NO-MUSIC - earpieces

performed, conducted and scored pieces for the ears

here at Kunsthalle for the Darmstadt Summer Course 2014 ©IMD, Daniel Pufe

 
NO-MUSIC: earpieces
scores and events for performative listening

scores and performances
for self-performing or conducted audience
in various situations, set-ups and contexts 

No Music approaches listening as a performative act. The event triggers a musical experience without actually being music.

Since 2010 I have been working on scores for pieces that could be performed by an audience on the spot, in any context, with or without performer(s). The pieces provide notated and/or conducted instructions for organized listening experiences and simple ear manipulations. They manifest in printed formats as well as in spontaneous or fully staged theatrical and concert performances.

The scores have appeared in printed matter, magazines, score books, audio guides, online media and posters. They have been conducted and performed in theaters around the globe, from New York to Seoul and all over Europe. The are frequently used as teaching materials and conducted by musicians and dancers alike. Additionally, they have been featured on radio shows such as BBC Radio 3 and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, as well as in TV features on ARTE.


like:
  • printed scores in various publications for self-performance, sub-titles vary per piece/context
  • a 15min performance "No Music - earpieces" for one conducter
  • a 45 -70min performance "No Music - a performative rehearsal" for one performer and tools
  • a 15 min concert version for dancer and instruments "No Music - for Ear-chestra" performed by Ictus Ensemble and Inga Huld Hákonardóttir, 2014
  • a ca. 10min version for interactive smart phone apps: "No Music - Earpieces  (remix 2)" transcribed and performed by ZABUNA Ensemble (Belgrade),  2019
  • several "No Music - earpieces" -  videos as part of the installation "House of Ear", in museums and exhibitions since 2020 (Seoul, Jeju Island, Marseilles, Frankfurt,...)
  • as workshop and class material

PRESS: review of the performance at Café Oto (Kammerklang) in 2017 by Tim Rutherford-Johnson for Tempo (Cambridge Press)

> > > For more photos and video extracts scroll down. 


score of FINGER TECHNO (here called Beat It):

a techno piece, which I often conduct, but here a score version for the book Brussels Tracks, a self-performative audio guide








program notes:

No Music is no music, but still a musical experience. No music, still for your ears. 

Since 2010 I work on scores for pieces, that could be performed right at the spot, in whatever context, as long as one could freely use both hands and had two functioning ears. The pieces offer notated situations of organized listening and simple ear manipulations.


I understand the this material more as a practice than as a series of composition, even thou they can appear as such. Pieces appear in printed form as well as in spontaneous performances or entirely set theatrical or concert performances.

These interventions are entirely personal and therefor not so much interactive, as 'inner-active', self-performative. The reader as the performer as the listener.


 
program note by UnionDocs, WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn, November 2015:

No Music - earpieces
A performative rehearsal

No Music approaches listening as a performative act. The event triggers musical experience without being actually music.

The lecture-performance version is neither a performance, nor a lecture, but rather a rehearsal for a piece, that you can take home and perform anytime you want for yourself, wherever you want. You will learn to read a score, there will be a conductor, performers (us) and audience (us as well). No sound production, still a musical progression. Introduction, development, finale. Still no music.

The acoustic results change radically with every new location, still the piece keeps its structural identity. Together, environment and composition dissolve into the responsibility of the listener him/herself; it becomes your own thing, as personal as a bodily experience can be.

Instead of a proper piece the work is more of a practice, an attitude towards surroundings and awareness. Rules without control. Freedom with precision. Awareness without yoga.


 
notes in RTRSRCH journal vol.2, n°1, where the pieces appeared first:

No Music - earpieces
The scores

This compositions are for the reader. The reader is the listener is the performer, without anybody or anything in between the score and the ear. The pieces are also performable on the spot, wherever you are right now. 
All you need are two (more or less working) ears and two hands. The notation tries to be readable without a musical education. Reading the explanation of signs and intuition should be enough.



history of the pieces and the different set-ups and contexts (selection):


