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Tan Dun’s Water Music: a sonic investigation on the
instrumentality of water through experimental percussion
practices and contemporary music performance
Water Music de Tan Dun: uma investigação sonora sobre a instrumentalidade
da água através de práticas percussivas experimentais e performance musical
contemporânea
Luís Bittencourt
Independent researcher
bittencourt.mail@gmail.com
SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE
Section Editor: Ronan Gil de Morais
Layout Editor: Edinaldo Medina
License: "CC by 4.0"
Submitted date: 31 oct 2023
Final approval date: 30 nov 2023
Publication date: 31 dec 2023
DOI: 10.35699/2317-6377.2023.48635
ABSTRACT: This article aims to discuss the instrumentality of water in the repertoire for percussion, using the performance of the
work Water Music (2004) by Chinese composer Tan Dun (1957) as a case study. Rooted in my own artistic practice (as
percussionist, improviser and composer) in the performance of the work as the core of research process, this investigation also
combined methods and theoretical perspectives from the fields of auto- and performative-ethnography (Wong 2008), in addition
to semi-structured interviews with other percussionists specialists in Tan Dun’s water percussion works. Starting with an overview
on water's integration into Western art music and its dynamic connection with percussion, this investigation intended to reveal,
from the perspective of a percussionist, the intricate performative process involved in Tan Dun's Water Music. This investigation
underscored the presence of a unique performance path, shaped by singular performative demands, in addition to creative and
experimental artistic practices.
KEYWORDS: Tan Dun’s Water Music; Experimental percussion; Instrumentality; Music performance; Contemporary music.
RESUMO: Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir a instrumentalidade da água no repertório de percussão, utilizando a
interpretação da obra Water Music (2004) do compositor chinês Tan Dun (1957) como estudo de caso. Baseado na minha própria
prática artística (como percussionista, improvisador e compositor) na interpretação da obra como núcleo do processo de pesquisa,
esta investigação também combinou métodos e perspectivas teóricas dos campos de autoetnografia e etnografia performativa
(Wong 2008), além de entrevistas semiestruturadas com outros percussionistas especializados nas obras de percussão com água
de Tan Dun. Começando com uma visão geral da integração da água na música de arte ocidental e sua relação dinâmica com a
percussão, esta pesquisa teve como objetivo revelar, da perspectiva de um percussionista, o intrincado processo performativo
envolvido em Water Music de Tan Dun. Esta investigação destacou a existência de um percurso de performance único, moldado
por demandas performativas singulares, além de práticas artísticas criativas e experimentais.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Water Music de Tan Dun; Percussão experimental; Instrumentalidade; Performance musical; Música
contemporânea.
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1. Introduction
My contact with Tan Dun's music occurred in mid-2009, when I was starting an investigation into the use of
water as a musical instrument in a Master Degree in Musical Performance. During a bibliographical fieldwork
on musical compositions that used water as a sound source, and I came to know Tan Dun’s Water Concerto
for Water Percussion and Orchestra (in memory of Tour Takemitsu) (1998), and Water Music for solo or four
percussionists (2004). The former, as suggested by its title, is a percussion concert featuring water as the
soloist instrument, probably the first and only orchestral concert ever composed for water percussion until
the publication of this article. The latter, which is originally composed for percussion quartet but can be
performed as a solo work1, can be considered the chamber version of the concerto, since it uses the same
instrumentation from the soloist part and features several identical excerpts from it.
Water Music became the main case study of my master's research, entitled “The use of water as a percussive
sound source: analysis of Water Music by Tan Dun”. Some outputs of this research included a dissertation
with an analysis of Water Music in its soloist version, departing from technical, interpretive and structural
viewpoints, in addition to video recordings of my solo2 and a chamber3 versions of the work. Subsequently,
I continued to develop my investigations on related issues, such as percussion and the instrumentality of
found objects and unusual sound sources (Bittencourt 2019).
The present investigation was developed through documental research (bibliographic, discographic,
videographic), case study and studio research on my own artistic practice in the creation of a solo
performance of the work, in addition to a performative ethnography fieldwork with percussionists David
Cossin (b. 1972) and Beibei Wang (b. 1986). Cossin is a specialist of Tan Dun's water percussion works, and
he has been working in a close relationship with the composer for more than 15 years. He is also the soloist
in the DVD recording of Tan Dun’s Water Concerto (Dun 2009) with the Royal Stockholm Philarmonic
Orchestra. Wang is a Chinese percussionist and regular collaborator of composer Tan Dun in his trilogy of
orchestral percussion concertos. This trilogy, called Organic Music Series, consists of the works Water
Concerto, Paper Concerto and Earth Concerto and features water, paper and ceramics as soloist
materials/instruments respectively. My performative ethnographic fieldwork undertaken with these
percussionists was developed in two artistic residencies, in Lecce (Italy) in 2012 and London (England) in
2017. The performative ethnography in both residencies included in-depth interviews, observations, several
studio experimentation sessions, collective reflections, rehearsals and public performances. In addition,
percussionist Maria Flurry, who is also specialist in Tan Dun’s water percussion works, has collaborated
through personal communications through email.
