Music and/as Process [1 ed.] 1443894915, 9781443894913

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Music and/as Process

Music and/as Process Edited by

Lauren Redhead and Vanessa Hawes

Music and/as Process Edited by Lauren Redhead and Vanessa Hawes This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Redhead, Vanessa Hawes and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9491-5 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9491-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations and Tables .................................................................. vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Part I: Analysis as/of Process Chapter One ............................................................................................... 10 Introversive and Extroversive Processes: Rethinking Stravinsky’s Music as Dialogue between Formalist and Expressive Paradigms NICHOLAS MCKAY Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 34 On the Nature of Subjectivity in Music Analysis: Some Observations on Analysing an Early Score by Philip Glass SUZIE WILKINS, KEITH POTTER AND GERAINT A. WIGGINS Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 56 Perception of Structure as a Learning Process in a Schoenberg Song VANESSA HAWES Part II: Performing Processes; Performance Processes Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 80 Performing Transformations (a Risky Approach) ELLEN HOOPER Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 97 Risky Business: Negotiating Virtuosity in the Collaborative Creation of Orfordness for Solo Piano DAVID GORTON AND ZUBIN KANGA Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 116 Notation as Process: Interpretation of Open Scores and the ‘Journey Form’ LAUREN REDHEAD

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Table of Contents

Part III: Composition of/with Processes Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 136 Temporality, Structure, Symbols, and the Social: Graphic Notation as Process CHARLES CÉLESTE HUTCHINS Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 156 Navigating the Uncertain: Performers in Devising Processes MICHAEL PICKNETT Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 173 Translation as Paradigm and Process for Pre-Composition in Leiden Translations Installation and Film ALISTAIR ZALDUA Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 194 Subjectifying the Objective: Mathematical Processes and the Search for Balance STEVE GISBY Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 210 ‘I am just Practising’: A Personal Conversation among the Boundaries and Subjectivities of Current Musicologies CHARLOTTE PURKIS Bibliography ............................................................................................ 230 Contributors ............................................................................................. 243 Index ........................................................................................................ 248

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES

1.1a: Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, opening bassoon melody from the introduction to the ‘Adoration of the Earth’ with melodic cell labels referring to Nattiez’s distributional analysis in Fondements d’une sémiologie de la musique. ......................................................... 16 1.1b: Representation of Nattiez’s distributional analysis of the opening of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, as shown in Figure 1.1a. .............. 16 1.2: Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex, Act 2, Shepherd’s aria. .............................. 20 1.3: Stravinsky, Piano Sonata, First Movement, bb.12-31, paradigmatic analysis. ............................................................................................... 23 1.4: Stravinsky, Piano Sonata, First Movement, bb.12-31 refracted through Rosch’s tripartite model of basic level prototype effects........ 25 1.5: Stravinsky, Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, First Movement, Figures 11-13. ................................................................... 30 2.1: Glass, Gradus, bb.1-2. ........................................................................ 38 2.2: Glass, Gradus, bb.8-9. ........................................................................ 39 2.3: Glass, Gradus, bb.20-21. .................................................................... 40 2.4: Glass, Gradus, b.28. ........................................................................... 40 2.5: Glass, Gradus, b.42. ........................................................................... 41 2.6: Glass, Gradus, b.60. ........................................................................... 41 2.7: Glass, Gradus, b.66. ........................................................................... 42 2.8: Glass, Gradus, b.70. ........................................................................... 43 2.9: Glass, Gradus, bb.82-83. .................................................................... 43 2.10: Glass, Gradus, b.87. ......................................................................... 44 2.11: Glass, Gradus, b.94. ......................................................................... 44 2.12: Glass, Gradus, b.6. ........................................................................... 45 2.13: Glass, Gradus, bb.8-10. .................................................................... 46 2.14: Glass, Gradus, bb.17-18. .................................................................. 47 2.15: Glass, Gradus, bb.18-23. .................................................................. 48 2.16: Glass, Gradus, b.35. ......................................................................... 49 2.17: Glass, Gradus, b.57. ......................................................................... 49 2.18: Glass, Gradus, b.71 .......................................................................... 50 3.1: Self-reported structure of Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV. .................................................................................. 65 3.2: Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV, b.18. ......... 67 3.3: Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV, b.21. ......... 68

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List of Illustrations and Tables

3.4a: Comparing b.18 to b.21 in Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV. .................................................................................. 70 3.4b: Comparing bb.18-20 to bb.15-17in Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV. ......................................................... 71 3.4c: Comparing bb.21-22 to bb.18-20 of Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV. ......................................................... 72 3.5: Comparing some attributes of b.18, b.21, and the opening material of Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV. ............... 74 4.1: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.5-12. .... 90 4.2: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.29-36. .. 92 4.3: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.37-44. .. 93 4.4: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.86-89. .. 94 5.1: The opening of Gorton, ‘Evacuation of the Civil Population from Shingle Street, Suffolk’ from Orfordness. ................................ 102 5.2: Damping an e-bow note with a dulcimer hammer. ........................... 105 5.3: Gorton, ‘Cobra Mist’ from Orfordness, extract. ............................... 107 5.4: Gorton, ‘You Can’t Tell the People’ from Orfordness, extract. ....... 108 5.5: Gorton, ‘Blue Danube’ from Orfordness, extract. ............................ 110 5.6: Orford Ness as it is today. ................................................................ 111 5.7: Gorton, ‘The Island’ from Orfordness, extract. ................................ 113 6.1: Mc Laughlin, Music in Two Dimensions: No. 2a. ............................ 122 6.2: Fergler, Image, Music, Text, p.12. .................................................... 127 6.3: Lucas, [Unnamed Maps Series], notation extract............................. 129 7.1: Cardew, Treatise, p.2. ....................................................................... 137 7.2: Applebaum, Medium, p.3. ................................................................ 139 7.3: Braxton, Falling River Music (Piece #365b). ................................... 141 7.4: Braxton, the title of Piece #69Q. ...................................................... 142 7.5: Redhead, Concerto, parts 3 and 4 on p.4. ......................................... 146 7.6: Hutchins, Imramma panel................................................................. 150 7.7: Hutchins, Imramma panel (2). .......................................................... 151 7.8: Hutchins, Imramma panel (3). .......................................................... 153 9.1: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, notation of recipe number 51 for contrabass: Gilding of Silver. ....................................................... 179 9.2: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, sigil formula for Leiden Papyrus X recipe number 20............................................................................ 180 9.3: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, pre-compositional sketch showing data derived from the sigils created from recipe number 20...................... 181 9.4: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, notation of recipe number 20, ‘Another Formula’ for solo contrabass. ............................................. 182 9.5: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, still of installation showing contrabass (Adam Linson) coupled with a blank (dark) screen. .......................... 189

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9.6: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, still of installation showing writing (Alistair Zaldua) coupled with BSL interpretation (Lauren Redhead).. 190 9.7: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, the author writing the sigil formulae.. 192 10.1: Gisby, Coming Home, the first sixteen patterns. ............................ 199 10.2: Gisby, Symmetry | Reflection, the seven basic structures. .............. 201 10.3: Gisby, Symmetry | Reflection, the additive process. ....................... 201 10.4: Gisby, Point To Line, the process over one octave. ........................ 203 10.5: Gisby, Fragmented Melodies, basic scale material. ....................... 204 10.6: Gisby, Fragmented Melodies, opening eight patterns. ................... 204 10.7: Gisby, Iterative Music, segmentation of audio material. ................ 205 10.8: Gisby, Iterative Music, the first pattern. ......................................... 205 10.9: Gisby, Iterative Music, first displacement and addition. ................ 205 10.10: Gisby, Iterative Music, end point. ................................................ 205 10.11: Gisby, Iterative Music, process of subtraction. ............................ 206

INTRODUCTION VANESSA HAWES AND LAUREN REDHEAD

‘Process’ links many different threads of contemporary musical research. The most well-established use of the term in music is in relation to process music, given focus and definition in Steve Reich’s essay, ‘Music as a Gradual Process’. Reich wrote, ‘the distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall form simultaneously.’1 Of course, this description is not limited to music of the style of Reich’s early minimalist works: music to which the definition can be applied includes much contemporary music, experimental music, improvisation and improvisatory practices, devising practices, and practice-led approaches to (the understanding of) music, all of which are represented in this volume. 2 The term ‘process’ has been understood broadly in order to incorporate a range of perspectives. However, rather than simply processes of interpretation, performance, composition, or analysis, these and other processes can be found in the music discussed in each chapter. Inspired by Reich’s definition, the processes discussed here are audible or perceptible in the music concerned. This includes occasions when musical processes are made perceptible through the experience of iterative processes, or of traces from rehearsal or the creative process. The acknowledgement of a musical piece being and also having a process, and that these two concepts may be linked or even ostensibly the same thing, necessarily requires an understanding of the notion of a musical ‘work’ that goes beyond seeing that ‘work’ as an object to be studied from without, but, rather, recognizes it as a process to be experienced from within. 1 Steve Reich, ‘Music as a Gradual Process’, in Writings About Music, ed. by Paul Hillier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp.9-11 (p.9). 2 Further areas of interest—including early music and non-western music—can be identified. These, and other, areas could be considered as areas for development for future publications in this field.

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Introduction

This volume draws on practice-led research, with core areas of interest in compositional issues, performance practice, and the musicology of process in music, including its analysis. By its nature, research in this area is cross-disciplinary, taking in approaches from other creative arts and social science practices. In recent years, practice-led research has represented a challenge to musicology, in that the frameworks of contemporary musicology—with a long history of the study of music as an object—cannot always present, support and assimilate practice-led work. The musicology of musical processes provides one model of how practiceled and ‘traditional’ musicology might support and complement each other, and may contribute to thinking about how practice-led research is disseminated and evaluated for exercises such as the UK’s Research Excellence Framework. In the late twentieth century musicology began to challenge the terms of its own discourse through the consideration of subjectivity and the social dimension of music, particularly through the ‘New Musicology’ movement, and the increasing influence of cultural studies, ethnomusicology, popular music studies and music psychology. The nature of the ‘work’ of music has been addressed and problematized by scholars such as Lydia Goehr,3 and the nature of the score and its information has been questioned and readdressed in both the experimental music and historically-informed performance movements. But it is no longer enough only to problematize the ‘work’, and address the work concept, in terms of ontology—although there is undoubtedly still work to be done in addressing the ontology of the musical work—and contemporary scholars are beginning to interrogate and embody what Foucault describes as the ‘space left empty by the author’s disappearance’. 4 This empty space, and the question of what might fill it, invites the exploration of the experience of the practitioner, and processes of collaboration, communication, creativity, and sociability. An example of this is in the interpretation of graphic notation, a subjective and personal experience of the process of transforming one kind of musical information into another; here control and responsibility are distributed among practitioners and processes. The challenge of graphic notation provides further context to the debate on authorship and ontology from the empirical experience of the practitioner. 3

Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 4 Michel Foucault, ‘What is an Author?’, in The Foucault Reader, ed. by Paul Rabinow (London: Pantheon, 1985), pp.101-120 (p.105).

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The composer-author and performer-interpreter are not the only practitioners whose role is under construction in the post-New Musicology frameworks of music study, and the space left empty by the analyst’s disappearance in the aftermath of the problematization of analysis as an objective discipline is also one which provides opportunities for exploration. Joseph Kerman, 5 Kofi Agawu 6 and Jean-Jacques Nattiez 7 have all addressed this issue within the fields of hermeneutics and semiotics. Just as processes of interpretation and construction can be interrogated through a consideration of graphic notation, more traditional forms of notation can also be considered from new perspectives in the tradition of these ‘new analysts’. Examples of this are the social and/or personal dimension of music addressed within the musical discourse itself and the processes through which this discourse is experienced. Experience and structure are entwined, and the analyst becomes an acknowledged active agent in the process of generating musicological work. The re-framing of the traditional roles of objects and practitioners in the work of music, and in the work of musicology, invites a perspective with its origin as the active interaction between objects and practitioners: practice-led research, including the work of composers as composers and performers as performers and not just as musicologists writing about composition and performance. As such, the notion of music and/as process addresses some of the themes of one of the most important and comprehensive edited volumes about the study of music in the past, Rethinking Music, 8 and those of Nicholas Cook’s more recent book, Beyond the Score. 9 Cook outlines a scholarship for music in which meaning is generated in real time through the process of performance. There is also an expanding literature in the area of practice-led research and its methodological critique. Edited books by Hazel Smith and Roger 5

Joseph Kerman, ‘How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out’, in Write All These Down: Essays on Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); reprinted from Critical Inquiry, vol.7 (1980), 311-331. 6 Kofi Agawu, ‘How We Got Out of Analysis, and How to Get Back In Again’, Music Analysis, vol.23, no.2/3 (2004), 267-286. 7 Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Towards a Semiology of Music, trans. by Carolyn Abbate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). 8 Rethinking Music, ed. by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 9 Nicholas Cook, Beyond the Score: Music as Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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Introduction

Dean,10 Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt,11 and reflections such as those by Patricia Leavy,12 have all begun to address aspects of the processes and practices of practice-led research, although with very little focus on music. This book emphasizes the foregrounding of the active agent in musical activity, auto-ethnography as a method of empirical study, and selfreflexive practices—which may include writing—as a method for research. Although the diverse topics in this volume can be roughly categorized into sections written from the point of view of the analyst, performer and composer, each of these is much more than that categorization implies. Composers are also performers, performers compose: all are analysts. The analysis presented concentrates on the active in music making, and on the non-traditional and interdisciplinary in analysis. Investigating process rehumanizes analysis and so-called mathematical approaches to composition; performance and composition are employed in investigations of musical meaning as well as of individual creativity. The three sections of the book represent the familiar categories of analysis, performance and composition, but this is just one way of grouping the authors’ work here. Themes and threads generated by an interrogation of the notion of music and/as process are many and varied, and readers will find fruitful connections between chapters across and between the three sections. This book will be of interest to those working in process music, new music, composition, interdisciplinary issues, performance studies, aesthetics and the philosophy of music, music analysis, multimedia and creative arts research and those interested in the evolution of the idea of music as a subject of research: the accelerating transformation of its consideration from object to process, and the challenges this presents both in terms of disciplinary development and wider academic frameworks. In addition, the approach to music analysis, performance, composition, and practice-led research taken by the authors should be of interest to those involved in the practice of music both as professional performers and composers within and outside of the academic profession.

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Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts, ed. by Hazel Smith and Roger T. Dean (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009). 11 Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, ed. by Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt (London: I.B. Taurus, 2007). 12 Patricia Leavy, Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice (New York: The Guilford Press, 2009).

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Many of the authors included are practitioners themselves. The volume, then, is very personal to those authors presenting individual and developing approaches to the problem of doing music in contemporary academia. The perspective is from the inside, the reflections are based on experience and the possibilities are exciting. The range and breadth of perspectives presented also give rise to surprising connections, often at the philosophical level.

Analysis as/of Process The first section of the book deals with the analysis of performance and the performance of analysis. The historical nature of music and the recognition of pieces—by Igor Stravinsky, Philip Glass and Arnold Schoenberg—as musical ‘works’ in the traditional sense, is questioned by the authors, and is a factor in the analyses which address processes in composing, performing, and listening, and the links and overlaps between these, in three very different but interconnected ways. These three approaches posit new directions and territory for musical analysis. Nicholas McKay directly addresses the process of analysis and the nuanced way in which it can understand process. The notion of introversive and extroversive processes is used as a tool to understand Stravinsky’s compositional approach and to address the ability of scorebased semiotic analysis to interrogate processual elements of music. McKay’s method has implications for the understanding of Stravinsky, of process, and of semiotics: it is a subtle approach to explaining how the focus on process in analysis might recontextualize some of its existing methodological tools, and demonstrate that the social dimension of music can be addressed within its musical discourse, and that such an approach might considerably contribute to the understanding of musical processes even in works as well known as The Rite of Spring. This exploration of the poietics of a work is contrasted with the consideration of esthesic information within a computational analysis in the chapter by Suzie Wilkins, Keith Potter, and Geraint Wiggins. These authors bring the examination of experience and self-reporting into the sphere of analysis when considering the actual experience of the listener in the case of process music. Wilkins, Potter, and Wiggins address a strategy for the analysis of process music, with reference to Gradus by Philip Glass. They focus on the experience of the listener’s real-time encounter with the piece: the idea of a ‘surprise’ is conceptualized as a key moment for the listener and a structural understanding of the piece is drawn from an analysis of these surprises.

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Introduction

Vanessa Hawes furthers this model of engagement with the piece as a method of analysis by following the developing understanding of structure in a single participant’s engagement with a Schoenberg song from Das Buch der hängenden Gärten. Examining the relationship between performer and score, her analysis considers structure as a process and investigates how meaning in the music and its performance might be developed in and of this process of interaction and learning, while suggesting how an ecological approach to perception may be recontextualized for this kind of analysis, inspired by approaches to process music.

Performing Processes; Performance Processes The second section builds on—and overlaps with—the first, framing performance and/as process from the individual perspectives of the authors and their experiences as practitioners. Music by Berio, de Falla, music by the authors and their collaborators, and music composed for the authors, is explored through looking at processes of interpretation and risk; processes which further undermine the ontology of the musical ‘work’ as traditionally understood, and bring the practitioner as active agent to the foreground of an examination of musical discourse. Ellen Hooper examines the performance of, and link between, register and timbre in music by Berio and de Falla. She addresses risk in performance as an expressive and transformative technique, offering new perspectives on sung performances of the work from a performanceanalysis perspective. The emphasis is on understanding performance as a personal interpretation of experience rather than a realization of elements within the score. David Gorton and Zubin Kanga examine their own collaboration in the preparation of the extremely virtuosic solo piano piece Orfordness. They examine the concept of risk and its implications for collaboration in the development and performance of the work, and express the collaboration as a process of mitigating and re-introducing risk into the music. Lauren Redhead’s chapter is a reflection both on her own performance for organ and electronics of works of graphic notation, and on the relationship between the consideration of graphic notation and the ontology of the ‘work’ of music. Through looking at examples by Lucas, Fergler, and Mc Laughlin, she considers how these issues reflect a perceived hierarchy of composition and performance in the work concept, and how a strategy which considers works as a multiplicity might shed light on the process of the work.

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Composition of/with Processes The third section encounters and questions the musical ‘work’ at its inception, exploring composition and/as process through its encounters with performance, analysis, collaboration, improvisation, translation, experimentation and cross-disciplinarity. Through explorations of a number of new ‘works’ the way in which practitioners relate to music, to musical processes, and, finally, the processes of talking about those relations, frames a personal and reflective account of the creative process, finally looking beyond music to musicology. Charles Céleste Hutchins addresses graphic notation as a tool for composition, situating his own practice in the context of a collaborative approach to performance by the group, Vocal Constructivists. He examines the interpretation of graphic scores beyond musical considerations: drawing inspiration from media studies literature on comics and graphic novels in his analysis of works by Cardew, Applebaum, Braxton, Schaeffer and Redhead. The process of developing a taxonomy of notation through engagement and multiple performances reveals the deep and rich interaction between performer and graphic score. Michael Picknett addresses performance as composition, reflecting on approaches to devising in music and their compositional outcomes. The processes of research, creation, rehearsal and performance in theatrical devising are discussed in a musical context, providing a framework for examining collaboration, improvisation and experimentation in a musical process, and a completely new paradigm for relating to music. Alistair Zaldua’s chapter describes how the notion of translation can be applied to an understanding of pre-compositional processes in the collaborative composition of an audio-visual installation work. Drawing on post-structuralist translation theory, he outlines how ‘translation’ might be employed as a process for the creation of musical meaning, and how these meanings might be analysed or approached in an open-ended and multi-modal work such as his installation, Leiden Translations. Steve Gisby addresses the composition of processes in five of his own works for various forces, with reflection on their relationship with other process compositions; particularly those by Tom Johnson. With mathematical processes at the heart of Gisby’s compositional approach, he interrogates the interaction of the personal and impersonal, the subjective and the objective, problematizing the notion of the composer’s role in relation to his own and Johnson’s work. Charlotte Purkis’s chapter completes the focus on auto-ethnography and self-reporting found throughout the volume, through a feminist exploration

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Introduction

of her experience and compositional practice. This chapter presents writing about process and practice as its own process. Purkis extends the connecting thread of process and subjectivity through an engagement with both its subject matter and with the process of musicology itself, posing further-reaching questions about the re-thinking of musicology and its processes.

PART I: ANALYSIS AS/OF PROCESS

CHAPTER ONE INTROVERSIVE AND EXTROVERSIVE PROCESSES: RETHINKING STRAVINSKY’S MUSIC AS DIALOGUE BETWEEN FORMALIST AND EXPRESSIVE PARADIGMS NICHOLAS MCKAY

This chapter is drawn from a keynote that comprised a series of examples, many of which I have previously published in other contexts, that together offer a miniature compendium of introversive and extroversive processes at play in Stravinsky’s music. As I have formerly observed, 1 many commentators 2 have identified compositional and aesthetic processes of defamiliarization (or alienation) as the default rhetorical gambit of Stravinsky’s musical language. In so doing, they have trained their analytical eyes on predominantly introversive syntactic moments of ungrammaticality operating through a variety of techniques.

1 Nicholas McKay, ‘Dialogising Stravinsky: A Topic Theory and Gestural Interpretation’, in Igor Stravinsky: Sounds and Gestures of Modernism, ed. by Massimiano Locanto (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp.175-85, excerpts from which appear throughout this chapter. 2 Cf. Theodor Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music (London: Sheed and Ward, 1973); Daniel Albright, Stravinsky: The Music Box and the Nightingale (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1989); Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1976); Stephen Walsh, Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Glenn Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture, and Collage from Stravinsky to the Postmodernists (Harvard: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994).

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These have included polyrhythm and polychords,3 so-called ‘wrong-note’ neoclassic harmony, 4 iterative algorithmic cell sequences, paratactic juxtaposition structures and stratified textures 5 and dialogized genres evident in symphony and sonata forms that question the very formal conventions they simultaneously evoke.6 Discussion of Stravinsky’s extroversive processes—the referential signs of stylistic topical references, allusive gestures and quotations—by contrast have remained relatively neglected, under-interpreted7 or misread as personal stylistic idiolects 8 more than the commonalities of style required of musical topoi. 9 This marginalization and misreading of referential processes in Stravinsky scholarship is perhaps to be expected in light of the composer’s well-documented anti-expressive aesthetics; 10 however dubious, ghostwritten and problematic they may be. Music that is ‘sufficient in itself’ 11 and ‘essentially powerless to express anything at all’ 12 does little to prompt one to even begin to look for referential processes.

