PROGRAM
NOTES
Contemplation
on Little Big Muff
on Little Big Muff
2000
Notes by
Ken Ueno
Ken Ueno
This piece was
written for the
cello + percussion
duo Odd Appetite
(Ha-Yang Kim +
Nathan Davis).
written for the
cello + percussion
duo Odd Appetite
(Ha-Yang Kim +
Nathan Davis).
Q:
...can you tell me about the title?
A:
i was thinking about the quality of sound of the amplified cello. distorted. distorted through a Russian guitar pedal (it’s called a “Big Muff”). what’s cool is that amplification works to make more apparent the inherent qualities in the physicality of sound which, without amplification, we are less aware: it brings out the internal beatings (and therefore the tempos) within certain intervals; it allows for the possibility of bringing out different overtones from changing only the bowing position; it brings out the artifacts of production noise. these qualities I find beautiful and in contrast to the hierarchical dominance of pitch/harmony in western Classical music. and there is a temporality necessary to make these elements cognitively focused, therefore the “contemplation.”
...can you tell me about the title?
A:
i was thinking about the quality of sound of the amplified cello. distorted. distorted through a Russian guitar pedal (it’s called a “Big Muff”). what’s cool is that amplification works to make more apparent the inherent qualities in the physicality of sound which, without amplification, we are less aware: it brings out the internal beatings (and therefore the tempos) within certain intervals; it allows for the possibility of bringing out different overtones from changing only the bowing position; it brings out the artifacts of production noise. these qualities I find beautiful and in contrast to the hierarchical dominance of pitch/harmony in western Classical music. and there is a temporality necessary to make these elements cognitively focused, therefore the “contemplation.”