Vignettes of a Pixelated River Nos. 3 & 4
How does one set the River Thames to music? How can pixelation be a part of this process, informing musical narratives of the interaction between natural and manmade phenomena? These were the research questions that led to the Pixelating the River project, which began in May 2020. As a means of preparation for the full-length string quartet commissioned by TORCH, I split the map of the river into four equal sections, and decided to set each of these sections to music by means of solo pieces which more clearly showcased the means of translation from visual to aural. The result of this work was Vignettes of a Pixelated River, a series of pieces for each quartet instrument. The first was recorded by Peter Sheppard-Skærved in June 2020 and can be listened to here. Thanks to remaining funding made available by TORCH, Peter was recently able to record Nos. 3 and 4.
These pieces take the increasingly pixelated 3rd and 4th quarters of a map of the River Thames as a generator for musical material. Each piece centers on a glissando (continuous slide) which traces the shape of the river quarter, and this is replicated in the full quartet. Replication is a feature common to all four of these works and Pixelating the River, extending beyond these overtly ‘graphic’ gestures - other passages are transplanted into the quartet, heard as a kind of echo from their existence as solo pieces, now surrounded by the new context of the larger work (which has other musical processes at work, still related to pixelation). This creates a dialectic between two processes of pixelation, separated literally by musical time and ‘real’ time (the quartet was composed 2 months after these pieces). In general, this practice plays upon the larger idea of representation within pixelation, characterised typically by a narrative of obfuscation, to instead focus on how these four pieces come together to construct Pixelating the River itself. I encourage listeners to try and hear these echoes in the full quartet after listening to the solo pieces - what effects does this have on your listening experience? How does the referential nature between the two works inform your comprehension of the musical narrative?
If any readers of this post have any insights, feedback, or thoughts on this project, the solo pieces, or the full quartet, please feel free to email me at thomas.metcalf@worc.ox.ac.uk, as the input of audiences is vital to achieving a more coherent approach to my future postdoctoral work.
Figure 1. The pixelation of a portion of the River Thames used in 'Vignette No. 3'.
Figure 2. Bar 21 of 'Vignette 3'.
Figure 3. Bars 217-220 of 'Pixelating the River' (viola part).
Thomas Metcalf
DPhil in Music
Worcester College, Oxford
November 2021
Also see the 'Pixelating the River' project website, part of the TORCH Humanities Cultural Programme.
