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Caroline Shaw's

Partita for 8 Voices

CAROLINE SHAW

CAROLINE SHAW

Born 1982 in Greenville, North Carolina

Composer, Singer, Violinist

EDUCATION

EDUCATION

  • She received her Bachelor of Music (violin performance) from Rice University in 2004
  • In 2007, she received her Masters Degree (violin) from Yale University
  • She entered the PhD program in 2010 at Princeton University for composition

Started Composing at Age 10

Teaches at NYU and Julliard

Yale University

2007

1992

Currently...

2010

1982

2004

Princeton University

Birth: North Carolina

Rice University

COMPOSITIONAL CAREER

COMPOSITIONAL CAREER

  • Living in New York City, Shaw was a freelance musician playing violin for the Contemporary Music Ensemble and singing as an alto in the Trinity Choir and Roomful of Teeth
  • She also composed for a percussion group So Percussion although this output was largely unnoticed until she gained popularity for her Partita

  • While at Princeton, Shaw finished composing the Partita for 8 Voices for which she won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for composition
  • She was the youngest composer ever to win this award (age 30)
  • It also won a Grammy in 2012
  • It was written for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth

  • Recently, she has commissioned works for a variety of artists from Renee Fleming, the Seattle Symphony, Juliard 415, the Dover Quartet and many more. She has also composed film music and produced pop music for artists like Kanye West.

  • Despite all of the attention she has received for her compositions, she considers herself more of a musician than a composer.

ROOMFUL OF TEETH

ROOMFUL OF TEETH

  • Vocal band of 8 singers
  • Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, artistic director
  • 2009: The band was in residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), which kick-started their career as they began to explore the human voice and study with a variety of experts in various styles of singing/music-making.
  • Caroline Shaw, alto, wrote the Partita for 8 Voices for this ensemble.
  • On their website, they provide this statement:

"By engaging collaboratively with artists, thinkers, and community leaders from around the world, we seek to uplift and amplify voices old and new while creating and performing meaningful and adventurous music."

PARTITA

FOR 8 VOICES

PARTITA FOR 8 VOICES

  • 8 voices a capella intended SSAATTBB. The score states that in Roomful of Teeth's performance, "The top two and bottom two voices are specialists in the extreme upper and lower ranges. The middle four tend to be wide-ranging and fexible — or in soccer terms, sweepers."
  • Four movements named for Baroque dances
  • Allemande
  • Sarabande
  • Courante
  • Passacaglia
  • Shaw's Partita follows a different order than the typical Baroque suite. The courante and sarabande are normally switched. It also includes the Passacaglia which is a Baroque form, just not typically seen in a partita.
  • Composed between 2009-2011, out of order
  • About 25 minutes total duration
  • Written for Roomful of Teeth around the time of their residency at MASS MoCA. Here, Shaw encountered and was inspired by Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing 305.
  • It was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Composition

INFLUENCES

Shaw claims three major inspirations for this work, which pulls text from five sources, and uses a variety of extended vocal techniques.

INFLUENCES

INSPIRATIONS

INSPIRATIONS

Inspiration #1

Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. II in D minor

Inspiration #2

Bustling, chaotic urban environments

Inspiration #3

Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing 305

1. New York City

2. North Adams, Massachusetts

These locations, with their busyess and their fusion of old and new styles inspired Shaw to take all of the stimuli she was experiencing and try to organize/encapsulate it.

Sol LeWitt's artwork is a set of instructions for placing 100 points on a wall. As artists place points, they write a description (based on LeWitt's instructions) as to how they arrived at that place. More on this in the planet topic of this bubble!

As a violinist, Shaw was very familiar with Bach's work. She loved his Partita No. II in D minor and played it on her Senior Recital at Rice University. She liked how it was simple, yet pushed the boundaries of tradition.Her Partita parallels Bach's in multiple ways. Here are 2 examples:

1. Bach ends his Partita with a chaconne instead of a typical gigue. Shaw ends hers with a passacaglia.

2. Bach's Partita drew on influences from Italy, France, and Germany. Shaw looked beyond Western singing traditions to include vocal techniques like Inuit throat singing, yodeling, Gregorian pitch stretching, and more.