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Bernstein; Pierre Boulez, Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship, trans. by Stephen Walsh (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). 4 Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger, The Apollonian Clockwork on Stravinsky (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Bernstein. 5 Edward T. Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, ed. by Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp.156-164. 6 Jonathan Cross, The Stravinsky Legacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Martha Hyde, ‘Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism’, in The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky, ed. by Jonathan Cross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.98-136; Joseph N. Straus, ‘Sonata Form in Stravinsky’, in Stravinsky Retrospectives, ed. by Ethan Haimo and Paul Johnson (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), pp.141-61. 7 Angelo Cantoni, ‘Verdi E Stravinskij’, Studi Verdiani, vol.10 (1994), 127-154. 8 Joseph N. Straus, Stravinsky’s Late Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp.183-248. 9 Nicholas McKay, ‘On Topics Today’, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, vol.4, no.1 (2007), pp.159-83 (pp.160-161). 10 Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1994). 11 Igor Stravinsky, ‘Some Ideas About My Octuor’, The Arts (1924), 4-6. 12 Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (1903-1934) (London: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, 1990), p.53.

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Chapter One

Despite these claims—but also as a strategy towards encoding them— Stravinsky’s music in fact relies on rhetorical processes of stylistic defamiliarization just as much as it does syntactic. Prototypically these extroversive processes are subjected to three notable forms of alienation analogous to the inherent ungrammaticality found in the composer’s introversive syntax. These result from deploying referential signs in states that could be summarized as: deracinated (displaced from their geographic and/or temporal associations), dysphoric (in a depressed, anxious or agitated state; contrary to the natural euphoric tendency of most musical topoi) and dialogized (contested with another—typically opposed—topic or allusive gesture). 13 Recognizing and interpreting these extroversive processes of defamiliarization on a par with the more commonly cited introversive ones prevalent in much Stravinsky scholarship prompts a reassessment of Stravinsky’s music in more expressive terms. It offers a potential and vital means of re-humanizing Stravinsky’s music in the wake of its objectified, machine-like, dehumanizing legacy 14 and modernpostmodern bind.15 This chapter thus offers a rethinking of Stravinsky’s music through a dialogical exchange between its introversive and extroversive processes; the two nodes around which much music semiotics—topic theory in particular—gravitates with its conceptual framework of ‘pure’ (syntactic) and ‘referential’ (stylistic) signs.16 The privileging of introversive, and marginalization of extroversive, processes in Stravinsky’s music is in large part a consequence of the contested identity of The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky’s claim in 1920 that he

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Cf. for a further discussion of these three terms Nicholas McKay, ‘Deracinated, Dysphoric and Dialogised: the Wild and Beguiled Semiotics of Stravinsky’s Topical Signifiers’, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Semiotics in Memory of Raymond Monelle, ed. by Nearchos Panos, Vangelis Lympouridis, George Athanasopoulos and Peter Nelson N., (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, (2012) 2013) pp.193-201; Edinburgh: International Project on Music and Dance Semiotics. 14 Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton; Chichester: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp.360-88. 15 Pieter C. van den Toorn, ‘“Will Stravinsky Survive Postmodernism?” Review of Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra (1996) and Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (1997)’, Music Theory Spectrum, 22 (2000), 104-21. 16 Kofi Agawu, Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classical Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); McKay, ‘On Topics Today’, p.163.

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

13

had written ‘an architectonic, and not an anecdotic, work’ 17 pointedly denied the composer’s originally claimed extroversive inspiration for the work (the vision of a virgin dancing herself to death in a sacrificial rite) in favour of a seemingly new-found introversive point of departure (a purely syntactic musical construct). Whether to better align the work to his newfound formalist aesthetic ideology or to distance the work from its infamous premiere or both, Stravinsky’s volte-face bifurcated the ontology of the work. Today, The Rite’s identity resides as much, if not more, in the introversive media of a score or concert-hall/audio-recording performance than it does in the more extroversive medium of a danced theatrical ballet (built upon ethnographic, primitive, folk fragments). It is more often seen as a forward-looking radical marker of European twentieth-century modernism than it is the product of its nineteenth-century Russian compositional heritage.18 The Rite has thus established a polemical dialogue between formalism and contextualism like almost no other work; a dialogue played out between its conflicting compositional, performance-practice, receptiontheory and academic identities, ideologies and interpretations.19 Today The Rite has become a work foregrounding the dialogism of its introversivesyntactic, and extroversive-semantic, processes—even if historically ‘it’, and branches of formalist musicology, were complicit in privileging the former and marginalizing the latter. The work itself thus embodies what literary theorists term a ‘double-voiced discourse’20 in its very ontology. In particular, it epitomizes Bakhtin’s concept of a ‘vari-directional discourse’: one that pulls in different directions; a concept Korsyn 21 finds in his application of Bakhtin’s theory to Brahms’ music to account for its 17

Stravinsky’s claim that he had written ‘une oeuvre architectonique et non anecdotique’ (my translation in text) first appeared in a 1920 interview in Michel Georges-Michel, ‘Les deux Sacres du Printemps’, Comoedia, 11 December 1920, quoted in Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, p.370. 18 Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through Mavra (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 19 Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, pp.360-388. 20 Mikhailovich Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, trans. by Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984); Mikhailovich Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. by Michael Holquist, trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981). 21 Kevin Korsyn, ‘Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence and Dialogue’, in Rethinking Music, ed. by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.55-72 (p.62).

14

Chapter One

simultaneous pull towards, and annihilation of, Beethoven’s influence. The Rite, in short, is une oeuvre at odds with itself; une oeuvre in constant hermeneutic dialogue with itself; une oeuvre replete with both introversive and extroversive processes writ large by their inherent syntactic, stylist and strategic ungrammaticality and alienation.

Music Semiotics and Topic Theory’s Architectonic-Anecdotic Dialogue The Rite’s architectonic-anecdotic split personality draws a striking parallel with the theoretical underpinnings of music semiotics; one of the last, major music analysis methodologies to emerge (somewhat belatedly) in the twentieth century. Unlike The Rite, music semiotics originated in architectonic structuralism—epitomized in the 1970s and 80s work of distributional analysis22 and paradigmatic charts23—before undergoing its hermeneutic-semantic drift towards anecdotic topic theory. 24 Agawu 25 draws this distinction, contrasting hermeneutics and analysis as a manifestation of music’s ‘ultimately false’, ‘extrinsic–intrinsic dichotomy’; further listing ‘rough equivalents’ of these poles: ‘semantic–syntactic’, ‘subjective–objective’, ‘extra-musical–musical’, ‘extra-generic–congeneric’,26 ‘exosemantic–endosemantic’, 27 and, of course, ‘extroversive semiosis–

22

Nicolas Ruwet, ‘Methods of Analysis in Musicology’, Music Analysis, 6 (1987), 336. 23 Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Fondements d’une sémiologie de la musique (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1975). 24 Cf. for example: Agawu, Playing with Signs; Robert Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2004); Wye Jamison Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: Le Nozze Di Figaro and Don Giovanni (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1983); Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Leonard G. Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style (New York: Schirmer Books, 1980); a summary of which is presented in McKay, ‘On Topics Today’. 25 Kofi Agawu, ‘The Challenge of Semiotics’, in Rethinking Music, ed. by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.138-60 (p.145). 26 Wilson Coker, Music and Meaning: A Theoretical Introduction to Musical Aesthetics (New York: The Free Press, 1972), pp.60-88; 147-170. 27 Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Fragments of a Musical Hermeneutics’, Current musicology, 50 (1991), 5-20.

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

15

introversive semiosis’.28 They are in essence all manifestations of Stravinsky’s anecdotic–architectonic dichotomy articulated over The Rite. They all prompt the kind of dialogue between formalism and ‘expressive discourse’ that Whittall 29 finds in Hatten’s approach to topic theory and that is advocated here as the key to re-humanizing Stravinsky’s musical discourse and reception.

Pastoral Processes 1: The Rite, Part I, ‘Adoration of the Earth’ Introduction An example of such an interpretative dialogue between these metaideological discourses surrounding The Rite is found at the very beginning of the work itself. The famous opening bassoon melody offers a primitive version of the pastoral,30 heard in the mock Ukrainian dudki (peasant horns and pipes of wood and bone). This anecdotic, meandering evocation of primitive pastoralism, however, is immediately at dialogical odds with the architectonic, iterative, additive machinations of its concealed paradigmaticchart-like construction. Anathema to the natural quasi-improvisatory ideals of pastoralism, this introversive precision-engineered syntax is highlighted in two landmark analyses: Boulez’s 31 detailed, cell-structure, rhythmic analysis and Nattiez’s 32 subsequent, Ruwet-inspired, paradigmatic 28 Roman Jakobson, ‘Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics’, in Semiotics: An Introductory Anthology, ed. by Robert E. Innis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), pp.147-175. 29 Whittall, Arnold, ‘Review of Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation by Robert S. Hatten’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 121 (1996), 116-124 (p.116). 30 Discussions of Stravinsky’s use of the pastoral topic are not uncommon (Geoffrey Chew, ‘Pastoral and Neoclassicism: A Reinterpretation of Auden’s and Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 5 (1993), 239-263; Edward T. Cone, ‘Stravinsky’s Version of Pastoral’, in Hearing and Knowing Music: The Unpublished Essays of Edward T. Cone, ed. by Robert P. Morgan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp.181-189; Straus, Stravinsky’s Late Music). See McKay, ‘Dysphoric States: Stravinsky’s Topics—Huntsmen, Soldiers and Shepherds’, in Music Semiotics: A Network of Significations—In Honour of Raymond Monelle, ed. by Esti Sheinberg (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp.249-261 (pp.258-259), for a summary and critique of their scope and limitations. McKay, ‘Dysphoric States’, excerpted by permission of the Publishers, Copyright © 2012. 31 Boulez, pp.60-62. 32 Nattiez, pp.281-285.

16

Chapter One

distributional chart analysis of Boulez’s cell sequences (resummarized in Figures 1.1a and 1.1b).

Figure 1.1a: Opening bassoon melody from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring: Introduction to the ‘Adoration of the Earth’. All melodic cell labels refer to Nattiez’s distributional analysis, presented in Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Fondements d’une sémiologie de la musique (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1975), pp.2823.

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

17

Figure 1.1b: Representation of Nattiez’s distributional analysis of the opening of The Rite of Spring, as shown in Figure 1.1a.

The extent of Stravinsky’s introversive precision tooling is evident in Boulez’s analysis of what he terms ‘fragment I’—the first four cells (a1, a2, a3 and a4). Boulez’s descriptions add a further layer of methodological dialogism, conflating Stravinsky’s native Russian compositional technique of additive, asymmetrical sequential processes with more Darmstadtinspired serialist terminology and ideology. Note, for example, his observation that: a4 is symmetrically a retrograde—in sound-time, that is—of cell a1, with however a rhythmic acceleration in a4 which distinguishes them, as does the number of units. On the other hand cells a2 and a3 are related by inversion in sound-time and by symmetry in sound-space.

He further observes a process in which there is an ‘increasing number of unit values which supports these structural symmetries and parallelisms’ (a hallmark Stravinskian additive process) and that ‘no value or subdivision in any one cell is repeated in any other’: 33 another Stravinskian hallmark process of juxtaposing cells with maximized variability and unpredictability. Nattiez’s paradigmatic alignment of Boulez’s analysis better discloses the iterative, additive, permutational processes at play in the bassoon melody: a kind of lyrical monody version of the abrupt block juxtaposition textural and structural principles of construction essayed in the first 33

Boulez, pp.61-62.

18

Chapter One

tableau of the earlier Petrushka (1911). The processes of altered repetition in Stravinsky’s mock dudki pipes draw obvious parallels with those Nattiez also found in Debussy’s Syrinx (1913). 34 Stravinsky’s micromanaged altered repetition, however, is less that of Debussy’s quasiimprovisational feel—befitting its pastoral topic—and more the dialogized, introversive, constructivist precision engineering articulated by Boulez and Nattiez’s analyses. This is not the only important difference between Debussy and Stravinsky’s pastoralism, however. Even within the domain of the extroversive referential sign alone, whereas Debussy ‘correctly’ evokes the imagined idealism of the pastoral topic prototype (the misappropriated soft, caressing flute—a surrogate for the ancient panpipe syrinx), Stravinsky’s mock dudki ‘incorrectly’ depicts something approximating the actual shepherd’s instrument (the aulós or tibia; closer to an oboe or shawm; a double reed instrument of great power, usually played in pairs and very hard to blow). The Rite’s mock dudki pipes thus depict, rather than evoke, nature’s primordial awakening of spring. As such, as I have previously argued, 35 they breach topic theory convention by rooting themselves more in social ethnography than idealized cultural imagination. This moment of extroversive ungrammaticality fails to adhere to the allimportant topic-theory separation of signifieds from signifiers: 36 though more practical in shepherding, powerful reed instruments seldom figure in the pastoral topic. The topical reference is therefore dysphoric, its uncomfortably high asthmatic bassoon register an extension of Stravinsky’s native stikhíya dialect. Taruskin37 attributes this term to Stravinsky’s rougher, ethnographic, folk-inspired, discontinuous, juxtaposing, paratactic language style, epitomized in works like The Rite and Les noces and defined in polemic with kul’túra, a language style built on the western, Germanic hallmarks of high eighteenth-century classicism. The usual kul’túra: signifiers of musical pastoralism (perfect fifth musette drones, 6/8 dotted Siciliana rhythms and simple scalic melodies moving in step) are notably absent; replaced here with an obsessively fixed, repeated sustained C falling to A 34

Nattiez, pp.330-54. McKay, ‘Dysphoric States: Stravinsky’s Topics—Huntsmen, Soldiers and Shepherds’. 36 Raymond Monelle, The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), pp.207-208. 37 Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, pp.951-966. 35

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

19

(a linear substitute for a vertical bass drone, set on a minor third in place of the musette’s fifth). This displacement of more commonplace euphoric topical conventions with a stikhíya dialect grounded in social ethnography comes as little surprise given The Rite’s anecdotic origins as an ethnological ballet under the guidance of Roerich. Nonetheless this classical ungrammaticality in Stravinsky’s use of a rhetorical topic constitutes a stylistic analogue of the syntactic ‘dissonance’ of his polychordal, polyrhythmic, dialogized language. Stravinsky’s turn to social reality in The Rite’s dysphoric topical opening may well have been inspired as much by earlier Russian stage music pastoral takes as it was by the composer’s own attempts at ethnographic, folkloric echoes. Taruskin cites the near identical ‘leittimbres’ of the woodwind colours in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mlada and Snegurochka (‘springtime fable’) as a certain influence, noting that Rimsky ‘even prefaced his latter opera with an Introduction that depicts the awakening of spring’. 38 Either way, the sophisticated, introversive, architectonic, mathematical, calculated, engineered processes of the bassoon’s opening cell structures remain dysphoric and therefore dialogized against the conventional quasi-improvised naturalism of the extroversive processes of the anecdotic, dudki pipe’s primitive pastoralism. Rather like siding with one particular meter over another in a polyrhythmic texture such as the ‘Procession of the Sage’, to hear one without the other of these irreconcilable sound worlds is to misapprehend the music; to misread The Rite; to glimpse only a partial picture of The Rite’s processes, a failure to inter-animate the play of introversive and extroversive processes. The Rite is neither an architectonic nor an anecdotic work but an allotrope of the two in constant dialogical interchange witnessed through the interchange and exchange of introversive and extroversive semiotic processes. The challenge it poses for hermeneutic readings is to simultaneously grasp and grapple with its pure and referential sign processes, moving beyond attempts to privilege one over the other to better comprehend the primitive sophistication of its anecdotic-architectonic dialogues.

38

Ibid., p.934.

20

Chapter One

Pastoral Processes 2: Oedipus Rex, Act 2, Shepherd’s Aria Stravinsky’s turn to social reality in place of topical pastoral evocation is by no means unique to The Rite in Stravinsky’s output. Act 2 of Oedipus Rex employs a pastoral aria,39 shown here in Figure 1.2. The bass drone signifier is not that of a prototype zampogna (the Sicilian peasant shepherd’s instrument) or musette (the refined, delicate, pastoral-imitating instrument of the French nobility), but a curious ranz des vaches: the traditional alpine horn music of Swiss herdsmen. 40 As with The Rite’s mock dudki pipes, the shepherd’s pipes again highlight Stravinsky’s predilection

39

This reading of the Shepherd’s aria from Oedipus Rex is previously published in, and excerpted by permission of the publishers from, Nicholas McKay, ‘Dysphoric States: Stravinsky’s Topics—Huntsmen, Soldiers and Shepherds’, in Music Semiotics: A Network of Significations—In Honour of Raymond Monelle, ed. by Esti Sheinberg (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp.249-261, Copyright © 2012 and ‘Dialogising Stravinsky: A Topic Theory and Gestural Interpretation’, in Igor Stravinsky: Sounds and Gestures of Modernism, ed. by Massimiano Locanto (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp.175-85. 40 Walsh, p.53.

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

21

Figure 1.2: Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex, Act 2, Shepherd’s aria.

for substituting conventional topical evocation with social reality: an offthe-peg pastoral signifier geographically and temporally deracinated (i.e. displaced from its native home or culture) from the twentieth-century Swiss Alps (where Stravinsky resided in exile) to the Ancient Greece of Oedipus Rex’s diegesis. The deep percolating double reeds of the bassoons in the Shepherd’s aria—a marked contrast in register to the high bassoon

22

Chapter One

of The Rite’s ‘Adoration of the Earth’—function as ‘surrogate stimuli’41 for the more imagined cultural ideal of pastorally figurative flutes. They may better reflect the shepherd’s aulós pipes of Sophocles’ time but, as noted above, historical accuracy is a game seldom played by topical references: signifiers and signifieds tend to separate in the world of topic theory.42 Stravinsky’s turn to a more dysphoric, concrete, distorted sense of social reality here—against the precepts of topic theory’s imagined, idealized evocation—attests to the ungrammatical processes to which he subjects his extroversive stylistic rhetorical topics. The same compositional processes of alienation and distortion seem to control the extroversive elements of Stravinsky’s musical style as they do the introversive icons of his musical syntax. The dysphoric state of Stravinsky’s Shepherd’s pastoral topic is further compounded in two compelling rhetorical processes borrowed from Robert Hatten: 43 the ‘troping of topics’ and the ‘strategically marked’ absence (in this case) of stylistic irony. Here pastoralism is ‘troped’ (suffused or dialogized) with the lament of the weeping pianto topic (the sighing, leaning, falling appoggiatura), amplified by its ‘infinity of laments’ figure,44 the passus duriusculus: descending minor seconds over the interval of a fourth. The aria is therefore ‘strategically marked’ in the context of this opera-oratorio’s discourse by its almost unique absence of the stylistic irony characterizing all other numbers. In an opera-oratorio Stravinsky described as a ‘Merzbild’ 45 of mismatched, incongruous stylistic components,46 this dialogized, deracinated and dysphoric trope of the pastoral-lament—the product of carefully engineered and interpreted 41 Umberto Eco, Kant and the Platypus (London: Vintage, 2000), pp.353-357, defines a surrogate stimulus as a phenomenon that ‘acts on the eye [or ear] of the observer in a way “similar” to the real scene’: it functions as an equivalent stimulus relying on ‘a calculated distance’ to ‘obtain its iconic effect’. 42 Monelle, The Musical Topic, p.35; pp.207-208. 43 Robert S. Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2004), p.15; pp.68-69. 44 Monelle, The Sense of Music, pp.66-76. 45 Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a Diary (London: Faber, 1968), p.27. 46 See, for example, Bernstein’s description of Jocasta, the royal queen, admonishing her princes in a ‘hoochy-coochy dance’ or ‘one of Carmen’s sexier moments’!, pp.391-405.

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

23

extroversive processes—is thus curiously apt for its character and moment in a manner unlike almost any other found in Oedipus Rex. (Even its deracinated ranz des vaches befits a shepherd, albeit a geographically and temporally displaced one.) Taruskin reads Oedipus’s stylistic ‘salad of clichés’ as the macabre product of the ‘musical Mussolini’s’ neoclassic return to order—an attempt to ‘undo the Renaissance’, eradicating secular humanism from his scores.47 The pastoral-lament of the Shepherd, however, is its rehumanizing moment; transcending its subtle extension of introversive processes of defamiliarization to the extroversive domain of his music.

Processing Linguistic Syntax and Language Style in the Piano Sonata These extroversive processes of alienation are by no means confined to Stravinsky’s theatre music; the explicit narratives of which offer readymade hermeneutic windows through which topical references are usually all the more easy to read. Figure 1.3 presents bb.12-31 of the first movement of Stravinsky’s Piano Sonata as a simple Nattiez/Ruwet-styled distributional chart in four paradigms: an inverted mordent feature; a melodic antecedent in parallel thirds rising over a perfect fifth; a consequent answer filling the gap back down the perfect fifth; and a mechanical cadence feature. The three syntagms are labelled ‘a’, ‘b’, and ‘c’—where ‘c’ is shown in two alternative paradigmatic subdivisions, labelled ‘d’ and ‘e’.48 There is an evident dialogism between the faux-classical hypotactic appearance of proportion and even phrase structure versus the juxtaposing parataxis of iterative repetition (not at all dissimilar to the dialogism between the natural pastoral lyricism of The Rite’s opening and the precision-engineered paradigmatic processes of altered repetition discussed above). Stravinsky’s stikhíya processes of defamiliarization and 47

Richard Taruskin, ‘Un Cadeau Très Macabre’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 72 (2003), 801-816. 48 This reading of the Piano Sonata is previously published in Nicholas McKay, ‘Ethnic Cleansing, Anxious Influence and Secret Codes: A Semiotician’s Guide to Stravinsky’s Musicological Afterlife and Its Archaeological Contra-Factum’, in Before and After Music: Acta Semiotica Fennica, ed. by Eero Tarasti (Helsinki: The International Semiotics Institute, 2009), pp.565-74 and ‘Dialogising Stravinsky: A Topic Theory and Gestural Interpretation’.

24

Chapter One

ungrammaticality, moreover, are bubbling away beneath the façade of this seemingly kul’túra-styled innocent music; an innocence itself dialogized by the historical-political contextual knowledge that the work was dedicated to, and premiered for, Mussolini at a time when Stravinsky was openly pronouncing himself something of a ‘musical Mussolini’.49

Figure 1.3: Stravinsky, Piano Sonata, First Movement, bb.12-31, paradigmatic analysis.

