DEAR FRIENDS,
Here’s the info. Put it into your book! In addition to the premieres mentioned we have two to add:
Stephanie Griffin, principal violist with the Flexible Orchestra:
Poem from Exile (2015) for seven violas, and:
Lev Ljova Zhurbin:
Pastorale – Bagel for violas and clarinets
Hope to see you all there! Yours, Daniel
Here’s the ad announcement from the Calendar for New Music: (See Above)
In spite of my continuing series of “Thumbnail Reviews,” this is not a review. First because I haven’t finished Tom’s book yet, and second because I don’t do reviews in the journalistic meaning of the word. More like: reflections.
I’ve known Tom since he appeared in the downtown scene of new music in the ‘70s around when I did, and admired his music, his theoretical approach, and his important role as a music critic for the Village Voice; his “beat” being the very downtown scene we were part of. I’ve performed some of his music with my DownTown Ensemble, and Flexible Orchestra. And I visited him after he had become an ex-pat in Paris in 2005, and where he has lived since leaving New York in the ‘80s. His habit for visitors was to offer to play you some of his “deductive music” and when he thought you had heard enough he would say something like: that’s enough deductive music for today—and stop.
So this important, and I hope, controversial (and index-less book), which goes “beyond tonal and atonal” music (that’s his subtitle) pits once more the music as a listened-to phenomenon against the theory of music: a tradition of quasi opposition that goes back to Greek and Roman times. The most interesting of these writers are the ones who are also important composers, like Olivier Messiaen, about whose theory Tom has much—very positive—to say.
I’ve been ambivalent about this opposition. Partly because on one side, I contributed to a “structuralist” approach through my minimalist pieces, and through the “systems group” which we briefly had in the late ‘70s in New York with artists from several media, including composer, Philip Corner. Tom doesn’t remember this group when I recently brought it up to him. But it was a fun and wonderful thing to have for its short life. The other side of the ambivalence comes out below.
My biggest question about the kind of structuralist approach that equates notes with numbers, is: Would any of this have happened if we didn’t have discrete entities like twelve pitches to our “Western” scale? And my answer to my self is: maybe we have to have discrete numbered entities because of who (or what) we are. We are counters, enumerators, makers of discrete intellectual things, alphabetizers, and so on. But is that what music should be doing? All counting, I thought, was in the service of music, not music in the service of counting. But then Tom and Charlie Morrow did counting pieces. And they were interesting, even fascinating. Whether or not they were “music” seemed beside the point. Even when “boring.”
“Equal and Complete” is one of the chapters of the book. In it he means that the system behind the notes should have equality and completeness. An example of equality might be the interval between notes of a chord, like a major 7th. Or, simply, our system of “equal temperament” whereby the distance between each note of the 12 in the octave is the same. Completeness is something like: what are all the four note chords made up of such-and-such group of notes in a scale.
So then the eternal question is: What is the purpose (and use) of music? Is it to exhibit or manifest a system or process or structure, OR to move, invite, satisfy, transport, or amuse the listener? Can it be both? Difficult, but yes, it can be. I count my self in both camps, at least for several of my pieces. Though Tom is firmly in the former, some of his earlier compositions like the Shaggy Dog Operas are in both camps. In those, the system or process was kept discretely (other meaning of that word!) behind the surface sound. And they were comedic, theatrical.
What is true of this book is that Tom Johnson has thoroughly brought the discussion up to date. Will he compose captivating music now, from the “other harmony” he’s written about? Does it have to be captivating? I would hope yes. But that’s because I like as much to be happening as possible.
Thumbnail Review No. 45
WHO DOES THE WORK? Daniel Goode
—on reading Other Orchestras, a collection by Philip Corner
Preface: some quotation from the Phil’s scorebook:
(or let the fantasy run wild and come up yourselves with the greatest variety of things possible to do with your instruments…)
—All The Musicians Might Play This
There could be two different ways for the musicians to move in relation to…
—All The Musicians Might Play This
Repeated with all the variations of it there may be:…
—All The Musicians Might Play This
EACH MEMBER OF THE ORCHESTRA IS TO PREPARE A UNIT OF MUSIC WHICH…
—A POSSIBLE SYMPHONY
Let each player (there may be any number) make a long list of sound-note-tone effects
—INSTRUMENTALIZE
A sequential order of phrase-events is to be prepared…
—Notes of Orchestral Reality
There could also be a counterpoint of moving lines and areas.
