Groove (Forró)

Alexandre Mascarenhas Espinheira – [email protected]
  

English Translation: Alex Pochat

This work, for accordion, zabumba and triangle, composed in September 2015, was commissioned by Música de Agora in Bahia 2014-15 project for its closing concert, in December of the same year. From the project curators’ idea—making contemporary concert music for traditional ensembles of some popular genre—, I chose to compose this piece that is included in the series I call Groove. The Groove series, which currently includes three other works (Riff, Dub and Rock’n Roll), is distinguished by the search for typical aesthetic elements of a popular genre and for means of transporting them into the concert music environment. Moreover, using as thematic material source iconic songs of these genres. In other works, such as Groove (Rock’n Roll), I sought means, usually through extended techniques, to convey typical aesthetic elements of the genre to the concert instruments used. In rock, for instance, electronically distorted timbres—riffs, power chords and bends—are typical. How to bring these elements, so typical to the electric and bass guitars into an ensemble consisting of flute, Bb clarinet, guitar and cello? In Groove (Forró), since the instruments used are the same of the traditional genre, this problem disappears. On the other hand, the possibility of searching for extended techniques for instruments that, in their traditional use, mainly in the popular environment, have not been explored is opened—and that is one of the strengths of the work. For the writing of the accordion’s part I’ve used material provided by the instrumentalist, also a composer that researches on the use of the accordion in the contemporary concert music environment. Among the less usual—but not unknown—techniques, there were the noise of the instrument’s vent and bass keys and a bend technique, as well as the extensive use of the instrument’s timbre keys. As for the zabumba part, some of the most common extended techniques applied to percussion instruments with skin were used, such as playing on the rims or on the skin of the instrument closer to the middle or near the edge, searching for different tones, or scraping the skin with the drumstick. And a more idiomatic one, that is to strike the superior skin while keeping the bacalhau1 leaning against the lower skin to get a distorted sound, like snares from a snare-drum. I do believe the most interesting extended techniques in this piece have been developed for the triangle. Besides the two regular sounds, open and muted, obtained by striking one of the sides of the triangle, a series of other timbres are used in the work, many of them with the open and muted variation as well. Namely: a) playing at the apex of the triangle—usually in larger triangles one obtains a sound with less density, equivalent to the sulponticelo in the strings; b) scraping the side; c) mute, obtained by rolling a piece of rubber or string on the drumstick to eliminate the sharp attack between metals; d) harmonics, obtained by means of a technique also used in the vibraphone, striking the instrument while muted then quickly releasing the damper; and e) playing in the water, emerging and submerging the instrument in a bowl of water as it is played, achieving a phaser effect. I’ve decided to use three significant songs by Luiz Gonzaga, the greatest icon of the genre, as a source of motivic material. It was also decided that the form would have, at least in planning, equal proportions for the parts equivalent to each chosen Gonzaga’s song. As the piece was planned to take about five minutes, it was decided that each section would take between a minute and a half and two minutes. Each of these parts is subdivided into sections. The first part (comp. 1-36), which uses the motivic material of the Paraíba song, besides the introduction (comp. 1-12), has an ABA subdivision. The second part (comp. 37-65), which uses the song O Cheiro da Carolina, has an AB structure that repeats 3 times with some variations. By using the song Hora do Adeus, the third part (comp. 66-109) has an ABAC structure, followed by a small coda with material from A. The pitches’ control is made by using the Post-tonal Theory. Pitch-class sets were derived from small significant passages of each of Luiz Gonzaga’s three songs. Example 1 demonstrates the passages used, in a motivic way, for set classes derivations.

Exemplo 1