Water Music has become a special work in my repertoire, and in the past 14 years I have been performing it
in the most varied contexts, places and audiences — from prestigious national and international concert
1
“For solo version, the soloist can choose any portions from the piece to present” (Dun 2004, performance
instructions).
2
Excerpts of my solo version can be accessed at the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SfWHjfkP7c
3
Excerpts of a chamber version can accessed at the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP8dUlLzT8U
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halls, experimental music festivals and contemporary art venues, to reservoirs of water supply companies,
nightclubs and alternative spaces from the underground scene.
2. Music, Water and Percussion
In Western art music, water has held a prominent role for centuries, serving as a rich source of inspiration
both symbolically and tangibly. Historically, the use of water in musical compositions commenced with a
representational and metaphorical approach, influencing note selection, rhythm arrangement, and
instrument choices (Helmreich 2012). Handel's Water Music (1717) is a well-known example, and various
composers (such as Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Toru Takemitsu and many others) found
inspiration in water, not only to create musical compositions but also to shape their compositional
methodologies. Debussy, for instance, attended the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, where he
encountered Javanese music, spurring him to introduce innovative elements into his music. He expressed
this transformative vision, stating, "I would like to see, and I will produce, music that is entirely free of
'motifs,' or rather, composed of a continuous motif that is never interrupted and never returns upon itself"
(Debussy as cited by Toop 1995, 18).
Until the mid-20th century, composers primarily used water symbolically in their compositions. Even though
water appeared in many works and concert halls during this period, no one actually got wet (Kahn, 2001). In
fact, real water first entered Wester art musical compositions through percussion, more precisely
percussion tuned by water, or wet percussion, as suggested by Kahn (2001, 247): “The first notable use of
wet percussion was Erik Satie’s use of the boutelliphone (a series of tuned bottles suspended from a rack, ‘a
poor man’s glockenspiel’) in Parade (1918).” Through percussion, the use of water followed two main
pathways: 1) combining water with percussion instruments or sound objects, and 2) using water as the
primary sound source. When combined with instruments or sound objects water acts as a tool to expand
Figure 1: Performance of Tan Dun’s Water Music at Convento de São Francisco, Coimbra, Portugal, May 2019
Source: João Duarte
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Bittencourt, Luís. “Tan Dun’s Water Music: a sonic investigation on the instrumentality of water through experimental percussion practices and
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sonic possibilities, allowing the sound to be tuned (e.g. boutelliphone), modified, amplified (e.g. water
drum4), or both. This approach has been widely explored in percussion repertoire, enabling the new
instrumental potentialities for various instruments like gongs, cymbals, and more. In fact, the combination
of water with percussion instruments has allowed the emergence of new instruments, embedded with their
own set of performance techniques, learning paths and virtuosity modes (e.g. the water gong5).
The 1930s marked a significant period for the development of water's potential as a tool for creating
unconventional sounds in percussion instruments. Fueled by the sonic revolution of the Futurist movement,
many composers dedicated themselves to crafting exclusive percussion works, contributing to the
emergence of these groups as truly independent orchestras. Among these composers, Henry Cowell (1897-
1965) made his contribution to aquatic percussion by including eight water-tuned rice pots of different
pitches in his work Ostinato Pianissimo (For Percussion Band) (1934). It's noteworthy that Cowell indicated
in the score that this instrument was derived from the Indian jalatarang, which literally translates to "waves
of water."
Composer John Cage (1912-1992), a disciple of Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), was responsible
for several significant inventions involving percussion and water. His creations include compositions in which
water is used as a genuine sound source, as well as the invention of the water gong, which has first formally
appeared in his percussion ensemble work First Construction (in Metal) in 1939. However, Cage's
introduction of the water gong dates back to 1937 at UCLA, two years before the composition of First
Construction. At that time, he was working as composer and music director for the University of California–
Los Angeles women’s synchronized swimming team. Cage recalled:
My first commission was from the Physical Education Department of U.C.L.A. An
accompaniment for an aquatic ballet was needed. Using drums and gongs, I found that the
swimmers beneath the surface of the water, not being able to hear the sounds, lost their
places. Dipping the gongs into the water while still playing them solved the problems of
synchronization and brought the sliding tones of the "water gong" into the percussion
orchestra. (Cage 2011, 86)
After employing the water gong in First Construction and subsequent works, Cage, in a pioneering manner,
severed the link between percussion and water, emancipating it entirely as a sound source in his work Water
Music (1952). In this piece, which is probably one of the composer's earliest musical-theatre works, several
instruments are used, including a duck call to be played and submerged in water, as well as two containers
for pouring and collecting water. Cage also composed the related work Water Walk: For Solo Television
4
“Instrument composed of two hemispherical bowls, made with gourd, one almost twice the diameter of
the other. The larger bowl is filled with some water, and the smaller bowl is placed inside the first one, with
the edges facing down. The portion of the bowl that is not submerged may be struck with hands, sticks,
pieces of gourds, spoons, etc. In Africa, the instrument is used to accompany female songs, and it is one of
the only instruments played by women.” (Frungillo 2002, 326).
