On Alternate Tunings

Every once in a while I'll take some of my alternate tunings and experiment with them, in this case the bass tuning F-Ab-C-F.  I originally titled it Sea of Horizontals (Or "C of Horizontals", using lots of C-naturals). (See video) The idea is essentially the playing of natural harmonics across the strings which are all minor chords, which make it sound dark and moody. The more I experimented with it as a seed idea, the more it got "tweaked", and was eventually released on Music For Photographs as Boden Sea 1993, a lake in Switzerland (Lake Constance). A now-iconic photograph was taken of it in 1993 by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

The piece uses the two initial chords played as bass harmonics, Cm and Am, and is fleshed out in a lot of ways: a piano piece, an ambient piece, then of all things, an EDM version. The question becomes would I have thought of that if I didn't re-tune the bass. You could say that those kinds of ideas are actually fungible and they have nothing to do with the instrument itself but I would argue that they do.

Since instruments have unique sounds and unique attributes, they are mediums in themselves, which is different from an electronic device or a computer or a smartphone because they're not instruments per se. They're instruments in the sense that they can create things but they're not unique things: My smartphone isn't making unique sounds--they're just samples that can be played from this particular device but they can be played by other devices, so it's not emanating from this particular object. It's emanating from lots of different objects. They're all instruments as a recording studio is an instrument, or rather a "tool". Computers and smartphones can't be considered instruments as a violin as a part of the viol family. [Considering the taxonomy of instrument families, and if they shared the stage with an orchestra, the computer family ("computerists") could occupy an area in the back by the percussionists].

The instrument used to create the seed idea will inform the form throughout the process. I always know this piece as an alternate tuning piece, as piano or guitar can create certain kinds of music.