Masashi Yamamoto : REAL TIME -The Elf in Big f - (2023)

This piece focuses on the sounds heard in “real time” and the gestures of the performer. You will hear sounds that should not be heard, delayed sounds that should be heard, and various combinations of discrepancies between the appearance and the performance.

What if the sound you hear is not the sound the player is making...

The starting point was this idea, but I thought it would be interesting if the “sound not produced by the player” was produced by an imaginary being living inside the double bass. One day, I woke up and saw a wooden stick (sound post) in front of me, and when I tried to hang on to it, I saw a light in the distance in the shape of the letter “f” and a vague shadow (the bow) moving from side to side beyond it.

The piece begins with a harmonic pizz with both hands, a technique unique to the double bass, and soon the sounds of someone or something living inside the instrument's body can be heard. In response, the player also plays, and once they come close together, but the inhabitant inside the f-hole begins to rampage, and the player tries to drive it out, and a battle between the two begins. What will happen to this battle?
And is it really the performer or the resident playing the instrument?

Simon Sten-Annersen is a Danish composer. He is especially known for his Piano Concerto, which combines the sounds and images of a piano dropped from a height of 8 meters.

“Next To Beside Besides" is a collection of “choreographic translations” (not arrangements, but translations of performance movements) of the work “Beside Besides” for solo cello to other instruments, and was “translated” from #1 to #13 for 11 instruments and one miniature video camera from 2003 to 2008. The works were “translated” for 11 instruments from #1 to #13 and one miniature video camera from 2003 to 2008.

These pieces can be performed solo or in any combination (#1 and #3, or #2 and #4 and #6, etc.) and can be accompanied by a video by the same player, and the performance format is named “Self-reflecting Next To Beside Besides”.

If the act of composing was directed toward “movement” rather than “sound”...
If the score is a choreography for the performer and the instrument, and the result is the sound... can it really be called a “performance”?

This time, #1 and #9 translated for double bass and #10 for camera will be performed in “Self-reflecting”.
When I informed the composer, Simon Sten-Annersen, that I initially planned to perform this combination, he suggested that it would be better to leave #1 and #9 alone and make it a form of virtual duo. However, this piece, which is the ‘Triple' of the subtitle “Double Triple Solo for Solo Double Bass,” needed to be performed with a miniature video camera at all costs.

The “performance” of this miniature video camera is done with a camera in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Because of the complexity of operating the camera with both left and right hands, most of the time it is played with only the light, without the camera, and there are not many opportunities for it to be played. At first, I thought of performing only with the lights, but then I realized that the real appeal of this piece can only be conveyed if it has two elements: “the action of playing the miniature video camera” and “the video taken by the miniature video camera,” so I decided to record the video at the same time.

I sent the resulting simulation video to the composer, who commented that it was quite wonderful.

In today's performance, we would like to draw your attention to the relationship between the four movements: the performance movement of the double bass on video, the performance movement of the miniature video camera, the recorded video of the miniature video camera, and the live performance of the double bass.

Postscript: I received a happy comment from the composer who saw the performance video.“Amazing! Please release it to the public!”

Pierre Jodlowski : TOUCH (2022)

Pierre Jodlowski is a French composer and multimedia expert in video and lighting, and is himself active in various fields as a performer.

“TOUCH” was commissioned to be performed at the 'Masashi Yamamoto Contrabass Solo - The Space of  Contemporary Pieces for Solo Double Bass’ at the Shizuoka Music Hall AOI on September 22, 2022.

Usually, a solo piece with electronics is performed by the performer and operated by an operator on a PC at the same time, but since I am particular about “solo” music, I commissioned this piece on the condition that the electronics be controlled by the performer himself.

During the production period, we exchanged numerous e-mails with the composer, Pierre Jodlowski, regarding the composition and setting of the piece. I also recorded and sent him data of the designated phrases and a few minutes of improvisation as sound material for the double bass. The electronics part included the sounds of the double bass I played, my voice, and breathing sounds.

For the double bass sound, the composer instructed me to use four effectors: ring modulator, distortion, delay, and reverb, with particularly detailed specifications from the composer regarding the ring modulator setting.

What it means for a human being to come in contact with an object...
What does it mean for a person to come in contact with a musical instrument and play it...

The first half of the piece is a theatrical part with almost no music. Last December, in Warsaw, Poland, I received instruction directly from the composer. He gave me very detailed instructions on the importance of the first half of this part, including detailed finger movements, how to raise the hands, eye direction, body direction, and so on. The gestures in this part of the performance were based on the Japanese tea ceremony and karate.

There are two versions of this piece: a short version with a playing time of 20 minutes and a full version with a playing time of 27 minutes. This is the first performance of the full version in Japan. In addition to the lighting changes on stage, today will be the world premiere of a new performance with visual images for flashlight effects.

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