Dal Niente flutist Emma Hospelhorn sat down with Jeff Parker to talk about his piece Water on Glass, which was commissioned for Dal Niente in 2016. Water on Glass will be released as part of object/animal, out March 25 on Sideband Records. Pre-order the record here.
Tell me about the starting point for composing Water on Glass.
When you guys reached out to collaborate on something, I had this older piece that I had written that I composed as part of a film score that I did many years back —probably 20 years ago at this point—for a film called Decades Past. It’s a film by Tatsu Aoki—he teaches film at the Art Institute and he’s a bass player. And he asked me to put a score in one of his films. And, you know, I came up with that piece, and I’m like, “oh, this might be a good way to revisit that thing.” And it’s called Water on Glass because that’s what’s happening in the film. It’s glass with droplets of water going down it.
So the visuals of the film inspired the music?
Yeah. But you know, it’s kind of an improvisation. For me, the lines get blurry between improvising and composing, especially when you record an improvisation and then it becomes a composition. And that’s kind of what this was. I improvised these pads of chords, and then I edited them together to make them into a chord progression. And then when I did a live performance of the score with the film, for the other musicians I had to transcribe what I had done. So it didn’t start in the kind of traditional way of composing, with score notation. It started on guitar. I made the pads on electric guitar and a digital delay pedal and some filtering.
That’s so cool. How did it work when you orchestrated it for Dal Niente? Because the orchestration feels so specific.
I think Ben told me the instrumentation and I orchestrated it for that. And I had never written for harp. I consulted some people to get some advice. I’m still not sure if it—you know, I put the part down in front of Ben, and he was like, “what is this?!”
I thought it worked well! Especially that ringing melody that comes through in the second half of the piece— it’s just so satisfying to listen to.
Thanks! Actually, I initially didn’t have that melody that comes in the second half. That’s something that I added for this version of it.
It’s so effective. And how did the synthesizer join the party? Can you talk a bit about the synth that you perform on the piece?
Of course. That’s actually from the film score. The kind of percussive pitter-pat of the sound is to emulate the sound of water—droplets of water hitting the surface of the glass. Technically, it’s me playing my Korg MS-20 with a kind of frequency modulated percussive sound. And then that triggers this kind of granular delay in Ableton Live. And the sound of the synthesized tone, it goes faster or slower to create or release tension in the piece. It creates drama with the dynamics of the ensemble, coupled with this kind of fluctuating rhythm.
It feels very much like a journey with peaks and valleys, with the synthesizer and the ensemble kind of playing counterpoint to each other.
Right. Yeah, that’s a good observation.
(laughs) Thank you! Do you play the MS-20 a lot in other projects?
Yeah. In almost everything, really. Especially in recording, yeah. On my own records, it’s all over all of my own records. And with Tortoise, and lots of different stuff.
I didn’t realize that was part of your work with Tortoise.
Yeah, totally. I mean I’ve had it for probably—I probably got it in 1996. So I’ve had it a long time. And I like it because I feel like I still can’t play it very well, even having had it for that long, you know. I’m still learning stuff every time I employ it.
Thank you, this is so wonderful to talk to you about this! Do you have any other thoughts about the piece?
I’ll say a lot of my compositional approach in my body of work is about process. And weirdly that’s something I really rely on as a composer. It’s not even necessarily about—well, I was gonna say it’s not necessarily about the way the music sounds, because it definitely is. But the way that the work is made I think is interesting. And I think if the listener, or the person who consumes the work, is aware of that process, it can make it more interesting.
So in terms of the step-by-step…
It comes from a very clinical place. I created these sonic pads and I edited them, and then I put them in a line and I kind of rearranged the blocks in order to create a chord progression. And there were dynamics in the sonic pads. Some were soft, some were louder. And that kind of created dynamics. And then I used the percussive synthesizer sound to create tension and drama within the dynamics. And for me it was kind of more about—like there was a blueprint. I had a blueprint for how I wanted to do it. I could have used the same process with different sound elements, and it would have sounded completely different, but the process would have been the same. And a lot of my work, it comes from a place like that. It’s definitely about the way the things are put together, and kind of exploiting that process.
That’s fascinating. I love the idea that this very cohesive, orchestral sounding piece that you’ve created—that I can think about you playing this piece as chords on your guitar with different volumes and patches.
Yeah. And you guys, it was really great working with you guys. I mean you put so much soul and intent, and, I mean, you guys already have cohesion in your ensemble. So you have that vibe, and then you put everything into making it. I really appreciated that, and I was very—I was blown away. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience.
Thanks! Same here. I was personally so excited to get to play on a recording with you. I think we all were. And it’s a beautiful piece, and the fact that we got to record it actually with you was so awesome. So thank you.
Thank you!