Since 2020, the Composers Society of Singapore (CSS) has been releasing a monthly series for our Musings section, Composer of the Month! The Composer of the Month for October 2024 is Tan Zheng Rui. Zheng Rui is passionate about the idea of physicality in music and he also experiments with the extremities of treatment of sound.
He is one of the featured Young Composers in the Singapore Composers Festival, with his piece inertia performed by local ensemble WeirdAftertaste.
Watch the interview on our YouTube channel here!
Tan Zheng Rui
Interviewer: Mok Peck Yim
1. Share with us your musical background, as well as your journey on becoming a composer.
Like many others, I only began learning Music when I took up the Music Elective Programme (MEP) in Secondary 1. My passion for music had not really bloomed as I was just a confused amateur who constantly absorbed anything and everything present, yet not truly appreciating anything. Things changed during the pandemic when I had time to be exposed to much more things. It was also when my passion for music was discovered as I religiously did lots of self-study, self-exploration and self-listening. I often find myself joining online communities to engage in various discussions, and hunt for many resources to quench this thirst for learning. Although I was primarily trained in Western classical music, being in a Chinese Orchestra exposed me to this different realm of music. I can still vaguely remember during this period in secondary school, my primitive experiences when writing were more of trial and error, or perhaps modelling and imitating a style.
My passion further grew in these 2 years when I was in my Music Programme in JC, and it was also during then when I found my deepest passion in contemporary music! While there wasn’t a focus on contemporary music in school, I continued listening to much more music to shape my perceptions in composition and writing styles. During this period, I also joined several composition workshops, as a stepping stone for my journey in becoming a composer. I was also looking forward to various opportunities that enable my music to be heard. Along the way, I also met and made amazing friends with many passionate contemporaries who inspired and motivated me, including young composers and performers. Currently, although my artistic and musical tastes, perceptions and judgment are still evolving, I know more clearly what I want to achieve in every piece of music I write – it’s just like a little research project with bits of emotions in there. I would also like to take this time to thank my friends Joan, Jellal and Pingdin for guiding me to develop myself as a composer!
2. What was the inspiration behind your piece ‘inertia’ that was recently showcased at the Singapore Composers Festival? Could you share more about the compositional process behind it?
Spoiler alert for a modicum of physics dump over here!
Coincidentally, I was working on my Physics tutorial when I was writing this piece, and my mind was overwhelmed with physics concepts during then. One of which is how “sound” possesses both a wave and particulate nature. In this piece, I perceived sound to be a “big ball” — as if an amalgamation of particles. In physics, it is taught that objects with a larger mass experience a greater inertia by Newton 1st law. This means when the object is at rest, it will be more challenging for this object to be in motion; when the object is moving, it will be more challenging for the object to come to a rest, unless an external force acts on the system. This concept is being musicalised and used in the development of my music through occasional start-stop gestures and momentum-driven gestures. Also, Newton 2nd law states that resultant force is proportional to the rate of change of linear momentum. This becomes more evident towards the end of my music where my music loses this energy from the beginning, as if an exhaustion to overcome inertia.
It was my first time working with electronics too where it was used to interact with the acoustic instruments and to shape a “malleable” sonic space which reacts and changes when new effects (which behave like these external forces) trigger these changes. I would like to thank Dr Tan Yuting and Bertram for helping me and guiding me with the electronics!
3. What are some interesting things/sounds that you’ve experimented with
so far in your compositional journey?
There is this saying somewhere – “We are what we consume”, and I find this saying veracious (I guess that is why it has become a saying). Interesting things/sounds that I research on, experiment or ponder upon is usually due to the works I have listened to, or things I have learnt from people. For instance, my first foray into electronics led me to listen to more works involving electronics, and I learnt of such things like granular synthesis. Thereafter, I just find various resources online that are able to enlighten me on how to actually execute it on my own. Nevertheless, due to my examination priorities, I faced time constraints and temporarily halted my exploration in the realm of electronics.
Since I was in the Chinese Orchestra, I had access to various instruments in the room. I remember having to test out some extended techniques for a percussion piece I wrote a year ago. I experimented with different ways of playing a cymbal — the angle between both cymbal plates when both plates clash with each other, bowing techniques, as well as playing with the resonance — as a means of timbral variation. I still remember my friends being worried and doubting if I would damage the instruments. Nevertheless, thankfully, they are still in good condition. I also wrote a solo cello piece for Martin Jaggi during YCA where Prof Peter Edwards recommended me to listen to Dai Fujikura deliquesce. In that cello work, I developed this material which just comprised a specific vibrato line. It was really interesting writing that piece while discovering the capabilities of the cello and working with Martin.
4. Do you have any upcoming projects/works that we can look forward to?
Currently, I am taking my national exams and I still have to be enlisted for two years afterwards. Nevertheless, I plan to further my studies at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in composition. During this period, although I don’t have any projects in mind, I will continue to train myself compositionally, with this motivation to continually write better music. However, I am open to collaborating with anyone on any projects since I believe in mutual growth as artists, increased exposure to available opportunities, and widening a small contemporary music, or even Arts community. As much as I am excited and eager to seek for various opportunities as my learning experiences, I think we can all just look forward to any of my music.
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