Maja Bosnic on her piece “\com.app.data”
Read my interview with Belgrade-based composer Maja Bosnic on her piece “\com.app.data”. It is a dynamic piece designed for musicians and phone apps. The composition utilizes free smartphone apps, integrating them into the performance to shape musical material, respond to live sounds, generate and manipulate sounds, guide musicians, record live performances, and apply effects during playback. All the apps used in the piece are readily available for free download on both the Google Play store and the Apple store and one can find all their download links here. Text version of this interview ws prepard by Estere Bundzēna.
Can you give some history of the piece?
It was commissioned by Vladimir Blagojević (accordion) and Saša Mirković (viola) who premiered it at the TIMSONIA festival in Timisoara in November 2018. The initial idea for the piece was to have musicians use free apps and somehow employ the possibilities the apps provide, while also performing with their instruments. It can be categorized as a piece with gadgets and DIY live electronics since they are performing with smartphones and live app sounds, next to their music instruments. I like to think of it as a mix of worlds: concert, stage, music, and humans on smartphones.
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What is the main message of the piece?
That is always a complicated question. I prefer to say that I am opening questions, not stating a message. I question what we could do more and how playful and creative everyday life can be if you use your imagination and devote some time to it. There may be an artist or a performer in the audience and their first questions would be why phones are on the stage and why the apps are creating the music, next to instruments, now. Is that even an appropriate behavior? But that is what I really like to do. I often like to show beauty and art in things we take for granted, things that are a part of our lives. Hence, the use of smartphones is fused with the art and craft of musicians in this live art performance. And I hope it doesn’t echo as a superficial provoking of a high-art academic scene. My main drive is to expand our world of whatever we consider sound, music, stage, performance, and materials. I approached working with apps very seriously and spent a couple of months researching all the available apps and selecting what could be used. Certain samples from the apps have been transcribed into the score that musicians are playing. It is completely controlled and scored, depending on what app and what settings are used. All of these strange and exciting sounds make an interesting twist in the overall soundscape of the piece. I feel like I studied new music instruments or sound resources, which apps really do end up being used for in this work.
Watch \com.app.data:
What role do these apps take in your piece?
I use them as ready-made objects that I fuse into my own pieces. They do different things, sometimes they are purely just decoration, and sometimes they are the main source of the material. They start off as just a decorative element on stage, producing live colorful strobe lights at musicians’ sounds in the beginning. After a while the apps start playing sound samples which makes you realize that musicians have been playing them in their own way all the while, so they have already been introduced and now they are emphasized with their original sounds from the apps. It is a mixture of the actual sounds from phones as well as musicians transcribing and copying them. Then some apps conduct musicians, such as graphically animated breathing coaches or kegel muscle workouts. Then there are recording apps that record the entire ensemble, and later each person plays the recording with different filters, alterations, and voices. In the end, you have a big mixture of all these recordings played back at the same time with different filters, that seems like a game. All these apps represent a part of everyday life today. Some are used for health, like breathing or kegel exercises. Some provide fun, like the sample collection from popular media, funny recordings, or video games. I insisted on using apps that are free so that anyone in the audience can also try them out if they want to.
What is the score of your piece?
The score is created with icons and textual signs in a table. There are four parts and it can be performed by at least a duo and up to whatever number of musicians you have. The ensemble follows the lines and reads the icons in real-time and sometimes they are performing together, sometimes they are spread apart. The initial score offers nine sound samples that the musicians can arrange themselves and learn by heart. The musicians can download the app, listen to the sounds, and come up with their own transcription, interpretation, or imitation of these nine sounds that apps produce. I like this workshop setting of pre-rehearsal preparation, as well as giving validation to musicians to show off their unique ideas and arrangements. Therefore, interpretations of this work can be very different from one ensemble to the other, so every performance is a semi-premiere.
What are the main parts of this piece?
The piece starts with musicians performing the set of sounds. Sometimes it is not so clear what kind of sounds and samples are produced. Slowly, after some time, you get to hear the first sound from the app and realize that everything you have been hearing was some sort of arrangement of these app sounds. Gradually app sounds take over.
The ending of the first part is when the ensemble starts to mix the use of different apps. For example, one group of performers starts playing a video game, and the other plays the breathing coach app. It can be quite random because not all apps start at the same time, so it becomes really interesting. I feel when it is not synchronized, it creates two layers of parallel environments.
The second part is conducted by one musician’s app that everyone is listening and reacting to while following the kegel exercises workout. The musicians produce sounds when the app is dictating them to squeeze and the length of every sound is directed by this predesigned workout. There is also a treadmill app, which creates wonderful sounds of machinery. Again, it creates a mix of noises from actual acoustic instruments, as well as phone speakers.