5
“name given by John Cage to a tam-tam or gong that, upon being struck, should be immediately immersed
in water halfway down. The water causes the pitch to slide down and create a glissando effect. The glissando
can be ascending or descending depending upon which direction the gong is going, up or down.” (Beck 2007,
105).
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Performer (1959) for a performance on the Italian TV show Lascia o Raddoppia. In one of his manuscripts,
Cage even named this piece Water Music Nº. 2 (Bittencourt 2012). Virtually all the instruments and utensils
used are related to water, including a rubber duck, a bathtub filled with water, a pressure cooker (where
water vapor is released), ice cubes and an ice crusher, a rubber duck, a garden watering can, and a siphon.
Notably, water plays a significant role in Cage's oeuvre, extending beyond the discovery of new sonic
possibilities or the creation of works that employ aquatic sounds:
Water produced a variability within percussion that, as Cage understood in retrospect, was
already characterised by variability. Thus, an inability to control pitch was added to the
already noisy status of percussion. Most important, water produced the most marked
instance of the variability that “prepared me for the renunciation of intention and the use
of chance operations.”6 (Kahn 2001, 250)
In the more recent decades, composers, performers and sound artists have been exploring the
instrumentality of water not only as a sound source or sound device, but also as a new canvas and medium
for musical performance, recording, reproduction, and listening. Examples of this fusion is the Aquasonic, a
captivating performance by the Danish collective Between Music, or the Underwater Concerts7 organized by
the French composer Michel Redolfi, for example. The "underwater music" genre, pioneered by Redolfi,
emerged during his research on sound diffusion in liquid environments between 1973 and 1984. He
introduced the idea of underwater concerts, allowing audiences to float or dive to experience music
performed underwater. Sonic Waters, the first concert of its kind, took place in 1981 in the Pacific Ocean.
Redolfi continues to present these concerts in various aquatic environments such as lakes, pools, and oceans.
3. Water Music (2004) by Tan Dun (1957)
Water Music is a musical and visual work that explores the potential of water as a musical instrument or, in
other words, the instrumentality of water. The work was originally composed for percussion quartet, and its
performance lasts about 20 minutes. Water Music was premiered by the Talujon Percussion Quartet in the
Ocean Life Hall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, USA, on June 8th, 2004. An
interesting fact is that Water Music can also be performed as a solo work, as Tan Dun explains in the score
that “for the solo version the soloist is free to choose any portions of the work to present” (Dun 2004,
performance notes). This flexibleness in the presentation modes of the performance of Water Music is one
important aspect of the work, which will be further discussed at a later time in this article.
Conceived as “music that is for listening to in a visual way, and watching in an audio way”8, Water Music
features a variety of unusual sounds produced by the manipulation of water through various types of
techniques and gestures. In addition, visual elements such as lighting, color and shadow are blended with
peculiar sounds of water percussion, creating a unified result that places the piece in the intersection
between music and other art forms. Water Music is a singular work, not only because it presents water as a
6
Richard Kostelanetz, Conversing with Cage, 1988. New York: Limelight Editions, 1988. 60-61
7
An example can be accessed in this link. Consulted in December 27th of 2023.
8
Cited at https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/33596/Water-Concerto-for-Water-Percussion-and-
Orchestra--Tan-Dun/ and consulted in 2020/11/08.
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Bittencourt, Luís. “Tan Dun’s Water Music: a sonic investigation on the instrumentality of water through experimental percussion practices and
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musical instrument but especially because of its interdependence with the performer's creativity. In fact,
Water Music is embedded with creativity at different levels, from the composition (Tan Dun’s original
approach to the instrumentality of water) to performance (the materialisation of general ideas from the
score into sound and music by the performer).
From the compositional viewpoint, Dun was certainly not the pioneer in using liquid water in the context of
a Western art musical work; as above mentioned, Satie probably was, by using it to tune the notes of a
bouteillophone in his ballet Parade (1918). John Cage also deserves credits for his pioneering ideas on the
instrumentality of water, which includes the invention of the water gong (Bittencourt 2012) and the
exploration of the liquid in different ways in his works, from the use of ordinary sounds of water—as an
element of everyday life used in his theatrical work Water Music (1952)—to the liquid's wondrous ability to
alter and amplify the sound of other sound sources9.
Nevertheless, Dun was likely the first composer to propose a careful systematic exploration of water as a
real percussive musical instrument, in the context of a Western art music. And he did this by taking the
instrumental potential of the water to another level: differently from other composers, Dun has innovated
by requesting the performer to literally approach a bowl of water as drum, and by asking for different types
of techniques to produce sound in the liquid — both in the context of chamber and orchestral music with
his works Water Music and Water Concerto, respectively. Using a theoretical perspective from the studies
on creativity by Boden (2011), Dun’s water percussion works involve what Boden would call
“transformational creativity”, which is a type of creativity that “leads to ‘impossibilist’ surprise” (Boden 2011,
73).
