I am sitting in my music studio, a few days into a month residency at MacDowell in New Hampshire. Outside is icy cold; the snow leans up against the studio and icicles hang off the small moss-covered shed roof.
I sigh and drum my pencil on the blank score paper. All morning I have been procrastinating, unable to move forward in composing my next work. I am caught in the bardo of creation – between not knowing and, at the same time, sensing the direction of the piece.
I wait and close my eyes, thinking about summer and soft warm dirt between my bare toes, the color a milk chocolate. In my mind’s eye, I turn and spin, remembering that Moses, as he approached the burning bush, took off his sandals to stand on holy ground.
Of course! Barefoot. The sound of the new work wells in my ears; I am flooded.
I grew up as a pianist in a household of strings. My mother was an avid amateur violinist and my sisters played violin and viola. I envied their ability to play with others, while I was continually on my own. In college, I took up cello in addition to studying composition and piano. I studied with Michael Finkle, who was mustached, quirky, and full of joy. We gathered weekly to play cello quartets and octets late into the evening. Then, turning off the lights, we improvised in the dark.
My ear is always bending towards the sound strings produce when I compose. The instrument itself is an ingenuity of construction – as one plays, the open strings resound, building up a deepening of sound – like a piano’s sustaining pedal, but discrete and selective. The resonating strings respond like ghosts to a call, building up overtones and harmonics, even different tones.
I love the immediacy a string player has between themselves and the sound they produce. Pressing the flesh of their finger into string, they bow to bring the pitch to life. With this comes the unique ability to bend a note easily through a glissando. This is aslide between notes, not a fast get-away, but a way of directing energy from one note to another. Sometimes I want to pierce through a note cleanly, like an arrow through the heart. Other times, I move between two notes, creating a slow-motion tension, where the departing note comes so close to the next note that union is magnetic and unavoidable.
The string instrument is a master of getting to the kernel of sound by varying the way a sound is made. Pizzicato and tremolo are most common, but, for me, ponticello (playing close to the bridge to make a scratching, buzzing sound) and col legno (reducing the
sound to a bare shadow of itself by playing with the wood of the bow) gets closer to what I experience in a single note or tone – an outer shell-like-flesh with a soft inner core.
I am always composing towards the center of sound, to get as close as I can. And always, in a stream of movement, a consciousness liquid enough to become something else at any moment. Lean and snake-like, my music is continually circular and linear, transforming in a seamless continuity.
String writing in Barefoot
LISTEN: https://lnkfi.re/barefoot
Tremble for violin, cello and piano, has no end of movement – we shiver in delight or quake in fear. We shake in anger or pulse in love. We tremble in the act of knowing and not knowing.
Barefoot for violin, cello, viola and piano is cold and full of fresh snow, and always a longing for bare feet on green forest paths and creek beds. The dashing out and tasting life with little protection, the dancing before the burning bush – barefoot before God.
Wēpan for string quartet and piano is full of slippage from one note to another – glissandos between note to note; weeping, endless weeping.
Hush for violin and piano is quiet and reflective – a sweet calming of our child, ourselves and those around us – a stillness so that life can be experienced, cascading around us.
Leap, for violin, cello, viola and piano, was written during the pandemic when we found ourselves having leapt into a world unrecognizable. Restless and often sudden, the strings echo each other, searching and slightly out of tune.
Tina Davidson’s new album Barefoot, featuring the Jasper Quartet and pianist Natalie Zhu, is released on New Focus Recordings.
, religion, education, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time), break in through the back door or window. No matter how you get in, you are in.
ars. When I got a commission from the Kronos Quartet, that and my savings allowed me to launch into being able to compose full time.
Share your joy.
Heave your heart into your mouth – often.
My mother was the first feminist in the family. She read Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett, Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan. She taught women’s studies and went to on countless marches. True, she often spat and lectured. A professor at the State College in Oneonta, mother of five, she knew the limits of her salary and position. She had valid grievances and was angry.
the plates. We waited to see what emerged. Colors bloomed several days later, a brilliant white and a poisonous looking orange – a world invisible – existing only when it was allowed to grow by itself.
of the Greek prophetess who was never listened to or believed, and my hope for better times in the future. Women Dreaming, for mixed ensemble and piano, was my continued dreaming of possibilities. River of Love, River of Light, a seven movement choral piece, was my understanding of the female face of God.
suggest. I am their supporter and collaborator. They are brilliant musicians. “Just play the music!”
In the end, the performers collaborate with the audience – the receivers of the music. For me, it is a journey, a traveling through a sonic and emotional landscape. Because music can only experienced through time, the listener perceives the whole only with the aid of memory, a remembrance of beginning. As the performers bend over their music and the audience listens, the energy between them creates the experience.