Zhu Wenbo Interview Luke Martin and Noah Ophoven-Baldwin about their duo album Nighttime Block.
Q: “How did you write these two pieces? Where are they coming from? And do they have any purpos? because normally I do not wrote piece on notes, so I’m very curious for other composer’s thoughts on that way.”
Noah: I can only speak for myself here. “Closed to me forever closed to me” was written for Luke and at the same time I was reading a Joanna Russ novel (American science fiction writer). I was working on the piece as I was reading the novel. The composition reflects the form of the book. The title is the score and where I derived all the pitch material from. The piece is in three parts and could be looked at as: 1. Closed to me 2. Forever 3. Closed to me.
Luke: Haha - actually I don’t usually write pieces with notes either. Mainly text scores or improvising. For several years, in the past, I refused to write any notes. However I have been writing more notes these past couple years (a few notes at a time…). For me, I’ve decided the questions I’m asking when composing can’t be answered purely by writing/not writing notes.
In this piece, I was reading Simone Weil’s writings again — a shared interest of Noah’s and mine — and thinking about the nature of a duo (a ‘twoness’) and my friendship with Noah. Weil has this amazing position or argument regarding Oneness and Twoness, in a philosophical sense: usually a mystic (which she was, in part) will argue for the ultimate Oneness of all things; however, she sees abysses or silences or voids at the core of anything and everything, a “tearing apart”. Existence is, impossibly, both separate and together - contradictory (and yet whole). I came across this quote from her which I put in the score (it’s in the google folder) and that’s what guided my composition. Love, twoness, two notes, silence, listening, uncertainty — all made perfect sense to me, when thinking about Noah, a duo, and what he and I talk about a lot.
The construction of the piece itself is simple after that. I could go into detail, but in short: sections with two notes (directly from the quote!), indeterminately played by each of us. In my mind we are exploring in practice — without knowing the answer, maybe ever — what she’s talking about. The notes just make up a chromatic scale, rising half a step slowly (chance-determined). I really just wanted it to be very simple and straightforward sonically. Of course it’s about the sound, but it’s also not. This reflects the paradox Weil says: “hear the silence.”
Q: “Would you like to tell me some background things of your recording? for example, did you record these two pieces in same day?”
Noah: We recorded these two pieces in an afternoon in my basement. I have a small studio in the basement and we set up our instruments and recorded for a few hours. I think both of these are our first takes. We did not do any extra takes or edits.
Luke: Noah covered it!
Q: “To me, I feel that these two pieces are very similar. I can’t recognize one from the other. And I also feel that, it is ok to listen from the middle. Any place could be fine to dive in. So for you, what is the most different things between these two pieces (except Luke’s no input mixing board)?”
Noah: I think Luke’s piece has a consistent process or practice that I can hear through the track. My pieces tend to have more strictly notated and placed moments where we are playing together and improvising. I hear more “freedom” in Luke’s pieces and more moments of synchronicity in mine.
Luke: Haha, I like that they’re hard to distinguish and you can dive in wherever. But that’s just me!
However: in my view, Noah’s has a clear structure and beginning/middle/end, or three parts. There are composed moments of togetherness (syn-chronicity) and others of improvisation (di-chronicity) - two extremes, maybe. For his, I do not think you can dive in wherever.
Mine differs: it is composed/structured, but nothing is fully determined, nor any planned convergences. It is meant to be sat with for however long it takes, and will be different in each performance. You can dive in wherever you want: the piece has no set end and, because it is just part of a chromatic scale, this implies it has been going on long prior and could go on long after. We are just hearing a part. It’s about doing a similar action again and again, without knowing the outcome each time — but practicing a specific form of attention, listening across an abyss. How this is navigated depends on the person’s relation — and the duo’s relation — to the Two, Love, and Silence (per Weil’s quote).
There are other more technical differences: for example, no guitar chords or little melodies in my piece, whereas there are in Noah’s. Noah has the instruction to ‘improvise’; mine does not. There is a potential version of mine where one person is silent the whole time. Etc. With that said, I see these two pieces as exploring very similar conceptual/philosophical territory.
Q: So the final album title named “Nighttime Block”. What does it mean?
