Full liner notes with photos:
www.nightingalevocalensemble.com/composition-sped-up.html


“Improvisation is just composition sped up."
—Wayne Shorter


In the 2021 opera …(Iphigenia) by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding, the singers of the cast and an onstage jazz combo improvise to varying degrees, but their improvisation—and their ability to truly express themselves—is restricted by the unyielding dominance of a full orchestra. In the opera’s final sequence, Iphigenia of the Open Tense forcefully brings the orchestra, and Shorter’s composition, to a halt. A horde of anonymous Trojan War combatants are suddenly free from the rigid structures that guarantee their perpetual cycle of violence. They confront their individual humanity, and must channel it into music of their own.

I was fortunate to perform in the world première of …(Iphigenia) alongside Esperanza Spalding and the Wayne Shorter Quartet. The experience was my personal introduction to freely improvised music, and I received an inspiring education by watching Spalding, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, and Danilo Pérez spontaneously create. They conjured exhilarating music, and I felt a powerful urge to do what they were doing.

In early rehearsals for …(Iphigenia) at MASS MoCA, the cast of singers practiced improvising a cappella (i.e. without instrumental support), under Spalding’s tutelage. As opera singers, we initially struggled with the unfamiliar task. However, during one memorable afternoon session, we found ourselves generating a rich soundscape, truly vibing together.

A few days later, we were joined by Blade, Patitucci, and Pérez. From their first notes, they displayed obvious mutual chemistry, confident artistry, and seemingly lingual fluency in the improvisational domain. All of this contrasted sharply with our shaky first steps, and they definitely elevated the improvised parts of the opera. Still, despite our naïvety, there had been something magical about that chorus of unaccompanied voices. Later, during our run of shows, I recalled those early a cappella efforts wistfully.

​A few months later, in the spring of 2022, I was asked by Boston-based Nightingale Vocal Ensemble to compose a piece for their upcoming concert, with instructions simply to write something about “the deep ocean” for tenor and bass voices. Eventually, I submitted a piece called Brine Pool. Emboldened by my recent …(Iphigenia) experience, I decided that an improvisatory sequence would represent the final descent of a submersible into a brine pool. I designed some rules for a simple call-and-response mechanic, culminating in a period of free improvisation, and ultimately fading into deep nothingness.

I was pleased with my composition, but was also certain that it had only microscopically scratched the surface of possibilities for a cappella improvisation. I felt compelled to keep investigating, and in the summer of 2022, I lobbied for a more ambitious foray into completely free improvisation. This album is the result.

Since its formation in 2019, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble has comprised singers who are also composers. Those singer-composers have written dozens of original works for the ensemble, and those works have received première performances in live concert events and sophisticated video productions. Composition is an essential facet of Nightingale’s identity, and it felt natural to attempt it—in Shorter’s words—Sped Up. Given the novelty of a cappella​ free improvisation, this project needed special musicians comfortable with total liberty and capable of making audacious musical choices. Fortunately, a group of my favorite virtuoso singers were eager to dive into this new world with me.

While laying the groundwork for this album, the idea arose to improvise based on existing prompt material. I reached out to a variety of artists (painters, illustrators, poets, rock balancers, and more) about the possibility of us drawing musical inspiration from their work. I felt slightly apprehensive about making this inquiry, but I'm very glad I did it, because the response was profusely positive. Beautiful pieces were shared with us, and new friends are now a part of our Nightingale artistic community.

On November 4th, 2022—following a series of rehearsals in which we established a rapport among our ensemble—we traveled to Big Nice Studio in Rhode Island, nestled among resplendent foliage beside the Blackstone River. We arranged ourselves in a semicircle under the studio’s 32-foot ceiling, and followed the same procedure for every recorded take.

​First, we collectively negotiated which of the prompts we were in the mood to interpret. After agreeing on one, each singer summoned the appropriate image or poem on a personal device. We briefly discussed whether to impose a musical rule or restriction for the impending improvisation. Finally we stood in silence, absorbing the prompt and awaiting inspiration. Each time, music soon materialized.

Improvisation empowers performers. Instead of relying on the genius of an individual composer, each musician in an improvising ensemble possesses the agency to create the music that they wish to hear, and which is optimized for their own unique instrument. As Ornette Coleman says in the liner notes of his 1960 album Change of the Century, “The musicians have complete freedom, and so, of course, our final results depend entirely on the musicianship, emotional make-up and taste of the individual.” This freedom eliminates the singular vision of an artistic creator, and leaves in its place the potential for absolutely raw expression from every performer.

I'm struck by another line from those liner notes:

“When we record, sometimes I can hardly believe that what I hear when the tape is played back to me, is the playing of my group. I am so busy and absorbed when I play that I am not aware of what I’m doing at the time I’m doing it.”

I feel the same way listening back to this album. We were so entranced while recording that I’m now incredulous that we really produced all of these sounds acoustically and spontaneously, and that every sound was generated within the human vocal tract.

In most vocal ensembles, singers are typically assigned a particular part (e.g. soprano, alto, tenor, bass, etc.). We made no such attempt to classify ourselves. On this album, every person performs every possible musical role. Due to the flexibility of role and range that every singer embraced, I find it difficult to tell who is singing what at any given moment. This is truly equal music-making.

The human voice—devoid of keys, frets, strings, or any discrete component—produces a pitch continuum, and it is unmoored to any tuning system. In the a cappella domain that we chose to inhabit, pitch is a liquid thing, and can itself be an expressive device. On this album, we flow freely throughout the tonal landscape, and juxtapose musical ideas in conventionally impossible ways. We didn’t set out to create microtonal music, but the fluidity of pitch uniquely enabled our musical and emotional expression.

