As musicians we are basically concerned with how the vibrations we create pass through the air into the ear’s of our listeners. We constantly adjust as we learn the what makes our instrument unique until we know every bit of the instrument, as it becomes part of us as musicians. As a string player, I know the pitches on my instrument that make the whole body shake (its wolf tones) as well as the notes that need extra pressure from the bow or pluck to bring out a tone that is consistent with the rest of the instrument. We learn how to make some of these adjustments very quickly for when we change strings or replace the hair on our bow, but one of the most challenging things for a musician to do is adjusting to the space that we are have for a performance. Great performers can play their instruments, master performers play the room (and everything and everyone in it). The adjustments that need to be made though often have little to do with what we usually think of as the ‘musical’ sound since most performance spaces have gone through some sort of acoustic tuning. Middle C on a violin will sound like middle C on a violin, but the small details that make up the whole (bow noise, our fingers on the instrument, our breath) that last for just a moment may be picked up and amplified by a space, or suddenly missing (creating a lifeless performance). How a performance space brings sound out of these little details is the life of the room, and when a performance takes advantage of this, the audience suddenly becomes aware of something much larger then itself.

Risonanza is dedicated to the memory of Jorge Liderman.