(RE)PHRASING—SHAPING MUSIC WITH MODERN INSTRUMENTS

Exploring how affordances influence phrasing

This artistic research project explores how the affordances[1] of modern musical instruments, specifically clarinets, influence phrasing, aiming to deepen our understanding of their role in developing and shaping musical ideas.

The PhD result consists of a main part with artistic results comprising 27 videos of live performances, followed by 21 reflections on various aspects of phrasing across different clarinets.

Many perspectives exist on phrasing, ranging from language and emotion to physics. Phrasing is closely tied to how we interact with our instruments, which in turn connects to how these instruments are constructed. Like most woodwind instruments, the clarinet has seen technical developments and innovations over hundreds of years, leading to the instruments we use today. The development has generally been toward greater evenness across the registers, increased volume, and enhanced projection[2]. 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. In this project, I explore how material and methodological properties influence my interaction with the instrument and, consequently, my musical phrasing.

I use a period boxwood clarinet alongside modern boxwood, mopane, and grenadilla clarinets as tools for research on how I phrase. By switching tools between these instruments, I have identified and related various parameters that show how each instrument’s affordances influence my phrasing. As the woodwind manufacturing industry increasingly explores different materials based on availability, cost, and sustainability, it is relevant to understand the attributes associated with each type of wood.

I propose that affordances can be sub-categorized into two distinct areas: material affordances and co-affordances. Material affordances refer to properties that define an instrument’s use, influenced by factors such as the material (e.g., wood in this project), make, model, plating, keywork systems, construction methods, etc. Co-affordances involve the specific interactions between a player and an 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 indicate that the response rate and the dynamic impact of the different woods are inversely proportional, while density correlates to each wood's particular pitch tendencies. Co-affordances are interactions, for example, fingers and keys closing or opening holes to produce different notes, that influence phrasing. They also involve other interactions of embouchure, air, and tongue that can influence phrasing. The way interactions shape a phrase depends on how well they align with or disrupt an intended musical trajectory and the adjustments needed to reinforce or counteract them. This project primarily focuses on the co-affordance of finger interactions, as this is one of the key influences on a phrase's musical trajectory. Experimenting with different materials and interaction patterns has expanded my ability to think beyond the properties of my instrument.

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 highlights the phrasing challenges modern instrumentalists face and how choices in material and interaction intersect with the performer and the performance.

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

[1] The American psychologist James Jerome Gibson introduced the word «affordance» as a term in the study of cognition. It is widely used in different forms of psychology, design, human-computer interaction, robotics, language education, and artistic research. Gibson defines affordance in his final book from 1979 as such:

“The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.”

Gibson J. J. «The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception» p. 127 (1979)

[2] 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)