Issue 4, Article 14: Live
On Wednesday, November 11, 1998, I skipped my usual Tunnel Visionaries rehearsal to attend a concert at the Buttonwood Tree of works by Judy Dunaway, "balloon artist." A friend of mine had picked up a schedule for events at the Buttonwood Tree while we were at Klekolo one night, and he found out that the TA for our music class — Judy Dunaway — was giving a concert, so we both enthusiastically planned on going to the show. We had heard some of her work in class, but I was eager to see a live concert of her balloon music. I was curious to see just how much could be done with balloons. Like most children, when I was younger, I was accustomed to irritating my parents at every opportunity, so I was familiar with the method of letting air out through a balloon slowly, while pinching the ends, so that the air produces a high-pitched squeaking sound. I didn't anticipate the variety of balloon vocabulary that I heard on Wednesday night.
Before the concert began, Judy Dunaway took an amplified balloon out of a bag that appeared to be full of large, inflated balloons. It had a pickup taped onto it to amplify the sounds. When I later had a chance to speak with her on Thursday, she explained that in order to fully capture many of the small sounds that make up the beauty of sound in a balloon, amplification must be used, for many of the sounds are soft to begin with. She used a wide variety of different techniques for playing the balloons, including blowing through a cut piece, blowing into and releasing air from a full balloon, and rubbing an inflated, sealed balloon. To amplify the sounds of air passing through a non-sealed balloon or balloon piece, she used a microphone, placed close to her mouth so that it would pick up on the specific quality of the tone as she controlled much of the timbre with her mouth. The pieces were also quite varied. They ranged from balloon solos to ballroom-style dances to a group improv in the audience.
Judy Dunaway uses many different techniques in order to play balloons. While pinching the balloon opening to control the speed of airflow as it leaves the balloon is one technique, she also uses many others. One of the techniques I found most interesting was the amplification of a balloon through the use of a pickup taped onto the balloon, while she used her fingers to create friction on the surface of the balloon, which produced various different sounds. Sprinkling water onto the balloon, she created a surface that responded well to touch. She held the balloon between her knees, and in order to create changes in pitch, she squeezed the balloon, which allowed microtonal pitch adjustments that were quite fascinating. Some sounds were particularly dense and loud, while others were soft and clear. I remember thinking to myself that it was amazing how versatile the balloon is as an instrument. The mere fact that it is much more unpredictable than most other instruments leads the performer to discover whole new sets of sounds that haven't been used before. Another technique, one that Judy Dunaway refers to as "blown uncut," is one in which a full balloon is used to produce sounds as air passes in and out of it. When playing a balloon in this manner, she used her mouth to alter the space in which the air resonated, so that many of the sounds were much like singing or human vocalizations. A similar technique uses a piece of a balloon — the ends of balloons snipped off — and is what Dunaway calls "blown cut." In order to play a balloon in this manner, she places the snipped end of a balloon in her mouth and blows through it, controlling the airflow with her mouth and by pinching the ends of the balloon. She performed a song this way, and I was amazed at how much the sound reminded me of a human voice at many points during the song. To accompany her (since one performer can't exactly play five balloons at once), she used a recording of several balloons in the background, which she had prerecorded using her sampler. This accompaniment was used during several dance pieces that she performed.
Among the first set of pieces performed was her Piece for Solo Tenor Balloon. This piece began with a high, clear, circular sound produced by Dunaway swirling her fingertips around on the surface of an amplified inflated balloon. It was a piece which she undoubtedly spent plenty of time practicing. When I asked her later in a brief interview how she practiced balloons, she explained that she has to practice on her balloons just as other musicians have to practice on their instruments. The balloon is a much less predictable instrument, so in order to obtain the same pitches and patterns on a balloon after a piece is written for it undoubtedly requires extensive practice and skill, combined with tedious attention to the quality of each balloon. Dunaway also explained that the unique sound of balloons comes in part from the fact that balloons (since they are rubber) dampen their own overtones. The result is a sound that is at many times much like a pure sine wave. The resonating space, which is the entire interior of a large balloon, combines with the vibrating surface of the balloon, to produce an ideal instrument for creating interesting sounds. She also performed a set of dances, accompanied by sampled balloons that she had recorded beforehand. Sadly, no one danced, but a few audience members chuckled, which is not such a surprising reaction to hearing balloons, for most people associate balloons with childhood. The show was concluded with Dunaway directing the audience in an improvisation with balloons, incorporating solos, a trio, and instructions such as "louder," "sparse," or "dense."
I later asked Judy Dunaway what inspired her to write a series of ballroom-style dance pieces (including a waltz, a slow polka, and a tango), and she had an amusing story to tell about the history of her ballroom balloon pieces. She had been asked to play at an opening for a show at the Gracie Mansion Gallery in New York, but there was a misprint in the cards, so that they read "Ballroom Music," instead of "Balloon Music." Deciding she might as well work with the ballroom theme, Dunaway composed a series of ballroom-style dances for balloons. I asked Judy Dunaway if she approached her music with a sense of humor, since most of the audience members smiled or chucked at some point during the performance, but she explained that her relationship with balloons, after having worked with them for such a long time, is now completely different from the relationships most people have with balloons. Most people associate balloons with childhood and children's birthday parties, while to Dunaway, they are "magic."
Judy Dunaway has been playing balloons for about 8 years now. She has performed works by Roscoe Mitchell, John Zorn, along with performances in improv with Ken Butler, DJ Singe, the Juilliard's Flux String Quartet, Illuminati, and Andrea Parkins. She has worked with the composer Marion DeLaet, to whom the Piece for Solo Tenor Balloon was dedicated, and she worked with Phil Kline and Mark Howell. She originally grew interested in working with balloons after seeing Eugene Chadbourne using balloons with guitar. Dunaway originally entered the New York avant-garde music scene as a guitarist, but later became more and more interested in balloons as instruments. Her works have been performed at the Knitting Factory, the Alternative Museum, the SoHo Arts Festival, SoundLab, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and Roulette. She recently performed at a graduate student concert at Wesleyan in December, and her CD, "Balloon Music," is available from Composers Recordings, Inc., on the Emergency Music label. I highly recommend it, and I urge anyone who is interested to plan on attending her concerts in the future.
Since Judy Dunaway warns her audiences about the hazards involved in playing balloons, I will conclude this article on the same note. Balloons are an extremely dangerous choking hazard, and have been the leading cause of suffocation among young children. They are easily sucked into the windpipe, and once they are there, they conform to the shape of the trachea; since balloons are intended to block the passage of air, they can easily cause suffocation. If you decide to try your hand at balloon music, you might want to make sure that young children aren't watching you, because they may try to imitate it later on, which could be rather dangerous. That having been said, I highly encourage anyone intrigued by the idea of balloon music to check out Judy's CD or go to one of her concerts.