Resources

This page collects the various educational resource outputs of the project, for composers and performers.

Essentially, this differentiates between outputs of a specifically artistic nature (see the Music page here) and these  resources that are more didactic (which explicitly explain or walk-through the techniques used).

Also, there are some academic writings that came out of the project, linked below in the Writings section.

There's a playlist of the tutorial videos and example videos here.

Tutorial Videos:

• Tutorial 1: Resonance and Registers.
  • How any fingering on the clarinet can produce several single-pitches and multiphonics across the instrument's three registers.
    • Extra: underblown altissimo fingerings:
      • exploring 17 fingerings that all produce G6 to see the range of underblown components and multiphonics.
• Tutorial 2: Loading and Venting.
  • Exploring the consequences of altering fingerings by the techniques of loading (closing additional holes downstream of the main open hole) and venting (opening holes upstream of the main open hole)
  • Extra: Chalumeau venting catalogue video:
    • Heather plays through the venting possibilities for most of the chalumeau register. For fingerings from E3 to E4, sequentially opening (almost) all of the possible vents upstream, and also adding register key to each to show underblown chalumeau pitches. Later in the project we'll produce an exhaustive chart of pitches.

Example Videos

• Exploring Multiphonics #1
  • Two nearby fingerings are explored. Starting by isolating low pitches, then finding the most stable multiphonics, then progressively isolating middle and higher pitches and connecting those to multiphonics. Also exploring what happens when a change of fingering 'breaks' the resonance or requires a shift in playing technique (embouchure, breath-state etc)
• Deconstructing Multiphonics #1
  • Taking apart a single-fork multiphonic to see how the fingering generates those pitches: to the extent this is possible, low pitches are easy to derive, higher pitches less so.
• Deconstructing Multiphonics #2
  • Taking apart a more complex double-fork multiphonic, and suggesting two possible mechanisms for the prominent altissimo pitch.

Writings

• McLaughlin, Scott (2022), 'The Material Clarinet' (PDF) in Rethinking the Musical Instrument, ed. by Mine Doğantan-Dack, (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars)
  • Academic book chapter outlining the new approach to clarinet writing of the Garden of Forking Paths project.
• McLaughlin, Scott (2022), 'The Impossibility of Material Foundations' (PDF) in Sound Work: Composition as Critical Technical Practice, ed. by Jonathan Impett, (Ghent: Leuven University Press)
  • Academic book chapter framing my compositional practice in relation to Philip Agre's concept of "critical technical practice". Discussion of a work for prepared double bass, and clarinet pieces from Garden of Forking Paths.
• McLaughlin, Scott (2022), 'On Material Indeterminacy' in Contemporary Music Review (online: open access)
  • Academic journal article developed out of the Performing Indeterminacy conference in 2017. As such, most of this text was written in 2019 and before the Garden of Forking Paths project, but it provides useful explanation of the concepts underlying the project.

Research Talks and Workshops

• Royal Musical Association (RMA) Conference workshop 2020
  • 30 min talk providing overview of the project, and 60min workshop with pieces by Ed Cooper, Megan Steinberg, and José Carreno.
  • Additional video workshop of Heather and Scott discussing a new notation using half-hole technique.