I sing the body electric

The initial idea for this piece was inspired by the poetic physical relationship between Florentin Ginot and his double bass: the very special stage-presence of this »duo« compelled me to compose a musical dramaturgy exploring the physical tension between the instrumental body, the electric body and the musician’s body. Working with treatments that transform instrumental behaviours into synthetic sounds or, on the contrary, which preserve a humanised and organic feeling of the electronic material, I was intrigued by the possibility that Florentin Ginot could discover an unheard voice of his double bass. Together, through an extensive instrumental research, we discovered a way to create new acoustic relationships by detuning dynamically the strings of the double bass. The listener is guided through the search for a fragile balance, which results in a sensual and sensory relationship between the instrumental part and the electronics. The promises implied by the sonic and physical desires of the three bodies evolve, shaping a process of transformation, deformation, modulation, distortion, amplification and diffusion, which changes according to their relationship and to the actions operated by the musician directly on the body of the instrument. This sonic adventure is accompanied by the powerful poetic verses of Walt Whitman leading us into an organic space, where the three bodies become one.

Claudia Jane Scroccaro

 

 

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

[…]

Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,

Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,

Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,

Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,

Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,

Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,

Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,

Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,

Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,

Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,

Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,

Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,

Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,

Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;

[…]

The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,

Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,

Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,

The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,

The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,

The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,

The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out, […]

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,

O I say now these are the soul!

 

Walt Whitman