Figure 1.4 summarizes how these subtle alienation processes can be read as an opposition between linguistic syntax and language style distributed across three levels of music. These levels are derived from

49

Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, p.452; ‘Un Cadeau Très Macabre’, p.804.

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

25

Eleanor Rosch’s linguistic theory of prototype effects.50 Rosch demonstrates that prototype effects (the ease of identifying typical features) are most prevalent in categories at the basic level of syntax (e.g. ‘dog’) and less evident at the superordinate (‘animal’) or subordinate (‘Labrador’) levels. On the matrix level of the linguistic syntax all appears allusive of Classical/Baroque contrapuntal brisé figuration. The constituent parameters of melody-accompaniment and harmony-counterpoint appear as they ‘should’. They strike the right pose and ape the correct mannerisms: a right-hand melody is balanced by a texturally ‘correct’ accompaniment pattern in the left hand and the bass triplet figures of that left hand serve ‘rightly’ to arpeggiate harmonic chords as a means of prolonging them through linear musical time; all is correctly synchronized. On the model level, however, all is distorted and far from prototypical. Although the parameters of accompaniment and melody are correctly superimposed, their harmony is cross-matched in a false counterpoint: ‘dominant’ chords are maliciously aligned with tonic chords and vice versa in cubist bichordal composite harmonies. This distortion is compounded further on the minutia level with leading-note chords acting as ‘surrogate stimuli’ for under-coded dominant sevenths. From a distance all appears allusive: a sublime classical evocation with tonic-dominant brisé harmony. Move closer and the illusion is revealed: all is chaotic disorder and cubist refraction built from surrogate stimuli with crossmatched harmony and melody. This is classical counterpoint only by virtue of our misperception.

50

Eleanor C. Rosch, Carol Simpson, and R. Scott Miller, ‘Structural Bases of Typicality Effects’, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2 (1976), 491-502; cited in George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp.39-57.

MODEL Basic

Stikhíya Inorganic Turanian

melody counterpoint

pastoral aria style

Characteristic tropes of ethopoeia

tonics

‘dominants’

Stravinsky’s voice Petrushka Symphonies of Winds The Rite

moto perpetuo pedagogic etude

‘Quonium’

Bach’s voice Two-part inventions

Double-voiced language styles Personified tropes of prosopopoeia

prototype deviation Harmonic cross-matching:

Kul’túra Organic Baroque/Classical

Double-voiced language types

appears like Synchronized Parameters

MATRIX Superordinate accompaniment harmony

Language Style

Linguistic Syntax

Chapter One

Level of Music

26

vii

‘V’

paradigms additive blocks disruption interpolations harmonic stasis

linear sequences Stile Brisé continuity parallel thirds teleology

Double-voiced stylistic traits

Surrogate stimuli: ‘wrong note’ chords

27

Figure 1.4: Stravinsky, Piano Sonata, First Movement, bb.12-31 refracted through Rosch’s tripartite model of basic level prototype effects.

MINUTIA Subordinate

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

28

Chapter One

A number of semiotic processes are at play in these carefully engineered moments of musical ungrammaticality; most of which are lost in the sonic equivalent of blind spots. On the matrix level, Stravinsky has lulled the listener into what Monelle terms an act of apodeitic complicity,1 moving from the peculiar particularity of the sonata to the familiar generality of classical brisé figuration. Passively accepting the allusive matrix-level mannerisms of melody and accompaniment at face value as a truthful assertion of classical style overlooks the prototype deviation and surrogate stimuli concealed on the model and minutia levels. In semiotic parlance, Stravinsky evokes the classical style as an icon, not as an index2 and the Sonata is read with ‘encyclopaedic’ (perceptual, stylistic, referential), not with ‘dictionary’ (categorical, syntactic, pure), knowledge. 3 Stravinsky neatly dialogizes perceptual and categorical understanding of the processes at play. A similar dialogism to that found in the introversive sign processes of the linguistic syntax, occurs in the extroversive processes of the language styles evoked in the Sonata. On the matrix level, the Sonata appears like ‘kul’túra’: the ethnic Russian term for hypotactic organicism (typified by the Austro-German first Viennese school) in contradistinction to the characteristic discontinuity of parataxis, or ‘stikhíya’ found in The Rite’s musical discourse.4 There is an inbuilt parataxis to the Sonata’s discourse, however, that dialogizes against the linear flow of classical phrase structure. That parataxis is evident in the juxtaposition antics (the cut-andpaste structure, the interpolated phrase disruption, the additive iteration) highlighted in the distributional analysis. The juxtaposing is so disruptive, that one single interpolated meter (b.28) throws the final phrase before the cadence to E minor (b.31) into paradigmatic chaos with three competing syntagmatic readings (labelled c, d, and e). At this matrix level, then, the Sonata dialogizes the meta-language styles of stikhíya and kul’túra. Its stikhíya dialect (the cubistic dissection of syntactic-linguistic components) appears as if it were classical, thus dialogizing itself with a kul’túra-inspired illusory hypotaxis. The Sonata thus conceals the same parataxis overtly displayed in earlier RussianTuranian works such as the Symphony of Winds or Rite of Spring. Its 1

Monelle, The Sense of Music, p.134. Charles Sanders Peirce, The Philosophy of Peirce, Selected Writings (London: Kegan Paul, 1940). 3 Eco, pp.224-229. 4 Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, pp.1678-1679. 2

Introversive and Extroversive Processes

29

melodic cells are no longer tiny folk fragments, but chunks of classicism; the four paradigmatic abstract, geometric, Apollonian nuts and bolts of a classical sonata theme engineered to the simultaneous points of perfection and banality. This Bakhtinian double-voicing of hypo- and para-taxis is yet another form of ‘ungrammaticality’, a process embedded as much in the music’s extroversive language style(s) as it is in the music’s introversive linguistic syntax. It is a sign of disunity but not one that can be resolved dialectically from a hermeneutic position privileging unity. The disunified dialect of stikhíya is Stravinsky’s native, authorial voice; kul’túra is merely the ‘reflected discourse’5 through which Stravinsky refracts it. To marginalize one against the other is to miss the point of dialogics. Expressive meaning arises from the interanimation of both discrepant, referential, language styles. Making block juxtaposition behave as if it were classical teleology and vice versa is a classic double voicing strategy of Stravinsky’s neoclassicism played out across the three language-linguistic levels. The matrix level dialogizes familiar meta-language dichotomies: parataxis– hypotaxis; stikhíya–kul’túra; inorganic–organic; Turanian–Baroque/Classical. The model level double-voices the discourse in two ways: one, through personified double-voicing (tropes of prosopopoeia) between language styles and ideologies belonging to Stravinsky and Bach, the other through characteristic double-voicing (tropes of ethopoeia) in which conventional language styles (generic topics, genres, gestures) are conflated—as seen in the ethopoeitic inter-animation of mechanical formulae (the automata-like ‘moto perpetuo’ and incremental mechanical modulations of a ‘technical etude’) and expressive evocations of lyrical nature (the cantabile rising and falling melody of ‘aria style’ and the implicit 6/8 lilt, open octaves and simplicity of pastoral style). The constituent components of these model language styles similarly double-voice the minutia level: Bachian linear sequences and stile brisé construction refracted through Stravinskian harmonic stasis, and paradigmatic and additive juxtapositional construction.

5

Bakhtin, pp.205-207

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Chapter One

Processing Bach’s Voice in the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments A similar example to the Piano Sonata is found in the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1923-24).6 A paradigm neoclassic work, its extroversive processes can be read as epitomizing a sense of playing with the past through Bakhtin’s concept of the ‘sideward glance’ at the ‘reflected discourse’ of an ‘absent interlocutor’; a style defined by ‘the intense anticipation of another’s words’.7 Here Bach’s voice is felt in the effect it has on Stravinsky’s voice despite its literal absence from the scene. It functions as an absent signifier. Composed in 1923-24, the Piano Concerto, like the Sonata, is a work in which Stravinsky’s discourse is determined by the reflected discourse of Bach—not the real or historical Bach but Bach as a personification of the architectonic; a Bach constructed in Stravinsky’s own, idealized image.8 In this regard at least (unlike his above-discussed social reality treatment of musical topics), Stravinsky’s extroversive processes of allusions to Bach really do separate their signifiers from their signified! Stravinsky’s Bach, inspired by Wanda Landowska’s harpsichord performances, anachronistically presents an image of ‘Bach the geometrist’ through a ‘sewing machine style’ performance practice bearing little resemblance to Baroque performance tradition but aligning strongly with Stravinsky’s contemporaneous neoclassic predilection for monometric rhythm and performance-as-execution. 9 Stravinsky’s sideward glance at 6

For a discussion of the semiotics processes at play in Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, see Nicholas McKay, ‘Stravinsky’s Sideward Glance: Neoclassicism, Dialogised Structures and the Reflected Discourse of Bach’, The Journal of Music and Meaning, vol.12 (2013), 1-43. 7 Ibid., pp.205-206. 8 Richard Taruskin, ‘“Back to Whom? Neoclassicism as Ideology”, Review of Scott Messing, Neoclassicism in Music (1988), Stephen Hinton, The Idea of Gebrauchmusik (1989) and Wolfgang Osthoff and Reinhard Wiesend (eds.) Colloquium Klassizität, Klassik in der Musik 1920-1950 (1985)’, Nineteenth Century Music, 16 (1993), 286-302. A more extensive version of this reading of the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments is found in Nicholas McKay, ‘Stravinsky’s Sideward Glance: Neoclassicism, Dialogised Structures and the Reflected Discourse of Bach’, The Journal of Music and Meaning, 12 (2013), 1-43. 9 Richard Taruskin, Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance (New York Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.91-152.

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Bach manifests itself here in an over-wound, machine-like contrapuntal discourse that, as shown in Figure 1.5, has all but consumed what would otherwise constitute a pianto appoggiatura motif into a three-part mechanical gesture akin to three intermeshed cogs whirring at highlycalibrated, differentiated speeds.

Figure 1.5: Stravinsky, Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, First Movement, Figures 11-13.

This illustrative moment from the first movement is again best comprehended as a paradigmatic chart; this time highlighting a three-part contrapuntal texture unfolding over four syntagmatic rows. The reflected voice of Bach determines the style, tone and manner of Stravinsky’s

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thinking and experiencing through a linear counterpoint and phrase structure that presents as a mere architectonic system of sounds. As with the Sonata, the material distributes across four archetypal gestural and structural paradigms: repeated note ‘pedal motif’, scalic ‘cadence’, ‘transition’ (a syncopated, additive variant of the pedal motive) and ‘tonic resolution’. Again it is apodeitic complicity—our readiness to accept the perception of a textural counterpoint (a form of impersonal, characteristic heteroglossia [lit. other-voicedness] cueing the musical topic of learned style) over the categorical reality of actual harmonic syntax (which might more accurately cue unlearned style)—that draws one into a perceived sideward glance to the reflected discourse of Bach (a form of personified heteroglossia). This is Bach, the listener senses, even though—as Walsh keenly observes of the Octet—those Bachian ‘conventions are being manoeuvred into shapes and continuities which, if he were to stop and think about them consistently violate his sense of their innate logic’. 10 Stravinsky thus orients his discourse and consciousness towards the discourse and consciousness of another; another cast in his own image. For Bakhtin, the sideward glance at a reflected discourse is a two-way process.11 As with the Sonata, Stravinsky’s neoclassic music seems to be embroiled in a similar reflected discourse: his ‘natural’ post-tonal, octatonic, bichordal, bi-isotopic, juxtaposing stikhíya discourse anticipates the potential responses of an absent, imagined, tonal, linearly unfolding, organic, kul’túra Bach; a Bach emblematic of anticipated objections and interjections from German organicism; the grain against which Stravinsky’s discourse evolved.

Conclusion The introversive-extroversive divide of Stravinsky’s music (correlating to autonomous linguistics and referential stylistics) is thus seen more as one of interanimation between the two dimensions (and three levels) of even his apparently most abstract formalist music. If Stravinsky’s music has been dehumanized by his own hand (including in the Piano Sonata’s case by his proto-fascist aesthetic alignment) and by formalist and contextualist musicology, it is largely because the interanimation of syntax with expressive language styles has been marginalized from its 10 11

Walsh, p.121. Bakhtin, p.207.

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hermeneutics. A music-semiotic model of interpretation, as articulated here however, offers a corrective; a means of rethinking Stravinsky that unearths and interprets the expressive dimensions of his music, re-voicing and re-humanizing works such as The Rite, Oedipus’ Shepherd’s aria, the Piano Sonata and Piano Concerto against the grain as dialogues between the pure signs of linguistic syntax and the expressive referential signs of language styles. The spectre of intentionality rears its head. Can one say that Stravinsky, consciously or otherwise, employed these introversive and extroversive processes as compositional methods/practices or are formalists and semioticians guilty of reading Stravinsky’s music as exhibiting these processes purely to vindicate their own analytical and hermeneutical methods/practices? In other words, are we evaluating Stravinsky’s music and process or are we looking at his music as (a particular kind(s) of) process? The distinction is largely academic, as indeed the title of this book suggests. This chapter, however, contends that, while a predominantly formalist twentieth century has made comfortable and commonplace the view that Stravinsky’s music and introversive process(es) are mutually inclusive and dependent in compositional terms, his music as extroversive process(es) is far more problematic and less dependent. It clearly displays similar alienation tropes of dialogism and dysphoria found in his music’s introversive processes but to a degree—and at a more subjective perceptual level—that questions its validity as a compositional method. In short, understanding Stravinsky’s music and introversive process(es) go hand-in-hand, while reading his music as extroversive process(es) remains marginalized.

CHAPTER TWO ON THE NATURE OF SUBJECTIVITY IN MUSIC ANALYSIS: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON ANALYSING AN EARLY SCORE BY PHILIP GLASS SUZIE WILKINS, KEITH POTTER AND GERAINT A. WIGGINS

This chapter examines issues of ‘process’, both through a discussion of a composition based on an unusually high degree of melodic and rhythmic repetition (in a style often called ‘minimalist’ and sometimes called ‘process music’), and, in particular, through a discussion of listening strategies for such music. Possible readings of Philip Glass’s Gradus for solo soprano saxophone (1968) are actualized in the experiences of two listeners with different kinds of musical background. We offer some analytical observations on a particular piece of ‘process music’ that—due to the fact that its ‘processes’ are less schematic than those found in most more familiar minimalist compositions of this period, such as Glass’s Two Pages and Music in Similar Motion (both 1969)—at once presents particular challenges to the listener and yet at the same time might also lend itself to listening strategies that have more in common with compositions associated with more familiar tonal repertoires. We are also interested in using these accounts to contribute to a wider discussion about musical expectation and, indeed, the value of the dual-listener methodology deployed here. This chapter builds on a previous analysis of Gradus presented by Potter, Wiggins, and Pearce1 and expands on this 1 Keith Potter, Geraint A. Wiggins, and Marcus T. Pearce, ‘Towards Greater Objectivity in Music Theory: Information-dynamic Analysis of Minimalist Music’,

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research by focusing on a number of smaller-scale surprising moments within the music. These were identified, analysed and discussed by two listeners with different musical backgrounds. We then use the individual differences between the readings of two listeners as an analytical tool to interrogate not only the musical fabric of Gradus but also different modes of listening. Surprise, expectation and the relationships between them have been discussed in much literature in many different fields, ranging from formal music-analytical approaches2 to psychological studies.3 Leonard Meyer’s pioneering work in the area of expectation in music should also be noted, though his research was focused more than ours is on emotional content.4 This chapter does not attempt to further the discussion of the psychological or neurophysiological explanations of surprise, but instead works to identify different types of surprises. In particular, we are interested in how such surprises are created through different types of musical memory: in this case, in a piece of unsystematic minimalist music. This has been made possible through our novel two-listener methodology. Moments of surprise were identified and annotated on a score of Gradus during the listening process, independently, by two expert listeners: the first two authors of this paper. By comparing these two annotations we developed a clearer understanding of musical learning and its consequences for musical experience. Potter listened to a MIDI recording of Gradus made for research using a computational model of melodic expectation (in connection with previous work on the Information Dynamics of Music (IDyOM) project5; he had heard the work in recorded performances on prior occasions. Wilkins listened to the Alter Ego performance of Gradus for her initial survey of the piece 6 ; further Musicae Scientiae, 11 (2007), 295-322. 2 For example, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, ‘Surprise and Listening Ahead: Analytic Engagements with Musical Tendencies’, Music Theory Spectrum, 29 (2007), 197-217. 3 For example, David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006). 4 Leonard B. Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956). 5 Potter, Wiggins, and Pearce (2007). 6 Alter Ego, Alter Ego Performs Philip Glass (New York: Orange Mountain Music, 2007).

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listenings were to the MIDI version of the score; she had not heard the work before undertaking the present research. Both recordings appear to be rigorous and reliable representations of the music as it is represented in the score; and for notational purposes, both listeners used the Dunvagen edition 7 . To identify the moments of surprise, the listeners loosely followed a score whilst listening and quickly made annotations next to any bar they had found surprising. In this first phase, no commentary was written on the music nor was the recording paused. After this process, each listener briefly analysed his or her chosen moments to describe why these had emerged as focal points. The two lists were then compared and contrasted in a number of longer discussions between the two listeners. There were also further listenings to see if the effects were one-off or recurring surprises. The analysis takes the form of two conventional listening-based musical analyses that can then be deployed to enrich one another. The two analyses are used to create comparisons, and it is in the moments of extreme difference and similarity that the ways of listening can be understood. Whilst the listening results of one subject could be analysed and discussed in terms of musical learning, the differences between the listeners raised more interesting questions, such as: what types of listening have led the two listeners to draw such different conclusions? The results suggest that the two listeners may be engaging with the music in different ways, using what may be interpreted as different types of listening. Our basis for examining this hypothesis derives from Timothy C. Justus and Jamshed J. Bharucha’s work on what they term ‘schematic’ and ‘veridical’ categories of expectation: [s]chematic expectations may be generated independently of one’s knowledge of specific harmonic sequences […] In other words, there may be musical schemata, representations of the harmonic events that are globally most likely to occur in Western music, and musical memories, representations of harmonic events that actually do occur in a specific piece of music. Schematic representations generate schematic expectancies for harmonic events likely to occur in one’s culture. Musical memories create veridical expectancies of the actual harmonic events that occur in a specific familiar piece of music.8

7

Philip Glass, Gradus (New York: Dunvagen Music Publishers, 1968). Timothy C. Justus and Jamshed J. Bharucha, ‘Modularity in Musical Processing: The Automaticity of Harmonic Priming’, Journal of Experimental Psychology:

8

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For the present paper we have expanded Justus and Bharucha’s understanding of musical schemata as representations of harmonic events to include other musical events, such as the introduction of new pitches and the increase or decrease in pitch range, since these are more appropriate schemata for a minimalist repertoire. The significance, for the present study, of this distinction between ‘schematic’ expectation—in which a listener’s reactions are the consequences of his or her enculturation in the conventions of Western tonality—and ‘veridical’ expectations—in which a listener’s reactions are purely the consequences of exposure to the piece of music being listened to—lies, we claim, in the way in which this distinction might cast light on how compositions such as Gradus can be appreciated by means of ‘structural listening’. One aspect of Justus and Bharucha’s work is the idea that veridical and schematic expectations can either diverge or converge, with the latter being the more usual situation. A divergence in expectations explains how a familiar piece of music can still be surprising: ‘for that familiar piece with unusual harmonic progressions, the two expectancies will diverge. The listener’s veridical expectations for the unusual progression will be confirmed, but the schematic expectations for more probable harmonic events will be violated.’9 Although expectation and surprise have been discussed in musicological accounts of various repertoire, as yet there have been few examinations of surprise in minimalist music. This is itself surprising, since the slow rate of change and the clearly audible nature of the small changes within minimalist music lend themselves readily to examinations of surprise. Nonetheless, one previous publication of the IDyOM project examined unexpectedness in two minimalist compositions by Philip Glass, Gradus and Two Pages, using both human- and computer-based methodologies.10 The following section describes the seventeen moments that were found surprising by the two listeners. These analyses are written mainly in the first person from the perspective of each analyst.

Human Perception and Performance, 27 (2001), 1000-1011 (p.1001). 9 Ibid. 10 See again Potter, Wiggins, and Pearce.

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Analysis by Potter The first listener is an expert musicologist with a particular interest in minimalist music. In the discussions surrounding the following descriptions, Potter stated that he felt that he listened to the music fairly analytically according to what he conceived of as its underlying principles. As a consequence, he found new pitches and changes of texture the most surprising moments within the music. Clearly, what may be called such ‘structural listening’ operates with background experience of other kinds of tonal music besides minimalism. However, the focus on pattern-making within unusually limited tonal/modal confines to be found in this music creates special circumstances; and in such situations, someone familiar with this music might adapt previously acquired listening responses in interesting ways. Even after many listenings—which revealed a high degree of consistency with regard to identifying moments of surprise, as detailed below—I still attempt to make sense of the opening few bars in terms of the audible repetition of small groups of notes observing a pattern followable without recourse to the score. The opening of Gradus (Figure 2.1) offers a group of five notes divided by their phrasing into 2 + 3 (A B, D E A), which is then repeated exactly. This causes me to expect further exact repetitions of this 2 + 3 pattern, or at least a change that could be easily heard as a natural extension of it: for example, repeating just the first pair of notes, A B, before going on to the three-note group; and then, perhaps, extending the number of repetitions, both of the two-note group and of the three-note group, in some systematic and therefore readily audible way.

Figure 2.1: Glass, Gradus, bb.1-2, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

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From the piece’s opening, such systematic repetition does not occur more than very locally. The unsystematic elaboration of these patterns also completely ignores any metrical implications that there might be in these bars of consistently thirty-two quaver beats. The lack of any system, or at least of any audible system, is, I think partly as a consequence of this, immediately accepted as part of the underlying principle behind this music’s unfolding. Thus its potential to generate events that might be heard as surprising may seem modest. Unless, that is, either something totally new is offered or patterns already set up are subsequently modified in some very clear way. Surprise A1: b.9, contraction of pitch range

Figure 2.2: Glass, Gradus, bb.8-9, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

The first surprise occurs in b.9 (Figure 2.2), with the reduction in range of pitch from an octave to a perfect fifth. The ‘basic unit’ of Gradus, the pattern of five notes, A B D E A, that opens the piece, has been subjected to alterations; until this point, though, it has maintained its full octave span. Earlier changes—the apparently unsystematic fragmentation via the inclusion of rests, and even the new pitch, G, that arrives at the end of b.4—occur so early in Gradus or, as in the case of that G, so unobtrusively, that these are immediately accepted as part of the underlying principle, and are therefore not surprising. The sudden contraction of the pitch range from the full octave established at the piece’s outset to just a perfect fifth, A-E, for two bars (bb.9-10) is, on the other hand, genuinely surprising.