Importantly, transformational creativity is grounded in what Boden calls a ‘‘conceptual space’’—some
previously existing, and culturally accepted, structured style of thinking (e.g. a board game, like chess, or a
particular type of music or sculpture). According to Boden, the reason that transformational creativity leads
to impossibilist surprises is that some defining dimension of the style, or conceptual space, is altered — so
that structures can now be generated which could not be generated before (Ibid.). In Water Music, Dun
departs from a conceptual space (e.g. the performance of Western art music) and changes some dimensions
of it (e.g. proposing an unusual instrumentality of water). Consequently, this transformation culminates in
the generation of novel structures (e.g. water percussion, which also dares our understanding of what a
musical instrument may be).
From the performative viewpoint, Dun’s transformational creative approach to the instrumentality of water
infuse the performer with the underlying demands of learning a new instrument (water percussion) and a
site-specific (or “instrument-specific”) music notation and; of obtaining, through experience, the ability to
improvise with it; of building unusual sonic devices required for the performance, and of actively reflect and
re-arrange the music to compose a solo performance from the percussion quartet. These are some issues
that I intend to discuss further in the subsequent pages.
9
Other composers, like Willy Corrêa de Oliveira (1938), also creatively explored water as a tool for altering
pitch in a cymbal in his work Materiales (1980) for soprano and percussion ensemble.
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3.1. The score of Water Music: instrumental investigation through performance
The score of Water Music features distinct types of musical notation, which combines standard musical
notation with textual instructions, graphics and drawings created by the composer specifically for some
performance techniques and sonorities of the work. In some of the sections, the notation assumes
characteristics of indeterminacy, which might produce, unpredictable sonic and performative content, to
some extent. I would argue that when using this type of mixed notation, Tan Dun is alo producing music that
is, at least from the performer's point of view, inherently investigative and experimental — not experimental
in its compositional methods (e.g John Cage’s chance procedures) nor in its artistic outputs, but in its
performative means or artistic practice.
By using indeterminate elements, Tan Dun is also producing some undefined spaces in the score, and this
compels the interpreter to make decisions about the creation of certain parameters and contents of the
work. The excerpt below (Fig. 2) illustrates this argument, which the performer should produce water
dripping sounds during about 50 seconds:
It is important to notice that musical works with standard notation may also lead the performer to make
decisions, although some works with an extreme degree of details in their notation might probably miss or
reduce the possibility of creative interference by the performer. These thoughts are also shared by pianist
David Tudor, who probably is the single most important performer in the history of experimental music,
when reflecting on the performance of works with indeterminate notation:
When I play a piece that is notated, even though I may have a freedom of choice, for
instance as in Stockhausen, I feel ... er ... it’s a curious, er ... sensation that I’m trying to
describe, but the whole thing is ... whatever you do, is like a stream of consciousness. And
if I play something which is so notated I notice now, after having done it for several years,
that it has the tendency to put me to sleep. It wants all the time to ... er ... recede into an
area where my feelings are called upon more and more. And all the features which seemed
to be so striking when the works were first composed now become much less striking. They
don’t seem so important and so the whole thing recedes into a stream which is mainly of
feeling. Whereas if I play music which doesn’t have any such requirement, where I’m called
upon to make actions, especially if the actions are undetermined as to their content, or at
Figure 2: Excerpt of Tan Dun’s Water Music (2004), page 2. Published by G. Schirmer Inc. Used with permission.
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Bittencourt, Luís. “Tan Dun’s Water Music: a sonic investigation on the instrumentality of water through experimental percussion practices and
contemporary music performance”
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least let’s say undetermined as to what they’re going to produce, then I feel like I’m alive
in every part of my consciousness. (Tudor10 in Thomas 2009)
In Tudor's experience, it seems that indeterminate notation is responsible for producing an aliveness feel on
him while performing. This is very similar to my experience in the performance of Tan Dun’s Water Music
concerning the relationship between performer and notation, and this brings the performative act closer to
the idea of creation, instead of execution. Another aspect that I observed, from my own artistic practice, is
that the score of Water Music, with its open-ended notation, also seems to create an opportunity to deepen
the focus on the ways and physicality involved in the sound production, that is, technique. In other words,
these apparently empty spaces in the score, to be filled by the creative interference of the performer, foster
the experimental scrutiny of sound, resulting in a broader understanding of water as a musical instrument,
or of its potential as such. More than learning the score and decoding its symbols — inasmuch that any
notated musical work in the western art-music tradition may imply these tasks in different levels — the
performance of Water Music is more the negotiation of a score as the territory for instrumental and sonic
investigation through performance.
3.2 Performing water percussion
For a percussionist who is willing to perform Water Music, to learn how to play water percussion is de
rigueur. The use of water as a percussive instrument in Dun’s Water Music has its own and distinct
complexity, with a technical demand to be mastered by the percussionist in the performance of the work.
Some performance techniques are adapted or transposed from other percussion instruments, while others
are particular to water percussion. Two examples are the tremolo patting11 and the water flick12 techniques
respectively (Fig. 3). The former technique aims to produce a continuous sound and involves a fast
alternation of hands over the liquid's surface, while the latter involves striking the water with one or more
fingers using quick, snapping motions.