—Space Shaping
A structure to be made combining areas of limited possibilities
PITCH______________one note
______________2 notes close by (intervals may be specified…
______________various types of chord…
permitted zones may evolve
(with no specification) no limitations
may change
or interrupt
or overlap…
Comparable forms are applied to other parameters…
Rhythms, of course…
In some sections the parts can be coordinated…
The now will be to fill out the range of possibilities…
—SYSTEMATIC LIMITS
…many of the interesting things heard and noted…recorded by well-directed audio apparat…notated with the help of elected sound analyzers and musicians…These details transcribed for the appropriate instruments…the composer arranges how the pieces will go together in the concert hall. Or conductor…or the musicians collaboratively…
—a way of accepting a commission [sic]
So, who does the work, and when, at what stage, to make all this music happen: the contractor, the composer, the conductor, the player(s), the intern, the copyist, the friend?
Decisions, decisions. Choices, choices. Thousands upon thousands. Just for one piece of music. Some may be made quite quickly: to use a key signature, or not, if so which? Some may be agonizingly slow: to write down the music at all? In which system of writing?
A composer’s dilemma: I asked Phil Corner if he would consider writing out in notation one of his verbal pieces for orchestra. He said that yes, he would if it were going to be performed. And no, not before, because it would take so much work. So work is the issue, just as I thought.
A delicate issue: Are there people in positions of influence who, knowing that the work is valuable, could prevail on a performance group to schedule a performance, maybe even commission the work? Then the composer of the verbal score will go to work preparing a score, or presiding over the rehearsal to present the score. But if the work (the verbal score) is simply circulated, who will be stimulated by its form and content to take the next step? Many will say with reason that the verbal score is a plan for a score, a recipe for making a performance score (and parts), but not the score itself. Some will say it’s a prose poem about an imaginary piece of music that could be made by someone. Some will say that stimulating the orchestra, conductor, the players to make the score either in written form, or as instructions delivered verbally, would enliven the music-making through group creativity. Others might say that’s a recipe for chaos. John Cage said that a composer is someone who tells other people what to do. But that sounds harsh. Put it conditionally: if you want such and such a musical result, then here are the instructions telling you how to get it. What’s at issue is the complex ordering of thousands of details where there are already conventions in place to move the task along: like individual parts which distribute the tasks such that not everyone has to take the time to understand the whole. Someone called the conductor, or director of the rehearsal has been given the task of overview.
One problem with the verbal score is that this distinction is not made. And one can perhaps see why: the overview, the idea of the whole work is what gives the players the understanding of their individual role, without which they are nothing more than assembly-line workers, time-servers, people whose intelligence and passions are not required for their performance. No wonder the music suffers, along with the players.
I wonder, though, if there is a difference in kind between verbal scores like La Monte Young’s Composition 1960 #10: draw a straight line and follow it, and a verbal score of one, two, many pages with many directions, orderings, sub-routines, qualifiers.
I somehow can’t quite imagine a theatrical script that fits the slot of the many-paged verbal score for music. Either you say to the actors: improvise on a theme such as X, or Y, or you actually write down the words to be spoken. The long verbal score in place of the so-called musical score is a peculiar object. It could be looked on as a flow chart, but this begs the question of what a musical flow chart is or could be. Should it be a chart with arrows, and branchings, and prioritizings shown in font sizes and highlights? Would this be more of an inducement to players, music directors, music curators, conductors? What would be won?
What I think lies behind the frequent and very real outward attractiveness of the verbal score is its commitment to freedom. And its implied statement of the value of alternate choices. That is: why should one musical moment come exactly four bars after the previous one, and why should it be exactly five and half bars in length? When it could be longer or shorter or come later, or louder, or tutti, or solo? Isn’t each equally valuable, doesn’t each contribute just as much no matter which is chosen? Well, here’s the argument. Maybe there are better and worse choices and maybe we players, curators, conductors don’t want to have to make the decision about better choices. Maybe we don’t know, or haven’t the inclination to decide. We want someone else to sift through and decide. That’s the composer, or someone else designated by someone (the composer, again!) to do it.
Thinking, deciding is work. Putting the results of the thinking and deciding into a form that communicates to those who carry out the decisions is work. A computer can print or send either words or music. Someone needs to decide which it will be.
But maybe there are players, contractors, conductors, interns, curators who would like the extra responsibility of realizing a verbal score for the very reason that their creativity would give them energy and enthusiasm for the task of music making. Should there be a web site for them? Those who want the extra work, who would like to be contacted? I’d use it as a composer, for sure. I’ve worked with people like that. I know their value. But would I put my name on the site? Well maybe, but then just maybe, I’d like to be paid for my work! I accept exchanges.
Daniel Goode 