Advice to a Migraineure for vocal quartet (S,M-S,Bari,B) - Full Score PDF and electronic audio file

Written for Ekmeles, Advice to a Migraineure is a setting of Jennifer de Guzman’s poem by the same name. I wanted to create a soundscape portraying the slow, but ominous creep of a migraine headache. The vocal ensemble, in conjunction with the electronic drone, narrate this experience in the context of a continuously scintillating aura of sound. I created the drone sound by stretching out my own sampling of piano harmonics, using the cheapest software techniques possible to layer and process the sound. The voices sing along with this electronic field in just intonation with the fundamental pitch, which only changes once in the piece. I have had a couple migraine headaches—It is definitely unlike any other headache! My first experience happened after listening to Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera. I suddenly felt confused and tried to write something on paper. Then I had immense pain at the base of my skull and had to go to bed. Afterwards, I Iooked at the paper and it was all scribbles. Migraines are visually strange as well, you can see wiggles and weird squiggles in the corner of your eye. If you can somehow get it to stop, you can avoid the severe pain that comes after. It’s kind of a trip. 

​​​From the poet:

Migraines can be baffling to people who have never experienced them. The pain and otherworldly-ness of aura are almost transportive, making you feel like you exist in a different space from everyone else and are cut off from human understanding. That’s how it feels to me, anyway. There’s a stoicism -- or perhaps even fatalism -- in “Advice,” I realize: There is nothing you can do to stop them entirely, so you must accept that and fortify yourself.

LISTEN to the premiere - Ekmeles (2021) YouTube livestream

13 pages; duration 12'