10
David Tudor and John Cage interviewed by Mogens Andersen in a broadcast of Danmarks Radio on 3 June
1963. Featured on the CD David Tudor – Music for piano, ed. RZ 1018-19 (2007).
11
Similar to the "roll" in membrane percussion instruments, the tremolo patting technique seeks to replicate
a continuous sound through the repetition of successive notes. However, this technique has distinctive
features. Unlike membranophones where the hands are parallel to the surface, in tremolo patting, they are
positioned perpendicular to the liquid's surface. This creates a sweeping motion over the water's surface
instead of a striking action. The perpendicular hand position results in a more legato and continuous sound
compared to the parallel position, which imparts a rhythmic and percussive character, as in the water slap
technique, for example. (Bittencourt 2012)
12
Its performance comprises two distinct mechanisms: initially, the inner side of the thumb acts as a trigger
or lock, creating tension on another finger (such as the index, middle, or ring finger); subsequently, releasing
the thumb causes the other finger to be propelled, striking the water.
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Bittencourt, Luís. “Tan Dun’s Water Music: a sonic investigation on the instrumentality of water through experimental percussion practices and
contemporary music performance”
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Similar to the "roll" in membrane percussion instruments, the tremolo patting technique seeks to replicate
a continuous sound through the repetition of successive notes. However, this technique has distinctive
features. Unlike membranophones where the hands are parallel to the surface, in tremolo patting, they are
positioned perpendicular to the liquid's surface. This creates a sweeping motion over the water's surface
instead of a striking action. The perpendicular hand position results in a more legato and continuous sound
compared to the parallel position, which imparts a rhythmic and percussive character, as in the water slap
technique, for example (Bittencourt 2012). The water flick, or the flicking, can be see as a transposition of a
performance technique used in some hand drums. Its performance comprises two distinct mechanisms:
initially, the inner side of the thumb acts as a trigger or lock, creating tension on another finger (such as the
index, middle, or ring finger); subsequently, releasing the thumb causes the other finger to be propelled,
striking the water.
However, it is important to highlight that, even in the apparent simplicity that exists in transposing a
technique from a standard percussion instrument to water percussion, several other parameters are
changed and reconfigured (e.g. the resulting sonority, the type of response generated after the stroke, the
extent of technical control, among others). Furthermore, we cannot forget that the main musical instrument
of the Water Music is a liquid substance, that is, inconstant and frequently unpredictable, and these
characteristics will undoubtedly imply a singular instrumental approach. Percussionist David Cossin has
made some comments about the idiosyncrasy involved in performing water percussion:
The way you can approach playing those [water] instruments…you wouldn’t play marimba
the same way you would play water, you know? But you would play vibraphone and
marimba the same way, or you would play multiple percussion set up...you can tell this to
the same person...but sometimes with the water percussion you really change the
approach of playing percussion. (Cossin in Bittencourt 2012, 205).
On one hand, there is a technical demand involved in the performance of a virtually unexplored instrument
in the contemporary Western art music. On the other hand, there is an opposed learning path involved in
water percussion, if compared to the acquisition and mastering of performance techniques in other standard
or traditional musical instruments, since the performer of Water Music cannot rely on the traditional set of
sources usually available (e.g. books, methods, recordings, articles, etc.). To put it concisely, all the
specialised apparatus — technical, reflective, scholarly — about the ways of playing an instrument are non-
existent; similarly, it would be unthinkable to even discuss possible traditions or aesthetic currents of the
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Bittencourt, Luís. “Tan Dun’s Water Music: a sonic investigation on the instrumentality of water through experimental percussion practices and
contemporary music performance”
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performance of water percussion. So in a new instrumental domain such as water percussion, with so much
to discover, what then would be the skills or the foundations of its technique? According to percussionist
Beibei Wang, the quality of the sound produced seems to be a key aspect in the performance of unusual
instruments such as those used in Tan Dun's water percussion works:
I think there are certainly...there are skills for unconventional percussion repertoire. It
depends on each repertoire, each music. So every music has a different instrumentation
and different “atmosphere” of its instruments, you have to try to do what this music should
be. So, for example the Water Concerto: at the beginning, when you play the waterphone.
So the waterphone is a new invention, then there are so many people playing it differently.
You have to find beautiful sounds by bowing and beautiful sounds by knocking on the
instrument, or using different mallets to tap it. Each mallet, each touching has different
qualities. So you can find the best quality for each sound. This is one technique I think, for
me, to produce the best quality of the sound. (Wang in Bittencourt 2019)
It is worth to notice that both the technical demand and the scarcity of specialised knowledge about water
percussion practices could be understood as characteristics that would restrict the performer’s creativity in
the relationship with this new instrument. Nevertheless, it is the implicit limits of a given material or task
that seems to enhance creativity, eventually becoming, themselves, paths to possibilities (Ceruti in Montuori
2003, 249).
3.3. Improvising on water percussion
The ability to improvise with water percussion is also required in Water Music — there are some specific
sections of the work in which musical improvisation is needed (Fig. 4) , including a soloist cadenza in the style
of classical concerto from the Western art-music tradition (Fig. 5).
