What the heck is a Sixxen?
One of the major highlights of Third Coast Percussion’s 2010-11 season will be the performance of Philippe Manoury’s masterpiece “Le Livre des Claviers”, a tour de force half hour long percussion sextet that reaches towards the extreme limit of virtuosity on our “claviers” or keyboard instruments. Some of these keyboard instruments are the “standards” (marimbas and a vibraphone) but two of the movements call for an instrument called a “Sixxen”. Sixxen were invented by Greek avant-garde composer/architect Iannis Xenakis for his monumental percussion sextet, “Pleiades”.
Although Sixxen are set up like a marimba or vibraphone in many ways, they are not standard instruments and cannot be purchased anywhere in the states. So it’s up to us to build the instruments from scratch.
Just like a marimba or vibe, they look a bit like a piano with “white keys” and “black keys” all laid out horizontally. The major difference is that each Sixxen is purposefully slightly out of tune with every other Sixxen. When all six instruments play together, these slight difference result in a kaleidoscopic whirl of competing resonances that when experienced live create a sound that is so thick and vibrant one feels as if you could almost reach out and touch it.
I am attempting to post below a short video/audio sample of the materials. In the next post I’ll talk a little more about how the Sixxen are made…