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Surprise A2: b.21, introduction of pitch class C#

Figure 2.3: Glass, Gradus, bb.20-21, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

Two compositional strategies have now been established: first, unsystematic elaboration of the basic unit; and second, the principle that the original octave range may contract and expand. With these strategies in place, the main surprises then come with the addition of new notes, especially those that introduce new pitch classes. The return of the basic unit at the end of b.13 and beginning of b.14, in exactly its original form for the first time since b.4, passes almost unnoticed. The arrival of C# at b.21 (Figure 2.3), on the other hand, is notable. This introduction of a new pitch is not only immediately evident in itself; it is also crucial in clarifying the modality as D-based, since C# provides the important sixth pitch class, and leading note, which takes the modality away from the ambiguities of the previous pentatonicism into much clearer tonal territory. Surprise A3: b.28, introduction of A7 patterns

Figure 2.4: Glass, Gradus, b.28, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

Surprises do not, in fact, arrive only in the form of pitch-gamut expansion. The outline of A7 in the second half of b.28 (Figure 2.4) also came as a surprise. Strictly speaking, this is not the first departure from the upward scalic principle (‘exceptions’ to this, of one kind or another, occur from as early as b.2, as Figure 2.1 illustrates). Nonetheless, the

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combination of increased fragmentation and, however briefly, the outlining of an arpeggio based on A7 rather than scalic patterns makes an impact. New possibilities are suggested; and in fact some disorientation sets in, since the listener may conclude that if these sorts of modifications are possible, just about anything else is. Surprise A4: b.42, introduction of low G

Figure 2.5: Glass, Gradus, b.42, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

Although pitch class G was introduced early on (b.4), the new low G in b.42 (Figure 2.5) draws attention to developments that are now of greater concern to the listener. These may be summed up as: downward progression below the initial A-A pitch gamut; and contraction focusing, again, on A7. The latter now starts to feel as though its resolution is likely to be tantalisingly deferred for some while, and indeed perhaps never firmly carried out. Surprise A5: b.60, introduction of high B

Figure 2.6: Glass, Gradus, b.60, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

From the low G that has been re-established as the lowest note from b.58, the scalic patterns are now straining upwards once more. The precedent for this has already been set in b.32ff. (A-G) and b.37ff. (A-A). The reappearance of high A in b.37, though readily assimilated, had already expanded the register of these patterns. Now, from the middle of b.56, intermittent scalic patterns of a comparable size, spanning a major ninth, arguably make the eventual extension to high B at b.60 (Figure 2.6) perfectly logical; and thus, accordingly, readily assimilable and therefore unsurprising. Yet this high B remains surprising, to me, in its impact; after

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all, it is the new highest note in the piece’s gamut thus far. It is also retained for 16 out of the 22 patterns to be found from its first appearance as the second pattern of b.60 to the conclusion of Part I of Gradus, at the end of b.65. Surprise A6: b.66, introduction of pitch class F# (beginning of Part II)

Figure 2.7: Glass, Gradus, b.66, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

A new extension downwards, to low F# (Figure 2.7), turns out to be the lowest note of Gradus’s gamut, and the beginning of Part II as identified in the score by the composer; this constitutes my sixth surprise. G is also the last new pitch class to be introduced, now giving the full seven-note scale of D major that will eventually return to encompass the high B notable in bb.60-65. Though adding a new pitch class, this moment is additionally emphasized by a reduction in the gamut. From a major tenth (low G to high B), in bb.64-65, this now shrinks, in bb.66-67, at the start of Part II: first to a perfect fifth and then immediately to a minor sixth (low F# to C#, then low F# to D); it then soon expands to E, later in b.67, before quickly retracting once more.

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Surprise A7: b.70, arrival of pure G-major triads

Figure 2.8: Glass, Gradus, b.70, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

The introduction of G-major arpeggiations—often introduced by an F#, seen above in b.70 (Figure 2.8)—is unusual in the context of the previously scalic emphasis on D. These arpeggiations may be argued to emerge fairly naturally out of the reiterations of F# G B in bb.68-69, to which D has already been added once by the end of b.69. B.70 is nevertheless the start of the consolidation of the G-major arpeggiations since, from here onwards, until b.75, the G-major triad itself dominates; high G is soon included as well. The note F# always introduces at least two notes of this triad, until it drops out after the start of b.76. This leads naturally to perceiving F# not only as the third of a ‘tonic’ triad on D, but also as a leading note to the newly emphasized G. The previous, and ongoing, stress on D major could thus be construed as an emphasis on the dominant of G. G itself, in the form of triadic arpeggiation, is prominent from b.70 right up to the start of b.76. At this point, as already stated, F# G falls away; however, it soon arrives again in b.78 as part of the return to scalic patterns that will be the main mode of presentation until the piece’s final stages. Surprise A8: b.83, abandonment of scalic patterns

Figure 2.9: Glass, Gradus, bb.82-83, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

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My eighth surprise arises as a consequence of a temporary abandonment of more clearly scalic passages in favour of patterns clarifying D major more evidently than at any previous stage in the evolution of Gradus; this occurs with the move from b.82 to b.83 (Figure 2.9). All that has really happened here is that portions of the scalic ascents seen in the first of these two bars have been singled out for emphasis in the second one. G A B and C# D E now alternate: suggesting, perhaps, if not decisively IV-I in D, then at least a stage further in the move away from the G-based triadic characteristics heard in bb.70-76. This abandonment of scales turns out to be only temporary. The surviving remnants of stepwise motion into which b.83 has fractured presage the return of fully-fledged scalic passages from as soon as b.85; these occur more decisively from b.87 (Figure 2.10). Surprise A9: b.87, introduction of high C#

Figure 2.10: Glass, Gradus, b.87, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

This bar is surprising in the same way as the note B is in Surprise A5. Low F# is now also re-established as the lowest note from b.87 onwards, following its absence for four bars (bb.83-86); it is from this low F# that the scalic patterns strain upwards again. The preceding emphasis on scales topped by high B renders the final extension to high C# at b.87 as logically unsurprising as the high B in b.60. Yet this high C# likewise remains surprising to me in its impact. It is, after all, the highest note of all in the piece’s gamut. And it is retained for 11 out of the 28 patterns to be found from its first appearance at the beginning of b.87 to the end of b.93. After this point, it disappears forever. Surprise A10: b.94, introduction of repeated notes

Figure 2.11: Glass, Gradus, b.94, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

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Repeated notes now progressively take over the last 13 bars of Gradus, bb.94-106 (Figure 2.11). They do this, however, in a rather unpredictable way. Nothing in the relentless pattern of quavers here has prepared the listener for these repetitions of the same pitch. Additionally, these quavers are separated only by quaver rests that rarely break up the flow sufficiently to be identified as causing genuine fragmentation. The pairs of quaver Gs and As observable in b.94, above, eventually expand up to ten continuously played quavers on one pitch (A, bb.105-6, just before the piece’s end). Modally, there is a switch in listening emphasis from these Gs and As, suggesting IV-V in D major (an expected conclusion), to the realization that the expansions downwards to F# and upwards to C# imply a final resolution on D that is actually never delivered. This is just one more characteristic of the piece that makes Gradus, for this analyst, a perhaps surprisingly subtle and ambiguous unfolding of its essentially very simple modal and rhythmic material.

Analysis by Wilkins The second listener is also a musicologist who, although familiar with minimalist music, is not an expert in the field; her main areas of listening experience fall within more ‘mainstream’ tonal repertories in Western classical music from c. 1650 onwards. When discussing the surprises, Wilkins, who also experienced a high degree of consistency in her identification of surprising moments, was aware that many of the moments to which she felt drawn fell into one of two categories. First, there were moments when she experienced the music using different auditory phenomena: that is to say, when she heard effects within the sounds themselves, rather than, for example, hearing the music in terms of its harmonic or melodic structures. Second, there were moments when the music seemed to reference more general musical techniques, such as a sense of leading towards a cadential closure. Surprise B1: b.6, quasi-cadential feeling

Figure 2.12: Glass, Gradus, b.6, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

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In my first surprise (Figure 2.12), there is a quasi-cadential feeling to the phrase contained between the second and third rests in b.6, as the phrase feels as though it was concluding a subsection and thus leading towards something new. This is because of the exact repetition of the hexad within b.6 and the subtle shift in the slurring on the final repetition. It is also due to the length of this phrase in comparison to those preceding it, which were more fragmented and broken up with rests. Surprise B2: b.8, auditory streaming

Figure 2.13: Glass, Gradus, bb.8-10, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

The end of b.8 (Figure 2.13) is the first point within Gradus at which the material seems to split into two lines. From the end of b.8 until the beginning of b.10, my ear focuses on the low A and B, and tries to organize them into a pulse; this is heard as one line. The rest of the material seems to form an upper line, and no patterns are distinguished within this as the ear is so focused on the lower line. This is surprising for two reasons: first, because the music is so very monophonic that even hearing implied polyphony is unexpected; and second, because it changes the way in which the music is listened to, as this mode of listening encourages the musical content itself to be heard in a different way. I suggest that this is because when the ear is focusing on the implied polyphony, it no longer listens to the music in terms of its broader structures and instead becomes absorbed in the very sounds themselves as acoustic phenomena or, more specifically, in trying to organize the lower pitches into a regular pulse. This is important since the information being

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gained from the piece is temporarily obscured, as the ear no longer hears the localized construction of individual notes; this phenomenon has been described by Albert Bregman.11 As such, at many moments of auditory streaming—particularly later in the piece when the structural underpinning of the music is more obvious, such as for example in b.26— the gradual increase in pitch gamut is temporarily forgotten amid listening to this ‘stream segregation’.12 Nonetheless, a significant event, such as the introduction of a new pitch, is enough to interrupt this kind of soundfocused listening, as it forces the ear to concentrate instead on the construction of the music in its horizontal, temporal flow, rather than as a vertical texture in the moment. It is for this reason that I say these surprising moments are mutually exclusive with other types of surprises. This auditory streaming effect is replicated at many points within the piece (such as b.13, b.16, b.26, etc.). Surprise B3: b.18, change in register

Figure 2.14: Glass, Gradus, bb.17-18, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

B.18 (Figure 2.14) is striking due to the shift in register that seemed unexpected. This effect was stronger as I had been focusing quite heavily on the pitches of A and B, due to the auditory streaming effects; the music had also been passing through motifs which do not contain these pitches and which are at a slightly higher register, giving the piece a sense of moving towards something different. Although these lower pitches are only absent for half a bar, having focused so heavily on them in the period 11

Albert S. Bregman, Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), pp.17-18. 12 Ibid.

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preceding this half-bar, the sudden movement to motifs devoid of these pitches is quite noticeable. Surprise B4: b.23, the first B

Figure 2.15: Glass, Gradus, bb.18-23, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

My fourth surprise, the first B in b.23 (Figure 2.15), is for me the most surprising moment within the piece, because I hear it as a new pitch despite the fact that it forms part of the original pentad of Gradus. The pitch was last used in b.19, and since the beginning of b.21 had been ‘usurped’ by the new pitch of C#.

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Surprise B5: b.35, unfilled interval

Figure 2.16: Glass, Gradus, b.35, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

It is in b.35 (Figure 2.16) that I first feel a tension created by the unfilled E-G interval, despite the fact that it had been used a great deal up to this point. The open E-G signifies the absence of F# to me very strongly. This feeling is strengthened by the generally scalic construction of the motifs from this point until b.41, and for much of b.53 onwards. The articulation seems to accentuate the openness of the interval more than at previous points within Gradus, and the repetition of the E-G dyad later in the bar as a single motif exemplifies this. The tension created within this empty interval is for me the most audible feature of the whole piece, as it is never resolved. Indeed, by the time the gamut has extended to its maximum range in b.87, the E-G dyad is the only interval larger than a whole tone within the scale. I think it is significant that the pitch that is added at b.66 is F#, which from its very introduction remains the lowest pitch throughout Gradus. It does not of course dispel the tension of the unfilled interval, as it is heard in the ‘wrong’ octave; nonetheless, through its natural accentuation as the first note of the phrase in many bars, the pitch class itself is more noticeable, which in turn serves to make a contrast between the absent higher F# and the very present lower one. Surprise B6: b.57, sense of return

Figure 2.17: Glass, Gradus, b.57, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

In b.57 (Figure 2.17) I feel that the music sounds as though it has returned to the beginning. However, in actuality the motivic shapes and pitches are similar, but not identical, to the material found at the beginning and near the beginning, such as b.5. A similar sense of return is heard at b.77.

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Surprise B7: b.71, striking motif

Figure 2.18: Glass, Gradus, b.71, © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated.

The motif in b.71 (Figure 2.18), and the repetition of it with only minimal alterations, reminds me of Bach’s Prelude in C from the WellTempered Clavier; and as such I expect the motif to fall a whole tone in the next bar, which is not what happens. This is an example of a veridical expectation from a different piece of music affecting the experience of Gradus. Beyond this point, nothing within the piece seems strikingly unexpected or surprising, as alterations became expected as the underlying premise of the piece and as such, although noticeable, not unexpected. This was particularly the case in Part II of Gradus, in which the changes seem more frequent and could be taken for granted.

Commentary on Our Findings These results are now analysed with a particular focus on Bharucha’s ideas of veridical and schematic expectations. 13 By considering our observations in relation to these two different types of musical memory and learning, it has been possible to develop a better understanding of why the two analysts involved here have come to different conclusions. Thus, our novel two-listener comparative approach adds to the understanding of the whole. The different results gained from these two analyses are very interesting, especially as they are almost uniformly at variance. Potter’s results show that five of his ten surprising moments involve the introduction of new pitches. One of the underlying principles of Gradus is the expansion of the pitch gamut, so it could be reasonable to see the introduction of new pitches as unsurprising to the extent that they merely fulfil this function, as the second listener reported. However, it is significant that the new pitches focused on by Potter were seen as 13

Justus and Bharucha.

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surprising not only because they were new but also because they fulfilled another function within the wider context of the piece. For example, the C# in Surprise A2 is surprising partly since it helps to push forwards and clarify the D-based modality of Gradus. These new pitches could also have been interpreted as surprises because they were introduced unsystematically; and so although their use is arguably expected, it is not possible to predict their position within the score without already knowing the piece. As such, these surprises work to create two different sets of expectations. First, they are moments which help to create veridical expectations of what will happen in the future in Gradus: namely the creation and clarification of a harmonic framework14 and the extension of the pitch gamut. Second, they also work as broader minimalist schemata, since they demonstrate the common minimalist traits of unfolding a structure that is, at least to a degree, audible and the gradual expansion of melodic materials. Potter’s experience of the unpredictable changes in the piece is a consequence of his expectations as set up by the more schematic nature of other minimalist compositions. Similarly, however, this experience is also in part due to a failure of his veridical expectations to predict adequately what changes to the patterns will occur. Thus, the veridical and schematic expectations both work to create the surprise and can be described as convergent. In contrast, the surprises described by Wilkins are much more varied and are less concerned with the underlying harmonic or pitch structures of the music. Two surprises (B1 and B6, in b.6 and b.57, respectively) refer to structural features that are heard as implied within the musical fabric. At these points, Gradus seems to hint at external musical features, such as motivic elaboration or return. Of most note is Surprise B4, in b.23, when Wilkins believed that she had heard a new pitch, only to realize retrospectively that this was not the case. When the analysis was originally undertaken, this pitch, B, was highlighted by the analyst as sounding new; yet when the score was analysed after the listening process, it became apparent that the pitch was not new at all, but had simply not been used for a couple of bars due to the introduction of the C# in b.21. As such, a score-based analysis by itself would not focus on this pitch as surprising. At this point, the very idea of 14

Potter, Wiggins, and Pearce.

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expectedness within Gradus was turned on its head. The listener was expecting new pitches, but instead misheard an existing pitch to be new: so the ‘new’ pitch was an unexpected surprise, as it did not fit into her developing schema of the piece. Moreover, the pitch still sounded new even after repeated listenings. On the other hand, genuinely new pitches occurring elsewhere could be seen as expectedly surprising since, although they were in themselves novel, they did fit into the listener’s developing schema and consequently, when looked back upon, did seem expected. This phenomenon shows that Wilkins’s veridical expectations are not being fulfilled; if indeed there are veridical expectations in operation at all at this point, since the listener is well aware that the pitch is not new. Instead, it can be argued that what are actually involved here are what David Huron terms ‘dynamic expectations’: expectations that develop as a musical work unfolds over a brief period of exposure.15 Thus since B had not been heard between the middle of b.19 and the middle of b.23, with C# as the lowest note from b.21, Wilkins builds dynamic expectations that there will not be a B in this position in b.23, and so hears the pitch as new, and as fulfilling the broader schema of pitch introduction in Gradus as a whole. In this way, the schematic expectations are heard as fulfilled, and veridical expectations as unfulfilled, leading to a very divergent pattern of expectancies, which makes the moment so surprising. Wilkins has often taken the structural features of Gradus for granted, focusing instead on acoustic phenomena such as auditory streaming and references to external musical techniques. This is related to her musical background; although, like Potter, a musicologist, this listener has a more generalized Western tonal and classical musical background, with some experience, but no expert knowledge, of minimalist music. Thus, Wilkins’s schematic expectations are reflected in the moments that she deems surprising, many of which are in fact moments in which she hears the gestural consequence of techniques heard within the broader Western tonal repertoire, such as the sense of impending closure or change that a cadence can introduce, as seen in Surprise B1. At these points it can be said that Wilkins is mentally comparing the material of Gradus with her experiences of schemata from this broader tonal repertoire; unlike Potter, who was using his greater knowledge of the 15

Huron, p.227.

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minimalist repertoire. This shows a remarkable difference in schema types between the two listeners, which is, in turn, reflected in their different reactions to Gradus. Two sections that emerge as being of particular importance within the two analytical readings are bb.7-10 and bb.70-71. Both listeners have identified surprises within these bars, although the descriptions and exact locations of the surprises do not coincide. There can, perhaps not too indulgently, be seen to be similarities between the readings of both listeners in these sections. In bb.7-10, the repetition of the A and B in the close and indeed almost systematically organized pattern-making allowed for the momentary creation of the streaming effect. This regularity is also in part created by the sudden focus on the A B D E tetrachord in b.9, as opposed to the more spread, less systematic hexad of b.8. Turning to bb.70-71, Wilkins heard a surprise in b.71 that is constructed from schematic expectations, in that it relates to broader cultural norms. The relatively regular motifs within b.71, which appear only in one permutation, build up strong expectations, in this case a movement in the pitch range, due to this listener’s memories of Baroque repertoire. This demonstrates how schematic expectations can include ‘sequential memory traces of specific pieces of music’.16 It is especially the case since b.70 has G-major triads in root position, which in b.71 are preceded by an F#. Therefore, this listener expects the F# to fall further, to an E; but instead the movement in b.72 is a change in permutation. Potter also heard the G-major triads in b.70 as significant, but not so much in terms of referring to musical repertoires outside the minimalist tropes embodied within Gradus itself. Instead, he heard the pattern as surprising within the construction of the piece as a whole, which for much of its duration avoids triadic arpeggiation and tonal or modal clarification of this kind. Thus, to Potter, b.70 is surprising because it does not fulfil the veridical harmonic expectations created through listening to Gradus up to this point. Again, this moment highlights not a disagreement over any objective or score-based phenomenon within the music, but a fundamental difference between the type of listening being used to approach the moment: once more, Potter hears the music more 16

Jamshed J. Bharucha, ‘Music Cognition and Perceptual Facilitation: A Connectionist Framework’, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 5 (1986), 1-30 (p.6).

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straightforwardly veridically, whereas Wilkins uses her veridical memory of another piece of music.

Conclusions From the discussions above it can be seen that the two listeners identified different smaller-scale surprising moments within Gradus. The differences between these readings were then linked to the different musical memories and learning of the listeners that had led them to engage in different types of listening. The comparison within our two-listener methodology between, for example, the approaches to new pitches demonstrates the importance of understanding the balance of veridical and schematic expectations in musical listening. Our methodology shows how it is only through direct comparisons between contrasting readings that the effects of different balances between veridical and schematic expectations in different listeners are manifested. Furthermore, it shows how even these expectations themselves can be different We therefore conclude that the differences between the two musical analyses are the result of the relationship between the objectively observable features of the piece both as score and as sound, the instructions left by the composer, and the listener’s own approach to them. In particular, the listening experience can seem remarkably different depending on whether the listener or analyst has drawn on veridical or schematic expectations to approach the music. By using two contrasting readings of Gradus combined into one analysis, it has been possible to explore the musical material of the piece in more detail than any single reading could have allowed. More importantly, it has also been possible to explore the differences between these readings, and in this critical gap to understand further, previously uncharted, dimensions of how such unsystematic minimalist music can be experienced. In so doing, both the schematic and veridical expectations of two listeners were uncovered and the consequences these had for their musical listening explored.

Acknowledgements The authors are grateful for the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, under grant EP/H01294X/2, ‘Information and neural dynamics in the perception of musical structure’.

On the Nature of Subjectivity in Music Analysis

Gradus, Music by Philip Glass © Copyright 1968 Dunvagen Music Publishers Incorporated. Chester Music Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission.

