Música invisible / invisible music is an accumulative project based on the exploration of new possibilities for different instruments. The research on unusual techniques comes together with the exploration of new perception techniques. A melody in 1/32 tones in the flute not only deals with microtonality but also creates a new listening context; a trumpet player playing their instrument into a tin of water not only opens new acoustic possibilities for the instrument but also changes the theatrical role of the player in the concert. The catalogue of physical curiosities is subordinated to the creation of different ways of thinking the instrument, working in the abstract zone where the instrument loses its familiarity and becomes invisible. Música invisible aims at combining the composers’ view together with the performer’s experience, as two complementary sides of the musical composition process.

Música invisible for trumpet and Flügelhorn re-designs the trumpet in a personal way in relation to the musical tradition. The organology (acoustical studies on how musical instruments produce sound) comes together with the creative exploration of sound possibilities and ways of playing: research and experimentation. In Música invisible, the extended techniques focus on how these new sonorities transform the perception of music, becoming extended listening techniques. The cycle of three pieces is inspired on Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebook The Perspective of Disappearance and in different musical versions of La Gioconda.

Música invisible for trumpet “Anamorphosis” explores different possibilities of the bell of the trumpet interacting with water. An aria from the opera La Gioconda by Pontchielli is played by the trumpet using the water as a complex mute. Its outcome sounds like “quasi electronic music”… without electricity. Da Vinci wrote about the reflection of the light on the water. My music refers explicitly to sound on water.

Text by Leonardo Da Vinci’s used in Música invisible #3 from Da Vinci’s notebook The Perspective of Disappearance:

“The shadow or object mirrored in water in motion, that is to say in small wavelets, will always be larger than the external object producing it. The number of the images produced by the flash of lightning on the waves of the water were multiplied in proportion to the distance of the spectator’s eye.”