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 performerand 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,...)
> > > 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
'No Music - for earchestra' on tour, starting piece for concert program by Ictus/Game with Inga Huld Hákonardóttir (conducting), Lissabon, Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, Lille, 2014
adaptions for the audio guide KORTRIJK TRACKS and MAASTRICHT TRACKS. The guide with 9 pieces goes on tour in 2014 further to Bergen and Riga,... (for network Resonance), 2013
adaptions for my course TheArt of Listening for p.a.r.t.s. (dance education, Brussels)
1,5h show version performed for DasArts at Vooruit, Ghent, 2013
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
Keine-Musik was published in 'everybody performance scores',
together with 36 performance scores of choreographers and artists
(like Mette Ingvartsen, Xavier Le Roy, Boris Charmatz, Mette Edvardsen,
...). Here the download- and order-link., 2011
Keine-Musik: earpieceswas used in the performances of Social Piece at Borealis, Bergen/No, 2010
