29. October 2024

MICROTONAL POP SONGS

On November 23, we will present Lisa Streich’s new piece VOGUE at the WDR Funkhaus. We recorded this conversation with Lisa Streich and Hannah Weirich for our half-year brochure this summer.

HANNAH WEIRICH: DEAR LISA, IT’S SO GREAT THAT YOU’RE WRITING A PIECE FOR US. CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT IT?
Lisa Streich: Basically it’s “microtonal pop songs”. That’s what I call them, anyway. They’re simple songs that I write, complete with texts. They’re composed microtonally, arranged for instruments and harmonised.

DID MUSIKFABRIK INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE POP SONGS? WHERE DID YOU GET THAT IDEA FROM? I HAVEN’T HEARD OF YOU DOING SOMETHING LIKE THIS BEFORE.
I thought to myself: with Musikfabrik, I can do anything [laughs], and I have the feeling that I know them all at least a little bit, so hopefully I can do a good job of capturing their personalities.

WHAT ARE YOUR SONGS ABOUT?
Everything and nothing…typical pop music subjects. The texts seem to me to have some depth, but they’re very open, and taken from real life, although not my own.
A BOY WHO SINGS
A BOY WHO DREAMS
A BOY WHO DIES
A BOY WHO SELLS
A BOY WHO SPEAKS
A BOY WHO SEES
A TAILLURED MAN
ANOTHER CRA Z Y.

AN EMPTY STOMACH
A HEAV Y HEART
THE PERFECT PAIR
ON THAT SPECIAL DAY
HE KEPT IN HIS HAT
A UNIVERS OF DEMOLITION.

HE’S ASPHALTED BY DESTINY
HE EXHALES LOVE
AND INHALES TAR
WHO IS THIS BOY
WITH SAD CONSONANCES?

HE NOTICED HIS SHADOW
IS GREEN LIKE DISPAIR
GREEN LIKE FEAR
ABYSS AND OBLIVION
GREEN LIKE THE VIOL ATION OF RED
GREEN LIKE THE SL AP AND THE L AST OUTRAGE
GREEN LIKE THE BODY
HANGING ON HIS GALLOWS.

HIS HEART BECAME RED
RED LIKE PRIDE
RED LIKE BLOOD
RED LIKE PAIN AND SHAME
RED LIKE A LOBSTER
BL ACK LIKE A HUMMER
WE LOVE GOOD CONSCIOUS.

MY T WELVE YEAR OLD BOY
WAS NINE TIMES FUCKED
AND RED WAS SUCKING
THEIR APOCALYPSE FINGERS.

A BOY WHO SINGS
A BOY WHO DREAMS
A BOY WHO DIES
A BOY WHO SELLS
A BOY WHO SPEAKS
A BOY WHO SEES
A TAILLURED MAN
ANOTHER CRA Z Y.

SO WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT? DOES SOMEONE STAND UP, GO TO THE MIDDLE AND SING?
L: No, not quite like that. There will be various different scenes on stage, and always a soloist, who sings together with their instrument. There’s no single lead singer, but instead, everyone is linked to their instrument. And then there’s the ‘band’ behind them. There isn’t just one song, but sometimes two or three at once. There are various layers of songs.

SOUNDS EXCITING! YOU OFTEN USE PRE-EXISTING HARMONIC SEQUENCES. WILL YOU DO THAT HERE TOO?
Exactly. I’m using my chord catalogue.

YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO EXPLAIN THAT TO ME.
It’s a catalogue that will be published in book form this summer. It consists of moments from youtube: recordings of amateur choirs who sing a bit out of tune, so I hear major and minor chords, thirds, sixths, as though I’m hearing them for the first time. The expression is even more intense because it doesn’t sound like what I’m used to. At the same time I can recognize both a minor third and the expression of a minor third.

