Z.Z.B.

for Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Violin, Cello and Piano

for Voice Quartet and Electronics

for Solo Voice with multi-tracks

Z.Z.B. is the abbreviation for Zip Zap Boing.

When I studied in Drama School, we played the Zip Zap Boing game before every acting class. The game is that calling "Zip" to give the "ball" to the left side people, "Zap" to the right, and "Boing" to anyone else. This game is an "energy delivery" exercise that aims to train us to be highly focused and connected to others. This is us proactively open to others.

In the book "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" by Gustave Le Bon, there are descriptions of several group psychological phenomena. I employed "how an individual is passively influenced by others in a group" and combined it with this game, to present an interesting process.

I make the piece into three versions, for instruments, for vocal quartet and electronics, and for solo voice with multi-tracks. It’s an experiment to examine how personal characteristics and the traits of instruments would affect the sounds and feelings, and how can be the way to produce sounds on different objects establishes connections with others.

Structure Overview:

(The numbers indicate how many different music figures)

The music begins with the exhibition of all figures, and the four parts gradually affect each other. At the middle point they go to unity, and with a short silence, the delivery game starts.

Regarding the choice of voice sounds, I take more about how the sounds are produced by shaping the mouth. There are some sound combinations that follow the order by changing oral position, but also some by simply by the sound itself.

Voice techniques and anatomy:

The performers will design a personality based on the music materials they are singing, this would be executed most deeply in Voice Quartet Version. For example, a long sustain note and a trill could show an elegant or slow-tempered person, and the overpressure with high pitch could show a hectic and anxious person. As the musical materials are employed on each voice, the performer should develop their personality with the music figure, thus even if the materials are the same, the music would be different. And the end, the low-voice performer should show very contrasting personalities in his solo part. 

         Due to the unique and different timbres of the instruments themselves, the instruments’ version has more complex layers, which makes the whole idea of the piece unrecognizable at first. However, the instrumental sound makes the vocal function more effective and the development of the music becomes clearer in the later part.

         The Voice solo with the multi-track version is the best representation of the idea of this work. without the interference of different timbres, the changes in musical figures are easier to detect, and the relationships between the different techniques' sounds are shown more precisely.