Robert Carl

Open

Composer's Note:

Quiet(assisted) is a set of short text-directed pieces, designed to be heard by a small audience using handheld listening devices. The models for these tools are the customized "listening trumpets" of Karen McCoy.

The instrumentation and number of performers is open. Ideally it should be a mix of voices, traditional pitched instruments, and non-traditional sound sources (i.e. generating noise, in the sense of lack of distinct pitch). A player may work with one or all of these sources, depending on the piece at hand. Likewise, particular pieces may require different subsets of performers, based on their resources.

The pieces may be performed in any order, and a selection thereof may be made from the total. The duration of each is open, but overall the effect should be that of concision. These are a set of precise and focused bagatelles.

They may be played without any explanation, or the audience can be given the scores as program notes, or they may be read aloud as introduction to each. A significant silence should separate each work from the next.

The audience should be no larger than the total number of listening devices available. If a larger audience is involved, it should be divided so as to hear successive performances of the work.

In principle the piece should be open to performance by amateurs and professionals, musicians and "non-musicians" alike. Different backgrounds and skillsets will bring different results, not necessarily better or worse. A performer does not have to play every piece the group decides upon. But every player should see the work as an opportunity for manifesting the highest concentration possible upon the aesthetic task at hand.

The work obviously has roots in similar works pioneered by Pauline Oliveros and Christian Wollf, to name a couple of ancestors. Its basic concept emerged from a suggestion of the curator Tricia van Eck, made to the composer and Karen McCoy while the latter was in residence at Alternative Spacetime in Chicago. Directors Caro D'Offay and Laura Gilmore are thanked for providing such generous hospitality, and so supportive an environment.