2016- 2024

  • BBC Radio 3 "Sound of the Week" feature, November 2019
  • NO-MUSIC: earpieces (remix) (2013/2019), transcribed for video, 5 performers and smart phones by ensemble ZABUNA/Belgrad, june 2019
  • NO MUSIC - earpieces (performance), Marres, Maastricht (NL), 2019
  • BBC Radio 3, broadcast and stream of No Music, the Café Oto show, July 2019
  • NO MUSIC - a performative rehearsal, London, Café Oto, "Kammerklang", January 2019
  • extracts in "Listening Automat (former Inverted Opera)", at   Playsonic Festival, Alte Oper Frankfurt with Ensemble Modern (2018) - Now Play This Festival, Somerset House London, 2018 - Hochschule für Musik Frankfurt, Neue Musik Nacht, 2019
  • No Music - earpieces: techno, as exhibition piece for Nowy Teatre, Festival Instalakcje 7, Warsaw, 2018
  • NO MUSIC - earpieces (performance),  Boem Boem! A sonic journey, Stuk, Leuven, 2018
  • NO MUSIC - earpieces (performance), during service in the church of Deventer (NL), 2017
  • No-Music, performance, dotolim 닻올림, Seoul, 2017
  • 'No Music - earpieces', for Nachtelijke Dwalingen & Museumnacht at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, April&Nov  2016

2010- 2015
  • 'No Music - a performative rehearsal at UnionDocs, Brooklyn, NYC, Nov 2015
  • performative workshop for Department of Art and Design, College of the Arts, Montclair State University, New Jersey, 2015
  • performative presentation for Masters Program in Curatorial Practice of the School of Visual Arts, New York City, 2015
  • the techno song and some others appear in "Brussels Tracks", Beursschouwburg, Brussels, 2015
  • 'No Music - earpieces' at W139, Amsterda, 2015
  • 'No Music - earpieces' at Art Rotterdam for Gallery Tale of a Tub, in the old Van Nelle factory, Rotterdam, 2015
  • lecture and walk, based on the earpieces, for soundlab/Open House at the PianoFabirek, Brussels. More info here. "Together we perform individual scores for your ears, learn to manipulate our hearing and perform a silent walk composition in public space. Neighborhood, HEAR we come!", 2012

Earpieces of other composers:

- Robin Hoffmann: Œhr, for solo listener, 2006
- Jürg Frey: Ohren II (1998)
- Peter Ablinger: Höhrstücke/Listening Pieces (with for example weiss/weisslich 19 and Ohren auf/zu)
- David Dunn: Purposeful Listening In Complex States of Time (1997-98): 20 compositions for solo listener






UnionDocs, NYC 2015

UnionDocs, NYC 2015

UnionDocs, NYC 2015

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

"No Music - Earpieces - The Remix" in Belgrade, transcribed and performed by ZABUNA, June 2019

solo exhibition, NO MUSIC on videos, JEJU Art Track, South Korea, 2023








Residency Unlimited, NYC 2015

Fulton Street, Brooklyn, 2015













workshop-performance of Keine-Musik, Soundlab 2012, Brussels
set-up for performance version at Q-O2, 2013, Brussels






fragments performance dec 2014, Brussels

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra' with the Ictus Ensemble
at the BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

Inga Huld Hákonardóttir performing 'No Music: for ear-chestra', BigBang Festival, 18 Oct 2014 ©Manuel Ruas Moreira

A video posted by uniondocs (@uniondocs) on

A video posted by Henrik Moltke (@henrikmoltke) on



cover page of RTRSRCH journal with score at the margins of the pages
Center pages (with exerpt  of my speech for ULTIMA 2009). On top &  bottom you see parts of the score.
notation for "listen to the back; keep for a while"


                        slideshow of SOCIAL PIECE, with some of Keine-Musik. Pictures: Sandra Jecmenica

conducting NO-MUSIC at SPOR Festival 2010 during my soundwalk
workshop around Keine-Musik, Soundlab, Brussels, 2011
lecture-performance, soundlab/Open House, Pianofabriek, may 2012
show version in Q-O2, Brussels, January 2013
show version in Q-O2, Brussels, January 2013
show version in Q-O2, Brussels, January 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
 
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
conducting 2 Keine-Musik pieces for hang-over-party at Vrijstaat-O, Ostend, 2013
DASARTS students at Vooruit, Ghent, October 2013
DASARTS students at Vooruit, Ghent, October 2013
demonstration for Monsoon Network, Bozar, Brussels 2013
new and old pieces for catalog of Klankenbos/Musica, Neerpelt, 2013
new and old pieces for catalog of Klankenbos/Musica, Neerpelt, 2013
'Beat it' piece, written into performative audio guide RIGA TRACKS, 2014
some pieces are used for my performative audio guides Kortrijk-, Maastricht-, Bergen- and Riga Tracks

 

instrumental compositions & co.

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