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PIC. DISC
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ET 864-03LP
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Robin Hayward (b. 1969 in Brighton, England) is a tuba player and composer based in Berlin. Since the 1990s, he has been concerning himself with experimental and radical playing techniques on brass instruments, initially through the discovery of the "noise-valve", later through development of the first fully microtonal tuba in 2009. In 2012, he invented the Hayward Tuning Vine as an interface for exploring the harmonic space implicit within the instrument, which exists both as a software version and as a physical prototype. Hayward's microtonal tuba and, on some occasions, the tuning vine have appeared on numerous recordings with various ensembles, e.g. Tonaliens -- who released a double-LP on Edition Telemark in 2017 (ET 785-02LP) --, Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, and Microtub. Words of Paradise is a 2016 recording performed by Zinc & Copper, Hayward's long-running brass chamber ensemble, featuring himself on tuba and tuning vine, Hilary Jeffery on trombone, and Elena Kakaliagou on horn. The piece was inspired by the ideas of 16th-century Dutch linguist Johannes Goropius Becanus, who thought he had shown the Flemish dialect Brabantic to be the original language spoken in Paradise. Observing Brabantic to have a higher proportion of single-syllable words compared to other languages, he reasoned that as the first language must have been the simplest, all languages must be derived from it. The composition draws on the sound of 13 single-syllable words that Becanus used to support his theories. Using half-valve and muting techniques, the inflections of speech and vowel sounds are imitated on the brass instruments, to which the Hayward Tuning Vine is played as a harmonic reference. Comes on LP picture disc replicating the multi-colored circular scores of the horn and trombone parts of Words of Paradise; housed in a black die-cut sleeve with liner notes on the rear side; Edition of 300.
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Cassette
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SAUNA 031CS
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The cassette showcases two contrasting explorations of the microtonal tuba. "Rubble Master" explores noise production, with the lips and tongue acting as noise generators that are filtered using half-valve techniques. "Underground Music" uses live electronics to simulate the movement of two related tunings moving in opposite directions, like trains through the abandoned underground station in which the piece was premiered. Program repeats on both sides.
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CD
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IMPREC 436CD
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Robin Hayward plays microtonal tuba in Catherine Christer Hennix's ensemble; Stop Time is his first composition to be released on Important Records. Stop Time was commissioned for a festival of the same name that took place in Leuven, Belgium, in 2013. It is the first piece to use a subset of the three-dimensional physical version of the Hayward Tuning Vine software, invented in 2012, as a musical score. The harmonic space implied within the four cubes contained within the subset, based on prime numbers two (octave, color-coded gray), three (perfect fifth, color-coded blue), and five (major third, color-coded red), is explored by the acoustic instruments and projected via the surround-sound system onto the physical space of the performance area. In this performance, the color-coding is made explicit by spotlighting each musician according to the color of the pitch played. In the middle of the piece, when the central black ball is sounded, the lighting therefore momentarily disappears. The idea is not so much to simulate synesthesia as to explore possible interactions between sound, vision, space, and time. Harmonic space is projected over time onto physical space, thus "stopping time." The recording and photos are from a September 2014 performance at De Bijloke, Ghent. Wannes Gonnissen: live electronics; Robin Hayward: microtonal tuba, composition; Pieter Matthynssens: cello; Bertel Schollaert: baritone saxophone. Marieke Berendsen: scenography. Tania Kelley: photograph of physical Tuning Vine.
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