The third part is recording. One section of musicians use a Play Backwards app and the other section of musicians use a Voice Changer app. The first group records the white noises and then plays them backward. After that, the rest of the ensemble records certain sets of synchronized jingles they perform live, together. After about a minute each plays their own recordings from their phones with different filters, and these different types of recordings are replayed simultaneously in the final part.
The fourth part consists of these simultaneous but different playbacks and also the musicians performing the score on top of them. This keeps on building up the overall noise before it slowly dies off, while we wait for the ending in silence. The ending is a “Ta-da” sample from one of the apps.
What is the viewer experience you want to achieve?
It depends because the performance can be both: only auditory or auditory and visual. My main source of expression is sound, so when I am working with these apps, my main priority is for the piece to work without the videos. In that case, you are more focused on recognizing the layers and mixtures of app samples and the actual instruments. However, when we also manage to project all our apps on the screen, the audience gets to see what happens in every musician’s phone. It is more playful and explanatory than the one without the visuals. The visuals transform the performance into an open play, an open score. It becomes transparent and shows that everyone belongs here, not just trained musicians who are on stage, but everyone with free apps on their phones.
What kind of apps do you use?
There is a total of nine apps, but the majority of them are not really related to music. You can actually find a list along with download links on my website https://majabosnic.net/com.app.data/. There are apps such as a breathing coach, a video game, kegel exercises, a treadmill, and finger exercises that are not tailored for musical acts. However, this one intriguing app is called the 100 Sound Buttons app. It has all sorts of icons and sound samples inside. I am not entirely sure if it is meant to be musical, but for someone like me who is really into sounds of all kinds, it is quite a fascinating resource, that kids can also use. It has got everything from applause to fireworks and even sounds of things like whales and chewing an apple. It is a mixture of sound buttons that people can play with for whatever purpose they want. It may not be the conventional definition of a musical app since it is not an instrument (and there are those on the market, as well), but for me, it is almost like having an instrument because it gives me a sound sampler.
Then there are the two recording apps, which I use for fun. It makes me think about how interesting the entire app market is, and how every product has to be captivating or funny. But these apps do not seem to be even made for musicians, even though recording is a part of the process. Play Backwards app is more for people who want to hear themselves speaking backward, and the Voice Changer With Effects app is also not meant for singing but rather for speaking, I assume. I use them in this work for recording and replaying musical parts so that we can also hear instruments being filtered through sounds, such as monsters, squirrels, or anything else. While these apps are not designed for music, I am trying to prove that they can be used in different ways, including as musical material.
What was the process of composing this piece?
I already had experience of using phones and apps in another piece, but I wanted to explore it further more. I wanted to commit to an even deeper and thorough approach, so my first idea was to see how much of the app world I could utilize in a musical performance. So the first step was to research the apps available. I could have made my own, but the main idea was to use the free apps that anyone could download and access. If they are available for anyone then the audience can go and experiment with them on their own. I tried the apps, categorized them, and ended up with many that did different things. Some are purely visual, and some play sounds, record and edit them. I ended up selecting 9 apps. I thought and imagined the sounds, made mockups, experimented with how they worked together and thought about how to mix them into more complex textures. I spent about two months researching the apps and making my selection. The piece changed throughout many performances. In all performances so far of this work, I was very involved and ready to collaborate and experiment. Besides, every time I need to check if the apps are still available or if they have been updated. I also occasionally have to revisit the score if one of the apps has to be replaced with a new version on the market.
What was the trigger for changing the piece?
During the composing process, I always make mock-ups. These are just recordings of how I envision my perfect piece. I use DAW software to make a complete simulation of the final result of the piece before I make a score. So, even though there are apps and buttons, nothing is improvised, everything is scored, so musicians needed to practice switching from one page of the sound buttons to another. In that sense, it was quite traditionally musically scored, but we tried out some new sections and elaborated a bit more. At some point, we gave up on it, because the setting was also changing. In the first performance, there was a duo with two smartphones on the note stands. And they turned their backs to the audience so the audience could also see their phones. Then once, Simon Løffler asked me why smartphones are not instruments on their own, which inspired me and I ended up asking for smartphone holders to be taped on microphone stands, so now they do become special entities on stage. There are always things that need to be adapted either to the venue or the musicians, but all that is always interesting. With apps constantly updating and changing, together with smartphone usage, this piece will have to remain the “ever-changing piece…” as subtitle states.
How did the collaboration with different musicians impact the piece?
I would like to think they feel they had a lot of space to input their own selves in the process. When I was rehearsing this piece with my ensemble in 2019, we needed many rehearsals, because it was a big shift for what they were used to. It was not just reading the score, but more like a mind game where they had to memorize icons and the sounds, so it was challenging.