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CHAPTER THREE PERCEPTION OF STRUCTURE AS A LEARNING PROCESS IN A SCHOENBERG SONG VANESSA HAWES

This chapter outlines some ideas about the processes of perception and learning of a Schoenberg song. An empirical case study of a singer learning Song IV (‘Da meine Lippen reglos sind und brennen’) from Schoenberg’s Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (1908-9) is framed in an ecological approach to perception, concentrating on the perception of section boundaries and the recurrence of musical material. The process of the development of the singer’s understanding of form and structure in the song is tracked over a number of rehearsals. A performer-led approach to analysis and the idea of dynamic structure are put into the context of current work in performance analysis and music theory, much of which aims to re-frame music study with the act of performance at its centre. The process of understanding structure and form in the song is shown to be a result of direct interaction with the structured information of the score (looking, listening, and singing), as, through the gradual process of learning, the problematized form is slowly revealed. The process of process music is perceived during the experience of the music and, as a result, its structure is directly perceived by the listener as the music unfolds in time. A listener’s attention is gradually drawn to the detail of the music, and repetition used, ‘satisfies the minimalist ideal of forcing the mind inward on small structural details’. 1 The notion of a direct experience not only of musical sound, but also of its structure and process while listening, echoes the direct perception forming the basis for an ecological approach to perception in psychology. 1

K. Robert Schwarz, ‘Music as a Gradual Process: Part I’, Perspectives of New Music, 19 (1981), 225-86 (p.377).

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Information perceived by an organism is structured in an ecological perception paradigm. This is different from information-processing (the dominant approach to perception in psychology), in which sensations from the environment are perceived individually and then acquire meaning through the ‘intervention of memories and representations’.2 In the indirect information-processing paradigm, meaning does not exist until information from the environment has been processed.3 In ecological perception, the environment is how it is, and the perceiver is how she is, because of a shared, active, dynamic relationship: a chair is how it is because people can sit on it; a score is how it is because people can play and sing from it. Thus, meaning can be directly perceived in a musical score and a sounding music; they are meaningful because of the way they are put together by the composer. Active exploration, discovery, and adaption form the basis of the relationship between performer and score, mediated by the structured information of the written music. The structure of process music is easily directly perceived because of the way it gradually unfolds in time; the process of exploration is clearly guided by the gradual unfolding of the music. But what about music for which the presentation of musical structure is not gradual? For a performer faced with a new score, the gradual process of rehearsing provides the opportunity for exploration, discovery, and adaption; the opportunity for the musical score to guide the mind inward on more and more detailed structure over the course of a number of sessions. The ecological approach to perception has been explored by a number of music researchers, particularly in music psychology.4 Clarke focuses on meaning arising from aural perception, with case studies emphasizing the interaction between listener and music. The direct perception of the meanings of structured sound information is applied to music in a range of 2

Claire F. Michaels and Claudia Carello, Direct Perception (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981), p.2. 3 The origins, development and current form of an ecological approach to perception in psychology, and in music psychology is explored in many different papers, the fullest and most recent being W. Luke Windsor and Christophe de Bézenac, ‘Music and Affordances’, Musicae Scientiae, 16 (2012), 102-120. 4 Cf. Eric Clarke, Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Windsor and de Bézenac; David Huron and Jonathon Berec, ‘Characterizing Idiomatic Organization in Music: A Theory and Case Study of Musical Affordances’, Empirical Musicology Review, 4 (2009), 103-122.

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styles and genres, emphasizing the active role of the listener and the ‘worldliness’ of music.5 Windsor applies ecological approaches to music perception, focusing on acousmatic music.6 Ecological perception, argues Windsor, provides a way of exploring acousmatic music—a way that is not provided by the kinds of musicological and psychological approaches that concentrate only on ‘musical’ sounds. The focus is on the directly perceived sound source (whether actual or implied). By problematizing the perception of the sound source, acousmatic music draws attention to it, intensifying the listeners’ search for ‘intelligible sources, for likely causal events’ and highlighting the personal, exploratory, and active nature of perception.7 Windsor also connects an ecological approach with musical gesture (defined, in this case, as the movements of a musician), combining aural and visual perception and the active exploration of music through performance in an exploration of live and electroacoustic music.8 Huron and Berec take idiomatic composition as the subject of their study. The direct relationship an instrumentalist will have with music composed in an idiomatic style for that instrument will be different from that with music that was composed without a particular instrument in mind. They draw on the notion of affordance to explore how trumpeters use the idea of difficulty to shape their playing.9 Structured pieces of information in the environment, information that makes action possible, are labelled as ‘affordances’ in ecological perception.10 An affordance is a property of an event or object, relative to an organism, which represents its potential for action. Affordances are dependent on the structure of the organism (its ‘effectivities’11) as well as the structure of the environment. They are not static, but change due to reciprocal changes in organisms and their environmental niches (adaption). Chaffin has made a number of longitudinal studies of the memorization of music for 5

Clarke, p.206. e.g., W. Luke Windsor, ‘Through and Around the Acousmatic: The Interpretation of Electroacoustic Sounds’, in Music, Electronic Media and Culture, ed. by Simon Emmerson (London: Ashgate, 2000), pp.7-35. 7 Ibid., pp.31-32. 8 W. Luke Windsor, ‘Gestures in Music Making: Action, Information and Perception’, in New Perspectives on Music and Gesture, ed. by Anthony Gritten and Elaine King (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp.45-66. 9 Huron and Berec, pp.103-122. 10 Windsor and de Bézenac, pp.102-120. 11 Windsor (2000), p.11; Windsor and de Bézenac, p.3. 6

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performance by professional musicians. 12 The notion of ‘section boundary’ is important, since it shapes memorization. Framed in an ecological approach, a section boundary, when perceived in rehearsal, is invariant and an affordance used for guiding memorization: This formal structure provides musicians with a ready-made retrieval scheme that can be used to provide reliable and flexible access to their memories for the music.13

‘Invariants’, in ecological perception, are ‘patterns of stimulation over time and/or space that are left unchanged by certain transformation’, and are part of what makes information structured in an environment.14 When faced with a score, a performer does not have to compare the attributes of a musical event to a model of ‘section boundary’ in her musical memory in order to perceive one, but rather she perceives a section boundary directly. The Schoenberg song explored below has ambiguous section boundaries. 15 This ambiguousness problematizes the notion of ‘section boundary’ and affords a closer examination of just what it is that indicates a boundary. Themes and motives might also be described as invariants from an ecological perspective. Clarke defines this kind of invariant in music: A theme or motif in music can be regarded as an invariant (a pattern of temporal proportions and pitch intervals) that is left intact, and hence retains its identity, under transformations such as pitch transposition or changes in global tempo.16

12

e.g., Roger Chaffin and Gabriela Imreh, ‘A Comparison of Practice and Selfreport as Sources of Information about the Goals of Expert Problem Solving’, Psychology of Music, 29 (2001), 39-69; Roger Chaffin, Gabriela Imreh, and Mary Crawford, Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance (Mahwah, N.J.; London: Lawrence Edition, 2002). 13 Roger Chaffin, ‘Learning Clair de Lune: Retrieval Practice and Expert Memorization’, Music Perception, 24 (2007), 377-93 (p.378). 14 Michaels and Carello, p.20. 15 Proven not only in the below case study and the accompanying feasibility test, but also in the variation in the definition of the form of this, and all of the songs of the song cycle, in the analytical literature (see below). 16 Clarke, p.35.

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Lamont and Dibben’s study into the perception of similarity for motives found that musicians and non-musicians both perceived similarity in a context-specific way, with the emphasis on ‘surface’ features (i.e., not on underlying, ‘hidden’ structure). They found that each piece they studied ‘set [its] own similarity criteria within which listeners made appropriate judgments’. 17 A recurring motive or section boundary, then, might be directly perceived as such, but it may not have a regular set of attributes that could be used in all music. Analysts of Schoenberg’s atonal music describe a ‘felt’ sense of return in the songs of the cycle, but not a return of thematic material in any definite way. 18 The method of ‘developing variation’ employed by Schoenberg in the song19 rules out the possibility of exact repetition of musical material (even in transposition or within changes of global tempo), and so, again, the notion of motivic return is problematized, affording further exploration. The developing relationship between performer and score is active, and actions are dependent on the stage of the learning process. The action available and appropriate at the start of the process on first visual contact with the score would most likely be to do with developing rehearsal strategies and ways of aiding familiarity. Actions available and appropriate during rehearsal will be slightly different, influenced by the physicality of singing. Even later in the process, attention may turn to the final performance and the audience, and so different actions will be available and the focus of attention may change to those features of the music that allow emotion and mood to be communicated through performance. The structure of the score is gradually revealed in more and more detail to the 17

Alexandra Lamont and Nicola Dibben, ‘Motivic Structure and the Perception of Similarity’, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 18 (2001), 245-274 (p.262). 18 Richard Domek, ‘Some aspects of Organization in Schoenberg’s “Book of the Hanging Gardens”, Opus 15’, College Music Symposium, 19 (1979), 111-128 (p.125); Bryan R. Simms, The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, 1908-1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.52-53; Ethan Haimo, Schoenberg’s Transformation of Musical Language (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp.245-246. 19 Simms, p.34; Arnold Schoenberg, ‘Criteria for the Evaluation of Music’ (1975), in Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. by Leonard Stein, trans. by Leo Black (Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press, 2010), pp.129-130; Haimo, pp.246-247.

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performer as she rehearses. For ‘traditional’ analysts/theorists, musical structure and form is a given and, relatedly, the meanings of the music are often given by the analyst as the revealed truth of the music. But why should a performer take an analyst’s word for what the form of a piece of music is, and what its meaning is? Clarke points out the danger of this ‘concealed authoritarianism’: […] a good deal of musicology discusses musical meaning as if it were a generally shared and self-evident property of the music, when in fact it is almost invariably the specific interpretation of one person (the author).20

In the field of performance analysis, Rink and others have been combating this kind of concealed authoritarianism: the performer should not only not take the analyst’s word for it, but also the analyst can learn much from the performer because of her direct and active relationship with the music. ‘Shapes’ created in performance are a result of this direct interaction with the score (in cases where there is a score): performers are likely to grasp or ‘feel’ musical structure dynamically and gesturally rather than according to spatial or architectural paradigms.21

Rink’s work aims to re-frame musicology with performance at its centre. 22 The idea of direct and active engagement with structured information, rather than referring to accepted theoretical models and frameworks, echoes many of the ideas of ecological perception. How does a performer’s perception of structure develop in a song with ambiguous section boundaries and motives? How does the song’s score problematize the perception of both section boundary and motivic recurrence? Can an examination of the developing relationship between singer and song, in the light of these two questions, usefully contribute to the analysis history of the song and Schoenberg’s compositional thinking in 1908? 20

Clarke, p.123. John Rink, Neta Spiro, and Nicholas Gold, ‘Motive, Gesture and the Analysis of Performance’, in New Perspectives on Music and Gesture, ed. by Anthony Gritten and Elaine King (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp.267-292; p.271. 22 Cf. Nicholas Cook, Beyond the Score: Music as Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 21

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A feasibility test was carried out to test the suitability of the chosen song for the purposes outlined above. Twenty-eight music students volunteered for the feasibility test, and were asked to mark out ‘sections’ on a score they were seeing for the first time, thinking of it as if they were going to prepare the song for performance. None of them had heard or performed the song before. The word ‘section’ was used because of its ambiguity: generally understood as the ‘A’ or ‘B’ of form, the term ‘section’ might also have been interpreted as phrase, or include a nested hierarchical set of section boundaries. There was variation between the number and positioning of section boundaries identified. Nine students identified three sections, 8 identified four, 6 divided the music into two sections and 4 saw the song as one long section. One student identified six sections. The range of answers in this small sample was 5, the mean was 2.89 sections, and the standard deviation was 1.20. The range of results for this simple task established the score as having a suitably ambiguous form when perceived for the first time by a set of participants with a relatively high level of musical training in general, but a low level of familiarity with this particular style of music. A singer, ‘Elle’,23 was recruited for the case study. She was interested in gaining experience singing atonal music. She had a lot of experience singing tonal music and some experience performing contemporary student compositions. Data was gathered on four separate occasions over two months: just before the first rehearsal; after each of two rehearsals; and after a final performance of two songs to a small audience. Marked scores and semi-structured interview data form the focus of discussion here. Schoenberg’s song cycle Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (1908-9) has a long and interesting analytical history. There is enduring interest in this music because, like Schoenberg’s other early ‘atonal’ compositions, it represents both progression and reaction: it is something new for the time, and yet is steeped in the composer’s awareness of the historical tradition preceding it. 24 The garden of the title, and of Stefan George’s poems which form the lyrics, provides the setting for a prince’s discovery of love: languorous ecstasy; anguished passion; self destruction. 25 Song IV is 23

A pseudonym. J. Peter Burkholder, ‘Schoenberg the Reactionary’, in Schoenberg and his World, ed. by Walter Frisch (Princeton; Chichester: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp.162-194. 25 Simms, pp.45-7; Allen Shawn, Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey (Cambridge, M.A.: 24

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situated in the ‘longing’ phase of the poetic cycle: the young prince is becoming obsessed with his love, but has not yet consummated nor fully committed to it. The songs are rich with symbolism: the garden as a metaphor for the breakdown of bourgeois society in fin-de-siècle Vienna26 and Schoenberg’s song cycle as a metaphor for the breakdown of tonality.27 Written in conventional notation, Song IV has several features which may undermine a straightforward understanding of its structure. For example, there is no time signature and its bars vary in length. This results in a lack of metric regularity which problematizes structure at the detailed level of phrasing, drawing particular attention to section boundaries at this level of detail, as well as at larger, more general levels. There is an inexact match between the lines of the poem and vocal and piano lines, and an inexact match between vocal and piano lines. Elle was asked not to make or use a translation meaning that her perception of structure was not directly influenced by the meaning of the words, but by musical materials. The song is two pages long and can be read from a music stand without the necessity of page turns. Analysts have different views on the form of the song. Haimo identifies two large sections in Song IV (bb.1-12 and bb.13-26), characterized by common motivic material (and represented by the page divisions of the score). Haimo adds, however, that an A, A’ structure, ‘can scarcely begin to capture the richness and subtlety of the song’s formal relationships’.28 For Domek, ‘“subtle form-producing aspects” […] which would of themselves probably go unnoticed as major formal elements in a larger piece’ contribute to a sense of return in each of the songs, suggesting a small-scale ternary form.29 Simms categorizes the form of each song of the cycle as having a ‘developmental ternary’ plan, where ‘each of the three major sections contains the development of a common group of basic motives, which are first heard at or near the beginning’.30 In his lengthy study of the song cycle, Forte eschews vertical formal sections in the Harvard University Press, 2003), pp.52-4. 26 Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Cambridge; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press (1961) 1981), pp.344-66. 27 Julie Brown, ‘Schoenberg’s Musical Prose as Allegory’, Music Analysis, 14 (1995), 157-187 (p.161). 28 Haimo, pp.245-246. 29 Domek, p.125. 30 Simms, p.52.

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songs altogether, instead emphasizing the linear, continuous elements.31 As Elle rehearsed the song, the placement and number of section boundaries marked changed over the four interview sessions. The ambiguity of form described in the analytical literature is reflected in Elle’s reported dynamic, changing perception of structure in the song. Domek described form in the cycle as a whole as, ‘the ambivalent, subtle, initially almost imperceptible and yet intuitively felt sense of formal organization’32 and Elle demonstrates this ‘felt’ organization by tentatively marking sections, often adding question marks, and not being able to express concretely why she marked specific section boundaries and what they mean. Figure 3.1 maps the development of Elle’s perception of structure and form in the song. Reading from the outside in, the diagram shows the increase in attention to detail in the identification of section boundaries and the ambiguousness of the ‘felt’ ternary form. From the start Elle identified three main sections, framing smaller sections and phrases as the learning process continued. Main and smaller section boundaries are shown in Figure 3.1 by arrow weightings: thick lines are main formal section boundaries, medium arrows are shorter formal section boundaries and thin arrows are section boundaries of short phrases of ‘performance sections’. In Interview 1 there was no labelling of sections, merely their demarcation. There was, however, already an element of planning and section boundary change in the way Elle talked about her initial impressions of the song: I think when I know it a bit better, it will just be page 1 and page 2. Because it all flows, this page all flows back into the slower section. So I guess it kind of is three sections, but because it flows back in, it’s not a complete stop between the sections (Interview 1).

Figure 3.1 (next page): Self-reported structure of Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV across four interviews with Elle.33 31

Allen Forte, ‘Concepts of Linearity in Schoenberg’s Atonal Music: a Study of the Opus 15 Song Cycle’, Journal of Music Theory, 36 (1992), 285-382. 32 Domek, p.125. 33 Arnold Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (1908-9) (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1914) IMSLP [Accessed 5 January 2016].

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After singing it through and working with an accompanist in the first rehearsal, Elle’s attention to detail increased, and certain points of the music came to the fore that she had not noticed while studying the score silently: there were tiny bits and stuff that caught us out. This bit especially [b.13, vocal part]—this caught me out, the sudden tempo change, that’s why it says ‘FAST’ at the top of the page (Interview 2).

Although Elle had identified the ‘FAST’ section as ‘fast bit’ in Interview 1, the speed at which she needed to sing it still caught her out. So something visually noticeable (‘fast bit’) is highlighted and exaggerated by active interaction (‘FAST’). The addition of action and listening elements to the initial visual of the score brings physical needs like phrasing to allow breathing to the fore, and phrasing is added in later interviews as smaller phrases take on their own identity, differentiated from those phrases around them, and their function within the whole becomes clearer. As phrases become differentiated and memory clearer, so the characters of phrases are more easily compared to others. For example after some conversation about identifying phrases and implications for expression, Elle makes the connection between the phrases in bb.1-2 and bb.13-14 (even though, at this stage, the first of these is in an ‘A’ section, and the second in a ‘B’): so this phrase here—the top of page 2 [b.13]—is very similar to here [b.1]; we [she and the accompanist] were looking at the first few bars of the first page, we were looking at making that a phrase, and speeding it up a little bit through it and then taking it back again. [Interviewer asks]: so you would shape those two phrases the same? [Elle replies]: Similarly, yes. Well actually we probably would […] because I was going to say that this one’s slower, but that’s obvious because that’s quavers and that’s semiquavers, so yeah—the same really I think (Interview 3).

In Interview 1, Elle describes the three sections as, ‘fast bit’, ‘difficult bit’, and ‘slow bit’ (Interview 1). ‘Fast’ (from b.1) and ‘slow’ (from b.18) are characteristics of the sections in question that are easily seen on the score: at the start of section A, the most common duration is a quaver: lots of notes in a bar, lots of ink on the page. The ‘slow bit’ is in crotchets: far fewer notes in a bar, far less ink on the page. ‘Difficult bit’ (from b.13), however, is characterized by the score at that point looking as if the singer is less supported by the accompanist than in the other sections. In

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Interview 1 Elle said, ‘I think this bit will be a difficult bit to get together with the pianist, because there’s a lot going on’. Difficulty here, then, involves perceived speed (the notes here are semiquavers: by far the most ink on the page for the vocal part) and the perception of a lack of togetherness between piano and vocal. This is highlighted visually with a low right hand register creating a large white space between staves—larger than in any of the other sections, no shared rhythms between vocal and piano, and the two parts not lining up vertically. The implications of the way the music looks on the score characterizes what action Elle will take. This ‘difficult’ section affords more rehearsal with the pianist than the other sections, thus drawing attention to its details perhaps earlier than the ‘easier’ first section. The transition from the use of practical to practical and emotional affordances comes early on in the process, after the first rehearsal, and is shown in the language Elle uses to describe the sections: ‘difficult’ and ‘slow’ from Interview 1 becomes ‘tense and loud’ and ‘calm’ in Interview 2.

Figure 3.2: Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV, b.18 ambiguous event.34

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Schoenberg, Das Buch.

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At b.18, shown in Figure 3.2, the change between ‘tense and loud’ and ‘calm’ does not come where there is a rest or other obvious boundary, but in the middle of a continuous vocal line, just before the highest vocal pitch of the song. It is the only part of the song where there are three expressive markers at once: a dynamic marking (f), the beginning of a crescendo hairpin and a drängend (pressing or thrusting) instruction. This moment looks important. Haimo describes the moment at b.18 as a climactic moment with elements of the recurrence of previous musical material. 35 Elle’s identification of the same moment as a structural boundary suggests that at the point of a performer’s initial visual perception for this song, ‘structurally important moments’ are general and may not yet been differentiated in terms of their role in the process of the song as a whole. Later, Elle differentiates boundary and climax, but shifts between identifying b.18 as variously a climactic moment, a large section boundary, and a less important smaller section boundary.

Figure 3.3: Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV, b.21 ambiguous event.36

35 36

Haimo, p.250. Schoenberg, Das Buch.

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In Interview 2, Elle changed her mind, identifying b.21 (Figure 3.3) as the start of the third main section. This change suggests that there might be more physically important aspects of that event that make it supersede b.18 after the first rehearsal. B.21 has a rest in the vocal part where b.18 did not; and it also has a prominent change of vocal register, which may require a change of singing voice (from head to chest). These two physically felt features may have contributed to b.21 superseding b.18. B.21 stays as a section boundary through the whole process, but is sometimes one of the main ones, and sometimes subsidiary. It sounds funny because I know it’s not, but it kind of a little bit has the feel of A-B-A, because you’ve got this kind of descending chromatic movement in the first section, especially at the beginning, and then the second section’s faster, it’s more tense, it’s more ‘speaky’, more […] and then it’s kind of like there’s a bit of a recap—I know it’s not—but it’s kind of that feel, at the end (Interview 3).

From Interview 2 onwards, Elle begins to label the main sections with A, B and A’. Her identification of two possible section boundaries between B and A’, along with the feeling she had at the start that she would end up treating the song as two sections, is not so far removed from formal analysis in the existing literature. The events at b.18 and b.21, events that afford the perception of a boundary, can be broken down into various attributes of the music that might indicate a boundary (Figure 3.4a-c). Similarly, the start of the song can be broken down and compared to these two events to interrogate the feel of recurrence and the location of A’ (Figure 3.5). Defining any feature of music in terms of its significance is problematic. Because of the contextual nature of significance in music, ‘it is impossible, in principle, to produce an exhaustive inventory of the significant features of some work’, however, ‘this does not preclude the possibility of identifying some features that are significant’.37 The tables shown in Figures 3.4 and 3.5 present some of the attributes significant to perception of section boundary and motivic recurrence, based on interview data, but they cannot be exhaustive. 37

David Huron, ‘What is a Musical Feature? Forte’s Analysis of Brahms’s Opus 51, No. 1, Revisited’, Music Theory Online, 7 (2001), [23]-[25] [Accessed 5 January 2016].

