2021 Paper Presentation Textural Metamorphosis: A Spectral Analysis of the Timbrical Transformations in Cycling (2009) for Amplified Flute by Panayiotis Kokoras on Cycling and Composition Process

Syroyid Syroyid, Bohdan. “Textural Metamorphosis: A Spectral Analysis of the Timbrical Transformations in Cycling (2009) for Amplified Flute by Panayiotis Kokoras.” Symposium of New Works and Research into Contemporary Composers, organized by the Department of Ethnomusicology at Nanhua University, 3 July 2021, https://sites.google.com/view/nhumusicconference/2021版-2021-session/論文-papers/bohdan-syroyid-syroyid.

Panayiotis Kokoras (Greece, 1974) is an active composer whose compositions were selected in over 280 international calls for scores, awarded over 70 prizes, and received more than 850 performances. In the oeuvre of Kokoras, instrumental chamber music and electronics play a prominent role. One can find spectralist influences in his style, as his compositions develop timbre-based musical structures. The scores of Kokoras explore meticulously the usage of extended techniques with constant timbrical permutations. Kokoras self-defines his music under the umbrella term “holophony”. Holophony implies a musical texture where independent events (“φωνή”, “phone”, in Ancient Greek, “voice” or “sound”) lose their individual identity to be perceived as a whole (“όλος”, “holos”, which means, “entire” or “whole”). This type of musical attitude can be traced back to the early 1950s with the development of Musique Concrète and Elektronische Musik.

The compositional process of Kokoras can be summarized in seven stages, which are closely interrelated: (1) conception of sounds (spectrally or semantically); (2) generation of sounds by the listening of different sources or the recording of improvisations; (3) selection of sounds according to aesthetic criteria; (4) modeling of sounds by means of digital spectral analysis and acoustic instrumental resynthesis; (5) classification of sounds according to timbrical features and/or according to semantic cross-contextual associations; (6) composition of the  first draft of the piece (transformation, interpretation, and evaluation) in the form of an audio file in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW); and (7) transcription, notation, and documentation in the form of sheet music for a subsequent performance and recording of the piece. In spite of being a seemingly organized process, in the words of the author, this compositional process tents to be very slow and chaotic, in particular, during stages 1-6. Kokoras likens his compositional process to solving a large puzzle, where one does not know beforehand which piece goes where, but one arrives at the solution by means of trial and error. In this process, Kokoras argues that it is key to maintain a constant connection with sound. Writing down a score has become an increasingly complex and slow-paced process due to the elevated number of extended techniques and performance directions. One can easily become engrossed in notational issues and lose the bigger picture and the actual sound of the music. Therefore, Kokoras writes down his scores (stage 7) only after completing a full audio draft.

The present spoken paper proposes a spectral analysis of Kokoras’s piece Cycling (2009) for amplified flute in the recording of Mario Carli. The piece presents a continuous evolution of an ascending scalar motive with key clicks. Some of the techniques that are employed for these timbrical transformations include the alternation between open and close mouthpiece, different amounts of air blow, whistle tones, roar sounds, flutter tongues, among others. Cycling is organized in five sections designated by the following headings: (1) “Riding the Petals”, (2) “Feel the Wind”, (3) “Open the Wings”, (4) “Crossing the Valley”, (5) “Memory Traces”.