Acts of Balancing and Unbalancing

Kathy Hinde

For QME, I decided to design and build a set of stand alone systems based on ‘Tipping Point’ but with manual controls. Manual in the sense that the tipping arm would no longer be motorised, but instead designed with a series of highly geared cogs activated by manually rotating the lowest one by hand. I decided to remove the built-in software feedback balancing system, without which, a significant element of danger is brought into play for the performer, who is now required to manually balance the feedback. In order to offer more methods, (and potential safety nets) to balance the feedback, there are audio effects that can help dampen the feedback cycle. The effects are - pitch shift, tremolo, and an 8 band equaliser. There is also an audio limiter to protect the speakers.

I selected these effects because the equaliser and pitch shift can coax out lower or higher harmonics of the resonant frequencies of the jars. The pulsing effect of the tremolo helps hold the feedback back, and is also reminiscent of the beat interferences and pulsing effects that are generated by the automated feedback balancing system employed in Tipping Point. The combination of all effects provides multiple options to shape the feedback sounds. My experience of playing is one of exploration and discovery. Set some parameters, and then wait and listen to what the results are, and respond.

Another difference to Tipping Point is that the aobau pairs of vessels are independent and autonomous, whereas Tipping Point has one central system that sends information to all 6 pairs of vessels. This time, I did not have the luxury of working with glass blower John Rowden to create bespoke hand-made glass vessels. However, I was lucky to find a set of scientific glass instruments that were perfect for this purpose

I made a prototype and sent a video demonstrating it to John. The following page shows a diagram of this set-up. I had envisaged two performers playing together facing each other, shaping the feedback from one glass each.

Following this first demo, and after further conversations with John, we decided it would be better for each pair of ‘feedback jars’ (as we were now referring to them) to be played by one musician, but this person would be interchangeable during the performance, to create a situation enabling a wider range of other instruments to play in combination with the feedback jars.

I settled on creating two pairs of feedback jars, each pair to be played by one (interchangeable) performer and refined them to the following components:

  • One wooden arm consisting of highly geared cogs, designed to fit on top of a regular microphone stand and hold 2 glass jars suspended from each end.

  • Two glass jars, joined by a flexible silicon tube

  • Two microphones attached to stainless steel holders so they can sit just inside the top of each glass jar

  • Wooden box attached to mic stand clamp housing a raspberry pi running a pure data patch programmed by Matthew Olden and an audio interface.

  • Two ‘Akai Midimix’ midi controllers, adapted with different knobs and wooden cladding for enhanced playability and with aesthetics to match the wooden tipping arm

  • Two (or one) full range speaker(s)

“Absolutely palpable energy between the taught precision required to control a ‘dangerous’ system (that can run away with itself), and the poised sonic consequences…”

Rehearsal and performance

Before the first rehearsal, (and the first occasion where I would present the instruments to QME), I compiled series of text instructions as starting points for ways of interacting with them, including how other instruments might respond. However, knowing the nature of QME, and the nature of the feedback jars, I was a little undecided about how to approach this aspect, so I decided to see how things took shape during rehearsal, but to take the text score with me incase it was useful. I set up the tipping jars and explained how to operate them and invited QME to take it in turns to play the jars and when not playing them, to respond with their respective instruments. I decided not to hand out the text score but to simply state the title of the piece as a stimulus -

‘acts of balancing and unbalancing’

(or ‘aobau’ as a slightly awkward-to-pronounce acronym).

It was not long before we collectively discovered that the feedback system was fairly lively, and that other instruments could instigate a feedback tone by playing the same note as (or a main harmonic of) the current resonant frequency of a glass jar, as tuned by the water level. A series of improvisations exploring the behaviour of the feedback jars

ensued, and throughout each one, I was enraptured with the results. I was thrilled to be working with such sensitive improvisors, who transformed my instruments and provocation into a piece of music. I thought again about John’s comment following the demo (above), which certainly seemed to describe the mood.

After each session we discussed what happened and what seemed to work well, and gradually refined the approach. This process was one of collaboration between myself as artist/composer and QME as a performing ensemble of experienced improvisors. I’m interested in this boundary between performers and composer being blurred, yet at the same time aiming to ‘compose’ a piece that consistently embodies a distinctive ‘aobau' identity and aesthetic, while simultaneously allowing room for the performers in QME to exercise agency and freedom through improvisation.

Perhaps this is yet another layer of ‘negotiation’, between composer and performer, alongside the already discussed negotiation between performer and instrument. Both layers possess elements of collaboration and dialogue leading to an open-ness that I hope creates space for an intensity of performance enhanced through elements of chance, risk, uncertainty and ‘un-fixed-ness’.

‘acts of balancing and unbalancing’ was premiered at Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Ireland. It was performed in the round, with the audience seated in a circle around the performers playing the feedback jars and their instruments. This performance was permeated with an intensity of focus, concentration that was present through every sound coaxed from the feedback jars and each instrumental response or instigation. I am indebted to QME for their sensitive, dedicated and impassioned approach to performing aobau, and look forward to further performances in different spaces and places.