On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis (Ken Ueno)
The composing of this work represents my first attempt to reconcile the multiplicity of my being a “classical” composer and “experimental” improviser. It is one of the most personal pieces I have composed to date. In a manner akin to the way some contemporary visual artists make site-specific works, many of my works derive their structural aspects from considerations of the special instrumental skills of the performers with whom I have collaborated, in a manner I term “person-specific”. First, I imagine the sounds and then work them out with collaborating performers to realize these sounds on their instruments. Then, I analyze the sounds using software in order to derive parametric data that will inform the structure of the music. (I am also inspired by the way contemporary architects use modern materials and computer-aided strategies to create structures that are more organic than what was previously possible). On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis is person-specific to myself. As a vocalist, I specialize in such techniques as: overtone singing (straight bi-tonal style), throat singing (a style with laryngeal straining), multiphonics, circular breathing, sub-tones and extreme high register. During the composition of this piece, I subjected my singing to the aforementioned process of analysis, deriving harmonies (e.g. acoustic resynthesis of my vocal multiphonics) and orchestrational strategies from the analysis of my singing. Along with this history of being a composer of very specific, non-transportable works, I have also led a life as an experimental improviser. For a number of years, I have been involved in the local experimental improvisation scene in Boston (as vocalist/laptop artist). It is a democratic, diverse and supportive scene (one that has been warm and inclusive enough to even include academics as myself). The Boston scene includes some of the most ardently individual sonic explorers anywhere in the world: Vic Rawlings, James Coleman, Greg Kelley, Tim Feeney, Hillary Zipper, undr quartet, the BSC, and many more. Listening to and playing with these artists has inspired in me as many new sounds and new contexts for making sounds as the music of my favorite mainstream composers. This piece is in part homage to the music and culture of this scene and attempts to bring it into the realm of contemporary “classical” orchestral music.
To further engage with my personal history in this piece, I employed two other strategies. First, the title of this piece comes from an article on computer science written by another Ken Ueno (I found it doing a “vanity” search in Google). In usurping the title of a work by my doppelganger, I thought of Borges’ story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius in which an encyclopedic reference to a fictional universe begins to infiltrate reality. Second, the piece begins with a boombox playing a recording of my voice from when I was six. When I was six, my favorite object was a tape recorder. I used to walk around documenting my mom yelling at my brother, as well as sounds I made vocally (some evocative of sounds I still like to make today). By incorporating these recordings in the beginning of the piece makes it a kind of recapitulation of performances from my childhood over thirty years ago. My plan is to make another version of this piece thirty years from today by incorporating vocal sounds I can make today mixed with those from my childhood. My greatest hope would be able to make two more iterations of this process during my lifetime.
Commissioned by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, this piece was made possible by a grant from the Jebehiah Foundation: New Music Commissions. It is dedicated to Rob Amory.
Ken Ueno
