Pauline Oliveros - All Fours

As my first real Oliveros experience (other than listening in the privacy of my own home, obviously) I felt that this was somewhat disappointing for me. As the score instructs, the only restriction here is that the sounds made should be in a group of 4 identical sounds, equally spaced in time. Tempo, dynamic, timbre and all other factors are left to the performer.

The piece suggests percussive sounds with which, on the whole, my violin doesn’t generally comply. Not that this has ever stopped me before, however I did feel very restricted as to the variations of my contributions (which was probably more my problem than Pauline’s). The main issue I have with this piece is the instruction that you should play groups of four ‘without it being obvious’, which I find contradictory with the instruction that it could start ‘simply and with no overlaps’. Surely then the groups of four become obvious when they are isolated? I found this whole conundrum shaped my listening to the piece; if I play a very slow 4, then this is easier to make less obvious. However the tempo range should be from as slow as possible to as fast as possible, so I should therefore play some quicker groups of four too. But in order for these to be less obvious, I will have to play them at the same time as several other people so they cannot be heard in isolation, which means I’m not able to respond to other members of the group or perhaps play when I want to. Also, if another member of the group plays a very loud and very obvious group of four, I am interrupted from my listening experience and therefore annoyed that they clearly haven’t read or have chosen to disobey the instructions!

This is something I have come across before, my frustration with things not perhaps sounding the way I think they should. Am I right to be annoyed if I feel someone isn’t following the instructions or the direction of the group correctly? Or is it just that they have interpreted them differently? Should I embrace the change in direction, maybe encourage my wayward colleague into entering new territory? All sounds are new sounds because of how and where we hear them, how we are feeling that day, the temperature of the room, the company with which we hear them, so does it really matter that they weren’t the sounds or lack of sound we were expecting or hoping to hear?

If I don’t like a sound, is it the sound that is the problem, or is it me?