Ellen Arkbro

Last updated
Ellen Arkbro
EllenArkbro.jpg
Arkbro in 2016
Background information
Born1990
Stockholm, Sweden
Genres Minimalism, microtonal music, drone
Instrument(s)
Website ellenarkbro.com

Ellen Arkbro (born 1990) is a Swedish composer, sound artist and musician working with precision-tuned harmony in frameworks such as just intonation and meantone temperament. [1] Having primarily composed for and performed on pipe organ, Arkbro's work has also included pieces for other acoustic instruments and sound synthesis. She has released several studio albums, beginning with For Organ and Brass (2017), in additional to several collaborative works.

Contents

Early life

Arkbro was born in Stockholm and grew up singing in choir school, playing in bands, and eventually studying jazz as a singer. [2] As a 20 year old, Arkbro went on to study at Elektronmusikstudion, and later received a degree in composition of electronic music from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. As part of earning that degree, Arkbro spent time in Berlin studying composition with Marc Sabat in Berlin, studies which focused on the theory and practice of tuning. In 2014, Arkbro studied privately with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in New York. [3] [4]

Recordings

For Organ and Brass

For her 2017 debut album For Organ and Brass, Arkbro uses the Sherer-Orgel organ at St. Stephen's Church in Tangermünde, Germany, an instrument dating to 1624, [5] in a church dating to 1118. [6] The LP comprises recordings of her compositions in just intonation for renaissance organ, horn, trombone and microtonal tuba. [1]

The [title] piece came about while I was spending time with the meantone temperament of the organ in the German Church in Stockholm. I soon came to realise that I could use this traditional renaissance tuning in a non-traditional way that would allow me to compose music solely with septimal intervals. These are sounds that I have to come to love for their unique character. There is a textural aspect of these intervals which makes them stand out from the rest. And then there is the equally important affective aspect: a kind of open, clear sadness [which are] some of the reasons to why I’ve ended up working with them. [3]

CHORDS

CHORDS (2019) was designed to draw attention to the way sound exists in space, the way tonality and harmony affect an environment. The music is intended for large speakers, allowing it to take over a home and envelop the listener. [7]

Pitchfork finds that the album "delves even deeper into microtonal interplay, balancing heady theoretical terrain with a rare emotional resonance. [Arkbro's] music is infused with a profound emotionality that transcends its heady origins. Passing through the gates of extreme rigor, CHORDS finds private infinity in a handful or stretched-out drones." [8]

Sounds while waiting

Sounds while waiting (2021) is an album that explores the long drawn out manner of playing chords in a resonant space. It focuses on exploring the depths of a "rough, focused and yet strangely transparent" form of "texturality". The instrumentation consists of organ and cymbals and the album contains the two-parter "Sculpture", along with 2 others.

I get along without you very well

I get along without you very well (2022), a collaboration with Swedish multi-instrumentalist Johan Graden, is an LP of songs that introduces Arkbro as a vocalist. The instrumentation is percussion, clarinet, organ, and brass. Each piece is, in its way, meandering, improvisatory, and drawn-out to an extreme, "wistfully throwing up a handful of ideas and letting them float in the breeze, employing the faintest of structures to lure them back to earth." [9] [10]

Discography

Solo

Collaboration

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Just intonation</span> Musical tuning based on pure intervals

In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals as whole number ratios of frequencies. An interval tuned in this way is said to be pure, and is called a just interval. Just intervals consist of tones from a single harmonic series of an implied fundamental. For example, in the diagram, if the notes G3 and C4 are tuned as members of the harmonic series of the lowest C, their frequencies will be 3 and 4 times the fundamental frequency. The interval ratio between C4 and G3 is therefore 4:3, a just fourth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical tuning</span> Terms for tuning an instrument and a systems of pitches

In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meantone temperament</span> Musical tuning system

Meantone temperaments are musical temperaments, that is a variety of tuning systems, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2, in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Meantone temperaments are constructed similarly to Pythagorean tuning, as a stack of equal fifths, but they are temperaments in that the fifths are not pure.

Microtonal or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave. In other words, a microtone may be thought of as a note that falls "between the keys" of a piano tuned in equal temperament.