Luke: Our previous duo tape was titled “Aperture” which means opening or window. This one we approached from the opposite vantage. A blockage, impasse, closure, the dark. It likely interweaves with various things in our lives - for me, at least in part, it has to do with a possible connection between blockage and opening (between the two tapes). The words are not that different, in the end. An aperture can be blinding, too much, all-consuming, even obscuring what is real (instead of freeing, or full of possibility). A blockage in the night (as the night?) is actually full of shadows and gradients of darkness. It is rich and, on top of that, brings into orbit even more blockages. A block can orient us to something else, different, new (something ‘blocked’). Or, again: an aperture is not all. I don’t mean this in a harmonious or balanced sense (between aperture and block), but rather that the aperture somehow needs to be totally grounded in blockage to continue being an aperture - otherwise, it becomes, ironically, closed. It needs to become split or torn. This is close to what, in broad strokes, I think Simone Weil means when she talks about the relation between God and the void (quoted from Weil in my score, a pure harmony and silence, a supreme union and tearing apart).
The trick, then, is to think of what comes after the aperture and nighttime block. This will be what a third duo tape is about, maybe!
Noah: I think Luke did a good job summing it up here… One thing I would add is that we came to the name after wrapping up the recordings. Looking at the materials we used and what we did on our first recording we realized that both of the new pieces were approaching the music from the opposite side of our first recordings as a duo. It does seem to imply that there is more work to be done…
Q: Normally, do you always perform as a duo on live? Do you think there is any difference between the live and your album recording?
Luke: Hmm. Sure, there are differences. But it’s also a continuation of a practice for me, something we’d do at home or live or recorded or outside anyway. We sit and begin. Part of what we’re after (an aperture? a block?) is something that would take us completely by surprise, that could undermine the fact we ‘began’ to play (in any situation) in the first place.
Noah: As far as our live playing and playing to record goes I don’t think there is much of a difference. As Luke says, “we sit and begin.” This feels accurate for the playing we do live and when we record. Not much fretting is done (in a way) but it has led to us not using any recordings from a recording session we have done.
Q: From your former answers, I felt that both of you are very sensitive and introverted persons, am I right? In China, in these years MBTI (16 personalities test) are very popular. Do you know what kind of style you belong to?
Luke: You’re probably right. I have some friends that like these tests. I’m sorry to say, I don’t know what it says I am - though I’m sure I’ve done it at some point. The music probably reveals something!
Noah: Luke and I are both quite sensitive but I’d never call Luke introverted! I took the quiz for you (I have taken it before) and I am an ISFJ. If I recall in the past when I’ve taken the quiz that is also what I have gotten.
Q: So you wrote these pieces in summer (maybe in one day I guess?), but finally do the recording in winter. Do you feel any changes to these two pieces in these months? If the recording happened in summer, how do you think it might be different to current version (except the nature sound we could imagine)?
Luke: Somehow it seems wintertime - and Noah’s basement - was more appropriate to the ‘blockage’ the pieces refer to, in retrospect. But this was also a product of our lives getting busy. Happenstance. Maybe, I would say, the longer you sit with a piece the more it can grow with you, or you with it. But to answer more specifically, recording in summer versus winter just changes, in part, the general situation or environment of playing. It opens different paths to wander along. These are important to attend to, even essential in a way. But in the end I am (and I think we are) after the gaps that cannot be contained in those situations, and yet find themselves impossibly lodged there. This is, from the Weil quote in my score, what it means to “learn to hear the silence.”
Noah: I do not know how the pieces actually changed but I do remember when we tried again to record the pieces there was a lot of reflection going around. That Summer I was living out of the city, isolated from a lot of my dear friends I play music with (Luke being a major one). Luke had come and visit on the early side and throughout that season my life changed a lot! We didn’t spend rigorous time studying these pieces but the space from initial creation and recording probably changed what they would have sounded like if we recorded that day.
