Analysis of " Gestire lo Spazio”

It's not easy to talk about one's own music, what's more I'm not used to doing it; however I think it may be useful to provide a sort of listening guide about this cd, since it is not a typically commercial product and does not present the classical features of an electric bassist's album.
I have decided to leave the title in Italian because it sounded effective and meaningful to me. So, ok for “Gestire lo Spazio”. Sound space, space in a cd, and space a composer covers on music paper.
This project lays on the choice to exclusively use my 6-string electric bass, with only a limited “intrusion” of an acoustic piano. All this with no bass overdubbing, just as in my solo bass gigs.
There is a consequence in playing solo instrument, it makes you work with what I have called implicit sound , with harmony and rhythm leaving melody alone to move on a chord layer which is present, you can feel it but cannot hear it.
As a matter of fact, the aim of this project was to hit the listener more with what is absent and less with what is present. Of course I had to exploit the whole instrument range in order to overcome the limited sound of the bass used as a backing instrument.
This cd alternates structured compositions, or pieces I have deeply meditated before recording them, and more improvised tracks.
The recording sessions required over ten days of work, during which I rejected lots of material I was not satisfied with. In the end, the product I have been able to assemble seems quite homogeneous to me. Nicola's help for the audio recording techniques and the music choices was absolutely crucial.

The Opener
It's a short introduction based on a mainly monodic line, with echo and volume pedal. The final section utilizes three-voice chords which resolve on fifth harmonies, creating a very peculiar “organ-like” effect (Illus. 1).

Dettagli This piece has already appeared in Minimized, a disc I recorded long ago with my old trio. I have rearranged it by opening the static sound of the E doric mode through a light loop, more as a colour effect than as actual rhythm. The theme has peculiar arpeggios of fourths and fifth that I
alternate by harmonising a hexatonal scale		(Ill. 2) and the diminished scale

by tenths (Illus. 3).

Gocce
This piece, with its ring structure based on minor thirds modulations, has an echo repetition pattern (Illus. 4).

An interesting detail of this track is the increasing tension from ring to ring achieved through harmony, rhythm and dynamics.

Episodio II
This piece was born on the double bass, so I preferred not to “treat” the sound apart from adding a slight reverberation effect.

This is my favourite track because the increased dynamics is reached through a sequence of harmonies which evolve from closer to more open sounds, while keeping all the other factors unchanged. Listen.

Pièce Informe
This is a sort of liaison track, with sounds taken and reedited/assembled from concrete music recordings. This is my first homage to Maderna's work. The sound is outdated, old-fashioned, quite similar to the soundtracks of TV serials made in the late 1960s. Perfect!

Hands
This is the only track where I have used the tapping technique. I don't like to use tapping to make both accompaniment and melody, as if I were imitating a so-called "bar pianist". Instead I wanted to explore arpeggios in the whole range of the 6-string bass, adding melody and accompaniment fragments only at intervals. Nicola's help in this piece was essential to create a full and compact sound. Listen.

Afternoon in Solo
This piece was first recorded with the accordionist Marco lo Russo in Tarabuk. Here it has the same features as Episodio II, where the space of sound is always “filled with emptiness”. I particularly like its theme, which I have composed on the electric bass following the Lydian mode (Illus. 6), and the contrast

between major sound (brilliant and clear) and the appearance of low notes hiding this openness. Even when the piece shifts from the theme to other chords, its harmony can still be perceived, as if the accompaniment were really there (implicit sound).

Dirty
Another liaison track and a further act of reverence for Maderna, which I have made by superimposing bass noises to sounds manipulated/altered by modern software.

Harry
Its theme is based on fourth intervals and fragments of the diminished scale		(Illus. 7).

The solo is free on a modal scheme. Rhythm is certainly the most relevant feature in this piece. Listen.

Gestire lo Spazio I
This track belongs to the suite after which Gestire is named. It's a totally improvised piece, with no predefined structure. Simply a C minor idea, my favourite one with G minor. This suite makes my intention more explicit: to furnish an empty room by adding one object at a time and progressively checking their effect. To stop and decide whether or not to add any new element.

Forma Mentis
One day I was playing bass and I came across this arpeggio… later on I transported and further developed it. This piece makes me think about my past, my childhood. Nicola and I have purposefully created an “acid” sound, especially when the bass moves to the upper register. No doubt the most exhausting track on all the recording. Forma Mentis is dedicated to my son.

Gestire lo Spazio II
This represents a challenge to organise and control space using the echo effect. It is a canon composition based on the same delayed time as Gocce. In the intro I use my 6-string bass in the farthest registers, with an extremely full texture. The theme “splits” the bass sound, in the first half of the bar as melody and in the second half as accompaniment (Illus. 9).

The theme construction was actually a very big effort, but the final result seems very good to me. Listen.

Blue
It's the oldest "theme” on the whole cd. Based on sixth and tenth voicing to harmonise the melody by block chords using the E minor melodic scale (Illus. 10), it has a clear traditional “blue” colour.

Gestire lo Spazio III
I have explicitly dedicated this piece to Bruno Maderna. The use of the slap technique shows how you can exploit the whole bass register, unlike using the bass just as a backing instrument. The main bass line here is:

I think the quote from Maderna's speech while conducting a contemporary music orchestra is a good way to prepare the album conclusion. While the musicians are trying to show off their virtuoso talent through complicated improvisations, Maderna exhorts them to use the music material in a more simple and direct way (“se no non serve a niente” = otherwise it's useless).

Gestire lo Spazio IV
It's a piano improvisation with bass overdubbing to add a colour shade.


In this work I have tried to organise and control space as best as I could.
Thanks to Anna, Nicola and Alessio for their help.

Tracks:
1. The Opener
2. Dettagli
3. Gocce
4. Episodio II
5. Piece Informe
6. Hands
7. Afternoon in solo
8. Dirty
9. Harry
10. Gestire lo Spazio I
11. Forma Mentis
12. Gestire lo Spazio II
13. Blue
14. Gestire lo Spazio III
15. Gestire lo Spazio IV

All compositions by Tiziano Zanotti
except tracks 6 and 13 by Tiziano Zanotti/Nicola Ciarmatori

Recorded August 2007
Full Digital Recording Studio - San Giovanni in Persiceto (BO)
Engineers: Nicola Ciarmatori, Edoardo Bertolini
Echoes