You would think that you could not experience music more compelling or moreintensely than directly live from the comfortable seats of the Concertgebouw.Yet it is precisely there this weekend that an attempt is made to surpass thatexperience. Innovative software adds a dimension to the sound in the smallhall. Instead of the plush, there are 41 ‘omnidirectional’ speakers that movethe sound through the room.
Composer and cellist Maarten Vos was commissioned to compose for Aural Spaces,the three-day program of the Concertvrienden association, Fiber festival andthe Amsterdam studio 4DSound. In his composition, Vos wants to ‘spatialize’his music, to make it spatial. “As a classically trained cellist, I find thetechnique involved very interesting,” he says from his studio in Berlin. “Andworking with space makes my brain work in a completely different way than whenI study Bach suites.”
That ‘spatial sound’ sounds abstract. You have previously worked with thetechnology of 4DSound, what exactly does it entail?
“It is actually software to make sound go around in space. The speakers form agrid, a matrix. Inside you can, for example, make it sound like it’s rainingon the roof and let the drops go down the wall. What I want to do is letmusical sounds, for example a synthesizer sound and percussion, move throughspace. Then you can add spatial effects, such as an echo or a Doppler effect,which you may know from the distortion of an ambulance with siren passing by.Or you can make sound sound far away or close by. In this spatial compositionyou can apply countless of these kinds of effects so that the sound isinterpreted very naturally, as if you were in the middle of it.”
Can music sound even more ‘natural’ than just live music in a hall?
“Well, where you usually use melody, harmony and acoustics, as a composer youcan now also bend the space to your liking. You could also see all thosespeakers as separate musicians. So if I want to play a violin on the backleft, I can. And you can then make it move.”
What kind of composition did you make?
“I have wanted to do something with Indian influences for a long time. I wastrained as a cellist, but nowadays I do a lot with modular synthesizers. Withthat I make minimalistic, modern electronic music. Those arpeggios that justkeep rolling. I then started to delve more into music from North India thatrevolves around trance and improvisation. In it they use microtonal notes.Where in Western music you have twelve notes in an octave, for example youhave seven that are tuned slightly differently, with natural frequencies.
You are really in the sound. It’s very immersive and all-encompassing.> Everyone can walk around freely and find their ideal spot
“For this spatial work I made all kinds of motifs with those scales, smallfigures of four, five or seven notes, and put echoes on them that resonate fora long time. So the motif keeps repeating itself. I let those echoes gothrough space and so they always meet each other in different places and formpolyrhythms and polyphony. I’m going to play that Indian repetitivesynthesizer music live, together with percussionist Bodek Janke on tabla drumsand other non-Western percussion. Through the software, my synthesizers followhis tempo, making it an organic interplay of man and machine. And then I can,for example, make all the sound come at you at once, or make it spiralupwards, or split a sound into a spherical pattern. The possibilities areenormous. It makes you think very differently about composition.”
What does it do to the listener?
“That is interesting. The first time I worked with 4DSound we had a lightsource that moved with the sound, then you saw that visitors really went afterthe music like fireflies. People also always tend to look in the direction ofwhere the sound is coming from. The listener is therefore addressed more tohis instinct. Bodek and I are in the middle of the Concertgebouw’s line-up.You are really in the sound, rather than your focus being on musicians onstage. It’s very immersive and all-encompassing. Everyone can walk aroundfreely and find their ideal spot.”
You play four concerts, all in the morning. Does that make any difference tothe experience?
“Yes, yes. The Hindustani music from North India on which I have inspired mycomposition, among other things, has another purpose than entertainment, itcan be meditative. The intention is to get the listener on a musical trip. Ihave also created my own microtonal scales and motifs for this piece, which Icombine with existing ragas [muzikale schema’s waarbinnen geïmproviseerdwordt, red.]. One of those ragas is only played in India in the morning.”
Aural Spaces will take place from 16 to 18 December in Het Concertgebouwin Amsterdam. Inl: www.concertgebouw.nl Music by Maarten Vos can be listenedto on Spotify.