Transcription Project - Post #4
Project Description
As a performance major at the University of Arizona, part of my degree requirements include two solo recitals, one each in the third and fourth years of the degree. While programming a performance like these often falls to the player’s preference, many academic recitals tend to include pieces from a list that is quite short when compared to the enormous amount of music that has been written for the flute. This adherence to “the classics” has a number of benefits for a flutist; most notably, it connects them with the field’s traditions and helps develop credibility as a performer.
In my journey as a musician, I found little resonance with this idea when it came to programming my recital. I chose instead to follow my passion and play the things I enjoyed. After all, it was that passion that led me to pursuing the flute at this level and engaging with music in this way. Naturally, the first time I heard Huáscar Barradas’ Pajarillo con Bulería, the excitement that so captivates me to perform rushed over me. I decided that, despite no written copy being available for the work and the instrumentation being outside of my grasp, I would perform it in any way that I could.
So began this semester’s project to transcribe Pajarillo by ear, note by note as I listen and play along with the recording, and arrange it to be performed with a single collaborative percussionist. This post falls five weeks into the effort and, so far, it is going well.
This Week - Finishing Step One
As rewarding as it is to see the score come together piece by piece, I would be remiss to neglect the mention that it is tiring. The transcription of the flute part, what was initially outlined as a two-week process, is finally done after four weeks. This required a number of steep learning curves, such as a harmonic understanding of the work, a firm grasp of the rhythmic techniques Barradas employs, and the art of transcription itself with regards to legibility and efficiency. I found the greatest difficulty to be the rhythm. Listen after listen, connecting the seemingly arhythmic figures to a legible meter often felt impossible.
One solution to this came in the form of pure non-metric notation. In the examples below, I chose to notate rhythms as exactly as I could without trying to order them in metric bar lines. At times, I even decided to forego the stems - which themselves indicate the speed of the rhythm relative to its context - as they proved to be less efficient than simply having the notes to reference and understanding internally how they should sound.
The bar lines in this excerpt divide statements of the theme rather than reference points for a stable meter. It is unnecessary to determine a meter for this pattern. This technique is borrowed from my experience with the works of Olivier Messiaen who made extensive use of the notation of precise rhythms without the confines of a meter.
This excerpt is visually striking due to the lack of stems. To notate exactly, it could be written as sixteenth note sextuplets over two and a half bars with an accelerando marked in the first few beats. This felt inefficient so I decided to leave it metrically ambiguous with the marking “fast,” reminding myself to allow the natural energy of the phrase to speed me up into its conclusion.
Getting it Under the Fingers
Of the many challenges of this project, performing it has itself no shortage of difficulty. It is helpful, particularly with the quicker runs and more complex rhythms, to have learned and written it by ear. However, performing it with the natural, improvisatory comfort that Barradas displays will require much more work on my part than I have had the opportunity to put in. Now that it is finished, the refinement of its sound and the effort of notating the percussion are my primary goals. That said, I would be lessening the integrity of this post not to share some of the highlights as I have developed them so far.
The first clip is, fittingly, the piece’s solo introduction. It is the nuance of this section that created my fascination with the piece, a characteristic that I hope to convey in my own performance in April. Listen as the romantic theme is subverted by improvisatory technique, contextualizing his folk background with his Western Classical training.
The second clip comes from the latter half of the piece and serves as the final melodic theme. In the recording, this is played a total of five times, increasing in complexity and straying further into improvisation on each repeat. Here, I have played it twice with a slight modification on the second round.
Looking Ahead
Next week I will begin working with a collaborative percussionist to narrow down the best instrument to use and the most efficient way to notate its part. I am excited to invite a fellow musician on this journey and I look forward to the opportunity of playing in a brand new style to me.
