Taking Root
Taking Root is a series of graphic scores commissioned by recorder player Tabea Debus for her 2023 concert series ‘The Principles of Nature’.
The scores were created in close collaboration with Tabea and climate scientist Yannick Feldhof. In addition to complementing Tabea’s nature-themed concert series, this project was designed with educational outcomes in mind.
The scores explore the journey of a seed, from its initial release, through various ways of travel, to its eventual settling and “taking root”. Whilst developing the scores, we have created a series of workshops for younger students (UK KS2/3) focussing on graphic scores alongside other musical and creative writing tasks - all exploring themes of nature and wildlife.
Please use the contact section of this website if you’re interested to feature Tabea’s concert series and/or the educational workshops, which can be tailored to festivals, particular venues, and schools.
Release
Water
Wind
Taking Root
Composer’s Note:
Taking Root is my first serious attempt at creating graphic scores (and indeed drawing anything properly at all!). It was a fascinating process which required a lot of adaptation from my usual, very detailed process using traditional staff notation. Graphic notation is something I’ve used extensively in teaching and workshop activities, particularly with younger, less experienced students; in these situations, the avoidance of traditional staff notation allows for a freedom and directness of expression and interpretation which can unlock exciting new musical ideas. In fact, some musical ideas can arguably be communicated more clearly this way than within the sometimes cumbersome limitations of staff notation. Whilst the educational benefits of this approach were always clear to me, I had yet to explore it in the context of my own writing. I am very grateful to Tabea for inviting me to take on this challenge.
Having worked closely with Tabea Debus on two previous projects, I was closely familiar with her playing style and the incredible range of sounds and colours she can produce on the various recorders. Paired with the nature theme, this provided a very specific and exciting context within which these scores were developed. The process was highly collaborative, and whilst we have settled on certain ways of interpreting the images, the scores are by definition open to all sorts of other realisations. (This might extend to different instrumentation).
After lots of drafting, I sought to develop a visual style which gave quite direct “gestural” instructions which could be mimicked musically - but which didn’t rely much or at all on elements of traditional staff notation. I also wanted the connections with the nature theme to be clear and direct, so it could appeal to younger audiences without compromising the musical challenges presented to Tabea. (Both goals allow the scores to be more accessible for the project’s related educational activities). These two aspects of the brief heavily influenced the visual style.
In early workshops, I was surprised to find that many of the visual elements in my scores sounded extremely close to the sounds and shapes I had imagined, even without additional instructions/guidelines. (Whilst creating these scores, it was important to me that I could imagine at least my own musical interpretation of the visuals very clearly before committing to drawing a particular shape or graphic). Perhaps this close match between imagined and actual outcomes was enabled by previous collaborations between Tabea and me and the familiarity this allows with each other’s practice. Having reached this exciting point early on, we worked together in more detail on the scores, creating guidelines for interpretation and how each score might be structured in time. These guidelines will be made available with the scores at a later date for future performances.
Creating the hand-drawn scores for Taking Root has been a fascinating process, which will give me a refreshed way of looking at how I might explore graphic notation both in my own work and in educational contexts.
Nb: At present these scores are reserved for Tabea’s concert series and associated workshop activities. Later, they will be made available for hire/purchase with additional educational content if requested.