SO IN THE NEW PIECE THERE AREN’T ANY EXTENDED HARMONIC SEQUENCES THAT YOU’VE IMPORTED FROM ELSEWHERE? IN ‘SAI BALLARE?’, FOR EXAMPLE, THERE WAS AN EXCERPT FROM A HAYDN TRIO IN AN EXTREMELY SLOW TEMPO. INSTEAD IT WILL BE MORE A MATTER OF SINGLE HARMONIES…
…that I reassemble, exactly. And I have catalogued these harmonies according to various ‘expressions’ of my own, such as GLORIA, LES BAINS, LYS, REMEMORY, GEBET [prayer], APFELSINE [orange],
GOD WAS NOT A FEMINIST, and many others.

WHERE DO THESE SUBJECTS COME FROM?
The catalogue comes from various pieces I’ve written where I was looking for exactly these kinds of expression. And now I can go back to them. But I’m still collecting.

DO YOU HAVE THE SOUND OF THE CHORDS IN YOUR EAR OR DO YOU HAVE TO KEEP REFRESHING YOUR MEMORY BY HEARING THEM AGAIN?
By now I have almost all the chords in my head. They’re my treasures, my chocolate box, or maybe they’re a cupboard full of perfumes. [laughs]

WHEN YOU’RE COMPOSING, IS IT HELPFUL FOR YOU TO KNOW WHICH MUSICIANS ARE PLAYING? DO YOU WRITE FOR SPECIFIC PEOPLE?
Yes, that’s a big influence, especially for this project. It’s absolutely crucial who gets what song. For example, I can hardly imagine. Florentin’s song being sung by anyone else from the ensemble.

ARE THERE EXTRA-MUSICAL THEMES THAT FIND THEIR WAY INTO YOUR SONGS?
Yes, my ‘expressions’ are closely connected to my life. They reflect, for example, experiences, the reception of texts, artworks, the influence of friends…

ARE THERE PARTICULAR THEMES YOU WOULD LIKE TO MENTION?
No, I would rather leave it abstract. ‘Orange’ for example stands for challenging, radiant sounds that are nonetheless a bit sour. I’ve also written a poem for each expression. Here, for example, for ZUCKER [SUGAR]:
EMPTY EVERYDAY
HEAVENLY HAPPINESS
LIEBLING [DARLING]
HABIBI

YOU OFTEN MAKE USE OF THEATRICAL OR VISUAL EFFECTS IN YOUR MUSIC. ARE THESE ELEMENTS IN YOUR NEW PIECE AS WELL?
There will certainly be choreographic elements. I want to create duos that follow a choreography together, or influence each other in their playing. But that’s not fixed yet. The central point of it will be that I want to feel the electronic character of pop songs while mostly using traditional instruments. There will be one or two synthesisers at most, but otherwise it will just be acoustic instruments. I’m very curious how that will blend, or whether it will blend at all. That might be the biggest challenge, or maybe even the nicest moment, if it doesn’t ‘work’. Or if it only just works, just to
the point where you start to enjoy this hybrid situation.

YOU LIKE TO USE VERY UNUSUAL BOW SPEEDS FOR THE STRINGS, EXTREMELY SLOW OR EXTREMELY FAST, WHICH BRINGS OUT A VERY PARTICULAR KIND OF TONAL BEAUTY—FOR EXAMPLE, BOWING AT A BARELY PERCEPTIBLE SPEED, WHICH DOESN’T CORRESPOND AT ALL TO CLASSICAL IDEALS OF A BEAUTIFUL SOUND. BUT WHEN I LET MYSELF BE OPEN TO IT, I FIND IT INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL, POETIC, MUCH MORE COLOURFUL THAN A NORMAL ‘BEAUTIFUL’ SOUND. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THIS? WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO DO IT?
I think it all started with me wanting normal major and minor sounds in my music. [laughs] When the bow moves incredibly slowly, that then gives rise to other, somehow ‘dusty’ chords. And then came the choreographic aspect. With string instruments, I always see winged creatures. I see the music stand as the feet of a bird, and the arm of the player becomes the wing. It’s a complete object that I’ve always seen when the strings are playing. On top of all that, I also use bow speed to bring in a certain kind of imperfection. To incorporate the fact that one is never totally in control of the piece and that it can be shaped in the moment.

IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, YOU’VE WRITTEN FOR ALL POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS, FROM SOLO INSTRUMENTS TO CHAMBER MUSIC TO FULL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. WHAT’S SPECIAL FOR
YOU ABOUT THE ENSEMBLE SETUP?
Large ensemble is fascinating because it can be soloistic and at the same time sound like an orchestra. So you really have the whole spectrum, and that’s particularly challenging. With an orchestra you can (and must) write more simply, and at the same time you get a lot of things as a bonus. With chamber music you can (and must) write with more differentiation. A large ensemble lets you shift between these two worlds.

WHAT YOU YOU MOST LIKE TO WRITE FOR?
Orchestra. Big. The more the merrier. More is more.

[LAUGHS] WHY?
It’s because of the chords. They have up to 32 parts. And to convey the full structure of these chords, more players are better. Some notes stick out, some are loud, some are in pppp, for example. And that’s incredibly hard to balance when you only have 16 musicians. Everyone interprets mezzo-piano differently, so it’s incredibly easy with smaller formations for the chord to turn into something else. Bigger groups just give you a certain safety margin. There you can give the prominent note to ten players and everyone plays in the same dynamic, but despite that the notes are louder because more people are playing them.

SO YOU DON’T JUST ANALYSE THE HARMONIES OF THE CHORDS, BUT ALSO THE BALANCE BETWEEN THE NOTES?
Yes, I also reinforce partials in the spectrum, which for me makes an enormous amount of expression possible.

HOW DID YOU DISCOVER THESE AMATEUR CHOIRS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
I’ve always listened to a lot of music. And when I lived in Rome in 2016-17, I got to a point where I suddenly didn’t feel anything any more. I wanted to find really new music, that brings joy, that makes you feel alive. And then I stumbled on these choirs in youtube. And it really was as though I was three years old again and heard Mozart for the first time, and got to experience these simple harmonies for the first time. And since then I’ve been seeking out and collecting these moments.

WHAT KINDS OF MUSIC DO YOU LIKE TO LISTEN TO?
Everything. I love classical, early music, but also pop and hip-hop. My daughter has discovered K-Pop. That’s completely new for me. It’s similar, but completely different in expression. Most of all in the texts. It’s so exciting to see what kinds of feelings there are in this world and what differences there are alongside the parallels.

DOES WHAT YOU’RE LISTENING TO INFLUENCE WHAT YOU WRITE?
There are moments when I’m completely in love with certain pieces, and then it’s hard not to engage with that to some extent. Because at that moment I feel that there’s nothing better than this one particular piece. And I have to incorporate this love, this piece, even if it ends up being completely unrecognisable.

WHEN DID YOU START COMPOSING?
I first wrote something at 14, but I threw it out straight away, because I thought being a composer was for men, you can’t become a composer as a woman.

WHAT MADE YOU START COMPOSING?
Loving music. But I had never seen a piece written by a woman. In my world, something like that didn’t exist.

SO THEN WHAT HAPPENED?
Then, when I was 18 or 19 years old, I moved to Berlin, and there I heard a piece by Rebecca Saunders. And then I realised that a woman can be a composer. And that all came together with the fact that I wanted so much to make music, all my life, but absolutely didn’t want to be on the stage.

AND THEN IT WAS CLEAR THAT YOU WANTED TO BE A COMPOSER?
Yes! I think it’s great that you can make music without having to make an entrance and stand up there on the stage. [both laugh]

HOW LUCKY FOR US! MANY THANKS FOR THE INTERVIEW—WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR NEW PIECE!

June, 2024

©Ricordi_Harald Hoffmann