Water Songs, Documented. December, 2024.
The final project for the music seminar Entangled Sounding Objects asked me to synthesize my study of music in Kazakhstan. Intrigued by ideas of musical instruments as vessels for archival capability, my composition Water Songs, Documented records a river in Thetford, Vermont through naturally and intentionally produced sound. Featuring the saz syrnai, hammered dulcimer, and sounds of the river, this experimental composition is comprised of layered improvisations that create a dialogue between the performer and the environment. Through these layered recordings, a sonic map of the space emerges that traverses the striking connections between music, water, and human beings.
In parallel to this seminar, I participated in Professor Daukeyeva’s inaugural Central Asian Music Ensemble. Curious to learn the techniques of an instrument distinctly different from the piano or hammered dulcimer, I chose to focus on the saz syrnai – a clay ocarina with four to six holes traditionally used by Kazakh and Karakalpak pastoralists. I became immediately intrigued by its natural, wind-like sound. Slightly modernized, the saz syrnai I worked with had a modified mouthpiece and a clay body. As I began the process, it became clear that it would not be an easy instrument to learn; I had had little experience playing wind instruments and the saz syrnai is particularly temperamental. Because it is made entirely of clay, its tone and timbre shifts depending on the temperature and quality of the environment it is in. This required me to develop an active relationship with the instrument to learn how to best draw out its resonant sound. As I gained a better understanding of the saz syrnai, I warmed the clay before playing, tipped the body to produce clearer pitches, and internalized the fingerings required for the a minor scale.
The inspiration for this composition arose from course readings and discussions that explored the relationships between music and nature. I became deeply interested in the tangible connections between instruments and their environments. Specifically, I translated ideas presented in Musical Instrument as Sentient Being into the musical language of my composition. Tölegen Särsenbaev, a distinguished instrument maker in Kazakhstan, shares his perspective on the profound interconnectedness of instrument, performer, and the natural world: “Humans…consist of 80% water, and it is known that sound waves can change the direction of flowing water. It is believed that Kazakh baqsy shamans could manage water flows. When they played the qobyz on a river bank, water waves would part. If sound can influence water, then it can easily influence a human, he concluded”. I was moved by the idea that sound waves can impact human beings in the same way they can impact bodies of water. It became clear that these complex relationships would constitute the central exploration of my composition.
An additional source of inspiration was the text The Musical Instrument as National Archive: A Case Study of the Kazakh Qyl-qobyz by Megan Rancier. She presents the archival functions of musical instruments as “1) documentation of historical, social, musical, and emotional information, 2) accumulation of meanings, and 3) accessibility to those accumulated meanings for the purpose of (re)interpretation”. I found this presentation of archival function to be fascinating and decided to explore the idea of musical instruments, and sound more generally, as a mode of documentation. Specifically, instruments as vessels for the documentation of environmental and emotional information informed the creation of this work– I decided to devote time to documenting these distinct levels of information at the Thetford, VT branch of the Ompompanoosuc River.
