The E-flat clarinet: piccolo clarinet, soprano clarinet, sopranino clarinet, agony stick — depending on where you live and what kinds of circles you’re in, the instrument has various names. I was first targeted to play the E-flat clarinet at the age of 14, and have enjoyed playing it ever since, in various symphony and wind orchestras. Whilst in an orchestral setting, the E-flat clarinet is mostly relegated to the upper voices, as a solo instrument, it immediately becomes much more multifaceted. One might say the gradations of air sounds and key noises are more perceivable due to the small size of the instrument; the immediacy of the sounds as they exit the bore is perhaps heightened, also due to their inherent brightness. Epeisodos makes thorough use of the more intimate possibilities of the E-flat clarinet whilst employing a powerful extramusical element to fuel the music’s development.
Jeroen Speak’s epic work began as a response to the composer’s discovery of the activity of an electroencephalograph (EEG), a device that detects and records the electrical activity of the brain onto either a two dimensional graph on paper or a three dimensional on-screen graph, shown as a conglomeration of sharply active peaks. Speak’s key experience involved watching an EEG of a patient approaching an epileptic seizure, having been interested for some time in music’s relationship to our own biological system. On the discovery of the EEG, he found that electrical activity in the brain shows certain rhythmic and formal characteristics that have a direct affinity with music. In terms of the classification of some of the main rhythms and structures found in mapping the electrical signals of the brain, German neuropsychiatrist, Hans Berger defined four main waveforms or rhythms:
Delta: large slow moving asymmetrical waves usually found in the deepest levels of sleep. Delta waves can vary from 1.5 to 4 cycles per second.
Theta: when the brain waves climb to 5-8 c/s during sleep, active dreaming and its characteristic ‘rapid eye movement’ or REM can take place. This state is also prevalent on the verge of waking from sleep. Theta rhythms are obtained by the conjunction of Delta and Alpha rhythms in a phasing or beating effect.
Alpha: Fast, medium amplitude oscillations representative of the background activity of the brain in the physically and psychologically healthy adult. Alpha rhythm is a more or less regular pulse of around 8-13 cycles per second in children and 9-10 c/s in adults. Alpha waves are indicative of a relaxed state of mind, often while running, bathing or other routine tasks.
Beta: Small very fast waves exhibited during conversation, teaching, presenting, performance and ranging to intense psychological stress. 15-40 cycles per second.
Heartbeat, pulse and respiratory rhythms show up in an EEG, punctuating the flow of the waveforms with larger structures. These wave rhythms seem to indicate that our tendency towards things with regularity or cycles could stem from the function of our bodies and brains. The work Epeisodos seeks to interfere with this regularity while examining the interaction and rhythm of waveforms approaching an epileptic seizure. In the early stages of the work, the idea of brain waves that exhibit a phasing effect producing abrupt changes of mood directs the development of the material. Free radicals are introduced which disrupt the rhythm set up by the lip oscillations and trill and it is the behaviour in proximity to the interference of this continuous line that is of great interest throughout the work.
Through further investigation of the interactions of various electrical oscillations, Speak found examples of musical concepts such as mirroring, inversion, canon, loose imitation, simultaneous variation, i.e. imperfect copying of material either simultaneously or sequentially. Throughout the work we can hear sequential repetition and mirroring even on the clarinet, a characteristically single line instrument. In order to obtain this detail, the performer must retain a steady pulse in which the musical material must inhabit and interact. The use of timed pauses also acts as an interference device, in addition to auxiliary notes, breath sounds (white noise) or percussive sounds.
The element of time and temporal orientation in Epeisodos is of paramount importance. The composer has opted not to use bar lines, but a tempo equalling 1 second or 60 beats per minute that allows the performer to comfortably fit the material in this space as written. The challenge then is to integrate Speak’s crafted interferences whilst retaining mental clarity of the tempo.
The climax of the work depicts the approach to an epileptic seizure where Speak adopts the EEG graph as musical notation within a real time temporal framework. On the approach to a seizure, the electrical impulses of the brain begin to regulate, their peaks and troughs beginning to line up in a more uniform way, eventually cancelling each other out. All that is left is a single oscillating pulse, the chaos of normal brain activity, of interacting wave rhythms, phasing and large arcs of heartbeats and breathing, absent. This relative lack of vertical brain-wave activity causes the symptoms normally experienced during a seizure. Speak gradually compresses the clarinet’s range to a single point in order to represent this process, the simultaneous lip oscillations and trill becoming one intense line of electrical fury.
