(RE)PHRASING—SHAPING MUSIC WITH MODERN INSTRUMENTS

Exploring how affordances influence phrasing

This four-year research project (2022-2026) aims to demonstrate how the affordances of modern musical instruments influence phrasing and expand our understanding of how they affect the approach to shaping musical ideas.

Phrasing is the performer's musical language, strongly linked to how well one masters one's instrument and can communicate musical ideas and interpretations. Instrumentalists have seen technical developments and innovations over hundreds of years, leading to the instruments we use today. Modern orchestral instruments are often very different from their historical predecessors, especially evident with woodwind instruments. The development has generally been toward more evenness through the registers, larger volume, and projection[1]. Modern playing methodology is also highly focused on evening out the instrument's idiosyncrasies, aiming to make all notes through the registers have the same shape. But what happens when everything sounds the same? In this project, I explore how material and methodological properties influence my awareness of the clarinet’s qualities and my musical phrasing.

In the project, I use a period boxwood instrument and modern boxwood, mopane, and grenadilla (the norm with professional clarinets today) instruments as tools to research how I phrase. As the woodwind manufacturing industry increasingly explores different materials following availability, cost, and sustainability factors, it is relevant to identify the attributes associated with each material. By switching tools between these instruments, I have identified and related various parameters to establish how the affordances of the different instruments influence my phrasing.

I propose that affordances be categorized into two distinct areas: material affordances and co-affordances. Material affordances are the properties that define an instrument’s use. These properties can be influenced by the material (i.e., wood as a variable in this project), make, model, plating, keywork systems, construction methods, etc. Co-affordances are the specific interactions between the musician and the instrument that influence phrasing. Woods have different hardnesses and densities; these material affordances influence the instruments separately. Hardness affects response rate and dynamic impact, whilst density affects pitch. My findings are that the response rate and dynamic impact of the different material instruments are inversely proportional to each other. Another finding links density with the particular pitch tendencies of the various woods. Co-affordances are the interactions between the musician and the instrument that influence phrasing, dependent on fingers and keys closing or opening holes in woodwind instruments to achieve different notes. How these interactions form a specific phrase depends on how well the results align with or disrupt the intended musical trajectory and the maneuvering needed to counteract or reinforce them.

Understanding the agency of material affordances and co-affordances is vital in the cooperation between the musician and the instrument, and how it invites you to make music. This research project highlights the phrasing challenges modern instrumentalists face and how choices in material and interaction intersect with the performer and the performance.

Keywords: phrasing, affordances, co-affordances, modern orchestral instruments, period instruments, boxwood, grenadilla, mopane

[1] Weinzierl S., Lepa S., Schultz F., Detzner E., Coler H., and Behler G. «Sound power and timbre as cues for the dynamic strength of orchestral instruments» The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 144, p. 1352-1353 (2018)