Composers have long explored the percussive possibilities of traditionally non-percussive instruments, striking, tapping, scraping, and knocking on their bodies to uncover sounds beyond their conventional vocabulary.
Many of these techniques already belong to a tradition of extended instrumental practice in contemporary music. But composers and performers continue to find new ways of expanding an instrument’s expressive capabilities, and, in doing so, our own imaginations.
On this episode of Relevant Tones, host Stephen Anthony Rawson explores music by Helmut Lachenmann, Nina Shekhar, Kazimierz Serocki, Erin Rogers, Luciano Berio, and Giacinto Scelsi that asks us to hear familiar instruments in unfamiliar ways, imagining what else they might become.
MUSIC
Helmut Lachenmann, Guero
Nina Shekhar, Cajón
Kazimierz Serocki, Swinging Music
Erin Rogers, Waxing (Home I)
Luciano Berio, Sequenza XIV
Giacinto Scelsi, Ko-Tha (excerpt)