Marking Meaning

Instructions to Compass:

• For overly amplified electric guitar, distortion options, and wah pedal or tone controls. To be performed or prepared) in an outdoor open space or field or desert.
• Slowly turn up the volume of the amplifier.
• Starting with the first prompt circle (Pitch), choose a note/chord type. Sound the tone(s) and sustain them, constantly shaking the guitar if necessary.
• Next, choose if this tone is to be I, III, or V of a harmonic progression.
• Next, choose a rhythmic/tone-altering technique and perform it while still sustaining the tone.
• When the tone is no longer sustainable, choose a transitional gesture and perform it to restart the cycle of prompts.
• To choose the next note type and relative harmonic position where the note will occur, pay attention to the direction that the wind is blowing. This will decide for you to choose the option that is clockwise or counter-clockwise to the first choices. Perform the new pitch(es) in their appropriate positions.
• To choose the next rhythmic/tone technique, look at the shadows of your surroundings. They will point to the next action. Activate this technique to alter the rhythm/tone.
• To choose the next transitional gesture, look for other life, mobile or immobile, and witness how they move. They will teach you and you can use this technique to begin the cycle again.
• Continue for as long as you desire, then slowly turn down the volume of the amplifier.
• Then turn it off.

Zoë Wallace: The title “Compass” seemed fitting to me, but I was curious about your own reasoning behind the name. Does it come from the graphic score resembling a compass, is it from using nature as a compass of sorts to point the performer into their next action, or is it a combination of those things?

Raven Chacon: Yeah, that’s right. You may have described it better than me. The reason for doing it outside was to locate the performer in a place where they would be conscious of their surroundings and the four directions, so they could use them as information for the piece. Let’s say they just appeared in some random location to perform the piece. Even though they might not know where they are, they would be able to gather information from the shadows to know what direction they’re facing. I was also interested in the other information that might give them an indication about where they are located — the wind maybe does that, maybe the animals are telling something about where this person is — and even more importantly, maybe all of this information is also telling this person about how they are encroaching on the space or how their presence is influencing this place that they are sitting at. At the same time, there is this circular motion within the score. I didn’t start out intending for it to look like a compass, it just so happened that I was using this number of four in the parameters I was working with and it ended up being this circular shape in the notation.

Zoë: That’s always amazing when things come together in that way! Speaking of the circular shape in your notation, I know using symbols in scores isn’t anything new to you. Where do you get the ideas for your graphic scores?

Raven: A big influence is still Western classical notation as it has evolved through the 21st century. Symbols such as a left-hand pizzicato on the violin, which resemble a cross, would be something that I might transfer over to the guitar. At the same time, however, a cross has other kinds of symbology: it could mean the stars, or it could mean the four directions, like a compass. I like to use all of those simple iconographies because I think they have dual or triple meanings. A lot of them are expressive, but I still try to be very intentional in what I’m designing for these so they aren’t free improvisations. They still have detailed instructions of how they’re executed, but for me they serve better than something that might be more precisely rhythmically notated or pitch notated. Those two parameters are less important to me than something like timbre, or gesture, or even the location of where the performer is. 

For example, the volume in this particular piece is really important, and so my goal was to find graphics that notated that. And then obviously things like arrows have a purpose of saying how you navigate through the piece. It could be interpreted as improvisation, but I don’t think it is in this case. It’s guided by other forces and in collaboration with those other forces to find the way to navigate through the piece.

Zoë: There’s also a certain freedom in notating that way, and I think the end results are often a piece that captures the sound world a little differently every time it’s performed. You’ve talked about this a little bit already, but how do you think this really influences the sound world in which you create? Is it different every time it’s performed with only the timbre intact, like you described? 

Raven: I try to make these scores still sound like they have an intentional form and intentional timbre and intentional context, you know? So I don’t think there are drastic differences in performances as far as the form or the timbre would go, even with some of my other pieces that don’t say what instrument should be played. Even in those cases, I think they still end up very similar in some way and fulfill the intention that I was hoping for with the piece. 

“Compass,” 2021. Composition by Raven Chacon. Commissioned by United States Artists. Performed by Zoë Wallace in September 2021.