Mouthpiece 40 (2024) by Erin Gee
for vocalist, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano
World premiere; Earplay/Fromm commission

For almost 20 years, the core of my creative work has been a series of compositions called "Mouthpieces." In these compositions I am often the performing vocalist. In all cases, my own experimental vocalizations strongly impact the compositional process. The Mouthpieces began as solo vocal works, devoid of semantic text or language and notated with the International Phonetic Alphabet. In the Mouthpiece series, the voice is an instrument of sound production rather than a vehicle of identity. Linguistic meaning is not the goal. The construction of the vocal text is often based on linguistic structure-vowel-consonant formation and the principle of the allophone—and is relatively quiet, with an emphasis on the breath. My goal has been to construct intricate and subtle patterns of a diverse array of vocal sounds.

Mouthpiece 40 is a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation with Earplay that grew out of over 100 vocal improvisations I recorded while at the Yaddo Artist Residence in the summer and fall of 2024. I transcribed and catalogued each short improvisation, then edited and interwove them with the instruments. I call this combination of voice and instruments a "supermouth", in which the instrumental sounds imitate and expand the possibilities of the solo vocal sounds.