Descending semitones Crotchets p after short diminuendo New line after a comma 6 crotchet beats Independent melody lines, not containing vocal pitches none

Descending semitones Crotchets f after long crescendo New line after a comma 13 crotchet beats Chords following vocal line, containing vocal pitches drängend

Vocal line shape

Vocal durations

Vocal dynamic

Words

Length of new uninterrupted vocal line

Piano texture

Performance direction

Figure 3.4a: Comparing b.18 to b.21 in Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV.

Descending octave (interrupted by crotchet rest)

Ascending major third (continuous)

Interval between vocal pitch and previous pitch

Bar 21

Bar 18

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Attribute

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Crotchets Crescendo High, remaining high Chords following vocal line, containing vocal pitches

Ascending, mix of conjunct and disjunct movement Quavers and semiquavers, prominent dotted quaver rhythm f Low/middle, ascending to high Chords following vocal line, containing vocal pitches, with additional flourishes, particularly in left hand

Vocal line shape

Vocal durations

Vocal dynamic

Vocal range

Piano texture

Figure 3.4b: Comparing bb.18-20 to bb.15-17in Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV.

Descending, mix of conjunct and disjunct movement

Ascending major third (continuous)

Interval between vocal pitch and previous pitch

Bars 18-20

Bars 15-17

Attribute

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Descending with one ascent, mix of conjunct and disjunct movement Crotchets p with short swell Low, remaining low Independent melody lines, not containing vocal pitches

Descending, mix of conjunct and disjunct movement Crotchets f High, remaining high Chords following vocal line, containing vocal pitches

Vocal line shape

Vocal durations

Vocal dynamic

Vocal range

Piano texture

Figure 3.4c: Comparing bb.21-22 to bb.18-20 of Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV.

Descending octave (interrupted by crotchet rest)

Interval between vocal pitch and previous pitch

Bars 21-22

Bars 18-20

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Attribute

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The table in Figure 3.4a shows that the two events are similar in many respects. The main difference between them is dynamics and the rest preceding the b.21 event. The tables in Figures 3.4b and c compare the whole phrases that start with the two events with what comes immediately before them. Similarities with the first column in each table are shown by the shading. The music from b.18 shows no similarity in the attributes listed, whereas the music from b.21 has vocal line shape and vocal durations in common with the music preceding it. The emphasized difference between the music from b.18 and the phrase before it might contribute to the ‘strength’ of this event as a section boundary in comparison to the event at b.21, despite the lack of a rest to frame a new vocal phrase. It would be the subject of a more detailed study involving many participants to get a statistically significant feel for the relative strengths of each of these attributes. The case study here, however, suggests possible sub-categories for a group of attributes, as they are perceived and interacted with differently at different points in the rehearsal process. Elle’s identification of b.18 as the boundary in Interview 1 (before singing) suggests that certain attributes stand out as direct visual indicators of section boundary: durations; regularity of rhythm; performance instruction (drängend); change of direction (from ascending to descending); and the F directly in front of the G-sharp. Despite not singing yet, a singer will consider the practicality of breathing when she first sees a score, and visually the middle of the long phrase from bb.15-20 (b.18) would be the place to pause for breath. Elle’s change to b.21 after the first rehearsal suggests that physically important attributes begin to be more important than the visual: a large interval between the old section and the new (an octave); vocal range; and rests. Later, as her attention to the detail of both of these events increases visually, physically, and aurally and the mix of attributes causes her to think more about form (the identification of A’) she changes her mind again. Elle never decides with certainty which event in the song is the ‘real’ return of material from the A section. The table in Figure 3.5 compares the first phrase of the song as a whole (bb.1-2) with the two phrases starting at b.18 and at b.21. There are a number of attributes that each of the phrases from b.18 and from b.21 share with the first phrase of the song, and all three share a descending vocal melody shape. The b.21 phrase shares three other attributes with the first: dynamics, range, feel of the accompaniment;

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Attribute

Bars 1-2

Vocal line shape

Descending, mix of conjunct and Descending, mix disjunct of conjunct and movement disjunct (same pitch movement classes as bb.12)

Descending, mix of conjunct and disjunct movement (same range as bb.1-2)

Vocal durations

Quavers

Crotchets

Crotchets

Vocal dynamic

p with short swell

Crescendo

p with short swell

Vocal range

Low, remaining low

High, remaining high

Low, remaining low

Piano texture

Melody lines following vocal with chords in left hand

Chords in both hands

Independent melody lines in both hands

Piano rhythms

Mix of quavers and crotchets

Minim and crotchet chords

Mix of quavers and crotchets

Piano vertical relationship to vocal

Moves every time vocal moves

Does not move at the same time as vocal

Does not move at the same time as vocal

Contains the same pitch classes

Does not contain the same pitch classes

Contains the Piano pitch class same pitch relationship to classes vocal

Bars 18-20

Bars 21-22

Figure 3.5: Comparing some attributes of b.18, b.21, and the opening material of Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Song IV. The shaded cells indicate where there is similarity with bb.1-2 in the other two events.

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whereas b.18 shares only one other attribute: the same pitch classes. Dynamics and vocal range are expressive, ‘secondary’1 attributes, again, suggesting that after Interview 2 Elle’s decision about recurring motivic material is influenced by her active interaction with these attributes more than strongly visual attributes. As her perception of detail increases through the process of learning, the general shape of the vocal line becomes more differentiated, and familiarity with the sounding music means, perhaps, that the perception of the exact same pitch classes (but an octave higher), became perceptible, allowing her to change her mind about the placement of A’. The problematization of ‘traditional’ form is an example of Brown’s point that in the cycle Schoenberg uses the idea not only of tonality but of form as an allegory for the ‘syntactic collapse’ of traditional tonality in the ‘velvet apocalypse’ that Schoenberg initiated in Western music at the start of the twentieth century.2 Examining the environment in which a singer and a song interact, both adapting to the other, has shown that the problematization of form associated with Schoenberg’s music of around 1908 is not just a theoretical construct, but a directly perceived reality for a performer, affecting the way she interacts with, and adapts to, the score. An ecological approach to perception provides a neat tool for a performancecentred approach to music analysis and theory. Methods for analysis of atonal music in general such as Forte’s,3 and studies on Das Buch,4 use what are described by Domek as, ‘systems that might be used in the “pre-compositional” phase of atonal music composition’ and are ‘unlikely to be of practical accessibility to those who are not professional music theorists or composers with related interests’, but Das Buch der hängenden Gärten lends itself to an analysis that does

1

Rink et al. characterize dynamics, certainly, as a ‘secondary’ musical feature, as opposed to ‘primary’ musical features such as pitches and durations (Rink, Spiro and Gold, p.267). 2 Brown, p.161. 3 Allen Forte, The Structure of Atonal Music (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). 4 For example, Forte (1992); David Lewin, ‘Toward the Analysis of a Schoenberg Song (Op. 15, No. XI)’, Perspectives of New Music, 12 (1973), 43-86; David Lewin, ‘A way into Schoenberg’s Opus 15, Number VII’ in Studies in Music with Text (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp.321-344.

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not rely on applying a mathematical system as mediator.5 This appeal from the late 1970s for the analysis of music that requires no ‘secret’ process for mediating the creation of meaning in music (criticizing, in its own way, the theoretical work that was also coming under fire from Kerman6 and, later, the New Musicology), echoes the impulse of process music beginning earlier in the century—where there is no secret structure, but the real-life experience of music is dependent on what a person can perceive. The need for a new way of thinking in music study is emerging not only in the field of performance analysis in the UK. The American music theorist Ian Quinn discusses the directness of process music in terms that very readily echo the approaches of ecological perception: Formalist analysis of process music must respond […] by turning the normal function of analysis on its head. Traditionally, analysis aims to reduce the information content of a piece—productively, and however provisionally, temporarily, and contingently—by parsing it relative to some well-understood system of formal conceptual categories. Process music comes to the table already digested; its challenge to the analyst-asinterpreter is precisely the minimal challenge it presents to the analyst-asparser.7

From the same sub-disciplinary field, Boss describes Schoenberg’s ‘atonal’ compositional technique in terms very close to ecological perception. Work such as Boss’s brings the notion of direct perception and Schoenberg’s own notions about form and idea closer together: [My analytical] frameworks […] describe coherence in terms of long range processes across the surface, rather than suggesting quasi-Schenkerian hierarchical structures that represent deeper layers of the music, as many modern scholars have done.8

5

Domek, pp.111-112. e.g., Joseph Kerman, ‘How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out’, Critical Inquiry, 7 (1980), 311-331 (p.313). 7 Ian Quinn, ‘Minimal Challenges: Process Music and the Uses of Formalist Analysis’, Contemporary Music Review, 25 (2006), 283-294 (pp.292-293). 8 Jack Boss, ‘The Musical Idea and the Basic Image in an Atonal Song and Recitation of Arnold Schoenberg’, in A Music-theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (Part 1) ed. by David Carson Berry (Gamut, 2 (2009)), pp.223-266 (p.227). 6

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These examples show that an ecological approach to perception in music would not be antithetical to trends in mainstream music theory, and may well contribute to narrowing of the gap between theory and analysis, performance analysis, music psychology and musicology. Further work is necessary for the exploration of these findings for different performers and for different pieces of music. Quantitative empirical findings are needed to back up the suggestions made by the case study here. The case study has neglected the accompanist who inevitably has an effect on the rehearsal environment. The effect of the words of the poem, their sounds and meanings, need also to be considered. Relating the concepts presented here to existing work in a number of fields would be fruitful. In particular, Hatten’s work on gesture in tonal music, particularly his notion of ‘markedness’;9 Prior’s use of schemata to track a performer’s developing familiarity; 10 and a more detailed examination of the parallels in Chaffin’s notion of performance cues,11 would all yield interesting connections.

Acknowledgement All musical examples here © 1911 by Universal Edition, Wien. Renewed 1911 by Arnold Schoenberg. Reproduced by permission of Universal Edition A.G. Wien. All rights reserved.

9

Robert Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation and Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p.34. 10 Helen Prior, ‘Familiarity, Schemata and Patterns of Listening’, in Music and Familiarity: Listening, Musicology and Performance, ed. by Elaine King and Helen Prior (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp.33-62. 11 e.g., Chaffin.

PART II: PERFORMING PROCESSES; PERFORMANCE PROCESSES

CHAPTER FOUR PERFORMING TRANSFORMATIONS (A RISKY APPROACH) ELLEN HOOPER

The focus of the present chapter is that of transformation and risk in musical performance. Considering such ideas involves a number of challenges: the most significant is how to grasp both transformation and risk without them disappearing. This difficulty comes to the fore when one considers the way in which risk, for example, is often discussed when the focus shifts from risk itself to what risk precipitates: a cracked note, a missed leap. At the point these events occur, nuances of risk are collapsed into an opposition between total stability or absolute risk. 1 In order to grasp the actual riskiness, the challenge is to describe what happens before the end result, rather than in terms of it. Like risk, transformation is often collapsed into a comparison of two states, ignoring the transformation itself. The troublesome opposition occurs because of the speed at which transformation is usually considered. If transformation is explained too quickly, the result is a collapse into opposition which means that the focus of the consideration is not transformation, but the result of transformation. All that can be discussed in light of such a compression are what are posited as ‘objects’: the ‘stable

1 In a paper presented by Mark Doffman and Eric Clarke at the 2014 CMPCP conference in Cambridge, Doffman and Clarke discussed a broad idea of ‘taking risks in performance’, broadly using a comparison of risk and safety; see Eric Clarke and Mark Doffman, ‘New Work, Old Instruments: At His Majesty’s Pleasure—A Collaboration between Martyn Harry and “His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts”’, unpublished conference paper, Third Performance Studies Network International Conference (Cambridge, 17-20 July 2014).

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elements’ on either side of the transformation. The transformation itself is lost. The driving idea behind this chapter’s interest in transformation and risk is to engage with the notion of performance practices as emergent (rather than as chains of response), by expanding transformations to include multiple relations transforming into multiple relations: a dynamic system. This is an attempt to be honest with my approach in relation to the non-linear way in which practices emerge. 2 With this in mind, my approach makes use of descriptive prose to slow down the consideration of transformation in a number of performances. By not letting myself jump ahead (not letting you, the reader, jump ahead) the stretches of descriptive text are an attempt to put opposing concepts as far away from each other as possible such that the opposition becomes less important (less in focus) than the transformations. Using description to further understanding is, of course, by no means a new idea, nor a radical one. However, my work focuses on the performance of writing as a process which is inseparable from the process that is being considered (in this case of this chapter, the performance of transformation). This is something that has been explored by Dora Hanninen in her 2014 article ‘Asking Questions/Making Music: Listening, Analysis, and Cage’.3 Hanninen proposes analysis concerned with ‘music of sound rather than 2

By ‘honest’ I am referring to Agawu’s 2004 article ‘How We Got Out of Analysis and How to Get Back In Again’, Music Analysis, 23 (2004), 267-286, in which Agawu argues that in order to ‘facilitate understanding’, analysts construct useful fictions, the practice for which we need an ethical attitude (for example being honest about the fact that we are constructing fictions) (ibid., p.273). The idea of fictions in analysis comes from Guck’s seminal article from 1994 entitled ‘Analytical Fictions’ (Marion Guck, ‘Analytical Fictions’, Music Theory Spectrum, 16 (1994), 217-230) in which Guck argues that ‘language conveying a personal involvement with musical works pervades, indeed shapes, even the most technically orientated musical prose, that of musical analysis’ (ibid., p.218). She concludes by suggesting that: ‘[s]ince stories of involvement are unavoidable, each of us needs to consider what story to tell’ (ibid., p.230). Jacques Rancière reconceives the idea of ‘fiction’ more radically, arguing that fiction ‘is not a term that designates the imaginary as opposed to the real; it involves the re-framing of the ‘real’ […]. Fiction is a way of changing existing modes of sensory presentations and forms of enunciation […]’; Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. by Steven Corcoran (London: Continuum, 2010). 3 Dora Hanninen, ‘Asking Questions/Making Music: Listening, Analysis, and Cage’, Music Theory Online, 20 (2014).

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syntax’.4 By ‘music of sound’, Hanninen is describing a way of analysing ‘individual sounds musically, not only acoustically’5 [author’s emphasis] and as such the analysis itself is interactive, relational, transformative. Hanninen neatly explains the problem: Music analysis tends towards reduction to the extent that it assumes a prescribed repertoire of sound-objects, conflates repetitions as if they were interchangeable, and surrenders the particularity of individual sounds to their place in a group. In contrast, non-reductive analysis construes musical sounds as fundamentally interactive: ‘sounds’ become inseparable from ‘relations’, shaped by their influence on one another.6

The analysis in this chapter engages with Hanninen’s aim to avoid a reductive approach, since the descriptions of several recordings of Berio’s score ‘Ballo’ (from Folk Songs) themselves perform transformations. The analyses are necessarily drawn-out in order to do this work, detailing ‘process’ rather than ‘product’.7 If transformations are to be performed, it is necessary for the words, phrases, and descriptions to remain fluid and not pinned down for more than the time it takes for one transformation to occur within the text. For this reason descriptions exist fleetingly, often as verbs or adverbs, which are not fixed but relational. For example, something that is described as ‘chestier’ at a given point, is described as such in relation to something else, and only remains so for that particular moment: ‘chestier’ is not a pre-existing object. Crucially, it is the relations between instances that are elongated, rather than ‘qualities’ themselves, so that the transformations that are performed emerge as process of the work of the musical analysis.8 Indeed, although the description forms objects as it proceeds, the purpose of the analysis is not to assign labels or functions according to a stable object like a score, or composition. 9 Scores are, however, very 4

Ibid., §1.5. Ibid., §1.4. 6 Ibid., §2.4. 7 Ibid. 8 The problem of comparing pre-existing objects described above is most clearly evident in much empirical musicology where technology supports a (fictional) notion of ‘objectivity’ through comparison of ‘data’. Such an approach is outside the philosophy of this chapter, since it is the fluidity of language that allows transformations to emerge in the performance of the writing. 9 This idea is in keeping with Agawu’s assertion that ‘[t]he hands-on nature of 5

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useful to give some indication of the musical point that I am considering. In the analysis any reference to the score (for example, ‘this happens at bar five’) is to enable the reader to follow the impression that I have of the moment of performance being explored.10

‘Ballo’ from Folk Songs Berio’s score for ‘Ballo’ from Folk Songs,11 the performances of which are central to this chapter, is already transformative. An earlier ‘Ballo’ was written for voice and piano, composed as one of three songs in Berio’s Tre canzoni popolari in 1947. 12 In 1964, Berio orchestrated ‘Ballo’ for an ensemble of five instruments and mezzo-soprano, including the song as the seventh of ten in a collection of works entitled Folk Songs. It is significant that this transformation is concerned with texture, as a piece that once existed as a work for voice and piano became another for voice and instruments. For the purposes of the following analysis, ‘Ballo’ from Folk Songs (1964) is the ‘Ballo’ to which I am referring. In 3/8 and marked presto, the compositional structure for ‘Ballo’ is very simple: introduction-refrain-verse-introduction-refrain-verse-coda. The instrumental performers play interlocking ostinati of varying lengths in each part, which change en masse, combining to change the instrumental texture. Berio’s score provides no dynamic markings to the singer throughout. As I will explore, Cathy Berberian, Linda Hirst and Salome Kammer engage with this by transforming texture through register-timbre. Register-timbre is hyphenated, as, for me, the two are inseparable; when

analysis stems from the fact that the knowledge it produces is not necessarily objective or replicable, like an archival report, but subjective, an invitation to a way of perceiving’ (Agawu, p.276). My work takes this idea one step further, through the invitation to a way of perceiving or thinking about the process of writing musicology itself as a performance of the ideas being explored. 10 The performances with which this chapter is concerned are: Cathy Berberian and Luciano Berio (conducted), ‘Ballo’ from Recital I for Cathy/ Folk Songs/ Three Songs by Kurt Weill (BMG Classics, 1995; re-released from 1968 LP); Linda Hirst, Songs Cathy Sang, (Virgin Classics VC 7 90704 2, 1988); Salome Kammer, ‘Salome Kammer singt Berio’ YouTube video, ‘kwmusikmanagement’, 11 January 2010, [Accessed 22 April 2014]. 11 Luciano Berio, Folk Songs (Wien: Universal Edition, 1964). 12 David Osmond-Smith, Berio (Oxford University Press, New York, 1991), p.79.

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considering vocal production, register cannot be described without thinking about timbre, and vice-versa.

Berberian I will begin briefly with a focus on Berberian’s 1968 recording of ‘Ballo’. After the first refrain, the text for the first verse (bb.17-61) is: Amor fa disviare li più saggi E chi più l’ama meno ha in sé misura Più folle è quello che più s’innamura.13

Berberian approaches colour in this section through changes of registertimbre. At the start of the first verse, Berberian establishes a more open register-timbre than that of the preceding refrain, which remains until the word ‘più’ (b.25.2)14, when it starts to transform, becoming lighter and riskier-sounding through the text ‘più sag-’ (bb.25.2-29), sounding closer to her registeral break. At the second syllable of ‘saggi’ (bb.30-32.1) this riskier register-timbre becomes more stable as the melody falls a semitone. The second phrase (b.32.3-b.43) begins with a register-timbre reminiscent of the start of the first phrase, until the word ‘più’ (b.33.3), when the register-timbre opens further. This register-timbre is sustained through the text ‘l’ama’, before becoming less open for two bars of the text ‘meno ha in sé mi-’ (bb.36-37). Berberian crescendos through the held E of ‘-su-’ (bb.38-41), before an un-notated ornament occurring before the change in text to ‘ra’ (b.42), in the form of a rapid slide in pitch—down and up again—before settling on the D sharp for ‘-ra’. The first seven bars of the third phrase, set to the text ‘Più folle è quello che più’ (b.45.3-b.52.1), are sung in a register-timbre reminiscent of that of the start of the second phrase, but with a wider vibrato. Berberian takes a breath on the first quaver of bar 52, shortening the second ‘più’ of the phrase in the score by a quaver. This breath facilitates a transformation of register-timbre, as Berberian’s register-timbre lightens for ‘s’innamu-’ (b.52.2), coupled with less vibrato, which is maintained until the change of 13 ‘Love makes even the wisest mad/ and he who loves most has least judgement/ The greater lover is the greater fool.’ Translation from [Accessed 20 October 2014]. 14 Throughout this chapter, the number after the dot refers to the quaver in the bar. For example b.25.2 refers to the second quaver in b.25.

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syllable to ‘ra’ (b.58), at which point, Berberian’s register-timbre becomes more ‘thrown’.15 The rapid transformation is highlighted with another unnotated ornament of a slide down and up again in pitch before the change in syllable. In Berberian’s performance, the contour of intensity in both the verse and refrain sections do not correspond with the compositional phrase structure in terms of the changing ostinati in the instrumental parts, nor with the text- or breath-based phrase structures. The transformations of register-timbre often occur not at the point of a breath, or a change in ostinato, but dovetail with these phrases.

Hirst The shape of transformation between the first refrain and first verse that Hirst performs on her 1988 recording of ‘Ballo’ is reminiscent to that of Berberian’s change at this point in the work, characterized by a more open sound than in the refrain section coupled with a widening of her vibrato. This more open register-timbre remains through ‘Amor fa disviare’ (bb.17-23). After a breath, Hirst sings ‘li più’ (bb.24-25) with minimal vibrato, and from the beginning of the word ‘saggi’ (b.26) the registertimbre lightens and becomes airier, which continues through the word (bb.26-32.1). The minimal vibrato is carried over from the previous two words ‘li più’, through the first three bars of the first syllable ‘sag-’ (bb.26-28), dovetailing register-timbre and use of vibrato. On the last bar of ‘sag-’ (b.29) Hirst gradually adds a small amount of vibrato, which becomes wider for the second syllable ‘-gi’ (b.30). As the vibrato widens, the airiness of Hirst’s register-timbre decreases. The second phrase of the first verse, ‘E chi più l’ama meno ha in sé misura’ (bb.32.3-43) marks a higher rate of change for register-timbre and vibrato than Hirst has previously used. The start of the phrase ‘E chi più’ (bb.32.3-33) continues the register-timbre of the previous phrase, until Hirst suddenly darkens her sound on ‘l’ama’ (bb.34-35) and uses a narrow but intense vibrato throughout the word. This is followed by another abrupt change to a more nasal register-timbre for the start of the following phrase ‘meno ha in sé’ (bb.36-37). Through the ‘-su-’ syllable of the word 15

The term ‘thrown’ is well understood by singers, the meaning of which is transferred orally. I direct the reader to the recording at this point, since this instance is a good example of a ‘thrown’ register-timbre.

