Sigil Music is a piece for eight performers – eight friends of mine. My objective was to create music that could only played by the specific people – music that was about them and therefore not allowing any space for judgement of interpretation and pointless elitist performance practice commentary.
The process of creating the piece started by interviewing each individual. I found out about their taste in music, literature and cinema and talked to them about their dreams. Having collected this pool of information I was able to start creating the music.
STAGE I
Each performer gets a a piece written for them as a gift. The information from the interviews in addition to my relationship with them are factors that influence my compositional decision-making.
Before I start the piece I also write down a benign desire that I have for them (like in the first stage of making a sigil).
STAGE II
This is the stage of my musical composition. This involves translating all of the information into sounds as well as encrypting my desire for them. We will look into musical encryption in further blogs.
STAGE III
Now we have the finished piece from the composer’s behalf. In every case this is different because not all pieces are notated. The pieces are presented to the performers in the way that would create the most fruitful outcome, because everyone has very different musical background. In some cases I worked closer with the performer in a more collaborative/improvisatory manner and in others I made demos on Logic. This stage could be seen as the finished Sigil.
STAGE IV
This will be the charging of the sigil. The work the performer puts into the piece in order for it to manifest. The practice for their performance of the sounds.
STAGE V
By far the most complicated and exciting stage.
So far everything seems pretty orthodox in the context of western classical compositional method. However, in this stage all pieces are sacrificed, just like a sigil is destroyed in order for it to be forgotten and to become subconscious so it can manifest in the physical world. How this happens practically: Lets follow the journey of the piece written for performer X. The piece is written, practiced and recorded. In a workshop enviroment with all the performers apart from performer X, everyone listens to the recording through headphones and ‘interprets’ it. In the workshop me and the performers discuss the brief of every what every ‘interpretation’ will be in order to find a common one we are all happy with. For example: Mimic the performers breaths on your instrument, whistle your harmonisation of the ongoing line, create your own accompaniment on a toy instrument, disrupt all the sillent moments of the piece with a scream. X hears the interpreted version for the first time in the performance. And so on for every person.
Basically, we create a group improvisation based on a piece of music that the audience never hears. The work of the composer and the performer are sacrificed along with their ego and they are replaced by the ritualisation of a musical egregore. My work becomes an occult fiction which is an equal part of the improvisation as every single performer’s interpretation.
Sigil Music 