朱：你们是怎样创作这两首作品的？它们的灵感是什么？它们有什么目的吗？因为我通常不会用音符来写作曲，所以我对其他作曲家在这方面的想法非常好奇。
Noah：我只能代表我自己发言。《永远对我关闭》是为Luke写的，同时我正在阅读乔安娜·拉斯的小说（美国科幻作家）。我在阅读小说的同时创作这首曲子。这首曲子反映了书的形式。标题就是乐谱，我从那里得到了所有的音高素材。这首曲子分为三个部分，可以看作是：1. 对我关闭 2. 永远 3. 对我关闭。
Luke：哈哈——实际上我也不常用音符来写作曲，主要是文本乐谱或者即兴演奏。曾有过那么几年，我拒绝写任何音符。然而，在过去的几年里，我又开始写一些音符了（一次几个…）。对我来说，我决定在作曲时提出的问题不能仅通过写或不写音符来回答。
在这首曲子中，我再次阅读了西蒙娜·薇依的著作——这是Noah和我的共同兴趣——并思考了二重奏（“二元性”）的本质以及我与Noah的友谊。薇依在哲学意义上对一元性和二元性有一个惊人的立场或论点：通常，神秘主义者（她部分是）会主张万物的最终一元性；然而，她看到任何事物的核心都有深渊、沉默或虚空，一种“撕裂”。存在是既分离又结合在一起的，像是挺不可能的——是矛盾的（然而又是完整的）。我在乐谱中找到了她的这句话，这就是指导我作曲的东西。爱、二元性、两个音符、沉默、倾听、不确定性——当我思考Noah、二重奏以及我们经常讨论的内容时，这一切都变得非常有意义。
这首曲子的构造本身很简单。我可以详细说明，但简而言之：由我们两人不确定地演奏的两个音符组成的部分（直接引用了她的话！）。在我看来，我们在实践中探索——不知道答案，也许永远不知道——她所说的内容。这些音符仅仅组成了一个半音阶，缓慢地上升半步（随机决定）。我真的只想让它在声音上非常简单直接。当然，它关乎声音，但也不仅如此。这反映了薇依所说的悖论：“听到沉默。”
朱：可以告诉我一些关于你们录音的背景信息吗？比如，你们是在同一天录制这两首作品的吗？
Noah：我们在一个下午在我的地下室录制了这两首作品。我在地下室有一个小工作室，我们准备好乐器，录了几个小时。我认为这两个录音都是我们的第一次尝试。我们没有做任何额外的尝试或者编辑。
Luke：Noah已经都说到了！
朱：对我来说，我觉得这两部作品非常相似。我无法区分它们。同时我也觉得，这两首作品都可以从中间开始听，从任何地方开始都是好的切入点。那么对你们来说，这两部作品之间最不同的地方是什么（除了有一首Luke用到了的无输入调音台）？
Noah：我认为在Luke的作品里我可以听到的一贯过程或实践。我的作品往往有更多的严格记谱和确定的时刻，我们是一起演奏和即兴的。我在Luke的作品中听到了更多的“自由”，在我的作品中听到了更多的同步时刻。
Luke：哈哈，我喜欢它们难以区分，以及你可以在任何地方开始。但这只是我的看法！
然而：在我看来，Noah的作品有一个清晰的结构，以及开始/中间/结束这样的三个部分。有一起演奏的作曲时刻（同步性）和其他即兴演奏的时刻（非同步性）——也许是两个极端。对于他的作品，我不认为你可以在任何地方开始。
我的不同：它是有组织/结构的，但没有什么是完全确定的，也没有有计划的交汇。它意味着要坐多久就坐多久，每次表演都会有所不同。你可以在任何地方开始：这部作品没有设定的结束时刻，而且因为它只是半音阶的一部分，这意味着它在很久以前就开始了，并且可以持续很久。我们只是听到了其中一部分。这是关于一次又一次地做类似的动作，不知道每次的结果——而是实践一种特定的注意力，倾听深渊。如何做到这一点取决于个人——以及两个人——与二元性、爱和沉默的关系（引用了薇依）。
还有其他更技术性的差异：例如，我的作品中没有吉他和弦或小旋律，而Noah的作品中有。Noah有“即兴演奏”的指示；我的没有。我的作品里有一个可能的版本是，一个人从头到尾都是沉默的。等等。话虽如此，我认为这两部作品都在探索非常相似的概念与哲学。
朱：所以最终的专辑标题被命名为“Nighttime Block”。这是什么意思？