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‘misura’ (bb.38-41), Hirst’s register-timbre gradually ‘opens’, and as a result of the shift to allow Hirst to access the more open register-timbre, an audible slight change in pitch occurs. The ‘opening’ of Hirst’s registertimbre continues through the syllable ‘ra’ (bb.42-43), with the addition of a gradually widening vibrato. The result of this gradual change in timbre through the word ‘misura’ allows Hirst to gradually increase the intensity of the phrase towards the point at which she adds vibrato, in the manner of a crescendo, but using intensity of register-timbre rather than dynamic. The text for the third phrase of the first verse is ‘Più folle è quello che più s’innamura’ (bb.45.3-b.61). At the beginning of this phrase, Hirst sings in a register-timbre reminiscent of that of the start of the first verse until after a breath following the second ‘più’ (b.51), when, like in Berberian’s performance, the register-timbre transforms, becoming lighter and more ‘open’, like that of the previous phrase. Through the four bars of the static B flat set to ‘-mu-’ (bb.54-57), Hirst’s ‘open’ register-timbre intensifies, becoming more focused before the change in syllable to ‘ra’ (b.58), at which point, like in Berberian’s performance, Hirst’s register-timbre transforms. However, where Berberian transforms to an intense ‘thrown’ register-timbre, Hirst’s register-timbre transforms to the lightest and most ‘open’ register-timbre heard so far, which becomes increasingly light and ‘open’ through the last four bars of the phrase. In the last two bars of ‘-ra’, Hirst adds a slow vibrato, and decrescendos.

Kammer If my description of Berberian stabilizes ‘register-timbre’, and my description of Hirst’s 1988 performance transforms this conception of ‘register-timbre’, showing transformation in motion, then the following analysis of Kammer’s 2010 performance of ‘Ballo’ shows a transformation of transformations. Kammer’s performance involves more rapid transformations in register-timbre than Berberian and Hirst, emphasizing the differences between register-timbres more acutely. The technical difficulties of using the edges of registeral breaks in order to explore textural possibilities are brought to the fore with an emphasis on making these breaks audible. After the first refrain, Kammer transforms her register-timbre for the start of the verse, reminiscent of Hirst and Berberian’s transformations at this point. Kammer’s more open sound for the start of the verse remains until the end of the first phrase, as she sings the text ‘Amor fa disviare li più saggi’ (bb.17-29). Like Berberian and Hirst, Kammer takes a breath in the middle of the phrase after ‘disviare’ (b.23). Kammer starts the second

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phrase with a breathy, even more open register-timbre for the text ‘E chi più l’ama’ (bb.32.3-35). She slides between the pitches, with a particularly emphatic slide up to the G natural on ‘l’a[ma]’ (b.34), serving to accent the note. After a breath, ‘meno ha in sé mi-’ (bb.36-37) is sung in a less airy, more ‘covered’ register-timbre with no vibrato. Kammer crescendos through the held E on ‘-su-’ (bb.38-41)—the same shape of intensity performed by Berberian (through dynamic) and Hirst (through a gradual opening of the register-timbre from a nasal quality). However, halfway through this crescendo Kammer’s negotiation of her break is audible as she anticipates the sudden change to a very stark and guttural textured register-timbre with no vibrato, which occurs as she changes syllable to ‘ra’ (bar b.42). This audible shift, which occurs as she crescendos through the held E (bb.38-41), mirrors Hirst’s audible shift at the same point, as well as Berberian’s pitch-based sliding ornament. The transformations and audible shifts in each voice are different in each performance, and that all three singers are undertaking significant transformations at this point highlights transformation as a common interest. Kammer’s unstable crescendo followed by sudden shift of register-timbre on ‘-ra’ is reminiscent of the transitions at the end of each verse in Berberian’s performance, set to ‘s’innamura’ and ‘freddura’ (bb.52-61), when, after a crescendo on the held B flat of ‘mu’ (bb.54-57), Berberian suddenly changes to a more ‘thrown’ register-timbre on changing to the syllable ‘ra’ (set to a G natural) in b.58. Kammer sings the majority of the third phrase of the first verse—set to the text ‘Più folle è quello che più s’innamura’ (bb.45.3-61)—in a registertimbre much like that of the start of the verse, but with fewer inclusions of vibrato, which is added in b.49 on the last crotchet of the held F sharp. Kammer’s register-timbre only transforms as she changes to the syllable ‘ra’ (of ‘s’innamura’) in b.58, suddenly becoming more open with a rapid decrescendo, mirroring Hirst’s shape of transformation at this point. Although I have not discussed more than the first verse of each performance, it is possible to see that all three contours of transformation (of all three performances) are different, yet it is the transformations of register-timbre that characterize Berberian, Hirst, and Kammer’s performances. For these three performances transformation itself functions similarly and so, in this instance, to describe a performance practice is to describe transformations in performance. The transformations of registertimbre that the three singers explore in their performances of ‘Ballo’ are not notated in the score. Additionally, the phrases that are formed through their shading of intensity of register-timbre do not necessarily correspond with the changes in texture within the instrumental parts, nor necessarily

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with where they choose to breathe. Significant transformations occur outside the confines of the texture-, pitch- and text-based structure of the score. This is not to say that the three performers do not engage with any of the notated structure of the work, but that their transformations of register-timbre interlace with the change in instrumental texture, providing a sense of dynamic structure. Berberian, Hirst, and Kammer transform the interlocking textural changes in the instrumental parts (varying levels of intensity of texture formed through different lengths of ostinati within each part) through interlocking transformations of register-timbre (again, varying levels of intensity of register-timbre, which could be described as texture). By using register-timbre in the way that they do, the three singers engage with the idea of transforming texture.

Transformations of risk Christopher Hasty, in his chapter ‘The Image of Thought and Ideas of Music’,16 uses Deleuze’s notion of the ‘Idea’ (which is ‘purely virtual’) as the naming of a ‘dimension of musical experience that can not be parsed into discrete, identifiable, nameable constituents’.17 He goes on to suggest that ‘Idea is pure potential, a multiplicity that is neither one nor many, and a multiplicity that contains no cuts (the cut is, precisely, now)’. 18 He shows analytically how ‘[t]he new, actual experience, when past (passed) will, because of its irreducible novelty, change the composition of the virtual, and thus change the potential for later experiences’. 19 The challenge that Hasty presents through an acknowledgement of the virtual and its effect on the ‘potential for later experiences’ 20 provides a basis from which to investigate multiplicities of transformations and risk. Risk in performance is an idea that is radically non-metric: it is concerned with what might happen in the future (a note might ‘crack’, the timbre might change suddenly, a register might disappear from the singer’s grasp), rather than already existing as a ‘pre-formed object’. Risk is concerned with potential, and as such it is necessarily bound up with the virtual. 16

Christopher Hasty, ‘The Image of Thought and Ideas of Music’, in Sounding the Virtual: Gilles Deleuze and the Theory and Philosophy of Music, ed. by Brian Hulse and Nick Nesbitt (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), pp.1-22. 17 Ibid., p.10. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid.

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Through Kammer’s 2010 performance21 of de Falla’s ‘Polo’, the final song from 7 Canciones populares Españolas (1922) for voice and piano,22 a transformation of the multiple transformations stabilized in performances by Kammer, Hirst, and Berberian of ‘Ballo’, can be seen through a consideration of risk itself.23 As a result of this it is possible to infer that the shared territory of transformation is not dictated by repertoire. ‘Polo’ has been very widely performed and recorded, for example by: Ines Rivadeneyra, 1966; Marilyn Horne, 1974; Alicia Nafé, 1981; Merlyn Quaife, 2000. These recordings are characterized by little register-timbral riskiness as a result of registers that are smoothly blended in order to make any edges of the thresholds of each individual register imperceptible. Indeed, the majority of singers perform the de Falla in the way that Kammer has performed, for instance, Schumann’s ‘In der Fremde’ from Liederkreis (Opus 39), 24 with little register-timbral riskiness through blended registers and modest vibrato. Kammer’s 2010 recording of ‘Polo’, however, is characterized by the transformation of risk in the way that breath and register-timbre are performed. Kammer uses the risk of a cracked note in a number of different ways, of which I will investigate four examples: cracking as ornament; the effect of cracking on past risk; the riskiness of the denial of crack; already cracked notes. It is vital at this point to stress the importance of considering the analysis in this chapter as not concerned with any notion of intentionality. Since one cannot know whether the ‘cracking events’ are intentional (practised) or not, it is outside the epistemology of the material which this chapter considers. Risk is radically non-metric and therefore cannot exist as a ‘pre-formed object’, and it will not be imagined as one.

Cracking as ornament The first vocal entry in bar 5 of de Falla’s score is as follows:

21

Kammer. Manuel de Falla, ‘Polo’, 7 Canciones populares Españolas (Paris: Editions Max Eschig, 1922). 23 Kammer’s ‘risky’ performance may be, in part, a response to de Falla’s choice of text (traditional) in which a recurring declamatory ‘Ay!’ interrupts the rest of the impassioned text. 24 Kammer. 22

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Figure 4.1: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.5-12, © With kind permission of Editions Eschig (Durand) Paris.

Kammer’s choice of register-timbre throughout her performance is one that sounds audibly risky. Kammer’s first entry, ‘Ay!’ on an E (bb.5-12), starts with a quick exhaling of air (‘huo’) which is reminiscent of Hirst’s ornamental ‘ha’ in her performance of the start of the refrain of ‘Ballo’. The exhaling of air is unpitched and serves to accent the beginning of the exclamatory word. The first vowel of the diphthong of ‘Ay!’ that emerges from the exhale is maintained until an accented ornament, marking Kammer’s change in vowel during the diphthong. The way in which Kammer chooses to ornament the change in vowel is different to that which is marked in the score. De Falla marks the diphthong change with a triplet semiquaver turn end of b.8, returning to an E at the start of b.9. Instead, Kammer’s ornament occurs later than is marked in the score, in the middle of b.9, and is performed through deliberately ‘cracking’ briefly into a different register-timbre, pitched roughly a fourth above. De Falla’s ornament concerned predominantly with rhythm and pitch is replaced with one of breath and pitch, Kammer having established breath as an expressive affect through her first dramatic exhale. The intensity of risk in Kammer’s chosen register-timbre increases during the held E of ‘y’ (bb.9-

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12), which results in the pitch slightly distorting towards the end of the held vowel in b.12. There is a cracking again at the end of the phrase, before the pitch disappears with exhales and inhales of breath at the end of the phrase. The intensity of an exhalation and the risk of a cracking event are bound together: if the breath is exhaled more sharply, more intensely, the risk of cracking increases. However, by cracking the note, Kammer uses the dramatic effect of a cracking event as an ornament, which she does twice in this passage: once to accent the change in vowel resulting from the diphthong in the first word ‘Ay!’, and a second time to mark the end of the ‘Ay!’ exclamation, in combination with dramatically audible inhalations and exhalations. Kammer makes use of the risky register-timbre that she has chosen, since the risk allows her to more easily crack into a different registertimbre in a dramatic way, in keeping with the declamatory text. A more stable register-timbre would not allow her to ‘crack’ the note, since it is the edginess—being at the edge of the register-timbre’s threshold—that allows for such an event.

Vectors of change: past events Kammer’s next entry in b.32 is marked in the score ‘con fuoco’, with tenuto lines over the first two quavers, followed by an accent on the following tied dotted crotchet. Through the phrase, the riskiness of register-timbre increases in intensity as the pitches rise. ‘Na’, on a D, is held over three bars (bb.33-35), and sounds to be at the edge of a registertimbre, coupled with minimal vibrato. The change in text to ‘Ay’ is accented through cracking, before the notated ornamental demisemiquavers. This gives a sense of movement to the held D that preceded the crack, as, with the crack, the long D is re-conceived, increasing the level of intensity of the held note over the three bars that precede the D. Here, risk is a vector of change. This increasing of intensity could have been done with a crescendo, but as Kammer is using breath and registertimbre, she is able to use risk as her vector of change.

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Figure 4.2: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.29-36, © With kind permission of Editions Eschig (Durand) Paris.

No cracking The first two bars of the phrase that follows (bb.38-44) are identical, in the score, to the first two bars of the preceding phrase (bb.32-37). Kammer’s register-timbre on ‘na’ (b.39) is even riskier, as though it could ‘crack’ into a different register-timbre-pitch at any time; it has cracked before and could do again. The risky feeling is heightened by the fact that Kammer’s intonation wavers through the held note, suggesting that Kammer is at the edge of the threshold of her register-timbre. Unlike Kammer’s first presentation of the material, this time there is no ‘crack’ before the ornamental figure. Instead, the ‘cracking’ is delayed until the end of the ornamental ‘Ay’ figure, coupled with a relaxation of tension and fast exhale of breath to mark the end of the phrase. The lack of a

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‘cracking’ in b.40 emphasizes the risk of the register-timbre, since it heightens the feeling that a note could crack at any time, forcing Kammer to work to keep the register-timbre stable through the bar. Before b.38, a sense of ‘not cracking’ is established through the feeling of riskiness caused by Kammer’s established register-timbre, however it is not until b.40 that this denial is brought to the foreground as an expressive affect in itself.

Figure 4.3: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.37-44, © With kind permission of Editions Eschig (Durand) Paris.

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Final declaration: already cracked

Figure 4.4: de Falla, ‘Polo’ from 7 Canciones populares Españolas, bb.86-89, © With kind permission of Editions Eschig (Durand) Paris.

So far in the recording the ‘cracking’ register-timbre has only been heard as glimpses; the ‘cracking’ events have occurred as fleeting moments taking place in an instant before again disappearing. However, when Kammer sings the final exclamatory ‘Ay!’ (bb.86-88), the glimpse is protracted to reveal the register-timbre of the ‘cracked’ events in full for the whole of the last phrase. Until b.86 a variety of cracking has taken place. The final declaration is sung in what has transformed into what can be called a cracked register-timbre. The change of tense—from cracking to cracked—is important here: cracking itself is not heard, as the registertimbre has already cracked. Cracking sits uncomfortably beside the idea of cracked as they cannot exist in the same metric, which indicates that a radical transformation of risk itself has occurred. Risk has disappeared in an instant that cannot be located, through the transformation from cracking to cracked. As a result, the understanding of the previous cracking events, and the now cracked register-timbre, necessarily changes as what had been potential is revealed in full, and what has been revealed is transformed into potential. Consequently, Kammer’s performance of the last phrase in the cracked register-timbre can be heard as a performance of structure through risk: there has been a larger-scale increase of intensity marked by the previous ‘cracking’ events building towards the final declaration ‘Ay!’ which is marked by a release of the intensity through the ‘cracked’ timbre. The previous cracking events and increased intensity of risk can contribute to an understanding of the effectiveness of Kammer’s last declaration—the

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final ‘Ay!’—since the whole work has been building towards this point. The result of ‘cracking’ seems risky because the notion of cracking is always associated with extreme risk; in this sense, whether the cracking events are intentional, or not, is not a useful consideration, since it is their association with risk that determines the transformation: the ‘cracks’ are not pre-formed objects.

Transformations of transformations Through her performance of de Falla’s ‘Polo’, Kammer performs a structure through risk and breath, transforming the transformations established through performances of ‘Ballo’ by Hirst, Berberian, and Kammer. Kammer uses risk as a way of ornamenting breath as a vector of change. She builds tension through the denial of risk, and through presenting what had previously been a virtual fleeting concern (on which the risk was based) as a new entity (not just a new quality): ‘cracked’ rather than ‘cracking’. Risk itself has transformed; the transformation of what ‘risky’ might be in Berberian’s corpus of performance does not become apparent until Kammer performs in an even riskier way. Kammer’s performance of ‘Polo’ encompasses Berberian’s body of ‘risky’ performances as a whole, serving to stabilize the riskiness of Berberian’s performances through a more intense riskiness. This chapter has examined transformations of register-timbre in performances of two works: de Falla’s ‘Polo’ and Berio’s ‘Ballo’. The similarities in approach I have described begin an articulation of practice that is defined by the singers, rather than by the scores. However, one cannot ignore the way in which de Falla’s ‘Polo’ and Berio’s ‘Ballo’ are intertwined both in terms of the composers themselves as well as compositionally. De Falla’s ‘Polo’ was a significant work for Luciano Berio and Cathy Berberian in the 1970s, since it is quoted in Berio’s 1972 work Recital I for Cathy on the fourth track, 4:22.25 Berio also made an arrangement of the 7 Canciones 26 in 1978, 27 for mezzo-soprano and 25 David Metzer, Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.219. Metzer suggests that Recital I for Cathy includes brief musical fragments from over forty works that were in Berberian’s repertoire and that ‘Polo’ is the only reference to de Falla in Recital I for Cathy. 26 Berio remarks in the score ‘To be performed only as a song cycle’: Luciano Berio, 7 Canciones populares Españolas, [Accessed 24 February 2015]. 27 Manuel de Falla, arr. Luciano Berio, 7 Canciones populares Españolas (London: Universal Edition, 1978). 28 Berio, Canciones populares Españolas. 29 Hasty, p.1. 30 Ibid., p.10.

CHAPTER FIVE RISKY BUSINESS: NEGOTIATING VIRTUOSITY IN THE COLLABORATIVE CREATION OF ORFORDNESS FOR SOLO PIANO DAVID GORTON AND ZUBIN KANGA

Risk is part of the challenge. […] What they do out there is beyond the bounds of comprehension of ordinary people: a combination of balance, feel, dexterity, skill, [and] judgment.1

This comment, which could easily apply to the performers of highly virtuosic music, is in fact referring to Formula 1 motor racing. A particularly nasty crash involving the driver Jules Bianchi at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix has rejuvenated the debate about safety in the sport. Yet in the midst of all the talk about safety, Niki Lauda, who was himself the victim of a near-fatal crash at the Nürburgring in 1976, has identified a different kind of risk, the risk of losing fans if the sport is not exciting enough.2 The very identity of the sport seems to reside in this fine balance between excitement and safety. The creative circumstance that is described in this chapter—a collaboration between David Gorton (composer) and Zubin Kanga (pianist)—explores a similar balancing act, albeit of rather different stakes, 1

Andrew Benson, ‘Jules Bianchi: What Lessons can F1 Learn from Japan Crash?’, BBC website (2014) [Accessed 1 March 2015]. 2 Gerhard Kuntschik and Jonathan Noble, ‘Niki Lauda: Formula 1 Must Go Ahead with 1000bhp Car Plan’, Autosport website (2015) [Accessed 1 March 2015].

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in which the negotiation of risk became a defining characteristic in the codevelopment of a ‘virtuosic’ work for solo piano. There has, in recent years, been an increasing interest within academia in the real-world practices of collaborating composers and performers. A mutual benefit can be seen for the practitioners and those observing them, even where the observers and the observed are the same people. On the one hand such studies have enabled composers and performers to make explicit the practice-driven research imperatives that underpin their work, where otherwise these imperatives may have remained invisible.3 On the other hand, the positioning of collaborative practices as case studies has contributed to the broader discourse in the field of creativity studies and its cognate areas.4 Like many of its precursors the case study presented in this chapter speaks to this broader discourse.5 But, like many of the precursors, the particular circumstances described are shaped by the specific dynamics of the artistic personalities in the collaboration, and the individual characteristics of their shared artistic endeavour. Defining risk is problematic because it is measured very differently in different fields. In the physical sciences and medicine, risk is a calculation 3 Fabrice Fitch and Neil Heyde, ‘“Recercar”—The Collaborative Process as Invention’, Twentieth Century Music, 4 (2007), 71-95. 4 Clarke, Doffman, and Lim, for example, in an article that identifies various tensions, resistances, and dynamic interactions in Lim’s collaboration with the ensemble musikFabrik, propose an ecology of distributed creativity, drawing upon a variety of writing from anthropology and psychology. Similarly, Amanda Bayley uses a study of Michael Finnissy’s work with the Kreutzer Quartet to situate a broader, methodological discussion on the value of recordings as documents of a creative process. See Eric Clarke, Mark Doffman, and Liza Lim, ‘Distributed Creativity and Ecological Dynamics: A Case Study of Liza Lim’s “Tongue of the Invisible”’, Music and Letters, 94 (2013), 628-663; and Amanda Bayley, ‘Multiple Takes: Using Recordings to Document Creative Process’, in Recorded Music: Performance, Culture and Technology, ed. by Amanda Bayley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp.206-224. 5 See, for example: Bayley, ‘Multiple Takes’; Eric Clarke, Nicholas Cook, Bryn Harrison, and Philip Thomas, ‘Interpretation and Performance in Bryn Harrison’s être-temps’, Musicae Scientiae, 9 (2005), 31-74; Clarke, Doffman, and Lim, ‘Distributed Creativity’; Michael Hooper, ‘The Start of Performance, or, Does Collaboration Matter?’, Tempo, 66 (2012), 26-36; Stefan Östersjö, SHUT UP ’N’ PLAY! Negotiating the Musical Work (Lund: University of Lund Press, 2008); Heather Roche, ‘Dialogue and Collaboration in the Creation of New Works for Clarinet’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2011).

