||:Repetition:||
||: Repetition :||, Fugue No.1 in QWERTY for 8 Typewriters is a synthesised music and text score composed for typewriters. The performance took place at The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Four pianists and four percussionists from RNCM, collectively forming a Typewriter Ensemble interpreted and performed the score. Pianos and percussion instruments are mechanically and sonically similar to typewriters. It was therefore central to this work that pianists and percussionists performed this piece.
By using typewriters as musical instruments, I am reinventing the conceptual and functional potential of these everyday technologies beyond their standardised and intended functions. The rhythmical click-clacking of typewriter keys, the ‘ting’ and the ‘return’ action are inherent poetic qualities that have musical resonances. This performance embodies the curiosities and enchantments of the everyday.
The score is based upon the meaning of repetition in both language and music. It is composed of four movements that explore the monotonous, hypnotic and rhythmic characteristics of repetition. Each letter of the words ‘repetition’ and ‘repeat’ are allocated note values that correspond to their respective time signatures 4/4 and 3/4 time. The layout of the score is based upon standardised notational structures and formats.
These conceptual considerations have been applied to all 8 individual typewriter parts throughout the whole composition. Italian terms, dynamics, key signatures, time signatures, clefs and tempos have been used in this score. “||: Repetition :||, Fugue No.1 in QWERTY for 8 Typewriters” references the musical symbol for repetition together with the word repetition, Fugue as a classical classificatory term for this form of contrapuntal composition and the key signature, QWERTY. Collectively, the concept, score and the performance reveal and ritualise aspects of archaic practices from everyday life.
By using typewriters as musical instruments, I am reinventing the conceptual and functional potential of these everyday technologies beyond their standardised and intended functions. The rhythmical click-clacking of typewriter keys, the ‘ting’ and the ‘return’ action are inherent poetic qualities that have musical resonances. This performance embodies the curiosities and enchantments of the everyday.
The score is based upon the meaning of repetition in both language and music. It is composed of four movements that explore the monotonous, hypnotic and rhythmic characteristics of repetition. Each letter of the words ‘repetition’ and ‘repeat’ are allocated note values that correspond to their respective time signatures 4/4 and 3/4 time. The layout of the score is based upon standardised notational structures and formats.
These conceptual considerations have been applied to all 8 individual typewriter parts throughout the whole composition. Italian terms, dynamics, key signatures, time signatures, clefs and tempos have been used in this score. “||: Repetition :||, Fugue No.1 in QWERTY for 8 Typewriters” references the musical symbol for repetition together with the word repetition, Fugue as a classical classificatory term for this form of contrapuntal composition and the key signature, QWERTY. Collectively, the concept, score and the performance reveal and ritualise aspects of archaic practices from everyday life.
