Olvidar Algo (eventualmente, ol,vidarlo todo) (2017)

This work is only possible because Mara Tamayo believed in it. I also need to thank Gehovani Chimal and Valerie Rejas.

Download and see the score here listen to it here.

The work should be performed minding two scoring devices: a written one and an aural one. The first is a written score (traditional and graphic notation) with the purpose of fragmenting the body gestures and breaking the temporal flow of the piece into discontinuous parts. These is mainly achieved through complexity in rhythm and by a conscious and audible use of the pedal system of the harp; the sense of contradiction between rhythmic complexity and an expressive use of the pedal should be regarded as a conflict fundamental for the piece and its performance. The second of these devices is a hidden electronic fixed media which main purpose is distorting the aural perception and extending the rhythmic and temporal capacity of the instrumentalist. The information found in the audio-score provides rhythmic queues that are important for accuracy (as a click-track), provides temporal queues that delineate the limits of certain structural regions of the piece, provides subjective stimuli important for gesturing and signifying the work and creates a sharp contradiction between the information of the audio score and the written score that promotes tension and further fragmentation in the musician. The harpist is often detached from the sound she generates and a sense of hesitation and heaviness should permeate the performance of the work.

In this way, the two devices required for the performance demand that the harpist approaches the project differently from indeterministic principles in which performer is allowed to choose the specific sound material or specific form of the piece with a set of prescriptive instructions or algorithms. The score is not intended to represent sound ideally, nor does it represent a sort of complex array of intentions. All systems emerging from the aforementioned intentionality are used to reduce their intensities and flatten their cultural and historical charge as much as possible. The tension between them should eventually add up to zero. The two relevant factors of the piece are temporal position and tension between systems and fragments. The goal is to create sound material lacking narrative or syntactical intentions, but devoid of randomness or generative functions.