Articles related to music include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circle of fifths</span> Relationship among tones of the chromatic scale

In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. Starting on a C, and using the standard system of tuning for Western music, the sequence is: C, G, D, A, E, B, F, C, G, D, A, E (F), C. This order places the most closely related key signatures adjacent to one another.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xenharmonic music</span> Music that uses a tuning system outside of 12-TET

Xenharmonic music is music that uses a tuning system that is unlike the 12-tone equal temperament scale. It was named by Ivor Darreg, from the Greek Xenos meaning both foreign and hospitable. He stated that it was "intended to include just intonation and such temperaments as the 5-, 7-, and 11-tone, along with the higher-numbered really-microtonal systems as far as one wishes to go."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Semitone</span> Musical interval

A semitone, also called a minor second, half step, or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale, visually seen on a keyboard as the distance between two keys that are adjacent to each other. For example, C is adjacent to C; the interval between them is a semitone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regular temperament</span>

A regular temperament is any tempered system of musical tuning such that each frequency ratio is obtainable as a product of powers of a finite number of generators, or generating frequency ratios. For instance, in 12-TET, the system of music most commonly used in the Western world, the generator is a tempered fifth, which is the basis behind the circle of fifths.

A schismatic temperament is a musical tuning system that results from tempering the schisma of 32805:32768 to a unison. It is also called the schismic temperament, Helmholtz temperament, or quasi-Pythagorean temperament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quarter tone</span> Musical interval

A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, and have 24 different pitches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archicembalo</span> Musical instrument

The archicembalo was a musical instrument described by Nicola Vicentino in 1555. This was a harpsichord built with many extra keys and strings, enabling experimentation in microtonality and just intonation.

12 equal temperament (12-ET) is the musical system that divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equally tempered on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2. That resulting smallest interval, 112 the width of an octave, is called a semitone or half step.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">31 equal temperament</span> In music, a microtonal tuning system

In music, 31 equal temperament, 31-ET, which can also be abbreviated 31-TET or 31-EDO, also known as tricesimoprimal, is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 31 equal-sized steps. Each step represents a frequency ratio of 312, or 38.71 cents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical temperament</span> Musical tuning system

In musical tuning, a temperament is a tuning system that slightly compromises the pure intervals of just intonation to meet other requirements. Most modern Western musical instruments are tuned in the equal temperament system. Tempering is the process of altering the size of an interval by making it narrower or wider than pure. "Any plan that describes the adjustments to the sizes of some or all of the twelve fifth intervals in the circle of fifths so that they accommodate pure octaves and produce certain sizes of major thirds is called a temperament." Temperament is especially important for keyboard instruments, which typically allow a player to play only the pitches assigned to the various keys, and lack any way to alter pitch of a note in performance. Historically, the use of just intonation, Pythagorean tuning and meantone temperament meant that such instruments could sound "in tune" in one key, or some keys, but would then have more dissonance in other keys.

Mayer Joel Mandelbaum is an American music composer and teacher, best known for his use of microtonal tuning. He wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation on microtonality in 1961. He is married to stained glass artist Ellen Mandelbaum, and is the nephew of Abraham Edel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harmonic seventh</span> Musical interval

The harmonic seventh interval, also known as the septimal minor seventh, or subminor seventh, is one with an exact 7:4 ratio (about 969 cents). This is somewhat narrower than and is, "particularly sweet", "sweeter in quality" than an "ordinary" just minor seventh, which has an intonation ratio of 9:5 (about 1018 cents).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orthotonophonium</span> Microtonal harmonium from 1914

The Orthotonophonium is a free reed aerophone similar to a Harmonium with 72 keys per octave, that can be played all diatonic key intervals and chords using just intonation. The instrument was created in 1914 by German physicist Arthur von Oettingen to advance his theories of harmonic dualism.

Kali Malone is an American composer and organist based in Stockholm. Her works implement unique tuning systems in minimalist form for analog and digital synthesis often combined with acoustic instrumentation.

References

  1. 1 2 Anon., Resident Advisor , Ellen Arkbro.
  2. Costa, F., "Ellen Arkbro: 'Penso que algo acontece com a tua escuta quando estás numa igreja porque existe uma certa consciência'", Rimas e Batidas (in Portuguese), April 23, 2021.
  3. 1 2 Sawers, C., "Listen to Ellen Arkbro's forthcoming release on Subtext", The Wire, April 2017.
  4. Heller, R., "The In-Tune-Sound From Way Out: Ellen Arkbro Interviewed", The Quietus , July 24, 2019.
  5. Bruce-Jones, H., "Composer Ellen Arkbro returns to Subtext with CHORDS", Fact, May 23, 2019.
  6. Anon., "Dreaming and letting go | A conversation with Ellen Arkbro", RE:VIVE, April 21, 2017.
  7. Joyce, C., "Ellen Arkbro’s Noisey Mix Is Mystifying Music for Deep Listening", Vice, July 16, 2019.
  8. Martin-McCormick, D., "Ellen Arkbro—CHORDS", Pitchfork, June 18, 2019.
  9. Hignell, D. A., "Ellen Arkbro & Johan Graden—I get along without you very well", The Quietus, September 21, 2022.
  10. Kirk, S., "The Swedish composers return with their latest collaboration effort", Sun 13, September 30, 2022.