And as long as I’m discussing animated scores, I have to share the work of André Vida, whose work features scores that are literally animated – as in they come to life and spin around with eyeballs and movement in some sort of cross between Terry Gilliam’s animations for Monty Python and the jagged, splotchy boundaries of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Unfortunately I can’t embed them here (and you really must see them!) – but if that description sounds intriguing, click through and check them out.
L’Autre Musique’s collection of “New Writings of Sound and Music” also included this video score by composer Jesc Bunyard. It’s basically a silent video that is displayed/shown for the performers, and they play what they see.
Check it out – what a cool concept!
Talk about a graphic score! She has some more information about her approach at L’Autre Musique’s website.
You can listen to a realization here:
Interestingly, improvisation is only one approach to reading a graphic score. My esteemed colleague Chris Cretella once told me about his experience at NEC, in which an ensemble would sit down for a lengthy discussion of how they intended to interpret a graphic score before they even played a note. I’d like to hear that approach to this kind of work as well.
“A genius is one who is most like himself.”
– Thelonius Monk
So I’m having too much fun with this and I have to share – I just revisited my “noisemakers” folder and found some ooolld software and remembered how completely fun it was Coagula, the “Industrial Strength Color-Note Organ.”
It’s basically a Windows Paint that when you’re done makes wacky sounds. It’s buckets of fun and actually generates some interesting things; I’m seriously going to the output as raw materials for some electronic projects also.
Listen to the file below and just scan the image left to right and you’ll have a good sense of how it works.
Download Coagula here (PC Only, as far as I know)
Aloysius: You want, then, to learn the art of composition?
Joseph: Yes.
Aloysius: But are you not aware that this study is like an immense ocean, not to be exhausted even in the lifetime of a Nestor?
— Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus Ad Parnassum
And here’s my new composition – To Change the Height of Musical Surroundings.
This was piece was a journey (and it portrays a journey too, but that’s another blog post for another day): prompted by my teacher’s challenge to compose “away from the piano,” I took out a piece of staff paper and drew reckless slashing lines and shapes across it to create something like a graphic score.
Next, I overlay 8 measures per line and began a very precise process of assigning
pitch values and rhythms to these abstract shapes. Inspired by a big band piece I was performing
that used the “jazz” altered scale, I interpreted the shapes using a mix of jazz altered scales, octotonic scales, and whole tone scales.
I input the results into Finale, then spent several sessions improvising on the contents of each
page – each improv session was about 15 minutes long. From this plentiful material, I excerpted
the parts I liked, notated them, and then began expanding on them and rearranging them into a
piece. It was a labor-intensive process, but worth it.
This piece has also been educational in learning how to use Finale and what notation
conventions to use to make a piece intuitive for a performer. I need to check the page turns, and then I’ll upload it to the score to IMSLP.
So I have to share this new concept I came across on The Composers Site. “Closet Music” is music intended to be made–and heard–only in the participant’s head.
Sound crazy? It’s actually peaceful and meditative – check out some sample scores from their first collection:
(the Burnell one gave me a real “a-ha!” moment – it’s structured so cleverly, in terms of audiation and also visually)
It’s sort of, oddly, an inverse of Cage’s 4′ 33″ – the “music” in Cage’s piece is created by the sounds around you. With closet music, the “music” is created only inside you.
They have a call for scores – it closed last week, but if you ask nicely and have some good ideas…
Enjoy!
“The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”
– Agatha Christie
Spotify Playlist for Alvin Lucier’s Music109 book/class
I’ve been enjoying this book (basically a print version of the lectures for the Music109 class he teaches/taught at Wesleyan) and since I was sick of cataloging found-sound samples I thought I’d make a big playlist of all the pieces discussed in the book in order.
So enjoy – an important composer’s list of important pieces.
I’m pickled tink to announce that my score for “Cycles that Surround Us” has been included in a collection of “new forms of writing sound and music distant from the traditional Western scoring” on lautremusique.net. This is a very cool french blog that is dedicated to new music and thoughts.
Click through to see the rest of the pages and read a short essay about how the piece was influenced by Terry Riley’s In C and also gamelan music.
Check it out and check out the other pieces in the collection, too. There’s some very cool stuff there, I’m flattered to be a part of it.
(It looks like they’re posting new scores every three days or so – check back for more brain-expanding goodness).
nate trier