TWENTIETH- - Synapse Music

Timbre and Texture: Acoustic 223
provide a good sampling in this discussion. l One problem that has not been entirely solved
at this point is how to notate many of these new teclmiques, although progress is being
made here as successful approaches become recognized and imitated.
Some techniques have been required of all performers, regardless of instrument, including
tapping on the instrument or on some other surface, whistling, and a wide variety
of vocal sounds. In these cases the performer is not perfonning as a clarinetist, for example,
but as a percussionist, whistler, or vocalist. In Example 6-10 (p. 126) thirteen wind
players whistle approximately the same pattern (the exact pitches are ullspecified), but beginning
at different times and proceeding independently. Notice also in the same example
the use of glass crystals, or tuned water glasses. Electronic amplification and distortion are
other timbral devices that can be used with any performing medium.
WIND INSTRUMENTS
Some techniques for winds used in contemporary scores are not entirely new but represent
an intensification or development of earlier usages. This would include, for example, the
use of mutes and glissandi. The brasses use a wider variety of mutes than previously, many
of them of jazz origin, and even the woodwinds have been muted in a number of ways. The
"bend," which might be considered a special type of glissando, also derives from jazz.
Both the bend and the glissando were seen in Example 8-7 (p. 168), where the hom imitates
a jazz trombone solo. Other techniques sometimes associated with jazz indudc the
flutter-tongue (see mm 9-12 of Example 4-4, p. 79) and the enharmonic trill, in which the
penormer rapidly alternates between two fingerings for the same pitch.
Removal of the mouthpiece permits performing on the mouthpiece alone, without the
rest of the instrument, or perfonning only on the rest of the instrument without the mouthpiece.
Wind players are also required to produce breath sounds through their instruments
instead of pitches, and in some cases to sing and play simultaneously. Harmonics, though
not practicable on brasses, have been used on woodwinds, especially the flute and the clarinet.
Several of these techniques are iIIustrated in a lighthearted way in Example 11-1.