Artist of the Week
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Artist: Rachel Graff
Artform: Composer What do you do and what are your main focuses? I am a composer. My main focus is open-form scores - I enjoy exploring different ways of presenting musical ideas and inviting performers to make their own creative decisions within the piece. Where have you studied? I studied at Kent Music Academy on Saturday mornings during my GCSE and A level years. My composition lesson was at 8.30 in the morning, so while all my friends were having lie-ins me and my dad were driving to Maidstone listening to Thomas Ades! For higher education, I studied for my undergrad and masters at the University of Manchester. |
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Why do you compose?
I always have. My mum is a folk musician (Christine Adams - christineadamsmusic.co.uk) so I grew up in a very musical household and creating music was just a normal part of life. I still have the first compositions I wrote down when I was about seven years old - terribly written out, backwards stems all over the place! Who are you influenced by? I am heavily influenced by Christopher Small’s Musicking and the idea that music is an activity. This is part of the reason why I focus on open-form scores as I feel they encourage the action of playing music. There is no definitive version of the piece, which hopefully encourages performers to explore the sound world and play it through multiple times. (Interestingly, Christopher Small taught my Mum when she was studying for her degree at Dartington College of Arts. I didn’t find this out until years after I had incorporated the idea of musicking into my compositions - perhaps this influence comes from how she approaches music as well!) |
Cover of 'sketching the rain'
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My other inspirations include Cornelius Cardew’s open-form scores, especially Treatise, Morton Feldman and George Crumb’s approaches to sound and, perhaps surprisingly, Amanda Palmer, whose community-based approach to creating music, in my view, aligns with music as activity. My piece Fantasia on Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 was heavily influenced by her piano style.
Link to piece: https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/fantasia-on-pagannis-caprice
Tell us about your piece '...the room...went on ticking...by itself...'
I wrote this for Gavin Osborn (of trio-atem.co.uk) for an ~exchange forum. It explores different ways of presenting musical ideas on the score, a completely linear and determined section, to a section where the performer can choose from a selection of fragments, to a section where the performer chooses their own path through the musical material.
Link to piece: https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/the-roomwent-on-tickingby-itself
Link to piece: https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/fantasia-on-pagannis-caprice
Tell us about your piece '...the room...went on ticking...by itself...'
I wrote this for Gavin Osborn (of trio-atem.co.uk) for an ~exchange forum. It explores different ways of presenting musical ideas on the score, a completely linear and determined section, to a section where the performer can choose from a selection of fragments, to a section where the performer chooses their own path through the musical material.
Link to piece: https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/the-roomwent-on-tickingby-itself
Score by Rachel Graff - the room went on ticking
What challenges have you set for yourself?
I have a bad habit of not sending a composition out because I think it’s ‘not good enough’. To break myself out of this, I set myself the challenge of composing sixty minutes of music in one month last November. Whatever I had at the end would be released to the internet, imperfections and all. The result is sketching the rain. It definitely isn’t perfect, but the flaws have, in some cases, accidentally worked within the sound-world of the piece. For example, in all at sea you can hear the echoes of my neighbours banging doors! This exercise was very helpful and I’m planning on doing it again this year.
Listen to 'sketching the rain' here: https://rachelgraffcomposer.bandcamp.com/album/sketching-the-rain
I have a bad habit of not sending a composition out because I think it’s ‘not good enough’. To break myself out of this, I set myself the challenge of composing sixty minutes of music in one month last November. Whatever I had at the end would be released to the internet, imperfections and all. The result is sketching the rain. It definitely isn’t perfect, but the flaws have, in some cases, accidentally worked within the sound-world of the piece. For example, in all at sea you can hear the echoes of my neighbours banging doors! This exercise was very helpful and I’m planning on doing it again this year.
Listen to 'sketching the rain' here: https://rachelgraffcomposer.bandcamp.com/album/sketching-the-rain
Have you ever failed at something and what happened as a result?
I’ve ‘failed’ at many things! Compositions that didn’t get chosen, freelance jobs that I didn’t get… I’ve also written compositions that really didn’t end up sounding like I intended them to sound. For example, ...and the green leaves grew around is the first completely open-score work I composed. It was supposed to last between 4 - 45 minutes...the first workshop performance only lasted one! Since then, I have cultivated the mindset that all of my works are experiments and, as a friend who studied physics once told me, ‘failure is a valid outcome of any experiment’. If something doesn’t go to plan, I try to see it as a way of finding out What Doesn’t Work and What Does Work. This way of thinking has been useful for me, encouraging me to try new things (such as sketching the rain).
I’ve ‘failed’ at many things! Compositions that didn’t get chosen, freelance jobs that I didn’t get… I’ve also written compositions that really didn’t end up sounding like I intended them to sound. For example, ...and the green leaves grew around is the first completely open-score work I composed. It was supposed to last between 4 - 45 minutes...the first workshop performance only lasted one! Since then, I have cultivated the mindset that all of my works are experiments and, as a friend who studied physics once told me, ‘failure is a valid outcome of any experiment’. If something doesn’t go to plan, I try to see it as a way of finding out What Doesn’t Work and What Does Work. This way of thinking has been useful for me, encouraging me to try new things (such as sketching the rain).
Score by Rachel Graff -
Unexpected exceptions
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Score by Rachel Graff - and the green leaves grew around
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Listen to two different versions of 'and the green leaves grew around':
https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/and-the-green-leaves-grew-around
https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/and-the-green-leaves-grew-around-exchange
What is more important, talent or hard work?
I think the idea of ‘natural talent’ can prevent some people from being creative. In my work leading school choirs, I’ve often heard children say they don’t want to join because they’re not as talented as another pupil, who often has singing lessons and previous experience in choirs. Talent usually comes from, or is at least improved by, hard work. I don’t think this is always made clear and leaves some people feeling like they can’t take part in a creative activity. This worries me, because I believe creativity is an important form of self-expression and should be open to everyone in one way or another.
Anything interesting coming up?
Something interesting is happening right now! The week this interview is posted, I will be in St Ives working on time - trace - place (time-trace-place.weebly.com), a two week long, collaborative, performative installation at Porthmeor Studios & Cellars. If you’re interested to see how the installation is evolving, you can follow the social media pages which will be updated over the fortnight.
More about time-trace-place:
https://www.facebook.com/timetraceplace/
https://twitter.com/timetraceplace
https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/and-the-green-leaves-grew-around
https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff/and-the-green-leaves-grew-around-exchange
What is more important, talent or hard work?
I think the idea of ‘natural talent’ can prevent some people from being creative. In my work leading school choirs, I’ve often heard children say they don’t want to join because they’re not as talented as another pupil, who often has singing lessons and previous experience in choirs. Talent usually comes from, or is at least improved by, hard work. I don’t think this is always made clear and leaves some people feeling like they can’t take part in a creative activity. This worries me, because I believe creativity is an important form of self-expression and should be open to everyone in one way or another.
Anything interesting coming up?
Something interesting is happening right now! The week this interview is posted, I will be in St Ives working on time - trace - place (time-trace-place.weebly.com), a two week long, collaborative, performative installation at Porthmeor Studios & Cellars. If you’re interested to see how the installation is evolving, you can follow the social media pages which will be updated over the fortnight.
More about time-trace-place:
https://www.facebook.com/timetraceplace/
https://twitter.com/timetraceplace
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Links:
Website: rachelgraff.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rachelgraffcomposer/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RachelGraff Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/rachel-graff |
