Kit-Musique

The Kit-Musique cycle is made up of open scores offering solo singers or ensembles the chance to perform a piece that involves a degree of randomness, (re)composition, invention or improvisation, gesture and space.

The musical and poetic writing is based on a contemporary aesthetic that can be appropriated intuitively: mobile and random forms, atonal melodies and harmonies, proportional and unmeasured rhythms, spoken and sung words, play on phonemes, references to various vocal styles. The cycle includes pieces for beginners to experienced singers. The number of performers is often left open, from solo to choir. A certain number of pieces can bring together beginners and experienced singers. For information only, stars classify the level of difficulty from * to * * *.

Most of these pieces can be memorised to give free rein to the listener and to free interaction. They offer a playful and convivial approach to vocal creation, from the minimalist symplicity to the most virtuoso.

One will discover terms I’ve used to describe certain musical actions: “intoner_]” means to improvise melodic intonations on a text or a rhythm, “[_polyphoner” means to create a polyphony from a support.

As for the term “musiquer”, which is little used or considered familiar, it was used in the past and seems to be appropriate to the active experience of appropriating and transforming the material. If “making music”, like “riding a bicycle”, means getting on a machine that is already articulated and operational (the score, the work, the repertoire), “musiquer” would be more like building the machine yourself, with the inexhaustible possibility of re-machining and re-arranging it as you wish, alone or with others. It’s a craft, a music to be built and experienced.

Valérie Philippin
(translation Hjördis Thébault)

Nota: Most of pieces are preceded by an explaination (a modus operandi) which is only in French.