“Care” takes around three minutes and is meant to be performed only with a contrabass-flute.
The most interesting thing about this piece, is, that the composer also used other techniques to create sound than just playing the flute in a normal way. The main theme of “Care”, for example, is only played by the flutist pushing the keys down, without blowing into the flute, the flutist makes some various other sounds with his mouth instead.
The main theme of this piece is has a very inviting, yet somehow mysterious character. When it is played for the first time, one can only hear the keys being pushed down, which gives the theme a low pitched staccato sound. Overall the theme can be heard three times. For the second and the third repetition, some other staccato sounds/noises, which the flutist produces with his mouth can be heard as well.
The structure of the piece is a simple A-B-A’ form. In this case the first “A” includes a really short middle section, which gives the listener a rough idea of the long “B”- part. So the first “A” is basically made out of the main theme played normally, followed by a short side theme, reflecting the “B”- section and with the varied main theme again.
The “B”-part is, quite interestingly the longest part of the piece, and is really contrasting to the hard, staccato main theme. This part starts with the flutist playing a very slow and low pitched melody, is accompanied by some humming from the flutist after a while. This slow theme is shortly being interrupted by a variation of a part of the main theme until it continues with the flutist singing a major third (+one octave) above the melody of the flute, whilst blowing into it. Except for a short part in between, where the flute is being played in a normal way, this part of the piece ends with the flutist singing, whilst playing, having the tempo still at a very slow pace.
The start of the second “A” part comes abrupt, is very short, and only repeats the main theme one last time.
I really enjoyed listening to this piece, it was entertaining and interesting to analyse, one of my favourites so far. I especially liked the “B” part of the composition, with its slow, deep melody, it gave away quite a relaxing atmosphere, the singing contributed to that as well.
I found it really interesting to see, that so many different sounds can be produced with the flute, without having to play it the normal way. I’m quite sure there are many more techniques to explore and use, and I will try to explore this “unusual” ways of using an instrument a bit more for my own compositions.
Dianas Learning Log 