Luke：我们之前的二重奏磁带命名为“Aperture”，意味着开口或窗户。这一张我们从相反的角度来处理。一个堵塞，僵局，关闭，黑暗。它可能与我们生活中的各种事情交织在一起——对我来说，至少在某种程度上，这与堵塞和打开（如这两盘磁带）之间可能存在的联系有关。这两个词最终并没有太大的不同。一个孔隙也可以是刺眼的，太多，全部消耗了，甚至掩盖了真实（而不是解放，或者充满可能性）。夜晚的堵塞（作为夜晚本身？）实际上充满了阴影和黑暗的渐变。它是丰饶的，除此之外，它还带来了更多的堵塞。一个堵塞可以将我们引向其他的东西，不同的，新的（被“堵塞”的东西）。或者这么说：一个孔隙并不是全部。我不是以和谐或平衡的意义（在孔隙和堵塞之间）来说的，而是说孔隙需要完全植根于堵塞中，才能继续成为一个孔隙——否则，它就很讽刺地被关闭了。它需要分裂或撕裂。这与我在作曲中引用的薇依关于上帝和虚空的关系（作曲中引用薇依的句子，a pure harmony and silence, a supreme union and tearing apart）大致相同。
那么，思考孔隙和夜间堵塞之后会发生什么。这将是我们第三张二重奏磁带的内容！
Noah：我认为Luke很好地总结了这一点……我要补充的一点是，我们在录制结束后想到了这个名字。回看我们在第一次录音中索使用的材料和所做的事情，我们意识到这两首新作品都是从我们作为二重奏的第一次录音的相反方向来接近音乐的。这似乎意味着还有更多的工作要做……
朱：通常，你们会以二重奏的形式现场表演吗？你认为现场和你们的专辑录音之间有什么不同吗？
Luke：嗯。当然，有区别。但对我来说，这也是一种实践的延续——在家里、现场、录音或户外。我们坐下来然后开始。我们追求的东西（一个孔隙？一个堵塞？）有时候是会让我们完全惊讶的东西，这可能会破坏我们“开始”演奏（在任何情况下）的事实。
Noah：就我们的现场演奏和录音演奏而言，我认为没有太大的区别。正如Luke所说，“我们坐下来然后开始。”这对我们现场演奏和录音演奏来说是准确的。我们没有（某种意义上的）什么心事，但这也让我们一直没有使用过之前录音项目里的任何录音。
朱：从你们之前的回答中，我感觉你们都是非常敏感和内向的人，对吗？在中国，这些年MBTI（16种性格测试）非常流行。你们知道自己属于哪种类型吗？
Luke：你可能是对的。我有一些朋友喜欢这些测试。但很抱歉，我不知道它说我是什么——尽管我相信我做过。音乐可能揭示了一些东西！
Noah：Luke和我都非常敏感，但我永远不会称Luke为内向！我刚刚为你做了测试（我以前做过），结果是ISFJ。如果我回忆之前做过的测试，结果也是一样的。
朱：所以你们在夏天写了这些作品（我猜可能是在一天之内？），但最终在冬天录音。你觉得这些作品在这几个月里有什么变化吗？如果录音发生在夏天，你认为它可能与当前版本有什么不同（除了我们可以想象的自然声音）？
Luke：不知何故，事后看来，冬天——还有Noah的地下室——似乎更适合这些作品所指的“堵塞”。但这也是我们生活变得忙碌的产物。偶然吧。也许，我会说，你与一部作品相处的时间越长，它就会越多地与你一起生长，或者你与它一起生长。但要更具体地回答，夏天录音与冬天录音只是部分改变了演奏的一般情况或环境。它打开了不同的路径去漫步。这些是重要的，甚至在某种程度上是必不可少的。但最终，我（我认为我们）追求的是那些不能被包含在这些情况中的空白，然而却发现自己不可能地被嵌入其中。这就是我的作曲中引用的薇依的部分，“学着听到沉默（learn to hear the silence）”。
Noah：我不知道这些作品实际上有什么变化，但我确实记得当我们再次尝试录音的时候，有了很多反思。那个夏天我住在城市外面，远离许多演奏音乐的好朋友（Luke是最重要的一个）。Luke在那个季节早些时候来访，然后整个季节我的生活发生了很大的变化。我们没有花很多时间研究这些作品，但从最初的创作到录音之间的间隔会让这些作品和它们如果在夏天时发生的版本有些不一样。