Over the course of six hours at Big Nice Studio, we recorded 18 distinct improvisations, totaling about 150 minutes of music. All of it is, at least, interesting. That actually came as a pleasant surprise, since I was unsure whether we would create anything of value whatsoever. I knew in advance that this project would be an experimental endeavor, and so interesting was the standard I had originally imagined as the threshold for a track to make it onto the album.

Fortunately, much of what we recorded exceeds that standard, including—I believe—moments of genuine transcendence. Furthermore, this music would be prohibitively unpleasant to notate, and that hypothetical notation would be prohibitively unpleasant for musicians to interpret. This music is fundamentally improvisational in nature, and is expressive in ways that are unachievable through any other process.

This album represents the best of our work that day. Every track was performed live, in a single take, with no overdubbing. Some of the takes have been trimmed down, but nothing has been rearranged or transformed. This is not musique concrète. This is live, acoustic performance.



BEN’S WARMUP is a prologue of sorts. The title refers to Nightingale Artistic Director Ben Perry (whose voice is featured here), and it's a subtle allusion to “Whalum’s Weather Report” from the Take 6 album We Wish You a Merry Christmas. At each rehearsal, and on the recording day, Ben led us in a breathing exercise involving a period of rapid respirations, after which we all held our breath for about ninety seconds! We found this helped us to relax and focus for the musical task at hand. We hope this prologue mentally prepares you for the listening journey ahead.


NIGHT AIR is inspired by an illustration from Massachusetts-based artist Indë. Before recording, we agreed on the following rule: everybody start together. This was the full extent of our planning, and I’m baffled by how harmonious it sounds. Angela Yam reads the text written along the right edge of the image: “What if my superstitions weren’t extinguished by harsh white light. Overexposed. Bleached because magic is dirty.”


ROSÉ WINE is the first in a pair of tracks inspired by posters from Switzerland-based artist Jérôme Bizien, and the two tracks feel a bit like movements of a single piece. This was the very first thing we recorded (after “Ben’s Warmup”), and there’s a surprisingly clear musical form. Stay tuned for a callback to this track.


HOT is the second of the pair. This might be the most experimental track in terms of sonic variety. We explore the sounds of heat and cold, the tension between minor and major tonality, and the complex textures of Bizien’s design.


FACE ON THE WALL has a singular origin story. The live room at Big Nice Studio has some windows, which were covered by curtains during our session. At one point during the day, a sliver of bright light peered through, projecting a ghostly face-like figure on the opposite wall of the studio. We made the spontaneous decision to use the projected light as inspiration for an improvisation. Over the course of five minutes, the projection dimmed, brightened, and changed shape, creating a dynamic scene for which we provided a soundtrack, responding with our voices to the evolving image. Because of our orientation in the room, only half of us were actually able to see the projection while recording. The result is a natural double-choir effect; one half of the ensemble is reacting to the other half (with that other half reacting in real time to the light on the wall). A photograph of the phantasm by Juan Suarez is this album’s cover art.


GREEN LEAVES is inspired by a painting from Vienna-based artist ANA AHA. For this track, we imposed a rule that all pitch must be continuous, i.e. that no particular pitch may be sustained at all. The result is a rollercoaster of intensely chaotic sonic undulation.


​BLOCK ISLAND SEAWEED STUDY is inspired by a painting from Rome-based artist Marta Abbott. It is definitely the grooviest track. We agreed in advance that the improvisation must be exclusively atonal. Here is the promised callback, as we revel in a fantasy of sipping rosé wine on a 20-minute first-class flight to Block Island.


​SPACE TRIPTYCH is inspired by a set of three poems from Boston-based composer, singer, pianist, and poet Kelvyn Koning. All pertain to the subject of space. Before recording, each of us chose one of the three poems as a focus for our personal improvisation. Together, we created a single piece, while each taking inspiration from a different source, inverting this line from one of the poems: “It’s remarkable how we can be looking at the same thing and see something so vastly different.”


THE GRAY is inspired by a poem from Boston-based composer, singer, actor, and poet John Haukoos. It is an examination of failure and redemption, themes which feel apropos in the realm of improvisation.

Darkness, like a cosmic cave
My lantern is lit
I have purpose
Keep it lit
My life’s entire purpose.

Then speaks the Gray,
The Evermass
“This is where you end up”

The ritual continues
But I can’t
I can’t.

The Gray floods in
My feet sticking
“Your lantern is dim.
It is of no use.

It oozes, it swims,
I lose my footing.

Now drown!”
Drown!
Drown!

The water, clear
And I drown.

I wash up on the beach in the dead of night.
God sits on a throne, his thin black skin stretched over his bones.
Thin fingers, an empty face.

“You failed.” He said
I know. I look to the lantern, extinguished.
God plucked it out of the sand and threw it onto a pile of others.

“You really did a number on this one, didn’t you?”
A child broke another toy.

“Rest” He murmured, the tide in his voice
“For a bit. Take your time, and then
You’ll get another lantern
And try again.”
​

NOTES ON DANUBE is inspired by another painting from ANA AHA. It begins with a duet between Rose Hegele and Benjamin Perry over a drone, before unspooling into a tapestry of vocal color.


Every singer in the ensemble was utterly essential to the creation of this album, contributing an abundance of both musical expertise and—maybe more importantly—individual personality. Emma Newton's thoughtful and incredibly detailed mix brought out the best of each voice's contribution. Big Nice Studio was an inspring place to create.

​This album is just the first step into a musical frontier, and it represents one possible path ahead for new vocal ensemble music. We hope to share further exploration soon.

—Nathan Halbur