More on Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing 305

Shaw saw this drawing when she was at MASS MoCA and was inspired by how it attempted to give some structure to random, seemingly chaotic points on a wall. Not only does she quote some of his instructional texts in her composition, but she tries to reflect his process in her Partita- to organize chaos. An example of this can be seen in "Allemande" as she begins writing overlapping, spoken text for the 8 performers which develops into an organized, homophonic harmony.

More on Sol LeWitt's artwork

TEXT SOURCES

TEXT SOURCES

LeWitt's Wall Drawings

1

Example: m. 9 "through the mid-point of the line drawn from the left side" (Drawing 104)

Square Dance Calls/Instructions

2

Example: m.1, "to the side and around through the middle and to the side".

IPA Vowel Sounds

3

Example: m.14-30 [a] [o] [ ]These vowel changes result in desired changes in tone color.

T.S. Eliot's "Burnt Norton", a line that became a hashtag on Twitter by a band Shaw liked called Pattern is Movement

4

Example: m. 55 "#thedetailofthepatternismovement"

Shaw says this line inspired her to listen to find details/patterns in things and to listen more carefully to her surroundings.

Original/"Found" Texts by Shaw

5

Examples: m.63 "Find a way" and m.66 "Fall away". This text was influenced by stimuli Shaw encountered on a daily basis in a bustling city, in the modern world, on the internet, etc.

EXTENDED VOCAL TECHNIQUES

EXTENDED VOCAL TECHNIQUES

While in residency at MASS MoCA, Roomful of Teeth studied with performers and teachers experienced in styles and techniques beyond Western traditions. Just as a Baroque dance suite may have used ornamentation for emphasis and style, Shaw incorporated these techniques into Partita for 8 Voices. See chart below for some examples in "I. Allemande" and zoom on pictures to the left for notes on Shaw's notation of these styles.

Brief Description

Technique

Measure/Voice(s)

Inuit throat singing

Based on throat singing games. Emphasis on inhalation and exhalation. Use of voiced and unvoiced sounds. Gutteral.

m.34

Voices 1,2,3,4

m.67

Voice 1, 2

Korean P'ansori

Expressive, "harsher" tone quality, tense vocal folds

Time

Tuvan practices:

xöömei, kargyraa, sygyt

Overtones/throat singing. More on each practice here: http://www.fotuva.org/music/emory.html

Item

m.102 (xöömei)

Voices 5,6,7,8

m. 20

Voices 1-8

Gregorian pitch stretching

Free,Gregorian chant intonation, pitches stretched in ascending/descending directions.

m.25

Voices 2, 3, 4

Yodeling

Exaggerated register breaks (head voice vs. chest voice)

I. ALLEMANDE

Of all 4 movements, this was written last although it is to be the first performed in the work. Shaw was able to use it to introduce the content/techniques used thorughout the entire Partita. It is the only movement that uses all extended vocal techniques used throughout the work in one movement.

ALLEMANDE

DANCE

FORM

ALLEMANDE DANCE FORM

  • Shaw sets her "Allemande" in 4/4, which is typical of many Baroque dance suite allemandes.
  • Allemandes are usually in binary form with repeated sections- Shaw's is not in binary form and does not have explicitly repeated material, but it does resemble this form two main sections and a coda-like outtro.
  • Traditional allemandes use pick-up notes- specifically, shorter rhythms that lead to longer ones. This can be seen in the introduction of the "Allemande" with the spoken text "to the side" (zoom to picture below).

USE OF TEXT

USE OF TEXT

  • Shaw creatively pivots through the 5 different text sources used in this movement by using similar words/phrases. See example 1.
  • She also combines multiple texts at once that seem unrelated but work together to convey an idea or message. See example 2.

These texts (Shaw, Elliot) communicate an idea of looking ahead and beyond. As we "find a way" "time and time again" to look for "details" and "patterns", we may even "fall away" from reality, deeper into our thoughts.