Figure 4: Excerpt of Tan Dun’s Water Music (2004), page 4
Source: G. Schirmer Inc. Used with permission
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Musical performance and musical improvisation are specific areas of expertise within musical practice, and,
independently of the level of excellence of the instrumentalist, mastering the former does not necessarily
imply the acquisition of the latter (Azzara 1999). According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, the term “improvise” is defined as “the creation of a musical work, or the final form of a musical
work, as it is being performed. It may involve the work's immediate composition by its performers, or the
elaboration or adjustment of an existing framework, or anything in between” (Nettl in Sadie 2001, 94).
Improvising requires spontaneous creativity — even though this creativity emerges within restrictions that
range from musical conventions to the musician's physical or psychological limitations (Berkowitz 2010, 2).
Similarly, Csikszentmihályi (1997, 51) argues that the act of improvising in music depends heavily on tacit
rules and implicit musical traditions, despite its spontaneous nature. Moore reinforces this idea of pseudo-
freedom and relates improvisation to other creative and structured activities, such as a conversation
between individuals: “In an important sense, improvisation is not free. It is just an effective means of
expression when incorporating a vocabulary, whether cognitively or intuitively understood, common to a
group of individuals” (Moore 1992, 64).
From my experience as a performer and improviser in Water Music, I came to realise that improvisation, in
addition to being a very personal and emotional artistic form, seems to rely on a different involvement
between performer and instrument — especially in the case of using water as a musical instrument, an
element that embodies several symbologies for human life. This involvement implies a deeper knowledge of
the instrumental potential of the liquid, in order to understand its possibilities, limitations and to project
possible future configurations. Only through a deeper knowledge of the instrumentality of water, one will
be able to develop a personal repertoire and create a form of expression with water percussion. I have found
an echo of this type of involvement in the words13 of Fayga Ostrower:
13
“Assim, através das formas próprias de uma matéria, de ordenações específicas a ela, estamos nos
movendo no contexto de uma linguagem. Nessas ordenações a existência dessa matéria é percebida num
sentido novo, como realizações de potencialidades latentes. Tratam-se de potencialidades da matéria bem
como potencialidades nossas, bem na forma a ser dada configura-se todo um relacionamento nosso com os
Figure 5: Excerpt of Tan Dun’s Water Music (2004), page 8
Source: G. Schirmer Inc. Used with permission
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Thus, through the specific forms of a matter, with specific orderings to it, we are moving in
the context of a language. In these ordinances the existence of this matter is perceived in
a new sense, as realisations of latent potentialities. These are the potentialities of matter
as well as our potentialities, and in the form to be given, a whole relationship between us
and the means and with ourselves is configured. For all these reasons, imagining—this
experimenting imaginatively with forms and means—corresponds to translating in mind
certain dispositions that establish a greater order of matter, and our inner order (Ostrower
2004, 33-34).
3.4. Creating sonic devices and a poly-instrumental unity for Water Music
The instrumental setup of Water Music includes several ordinary or found objects for the manipulation and
amplification of water, such as cups, bottles, a spaghetti strainer, gourds, springs, cylindrical tubes, among
others. In a similar manner of the Dadaist artists, Dun takes this collection of common artefacts and, through
the performer’s creative endeavour, assigns new functions and meanings to them — a cup, turned upside
down, becomes a drumstick to hit the water and to produce a low-pitch, bass drum sound; a gourd (calabash)
is transformed in a drum by placing it on the surface of water.
The score of Water Music contains only some general information about the found objects required for the
performance of the work, which provides considerable freedom to the performer to choose certain
characteristics of them. It is necessary the commitment of the musician in the search, selection or even
construction of some of these objects. An interesting example of the instruments used is the slinkyphone, a
sonic device that apparently is the result of the creative mind of the composer Tan Dun and that is not easily
found. In fact, there is no explanation in the score about what a slinkyphone might be. The term, as it is
written in the score, is not found in any specialized English-language dictionaries, and it is only possible to
find the terms separately (slinky or phone). The word slinky refers to a trademark of a famous toy14 in the
80’s, which consists of a flexible coil that walks in somersaults. The union between the term “slinky” and the
suffix “phone” — the latter comes from the Greek phonê, which expresses the notion of sound (e.g.
xylophone, telephone, etc.) — suggests the creation of a new sonic device from an assemblage of two
distinct objects, a metallic spring and a resonating body. According to percussionist Maria Flurry, who is also
specialist in Tan Dun’s water percussion works,
There are a couple of interpretations of what a “slinky-phone" is. Most of them were too
quiet, so my husband and I designed a new one. We took a kids' drum made by Remo,
ordered a couple of slinkies online (in case we made a mistake), made a tiny slit in the head,
passed the end of the slinky through it and glued it on both sides. We drilled a hole in the
meios e connosco mesmo. Por tudo isso, o imaginar — esse experimentar imaginativamente com formas e
meios — corresponde a um traduzir na mente certas disposições que estabeleçam uma ordem maior da
matéria, e ordem interior nossa.” (Ostrower 2004, 33-34).
14
The Original Slinky® Walking Spring Toy. Accessed in https://www.target.com/p/the-original-slinky-
walking-spring-toy-metal-slinky/-/A-14778533 and consulted at January 12th, 2020.
