSIC - earpieces

performed, conducted and scored pieces for the ears

here at Kunsthalle for the Darmstadt Summer Course 2014 ©IMD, Daniel Pufe

 
NO-MUSIC: earpieces (former Keine-Musik)
compositions for ears

scores and performances
for self-performing or conducted audience
in various situations, set-ups and contexts
like:
  • printed scores in various publications for self-performance, titles vary per piece
  • a 15min conducted performance piece "No Music - earpieces"
  • a 45 -70min 'performative rehearsal': "No Music - a performative rehearsal"
  • a 15 min concert version for dancer and instruments "No Music - for earchestra"
  • a ca. 10min version integrating smart phones "No Music - Earpieces  (remix 2)" transcribed and performed by ZABUNA (Belgrade), June 2019
  • as workshop and class material

PRESS: review of the performance at Café Oto (Kammerklang) in 2017 by Tim Rutherford-Johnson for Tempo (Cambridge Press)

> > > For more photos and video extracts scroll down. 


score of 'beat it':

a techno piece, which I often conduct, but here a score version for the book Brussels Tracks, a self-performative audio guide









program notes:

No Music is no music, but still a musical experience. No music, still for your ears. 

Since 2010 I work on scores for pieces, that could be performed right at the spot, in whatever context, as long as one could freely use both hands and had two functioning ears. The pieces offer notated situations of organized listening and simple ear manipulations.


I understand the this material more as a practice than as a series of composition, even thou they can appear as such. Pieces appear in printed form as well as in spontaneous performances or entirely set theatrical or concert performances.

These interventions are entirely personal and therefor not so much interactive, as 'inner-active', self-performative. The reader as the performer as the listener.


program note by UnionDocs, WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn, November 2015:

No Music - earpieces
A performative rehearsal

No Music approaches listening as a performative act. The event triggers musical experience without being actually music.

This lecture-performance is neither a performance, nor a lecture, but rather a rehearsal for a piece, that you can take home and perform anytime you want for yourself, wherever you want. You will learn to read a score, there will be a conductor, performers (us) and audience (us as well). No sound production, still a musical progression. Introduction, development, finale. Still no music.

The acoustic results change radically with every new location, still the piece keeps its structural identity. Together, environment and composition dissolve into the responsibility of the listener him/herself; it becomes your own thing, as personal as a bodily experience can be.

Instead of a proper piece the work this is more of a practice, an attitude towards surroundings and awareness. Rules without control. Freedom with precision. Awareness without yoga.



notes in RTRSRCH journal vol.2, n°1, where th epieces appeared first:

No Music - earpieces
The scores

This compositions are for the reader. The reader is the listener is the performer, without anybody or anything in between the score and the ear. The pieces are also performable on the spot, wherever you are right now. 
All you need are two (more or less working) ears and two hands. The notation tries to be readable without a musical education. Reading the explanation of signs and intuition should be enough.




history of the pieces and the different set-ups and contexts:

 

2016 - 2019

too much to keep up, but some key moments
  • BBC Radio 3 "Sound of the Week" feature, November 2019
  • NO-MUSIC: earpieces (remix) (2013/2019), transcribed for video, 5 performers and smart phones by ensemble ZABUNA/Belgrad, june 2019
  • BBC Radio 3, broadcast and stream of No Music, the Café Oto show, July 2019
  • NO MUSIC - a performative rehearsal, London, Café Oto, "Kammerklang", January 2019
  • various versions integrated into "Listening Automat (former Inverted Opera)", a performative card game for musicians and audience in public squares, made together with Holly Gramazio and Rosario Talevi, at  a.o. Alte Oper Frankfurt for Playsonic Festival, Ensemble Modern (2018) and Summerset House London for Now Play This festival, 2018 and Hochschule für Musik Frankfurt, Neue Musik Nacht, 2019
  • No Music - earpieces: techno, as exhibition piece for Nowy Teatre, Festival Instalakcje 7, Warsaw, 2018
  • No-Music, performance, dotolim 닻올림, Seoul, 2017

2015
  • 'No Music - earpieces' at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, April 2016
  • 'No Music - a performative rehearsal at UnionDocs, Brooklyn, NYC, Nov 2015
  • performative workshop for Department of Art and Design, College of the Arts, Montclair State University, New Jersey
  • performative presentation for Masters Program in Curatorial Practice of the School of Visual Arts, New York City
  • the techno song and some others appear in "Brussels Tracks", Beursschouwburg, Brussels
  • 'No Music - earpieces' at W139, Amsterdam
  • 'No Music - earpieces' at Art Rotterdam for Gallery Tale of a Tub, in the old Van Nelle factory, Rotterdam
2014
2013
2012
  • lecture and walk, based on the earpieces, for soundlab/Open House at the PianoFabirek, Brussels. More info here. "Together we perform individual scores for your ears, learn to manipulate our hearing and perform a silent walk composition in public space. Neighborhood, HEAR we come!"
2011
2010 


Earpieces of other composers:

- Robin Hoffmann: Œhr, for solo listener, 2006
- Jürg Frey: Ohren II (1998)
- Peter Ablinger: Höhrstücke/Listening Pieces (with for example weiss/weisslich 19 and Ohren auf/zu)
- David Dunn: Purposeful Listening In Complex States of Time (1997-98): 20 compositions for solo listener






UnionDocs, NYC 2015

UnionDocs, NYC 2015

UnionDocs, NYC 2015

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019







Residency Unlimited, NYC 2015

Fulton Street, Brooklyn, 2015













workshop-performance of Keine-Musik, Soundlab 2012, Brussels
set-up for performance version at Q-O2, 2013, Brussels






fragments performance dec 2014, Brussels

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

A video posted by uniondocs (@uniondocs) on

A video posted by Henrik Moltke (@henrikmoltke) on



cover page of RTRSRCH journal with score at the margins of the pages
Center pages (with exerpt  of my speech for ULTIMA 2009). On top &  bottom you see parts of the score.
notation for "listen to the back; keep for a while"


                        slideshow of SOCIAL PIECE, with some of Keine-Musik. Pictures: Sandra Jecmenica

conducting NO-MUSIC at SPOR Festival 2010 during my soundwalk
workshop around Keine-Musik, Soundlab, Brussels, 2011
lecture-performance, soundlab/Open House, Pianofabriek, may 2012
show version in Q-O2, Brussels, January 2013
show version in Q-O2, Brussels, January 2013
show version in Q-O2, Brussels, January 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
 
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
DASARTS students at Vooruit, Ghent, October 2013
DASARTS students at Vooruit, Ghent, October 2013
demonstration for Monsoon Network, Bozar, Brussels 2013
new and old pieces for catalog of Klankenbos/Musica, Neerpelt, 2013
new and old pieces for catalog of Klankenbos/Musica, Neerpelt, 2013
'Beat it' piece, written into performative audio guide RIGA TRACKS, 2014
some pieces are used for my performative audio guides Kortrijk-, Maastricht-, Bergen- and Riga Tracks

 

instrumental compositions & co.

Album NYH

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