Pete Harden is componist en gitarist en een van de oprichters van Ensemble Klang. Hij studeerde compositie in Den Haag bij Louis Andriessen. Van hem wordt in de Nederlandse Muziekdagen het orkestwerk Vocabulary Pieces in premiere gebracht. Het Muziekplein stelde hem Vier Vragen...

1. Your orchestra piece, Vocabulary Pieces, has been influenced by a movement in the arts called Information Aesthetics. Can you say something about what that is and how you came to apply its ideas yourself?

Vocabulary Pieces is my second in a series of three Information Aesthetics works examining the Netherlands through auralizing data and statistics. Information Aesthetics explores the beauty of data and its representation. One of my main interests is informing a musical structure with the purity of form which stems from the fundamental truth of data. Hopefully those forms are also something unexpected, something that I would not have turned to if I was working intuitively. The work leads a dual life: from one angle it exists as a standalone piece of music; from the other side it can be seen as an elegant and efficient presentation and communication of information.

Vocabulary Pieces is constructed of eight short movements which examine three topics: Newspaper Headlines, Grammar and Swearing. It covers data on the use of the Dutch language in its written form (newspapers, children's books, novels and internet blogs), in historical or traditional texts, and in the spoken word.

The smallest movements are the Headlines, about 10 seconds each, which literally form headers for the larger movements. From an analysis of a single day's media in August I calculated for each newspaper: the average number of words per headline; the average length of each word; and the average number of syllables per word. Pairing this information with the most commonly used words in each paper I could come up with 'average' (nonsense) headlines:

Metro: "NO(G) WEINIG GEBEURT IN RECESSIE"

De Telegraaf: "CIJFERS VOOR KAMPIOEN WEG"

NRC Handelsblad: "VAN POLITICUS NAAR EEN VEROORDEELDE (B)IJ"


Musically, these headlines are presented with the instruments counting off the letters and words, creating pieces like twisted news show theme tunes.

The 2 Grammar movements map linguistic syntax onto tonal music syntax ('parts of speech' on to 'chords of the diatonic scale') - it transforms written texts into Bach-like chorales. And the 3 Swearing movements depict data relating to 'How' Dutch people swear, 'Which' Dutch people swear, and 'When' Dutch people swear.

The final Swearing movement 'When' takes us online. It displays the frequency of swearing once we are cloaked in the (relative) anonymity of the internet. It takes 20 people's Twitter blogs, and shows that even when restricted to 140 characters we still heavily rely on swearing as a powerful and colourful means of communication. The violins play regular 16th notes, each representing one word in each of those blogs. and every time one of those words is a swear word we hear an 'attention-grabbing' sound from the orchestra. Each blog is assigned a different sound/gesture associated with getting people's attention (one of swearing's many roles): from car horns to police whistles, cymbal crashes to brass hit chords. The movement is full of white-note clusters, and along with the comedic element in some of the sounds (swearing is also frequently used for comedy effect) it tries to depict the sort of joyous childish revelry gained from using swear words for the first time.

2. Vocabulary Piecesis based on information taken from the use of the Dutch language. Has composing this piece somehow influenced how you hear and understand Dutch?

It revealed to me that there are many more differences between Dutch and my own mother-tongue English than I previously thought. For example, in English the longer the word the more obscure the word is considered, so you find in tabloid newspapers a predominant use of shorter words. But there isn't that thing of 'longer words are more intelligent than shorter words' in Dutch because you construct words differently, simply by sticking shorter words together. You're a nation of architects and builders even in your language!

3. You have studied at The Hague with Louis Andriessen, which gives you a direct connection to The Hague School, which is often internationally understood to define Dutchness in contemporary music. Do you feel there is a relation between what you hear in Dutch music and the Dutch language?

I see a clear relationship between the Dutch landscape and Dutch music: flat surfaces with movement within; strong horizontals punctuated by big verticals. It's entirely different to the 'lyricism' of England's rolling hills (nothing too extreme, not too tonal, not too dissonant, not too loud, not too quiet) or the sheer beauty and endlessness of France's landscape (dreamy worlds in which you can literally get lost). Well, I'm talking about landscape because they are the subject for my next piece! But I suppose the relationship between the Dutch language and its music is also present: you're pushing me in to talking about hard consonants and an aural brutality?!!

4. Can you finish these sentences?

Music is like language because... it's all about singing! [The nice thing about the technique I used in the /Grammar/ movements of 'Vocabulary Pieces' is that in transforming texts into music you are gifted a phrase structure that has an intuitive pleasure to it. Obviously it comes from the fact that much of our music is built on phrases that last as long one breath.]

Music is unlike language because... it doesn't have to be about singing! [Music doesn't have to be about breathing or about people at all!]

Vocabulary Pieces van Pete Harden wordt uitgevoerd in het concert van de Radio Kamer Filharmonie onder leiding van Micha Hamel in het Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ op 10 oktober om 20:15.