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shell and mounted it on a cymbal stand. The drum acts as a resonator. (Flurry 2010,
personal communication through email).
Based on this information, I understood that the slinky-phone is a new sonic device that need to be created
by the performer. Basically, it is a metallic spring attached to a resonating body — the sound is generated
through the percussion of the spring, and its vibration is amplified by the resonating body. In my
performative choice, I created a slinky-phone from a metal spiral for book binding, attached to the plastic
cap of cylindrical tin can as a resonator.
What is fascinating about the processes of searching for materials, and the construction of my own
instruments, is that the performer must get involved in a personal adventure of looking for vulgar objects,
while simultaneously contemplating their potentialities as future musical instruments. A psychological
research led by Camic (2010) has identified a found object process that involves the interaction of aesthetic,
cognitive, emotive, mnemonic, ecological, and creative factors in the seeking, discovery, and utilization of
found objects. According to Camic,
People who make use of found objects initially do so in response to what is evoked by the
object’s physical and aesthetic properties, but equally important for some is “the hunt” for
the object, their response to the place where the object is found, its contemplated history,
the personal meanings projected onto the object by the finder, and the creative challenge
of how the object might be transformed or put to a new use. […] The encounter with the
found object can “create a breach in predictability of what is expected,” which in turn
generates a creative response “that seeks to imagine a new use—or a new life”—for the
Figure 6: Performance of Tan Dun’s Water Music, with the slinky-phone at left side, Coimbra, Portugal, May 2019
Photo by João Duarte
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object. This active cognitive–emotional progression, where an object is seen to have the
potential to be “transformed, transfigured and reconfigured,” is part of a creative
engagement that begins when the object is removed from its found place and placed in a
new circumstance or environment. (Camic 2010, 88)
Importantly, the quest and construction of instruments for the performance of Water Music must inevitably
start before the learning of the score, since the music can only be practiced after the instruments are
available. In short, the performer gets involved with the work even before knowing its musical content. In
addition, the creative process may also continue during the study of the score, and can even be extended
later after the performance, in order to improve or rebuilt the instruments, or search for new ones with
different sound characteristics.
Another importante aspect is that all the instruments and sonic devices must be organised in a percussion
setup optimised for performance. Sense of unity and cohesion are some of the principles to consider in the
configuration of instrumental setups of works composed for multiple percussion instruments. That is, a set
of individual instruments must be organised in such a way that the percussionist can access them as a single
poly-instrumental unit (Schick 2006, 16). Percussionist David Cossin commented on this stage of the process:
“I think just the idea of putting the setup together...it is incredible, there is so much work you have to do
that is not playing.” (Cossin in Bittencourt 2019). For percussionist Beibei Wang, the composition and
arrangement of the percussion setup is also an important technique regarding the performance of water
percussion works by Tan Dun:
You have to prepare the instrument setup. You have to design a good setup for your
playing, this is also a lesson for us, for percussionists. This is, I think, part of the technique
as well. You have to manage it and arrange where the instruments should be, where should
be after or before, which one looks better to put on this side or the other side, just thinking
visually, more like you are going to perform on the stage. So, there is a lot of things which
are part of the technique, I think. (Wang in Bittencourt 2019)
In the case of absence of instructions about how the percussion setup must be organised, which is the case
in Water Music, the configuration of the instruments will depend on the creativity of the performer to
conceive a poly-instrumental unity that will work efficiently, according to both the demands of the piece and
her/his physical characteristics. In summary, to configure a multiple percussion setup for the performance
of Water Music is a creative task that cannot be ignored or underestimated, as it truly is about designing a
new complex and diversified poly-instrumental unit.
3.5. Composing the performance of Water Music
As above-mentioned elsewhere in this article, Water Music was originally composed for percussion quartet,
and a complete performance of the work lasts approximately 20 minutes. Notwithstanding the fact of being
conceived as chamber music work, Water Music can also be performed as a solo version. If the work is
presented this way, the composer Tan Dun challengingly allows that “the soloist is free to choose any
portions of the work to present” — in any order (Dun 2004, performance instructions). This freedom of
choice includes not only distinct portions but also musical content from different instrumentalists or players
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(e.g. to perform the part of the percussionist 1 or of the percussionist 3, or even combining musical parts
from different players altogether). And, once again, all of these choices may be presented in any order, at
the discretion of the soloist. It is a challenging task and, more than simply choosing between parts, it is also
about structure and musical cohesion, and it would be more appropriate to name it “the composition of a
performance”.
By establishing these possibilities for the composition of the solo version, Tan Dun offers an enormous
freedom to the performer, which simultaneously presents itself as a catalyst for creativity and a menace to
the coherence of the work, regarding the relation of its parts as a composition. Confronted with the
challenge of composing my own solo version of a work originally written for four musicians, I started by
posing some preliminary questions:
1. What portions of the work should I present?
2. Should I play only one part or switch between more than one? Moreover, would it be possible to perform
two or more parts simultaneously?
