NEW! More than 20 Videos about extended techniques under SOUNDWORLDS

Check it out!

free pdf Download of ”Morceau de Concours” (written for the NFA High School Competition 2005, San Diego)

	Dokumentary Dutch online TV station Zappbach-TV, just published a documentar about the collaboration of flutemaker Eva Kingma and Matthias Ziegler. Since more than 10 years Eva Kingma und Matthias Ziegler work together and develop new instruments. www.zappabach.tv

New CD out: Voices & Tides (LEO-records, CD LR 495)   www.leorecords.com

Franziska Baumann: voice, SensorLab electronic       Matthias Ziegler: flutes, loops

Flute Innovation
Excerpts from an interview between Matthias Ziegler and Nancy Andrew 12th August 2005
San Diego, CA
Were you always interested in new music?

At the beginning not so much. I always played improvised music, but none of my teachers emphasized or focused on contemporary new music. After my conservatory training I became more interested. Such techniques as multiphonics and singing while playing fascinated me and I began using them in my improvisations. Often I felt that the way I heard these sounds played on stage was not attractive at all. It’s nice to get new sounds out of an instrument but very often there was no consideration of the audience that has to hear these works; it was also not considering that there are some basic things which are in the instrument. We leave out so much stuff to be able to create a pure sound. So it’s a total reduction we’re doing—first, harmonically by playing contemporary pitch which leads to the huge development of tonal harmony and second, the setting the parameters of the instrument with the aesthetics of pure sound quality. We then accept this as the notes and raw materials with which we will make a piece. But the note itself has not been discussed in Western music until the 1950’s with Scelsiand others talking about something being inside the sound. In non-western music, like the Shakuhachi, sound production and the sound itself is already something. So I began exploring this and trying to find a more appealing way of presenting extended techniques.

I always find that you use them musically—that these effects are always in the service of your ideas and your musicianship and your art, instead of the other way around as just effects—that you incorporate them in ways that really are moving and accessible to people. Can you talk about the evolution of electro-acoustic applications in your music?
You discover things. First I discovered new possibilities with microphones. I heard a didgeridoo player in a concert and he had a microphone inside the didgeridoo. I thought “Why don’t I do this with the flute? I want to hear the flute from inside.” So I went straight home that same night and put microphones in my bass flute and I discovered the most beautiful things. Of course this is just the beginning. You have those sounds and now you have to make them speak and you have to integrate them into your musical language. That was the main work and my musical goal. So I had to solve the technical problems as fast as possible, practice the techniques and then see how I could involve them in my playing. To do that, I made a lexicon—every single sound with dynamic range, how long I can do it, and how to write it down—and I recorded it. I ended up creating a CD and a chart documenting every single sound I can use.

And does that expand? Do you add sounds to it?

Not so much anymore. It’s more just using those sounds and making transitions. That was the next thing. Once I had the sounds, I had to decide how to get from one sound to the next. It’s really like looking at the flute as if you have an orchestra in front of you—an orchestra inside the flute. So how do I use the bass and treble register compositionally? How do I move on in the music, to keep something going while giving the illusion that something else starts? So I’m always trying when I’m improvising to have two or three things cooking at the same time, to refer to ideas again so that people have some structure to listen to, on different levels. That’s one of the main things I’m always working on—transitions. It’s like the developments in sonata form.

How did you get into the low flutes?

That came partly from playing the saxophone—I played alto and later tenor. And then with the flutes, I always hated piccolo and went the other direction. At the same time, people like Dutch flute maker Eva Kingma were developing wonderful low instruments so my interest went together with how the instruments developed.

Where did recording and touring with Andreas Vollenwieder come into all of this?.

I had just finished the soloist exam at the conservatory, when Andreas called me and said: “Look, I’m going on tour, and I need a wind player—would you like to come?” So I went on tour for one year with this pop group all over the world. When I was playing with Andreas, I had all those wonderful technicians around and I learned that you can make a first-class high-fi sound on stage with no buzz, no hum, just pure sound. They helped me to develop my microphones. So I had this experience with electronics and amplification.

How did you develop the Matusiflute?

Touring and recording I was using Chinese bamboo flutes with the paper membrane. I always had problems on stage, the heat and the lights would affect the membrane and it wouldn’t vibrate consistently. Intonation was also complicated and challenging. So I said it must be possible to have the same mechanism on a normal flute. I drilled a hole into a headjoint and put a paper on top and it worked. And that was my Matusiflute with the membrane headjoint. And of course I had to put on either a member head or a normal head and that’s why I developed a mute which is triggered by a little string to put it on and off which I control with a finger. I can also play around with the sounds in between—in the spectrum between on and off. I works perfectly now for me.

You’ve been incorporating micro-tones for some time. Do you play a Kingma quarter-tone flute?

I tried the first quarter-tone Brannen-Kingma flute at a U.S. National Flute Assciation convention. Bick had just finished the prototype and wanted musicians to give him feedback. I was fascinated by this flute and it’s possibilities. Almost immediatly I ordered one and started playing it. As one of the first people using this flute, I also started doing showcases for Brannen. Soon after I got an alto flute, also with the open hole options, and that was the beginning of my collaboration with Eva Kingma. [To clarify, Bick Brannen used Eva Kingma’s system on his flutes—he did the keywork and created a beautiful instrument using her ideas—he’s a genius in reducing the ideas to the point where they work beautifully. That’s why it’s called a Brannen-Kingma system. But Eva makes the alto herself.] I also ordered a Kotato contrabass flute, which I’m pleased with and am still playing. And then I got the Eva Kingma quarter-tone bass flute.

And your “Hoover” flute?

I was playing this flute from early on. It’s a model made in the 60’s by Werner Wetzel, a German maker, and is a vertical bass flute I call the “Hoover” because upside down it looks like a vacuum cleaner. It’s a bass flute with additional fingerings down to low G - a C bass flute with a G foot, like the C flute has a B foot. I was totally fascinated by it’s possibilities. It was on this flute that I discovered many of the techniques and sounds I’ve already described, including putting microphones inside. But for some things I’ve had to take the keys off, so I’ve been working with Eva on designing a new stand-up bass. We’ve redesigned a flute which is similar to the Wetzel, but with some important differences—a different bore size, open-hole options, the curve on top is in a different place, and the layout for the fingerings is totally different. I’m now playing on the prototype and it’s working quite well. You know, it’s really a new, different instrument.