In chamber music, you are not focused only on your own part. You always think outside of it and if the overall sounds work together, if it makes sense. You think about the sound the ensemble makes as a whole. In this piece, everyone gets a lot of space and is encouraged to come up with more ideas and ways of creating sounds and samples, despite, sometimes already having an arrangement, as well. We try out the new ideas, record them, and then listen to them together. So there is a lot of experimenting and I think musicians feel a bit more mentally free. They use their own mind and extract the essence of what I wrote, but also give it their own signature.
What kind of hardware do you use?
Aside from apps, we have to connect every smartphone to a Bluetooth speaker. We always make sure that the speakers are as loud as the ensemble so that they are equally leveled. We also have a video projector. There is always a tech person who helps with projecting the phones live on screen. There are always at least 4 phones projected, even if more people are playing. The phones are also specially prepared for the performance, considering screen lock regimes and brightness. We need to have a black wallpaper and make sure to have a screen with just the icons of necessary apps. The funny thing with the free apps is that there are always ads popping up and that also makes it special and interesting.
What kind of software do you use?
I used to use Logic to do my mock-ups and create audio and digital simulations — the pre-makes and remakes of the piece. Now I use Ableton Live. Then I do my own recordings of my personal second-hand instruments that I have. Or I create samples in Ableton or even borrow sounds from online videos. I just create my informal collage, a simulation of the final piece, before I do the score.
What compositional principles do you have?
I feel like there are a lot of game elements and even though everything is scored, there is still a lot of place for random unplanned events. It is like a tiny layer of a veil of aleatoric possibilities, so certain amounts of things can happen in different ways. In this piece, there is a freedom of interpretation, even with the written score. I am always very open to spontaneous decisions, so if you come up with something that you are sure of and want to try, then go for it.
Can you imagine the piece without the apps?
No, they are the core element. I can imagine it performed with just the apps, without the instruments but not the other way around. In that case, you would have four or maybe even two musicians who would simply play the samples. Again, the sounds would slowly grow from random into something more organized. Then, with the kegel exercises, we would have a minute of listening to different moments of silence in between. In the recording part, something would have to be recorded or pre-recorded, maybe taken from the audience and then replayed until the end. I can imagine that happening, but I prefer it the way it is now because this way it presents a wholesome experience, for myself, at least. I can also imagine the piece with the apps and without musicians, but it would definitely not be as interesting.
What have you learned during the process of composing the piece and what advice would you give to someone also interested in apps?
There will always be some kind of technical issues. From experience, the most difficult phones to work with were iPhones. There are also fewer apps available for iOS than Android, so we had to find alternatives that would work for both or were at least similar. Another issue with iPhones was some kind of security ban where certain apps would not play through the Bluetooth speakers because it required a lot of developer permissions inside the phones. Sometimes, because of the phones musicians are using, we have to change who is reading which line. The second thing is that even though this piece is scored under the real timeline, I try not to do it with a stopwatch because as soon as everybody learns the samples, they create their own flow by which they can run together through the piece. The last thing is, obviously, to do your research and make sure you know what the apps really do and how they do it. Of course, the score should be detailed, with all of the instructions about how to prepare, what to do, how to set up your phone, and what to take care of when performing. Nevertheless, I spontaneously ended up making a 25-minute video tutorial for pre-preparation for this piece, and that helped a lot.
*One year after this interview I had to rewrite this piece for only iPhones and apps that work on them, so even the main sound materials had to completely change. I think it worked out great and I still consider it the same piece that is just ever-changing.
Photo from the piece:
Maja Bosnić is a composer and performer, based in Belgrade. She is drawn to impossible missions, absurd solutions, limited material, playfulness, uncertain outcomes, audience participation, treating instruments as ready-made objects of expression, and treating real-life objects as musical instruments. She obtained a PhD degree in music composition at Goldsmiths, University of London (UK), supervised by prof. Roger Redgate, and is currently working as an Assistant Lecturer in Composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. She writes pieces for solo, chamber, ensemble, and orchestra performances, as well as, projects for electronics, multimedia, and interactive settings with audience participation.
Bosnić’s works have been performed in festivals, such as Musikprotokoll, Impuls (Austria), CTM Festival, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Festival Jünger Kunstler Bayreuth (Germany), IYAF in Kingston upon Thames, London Composers Forum (United Kingdom), Spazio Musica (Italy), Delian Academy of New Music (Greece), Sites + Subjects (Bulgaria), Timsonia Festival (Romania), Music Here and Now, KOMA, International Review of Composers, April Meetings, and S.U.T.R.A. Festival (Serbia).