3. Which one of the four parts (percussion players) should I choose to perform?
4. How to compose a performance that remains coherent with the ideas and compositional form originally
conceived by the composer?
5. Would it be possible to perform all sections of the work in a solo version?
6. How to keep, in a solo version, the complexity of a musical structure created for four musicians?
In my process of composing the Water Music's solo performance, I decided to present all sections of the
piece, in its original sequence of events (musical narrative), a decision that I took after an in-depth
performative analysis of the work. In addition, I created my own ways to play different parts simultaneously,
both acoustically and with the support of digital sound devices (e.g. looper pedals), and other strategies that,
for a matter of space, cannot be discussed here, but are fully described in previous publications (Bittencourt
2012). It was a long and exhausting process, which required a great creative, personal and, to some extent,
financial investment. An omnipresent question in this process was how the freedom offered by Tan Dun
contributes or hinders the process of composing Water Music's solo performance. In my view, the autonomy
granted by the composer is also a kind of invitation to a co-composition and creative expression of the
performer. Percussionist David Cossin also supports this opinion — when asked about the freedom to
compose the performance of Water Music, Cossin answered the following:
I think it facilitates, I mean, if you really want to write a solo, solo piece. But the fact that
is a... giving that liberty…I think it helps because...he is just...asking the performer to also
kind of arranging and compose, you know? And then puts it in a different space…and I think
that helps…to bring out creativity of the performance, because of the freedom. Because all
of a sudden, you have to make your own work, you know? It is not just like “ok, I will order
the music, and I will learn the notes, and then I will play the piece” … It’s like: “I will learn
the music, and I will think for a long time what I am going to do. And I will put it together,
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and, by trial and error, I will try to make a piece”. Yeah, I think it is just like an invitation
and that is what I like…it is even similar to John Cage’s Composed Improvisations. You could
just improvise, or you can put all the work into…like…figuring out, I-Ching…Like “ok, well,
this section I have to do this...” But then, when you play it, since you put all that investment
into preparing the score, you play it so much differently than if you just freely improvising
on a couple of things that came from that, you know? I guess it is just like an investment,
you know? You put an investment into it, a creative investment, then you are going to
approach it differently. So it helps the piece. (Cossin in Bittencourt 2012, 94).
In conclusion, the freedom offered to the performer, to compose the solo version of the work, may work as
a catalyst for creativity. However, in order to creativity emerge as an epiphenomenon of that freedom, the
performer must be committed to dedicate time and reflection in the process of composing the performance
of Water Music as a solo work. Most importantly, the composition of this performance is, in fact, dependent
on the musician’s reflection, choices and personal intellectual investment.
4. Final reflections
Water Music constitutes a microcosm with a singular demand of performative challenges, which are
permeated by creativity. To create is one of the premises involved in the performance of Water Music: its
musical score is designed in such a way that some of its sections present performative gaps that seems to
depend on the musician’s creative input. These gaps do not constitute just an interpretive freedom to be
careless approached by the performer; the composer is, in fact, asking the musician to investigate and, in a
creative way, to perform some musical ideas that are outlined on the score. In addition, the performer
cannot avoid the creative demands of the work, namely, the reflection on the possibilities of its musical
notation; the creation and mastering of the performance techniques involved in water percussion; the
development of sonic devices and organisation of a multi-instrumental setup; the performance of
improvised sections and cadenzas, and finally, the composition of the performance in its soloist version.
From this perspective, there is a prominent co-authorship quality that must be assigned to the performer.
Departing from the articulation different types of data, knowledge and viewpoints resulting from my own
artistic practice and from those of the interviewees, the findings of this research suggested that the
performance of Water Music is grounded by 1) the attention to sound and forms of sound production; 2) a
sense of experimentation, research and discovery; 3) the ability to listen carefully and to distinguish nuances
of sound; 4) instrument-specific learning processes, including contact with peculiar instrumentations and
performance techniques; 5) the performer’s capacity to adapt towards fragmented and unique performative
situations; 6) the knowledge to select, prepare or even construct sonic devices, as well as the capacity to
organise them into a single poly-instrumental unit optimised for performance; 7) the ability to improvise and
develop a repertoire of musical ideas involving unusual materials and objects.
Presenting the solo performance of Water Music constitutes an experimental investigation of sound, which,
to me, stands as the true raw material of a performing musician's art. Over the past 14 years, I have had the
privilege of delivering multiple renditions of Water Music in diverse settings. Each performance unfurls as
an opportunity for fresh insights into the domains of sound, music, listening, performance, instrumental
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technique, virtuosity, ingrained habits, and the intricate experiential relationships between the human body
and musical instruments, among numerous other aspects. This ever-evolving journey invariably uncovers
uncharted territories, rendering Water Music a truly investigative musical work intrinsically entwined with a
unique creative process. As observed by philosopher Gilbert Ryle (2009), it is of the essence of merely usual
practices that a performance is a replica of its predecessors, just as it is of the essence of creative practices
that a performance is modified by its predecessors. Engaging with Tan Dun's music and the water’s
instrumentality, I am not only approaching them but also teaching myself how to approach them, a
continuous learning process embedded in every moment.
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