Example 1

Example 2

FORM

FORM

  • Primarily in G Major, although modulations occur at the end of the movement.
  • 4/4 time as well as unmetered sections toward the end.
  • 3 "sections", A, B, and C that acts like a coda
  • These sections were determined by major changes in texture, harmony, and in spoken or sung text
  • Click planet topics A, B, and C to view the unfolding of each major section

First Section: A

G Major

  • Measures 1-54, Rehearsal Markers A-F
  • Measures 1-13, Rehearsal A: Begins with overlapping spoken text: Square dance calls and Sol LeWitt's texts
  • Measures 14-21, Rehearsal B: Hompohonic singing on [a] vowel: vi-I-vi-V-I
  • Measures 22-34, Rehearsal C-D: Polyphonic speaking and extended vocal techniques (pitch stretching, Inuit inhale/exhale): I
  • Measures 35-41, Rehearsal E: Homophoic singing on IPA vowels: vi-I-V
  • Measures 42-54, Rehearsal F: More homphonic singing on IPA. 2 almost identical phrases: vi-ii

A

Second Section: B

G Major

  • Measures 55-101, Rehearsal Markers G-L
  • Measures 55-81, Rehearsal G-I: Polyphonic speaking and singing using spoken T.S. Eliot poetry line/hashtag (spoken), IPA vowels, Shaw original texts, P'ansori articulations: vi-vi7-V/vi (resolves to vi at J)
  • Measures 82-89, Rehearsal J: Return to the allemande and square dance directions in polyphonic texture- this time sung, transition to [a] vowel: vi4/3-ii6-V
  • Measures 90-95, Rehearsal K: Homophonic chant-like material and drone pitches on [o] vowel. Voice 2 with melody on [ɑ]: iii- vi-V
  • Measures 96-101, Rehearsal L Homophonic "mm" with "quivery vibrato and sometimes with ornamental neighbor tones": V/vi-vi-ii6-V-I6-IV- bVII6

B

Closing Section: C

Key Areas: Bb, B, E

  • Unmeasured, begins one system before Rehearsal M-Rehearsal O (end)
  • One system + Rehearsal M: switch to Bb with consistently raised 4th (E natural), IPA vowels and xöömei, then top 4 voices sing chant-like "Far and near are all around" in canon, while bottom 4 voices sustain and slide through given pitches on both "mm" and vowels.
  • Rehearsal N: switch to B still with raised 4th (E sharp), similar texture as rehearsal M, but text changes for top 4 voices "round and around and thru", bottom voices still sustaining and sliding through drone pitches on IPA vowels
  • Rehearsal O: switch to E tonality with lowered 3rd and 6th scale degrees until the next to last system. Up to here, top voices sing homophonically new chant-like material on text "toward you" while bottom voices sustain vowel sounds. At the next to last system, all voices sing together on vowels, sliding through sustained pitches. Just before the final system, all 8 voices layers a G major chord in second inversion. This resolves im the last system to I in E major, although rounds of pitch shifting are used before it settles on this chord.

C

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

Inspired by LeWitt's example, a diverse array of musical experts, and everyday commotion, Shaw creatively captures a multitude of intersections of life and art in her Partita for 8 Voices. Using old and new material, she designs fresh textures that both rely on and defy structure.

SOURCES

  • https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Music/Resonances_-_Engaging_Music_in_its_Cultural_Context_(Morgan-Ellis_Ed.)/06%3A_Evaluating_Music/13%3A_What_is_Good_Music/13.05%3A_2013_-_Caroline_Shaw_Partita_for_8_Voices
  • https://www.roomfulofteeth.org/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partita_for_8_Voices
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Shaw
  • https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/pansori-epic-chant-00070
  • https://folkways.si.edu/throat-singing-unique-vocalization-three-cultures/world/music/article/smithsonian
  • https://massmoca.org/event/walldrawing305/
  • https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/25335/Harper.%20Joshua%20%28DM%20Choral%20Conducting%29-Update.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
  • https://carolineshaw.com/
  • https://nyphil.org/about-us/artists/caroline-shaw
  • https://open.spotify.com/album/4LHSzEQPF6Iw20BGppFk31
  • https://app.cuseum.com/art/sol-lewitt-wall-drawing-305
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogu7Wfg1MLY
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEhYY1mgyEI
  • https://www.singers.com/group/Roomful-of-Teeth/
  • https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2013/04/20/177962358/a-moment-with-pulitzer-winning-composer-caroline-shaw
  • http://arts.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts/projects/at-the-crossroads/partita-for-8-voices/index.aspx
  • Reference Score, provided by University of South Carolina
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