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given known variables; in psychology it is a behavioural and cognitive phenomenon; in economics it is a decisional phenomenon, a means of securing wealth or avoiding loss; for many of the arts, risk is identified as an emotional phenomenon. 6 The ‘Risk Management International Standard’ (used across a wide range of industries and businesses) defines risk broadly as ‘the effect of uncertainty on objectives’, though the specific definition relevant for our use is that, ‘[r]isk is defined in terms of the consequences of an event and the associated likelihood of occurrence.’7 Thus risk can be calculated as a product of chance and consequence, with low values of both corresponding to low risk and high values of both corresponding to high risk. The model, though crude, is useful for calculating relative risks, from seismic hazards for a nuclear power station, to the risk of default for bank loans. 8 Thus, for example, one might compare the moderate risks at an airport terminal of trip-and-fall accidents (high probability, low consequence) to a plane crash (low probability, high consequence) to a food poisoning outbreak (moderate probability and moderate consequences). Complicating this is the complex relationship between perceived risk and actual risk: judgments of probability, in particular, are affected by biases, emotions, knowledge, age, and experience. 9 The concepts of risk and risk management are not widely prevalent in the broad literature on musical performance. Where they do appear it is often within the contexts of performers’ health and the risks associated with particular kinds of performance injury, or the risk of damaging a reputation.10 But while both reputational damage and injury could be a resultant outcome from a performance of the present case study, the kinds of risks that were the focus of the collaborative negotiations were 6

Catherine Althaus, Calculating Political Risk (London: Routledge, 2008), p.41. Risk Management—Principles and Guidelines (International Standard, ISO 2009). 8 Dale F. Cooper and C. B. Chapman, Risk Analysis for Large Projects: Models, Methods and Cases (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1987). 9 Baruch Fischoff, Risk Analysis and Human Behaviour (London: Taylor and Francis Ltd, 2011), pp.9-10. 10 The reputational risk of an ensemble normally associated with old music presenting a new (and in some cases apparently unwelcome) piece to their established audience has been explored in Eric Clarke and Mark Doffman, ‘New Work, Old Instruments: At His Majesty’s Pleasure—A Collaboration between Martyn Harry and “His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts”’, unpublished conference paper, Third Performance Studies Network International Conference (Cambridge, 17-20 July 2014). 7

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technical: the likelihood of a technique failing to sound, or making the ‘correct’ sound, or of a passage going wrong. The likelihood of a particular ‘error’ may range from a one-in-one-hundred performance event up to a multiple-times-per-performance event, and these could range in consequence from an insignificant finger slip that might not be audible to the audience, to more extreme events where the whole performance may need to stop. The collaborative process for Orfordness (2012), from the initial commission to the first performance, took place over a period of seventeen months. 11 Fitch and Heyde observed of their own collaboration that working slowly and with long gaps between meetings is unusual in a professional context, and gave ‘the work an improvisatory aspect’.12 The same could be said for the work on Orfordness, although the slowness of the work was not uniform, with some progress being made relatively rapidly amid some quite extended periods of inactivity. Perhaps even more unusually within a professional context is that the piece was originally commissioned to provide material for Kanga’s own PhD portfolio13 and for an academic conference paper, 14 meaning that the project was established from the start as an artistic research project.15 The initial brief for the piece was that it should be a ‘virtuosic’ work, but, rather than attempting to make a critical definition of such an historically complex term as ‘virtuosity’, it was agreed that for the purposes of the project, a corporate understanding of the term would become manifest in the materials of the finished piece. However, a number of specific areas of exploration were agreed, including the tension between extremely difficult and challenging techniques on the piano, and fluent techniques that give 11 David Gorton’s Orfordness was first performed by Zubin Kanga at Kings Place, London, on 13 February 2012 as part of the Out Hear series. It was later recorded and released on the portrait CD David Gorton: Orfordness (Métier, 2015). 12 Fitch and Heyde, ‘Recercar’, p.93. 13 Zubin Kanga, ‘Inside the Collaborative Process: Realising New Works for Solo Piano’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, Royal Academy of Music, 2014). 14 David Gorton and Zubin Kanga, ‘Collaborating in Virtuosity: An Agent for Reimagining the Creative Process’, unpublished conference paper, Tracking the Creative Process in Music (Lille, 29 Sept-1 Oct 2011). 15 Meant here in its broadest sense, encompassing similar areas such as practice-led research and arts based research. See, for example, the European Platform for Artistic Research, part of the AEC (The Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen).

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the illusion of difficulty, as well as the innovation of new techniques that require high levels of control to perform. The next sections will show how a combined, although largely tacit, exploration of ‘virtuosity’ was mediated through the negotiation of risk, and how this negotiation became manifest in contrasting ways across the five contrasting movements of Orfordness. Of particular importance here is the recognition that risk management was not simply concerned with the mitigation of risk. Rather, in seeking ‘virtuosity’, the collaborators were negotiating a fine balance between innovation and excitement on the one hand and safety and security in performance on the other. The discussion is drawn from video documentation made during each of the collaborative working sessions, as well as from sketch materials from various preliminary versions of the movements. Clarke, Doffman, and Lim have raised legitimate concerns over the practice of filming rehearsals, being a ‘potentially distorting influence in relation to the kinds of micro-social interactions that [they] observed and recorded’,16 despite the assertion that, ‘[work] that involves participants as researchers has become a more common means of conducting intensive real-world study.’17 The mitigating factors that Clarke, Doffman, and Lim apply to their project are also broadly relevant here: first, both Gorton and Kanga have conducted similar projects over a period of years and are very used to working with a video camera in the room; second, and more importantly, ownership and editorial control of the video was maintained throughout by the collaborators, a circumstance quite different to having an independent, third person control the documentation. In this way, the video footage became both a document of the collaborative process, and a tool for remembering jointly developed performance practices. The piece itself, Orfordness, takes its title from the shingle spit on the east coast of Suffolk, which was used for secret military testing from the First World War until 1993, when it was acquired by the National Trust and designated as a National Nature Reserve. A number of myths surround the area regarding the development of secret weapons and radar systems, as well as an alleged UFO encounter. Actual facts, however, remain sketchy, with some military documents having been embargoed for far longer than normal practice or even accidentally destroyed. Each of the

16 17

Clarke, Doffman, and Lim, p.638. Ibid., p.637.

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movements of Orfordnesss takes its tittle and characcter from onee of these myths.

1st M Movement: ‘Evacuation ‘ n of the Civvil Populattion from Shingle Sttreet, Suffoolk’

Figure 5.1: T The opening of o Gorton, ‘Evaacuation of thee Civil Populaation from Shingle Streeet, Suffolk’ from m Orfordness.

The firstt movement takes its tittle from a ppreviously em mbargoed Ministry off Defence fille, dating fro om the Secoond World War, W and rumoured too be related too the testing off a secret weaapon that could d boil the sea. Lastingg only a minnute and a haalf in perform mance, the fiirst thirty seconds or so consists of rapid passagework in the upper an nd lower registers cullminating in aggressive a cho ords, with thee rest of the movement m involving thhe gradual deccay of the susttained resonannce and the em mergence of a single nnote sounded by b an e-bow (see Figure 5.11).18 An embeellishment to the passaagework is the use of irrattional subdiviisions in the left l hand, 18

An electroomagnetic device, usually useed by electric guitar players, that will allow an un-ddampered pianoo string to vibraate as long as thhere remains charge in the battery.

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creating the effect of the left hand playing at changing tempi relative to the stable right hand. Gorton completed the first draft before the first workshop session. The majority of the passagework consists of a single line in each hand, with the addition of occasional dyads used to increase the density of the overall texture, and it was these dyads that became the focus of the first negotiation. In attempting to establish the most fluent solution to the passage, facilitating both speed and control over colour and articulation, Kanga had found that the dyads introduced an uneven distribution of wrist movements that hindered the otherwise fluid and rapid execution. The workshop was therefore spent identifying which of the dyads could be removed, balancing the two conflicting priorities of speed and density: the more dyads removed the faster the passage but less dense the texture, and vice versa. A number of small alterations were made, in effect tailoring the material to Kanga’s physiology. The movement was returned to some nine months later in preparation for the first performance, with a session that functioned more like a rehearsal than a developmental workshop. By this stage Kanga had concluded that the marked tempo of 103.7 b.p.m. was impossible, and, even though Gorton had reassured him that the marking was programmatic rather than literal (103.7 degrees Celsius being the boiling point of sea water), the implications of extreme aggression and alacrity were causing difficulties. When Kanga began to play the movement through he made several false starts, indicating the tension generated by playing the work for the composer. Kanga tried to explain away the false starts, repeating the beginning several times fluently and stating, ‘it’s the beginning that freaks me out. I think it’ll be fine now, it’s just playing it out and warming up into it.’19 Gorton ignored the opening false starts and instead focused attention on the pedalling, and how to use it to emphasize the crescendos with the rehearsal thus ending with an unspoken act of trust: Kanga would find a way to manage the risks of the start of the movement, and Gorton would not ask him how or if he could do so.20 19 Video of workshop, Zubin Kanga and David Gorton, 19 January 2012, Royal Academy of Music. 20 Anthony Gritten has observed that trust is a missing component for understanding ‘how’ performing together actually happens, compared with ‘why’ it is important, as described in Nicholas Cook’s conception of musical performance as social interaction. See: Anthony Gritten, ‘A Labour of Trust: Working (at) Ensemble Interaction’, unpublished conference paper, Second Performance Studies

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By the first performance Kanga had formulated a risk management strategy. He reasoned that if he could reduce the risk of breaking down in the opening line, the overall risk to the movement would be minimized; in other words, if he could get going at the start, he was confident that the rest of the movement would fall into place. He decided therefore to begin the movement at a slower tempo and gradually accelerate through the first line, using the irrational rhythms to mask the accelerando and allowing the left hand to speed up at a slower rate than the right hand. The inaccuracy produced by this decision was of low consequence, since it would sound like a natural rushing of the rhythm, and by minimizing the risk of the opening, he found a strategy to radically reduce the possibility of breaking down in the live performance.

2nd Movement: ‘Cobra Mist’ The origins of the second movement, ‘Cobra Mist’,21 were markedly different to the first, with no draft material brought to the first workshop but instead an e-bow and a pair of dulcimer hammers. The manner of working was similar to that of the early stage of Gorton’s collaboration with the guitar player Stefan Östersjö,22 with both composer and performer suggesting and trying out ideas, and discovering the affordances of the available instrument(s) in the hands of the specific performer. 23 Gorton and Kanga had previously worked together in a similar fashion with an ebow in the development of the piano quintet Fosdyke Wash,24 and Kanga

Network International Conference (Cambridge, 4-7 April 2013). 21 Named after the over-the-horizon radar system built at Orford Ness in the late 1960s. 22 Eric Clarke, Mark Doffman, David Gorton, and Stefan Östersjö, ‘Fluid Practices, Solid Roles? The Evolution of Forlorn Hope’, in Creativity, Improvisation and Collaboration: Perspectives on the Performance of Contemporary Music, ed. by Eric Clarke and Mark Doffman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 23 The theory of affordances, described by psychologist James Gibson, and developed more recently by Eric Clarke, among others, is cited in ibid. in relation to the kinds of possibilities afforded by a particular instrument in the hands of a particular performer with their specific capacities, physiologies, and history of previous musical experiences. 24 Also recorded on David Gorton: Orfordness (Métier, 2015), with Zubin Kanga and the Kreutzer Quartet.

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also had experience using e-bows in Rolf Hind’s piano piece Towers of Silence, so it was from this position of knowledge that the workshop began. A number of techniques were tried and developed: using an e-bow to set a piano string vibrating and then modulating the sound by gently damping the string with the wooden and leather sides of a dulcimer hammer; scraping the strings in different registers with dulcimer hammers and the e-bow itself; and striking the sound board in different positions with a dulcimer hammer. For a large proportion of the workshop Gorton directed the action, with Kanga trying out the ideas and Gorton making note of their relative effectiveness and difficulty. Yet, in counterbalance to this seemingly hierarchical approach, Kanga imposed his own selection process by spending extended periods of time developing and perfecting some of the techniques, and quickly passing over and rejecting others.

Figure 5.2: Damping an e-bow note with a dulcimer hammer, © David Gorton.

Following this workshop Gorton collected together the jointlydeveloped techniques and composed them into a sequence using an unmeasured notation where bars are designated as having roughly equal length, but the pacing and rhythmic detail of the events within each bar are left to Kanga’s discretion. In this way the notation prioritizes risk aversion, making the macro structural rhythm flexible to allow Kanga to concentrate

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on the details of executing the many precise techniques. The difficulty of these techniques is partly a result of them being unusual, but is also the result of the level of control required to execute them: the damping effects will not sound if the string is pressed too gently, and will damp the note completely if pressed too hard, meaning that a wide variety of colours must be found and cultivated within very narrow parameters. The performance of these techniques in fluent succession required extensive pre-planned choreography, including such practical matters as when and where the dulcimer hammers should be dropped and picked up again between uses. At a second workshop (rehearsal) a few weeks before the first performance, Gorton decided to increase the risk by insisting on a quicker pace and an articulation of larger phrases. ZK: I could speed up or slow down certain passages. DG: This whole passage [pointing to climax] could be sped up. It’s more the gaps between events that could… ZK: [plays] DG: yeah, a bar like that for example [top of page 2]. That’s very much a kind of pause, a pause or rest bar. But the flow of events shouldn’t feel like there’s any rests. So from there to there [taking in the top line] is a big phrase.25

Having mitigated the risks of the movement by using techniques that Kanga had innovated, and building rhythmic flexibility into the score, this final workshop allowed Gorton to re-inject enough risk to maintain the ‘virtuosic’ goals of the movement, restoring the balance between safety in performance and the excitement of a fluid succession of unusual gestures.

25 Video of workshop, Zubin Kanga and David Gorton, 19 January 2012, Royal Academy of Music.

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Figure 5.3: Gorton, ‘Cobra Mist’ from Orfordness, extract.

3rd and 4th Movements: ‘You Can’t Tell the People’ and ‘Blue Danube’ Both the third and the fourth movements have elements of risk built into the materials: ‘traps’ that could increase the consequence of a small error should one be made. In the case of the third movement, ‘You Can’t Tell the People’,26 the ‘traps’ are the result of an electronic ‘tape’ part. This is an edited version of the ‘Halt Tape’, a Dictaphone recording allegedly made by Lt. Colonel Halt during the ‘Rendlesham Forest Incident’ in 1980, Britain’s most documented alleged UFO sighting, situated near to Orford Ness. The edited tape part has gaps between the sections, decreasing in duration from 4 seconds to 1.5 seconds, and into which brief musical interludes on the piano are inserted. This requires Kanga to anticipate the start of each pause in the tape, without the help of a click track, and to fit the musical materials into a tight temporal window before the tape begins again. If he is too slow he will overlap with the tape; if he is too fast there will be a gap before the start of the next section.

26

A comment attributed to Margaret Thatcher by Georgina Bruni when asked about the existence of UFOs. See: Georgina Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People: The Definitive Account of the Rendlesham Forest UFO Mystery (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 2001).

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Figure 5.4: Gorton, ‘You Can’t Tell the People’ from Orfordness, extract.

The first workshop on this movement was used to determine how these short gaps might be filled, with Kanga improvising a variety of possibilities. A combination of materials was agreed upon, comprising low harmonics, short phrases using dulcimer hammers on the strings, scraping the low strings vertically with the dulcimer hammers, and chords on the keyboard. This was then tested to see if it could fit within the small time intervals. This testing allowed for the assessment of the potential speed and accuracy of the techniques, and, in particular, identified the most efficient order of materials. DG: The thing that takes the longest time to set up is the harmonics, so that has to be first. ZK: That has to be first, but if you have specific notes there [gesturing with the dulcimer hammers] that could take a bit of time. I’ll have it marked, but there’ll be a certain limit to how fast it can be, just based on finding, positioning. DG: I think the last bit is a second and a half. So that would be one [pointing to the harmonics] ‘de de’ [pointing to the middle of the piano where the dulcimer hammers would play] two notes [pointing to the keyboard]. Can you do that in a second and a half? Shall I time it? ZK: So let me get it. DG: Harmonic chord, three notes in there [dulcimer hammers] then three notes dry on the piano notes. Ready, steady, go. ZK: [plays]

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DG: Yeah, second and a half! ZK: Well, I have to drop this [dulcimer hammers]. A ‘virtuosic drop’. And these need to be non-specific, or maybe not. Maybe if they’re all consecutive notes, it can be done.27

As with ‘Cobra Mist’, the workshop/rehearsal that followed the completion of the score was used to reintroduce elements of risk, with Gorton asking for adjustments in speed, dynamics, and legato articulation. This focus on the materials, and the details of their shaping and sound, is a common negotiation in rehearsal, but here takes on a particular intensity due to the time pressures associated with each gesture. DG: Can it be any faster, the dulcimer bits. There can be more space around it but… ZK: I can make it faster but not evenly faster. And if I do it faster there’s more risk of it missing.28

Just before the first performance, Kanga found one of the dulcimer hammer passages to have too high a chance of failure (hitting incorrect strings, or even missing the string altogether) due to the difficulty of finding specific strings across large expanses on the inside of the piano. Gorton acquiesced, deleting one of the four notes to make the passage considerably easier to execute. The ‘traps’ associated with the fourth movement, ‘Blue Danube’,29 are the result of silent chords held with the sostenuto pedal. The rest of the material is a delicate line spread across the keyboard, interspersed with large broken chords. The silent chords are designed to resonate quietly in response to this material, but simultaneously establish a set of notes that would resonate loudly if played in error. In such a case an otherwise insignificant note slip would become very audible indeed, significantly raising the stakes when playing the fast and angular material. As for the previous movements, the negotiation of this risk played out in the tailoring of the existing material to Kanga’s physiology, and specifically in this 27

Video of workshop, Zubin Kanga and David Gorton, 26 May 2011, Royal Academy of Music. 28 Video of workshop, Zubin Kanga and David Gorton, 19 January 2012, Royal Academy of Music. 29 Named after Britain’s first nuclear weapon. Vibration tests were conducted on the device at Orford Ness in 1956.

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case, through the distribution of pitches in the broken chords and the positioning of the hands in their execution. In determining how best to play the widely spaced broken chords with a single hand, Kanga advocated placing smaller intervals next to any large leaps by referring to a passage from Michael Finnissy’s English Country Tunes, and thereby borrowing Finnissy’s own risk mitigation strategy. ZK: I checked this kind of jump rule in that Finnissy passage, and I found one where he did a big leap, which was like that [plays broken chord of two adjacent leaps with one hand], but all the rest were all like [plays chords that are one smaller interval and one big leap].30

Figure 5.5: Gorton, ‘Blue Danube’ from Orfordness, extract.

Gorton accepted this principle as a model, and subsequently accepted changes in the octave disposition of some pitches in the broken chords. At the rehearsal the following January the way in which Kanga would play the widely spaced arpeggiated chords was reconsidered. Kanga’s assessment of these techniques as used by Gorton was that there was still a high chance of missing notes, despite the previous adjustments, and an unusually critical consequence of these errors due to the silent chord ‘traps’. To minimize this high risk, Kanga decided to play most of these broken chords with two hands, rather than one, meaning that there was increased difficulty in getting between each of the chords in different registers, but a lower risk of inaccuracies within each chord. Despite the 30 Video of workshop, Zubin Kanga and David Gorton, 25 October 2011, Royal Academy of Music.

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change in techniques used, Gorton was very pleased with the resulting visual impact of the passage. From the perspective of the audience, Kanga’s risk management strategy makes the performance look more ‘virtuosic’.

5th Movement: ‘The Island’

Figure 5.6: Orford Ness as it is today, © David Gorton.

The fifth and final movement of Orfordness, ‘The Island’,31 depicts the site as it is now: a ruin gradually being reclaimed by the natural landscape. It is the slowest, sparsest, and longest movement in the cycle. The movement has three interleaved musical elements: a two-part chorale played using two e-bows; melodic fragments played on a succession of 7th harmonics; and extremely soft but articulated chords, played by pushing the keys down past the escapement point and then striking forcefully. Each 31

A reference to W. G. Sebald’s novel The Rings of Saturn, which depicts the author visiting Orford Ness. See: W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, trans. by Michael Hulse (London: Vintage Books, 2002), pp.230-237.

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technique requires a high degree of skill to execute and there is a high risk of each technique failing, or of unintended noises interrupting the still atmosphere. In the case of the 7th harmonics the largest risk is that they might not sound at all, with the finger on the string accidentally damping it rather than finding the ‘distant’ node, resulting in a dull thudding sound. The quiet chords have two potential types of failure associated with them. The ‘biting point’ needs to be found when the keys are depressed past the point of escapement, a characteristic that varies widely in distance and reliability across different pianos. From this ‘biting point’ the keys should be pressed forcefully, resulting in a very quiet, yet focused sound. If the keys are depressed too far before the articulation, the chord will not sound at all, but if the keys are not depressed far enough, the chord will sound at a conspicuous forte dynamic. When performing the e-bow chorale the risk comes from the temperamental character of the e-bows themselves and how they interact with different pianos. E-bows excite different strings at different rates, and can cause inadvertent noises. In the most extreme case the vibration of the string can cause the e-bow itself to vibrate, making a loud rattling sound. The starts of notes are particularly problematic as the e-bow often needs to be pushed into the string in order to trigger its vibration, and this can cause a twanging sound on the string, or even scrape neighbouring strings. Removing an e-bow from a string has the risk of strumming the string unintentionally, and finishing notes with the dampers (operated by the sustain pedal) or damping the string with a finger can also result in unexpected noises. But, unlike the other movements, a limited amount of ‘failure’ in ‘The Island’ is, in fact, desirable. This is a product of the type of material in the movement and the character it evokes: the strange noises resulting from the unpredictable interaction between e-bows and strings, and the uneven changes in dynamics and tone in the chords and harmonics create an additional, and ever-varying layer of material that communicates the lonely and agoraphobic spirit of the movement more effectively than a ‘perfect’ rendition would. This presented an interesting challenge when recording the piece for CD, as the appetite for risk in live performance just described is rather different when creating a permanent document. The recording strategy was to aim for a ‘perfect’ rendition by recording each bar separately. Afterwards, in the editing stage, takes were selected that contained a small, yet desirable amount of ‘noise’, thereby mimicking the aesthetic potential of risk inherent in live performance.

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Figure 5.7: Gorton, ‘The Island’ from Orfordness, extract.

Conclusions: Censorship and Craftsmanship The vision of ‘virtuosity’ that is presented throughout the five movements of Orfordness, a vision that is shared but not comprehensive, includes materials that sound and look challenging to perform but which have been made reasonably efficient in their technical delivery, as well as materials that sound and look easy to produce but which rely on extreme levels of precision. Each represents the outcome of a negotiation of risk. On the one hand the level of risk in performance was deliberately heightened through the use of fast and technically difficult passagework, the use of techniques that have a propensity to fail or produce extraneous noise, and the setting of ‘traps’ within the material that increase the consequence of small errors. On the other hand, the variously heightened risks were mitigated in the collaborative workshops by the tailoring of materials to Kanga’s physiology, as well as the deliberate introduction of small inaccuracies that prevent, or at least greatly reduce, the possibility of errors of significantly higher consequence. In counterbalance, the workshops also provided opportunity to rein in the mitigation process and reintroduce elements of risk, by focusing in new ways on particular details and increasing the speed of passages, thereby allowing Gorton and Kanga to find a balance in the level of risk. It is this balance that in some way defines their shared conception of ‘virtuosity’, which resides at the meeting points of safety and excitement, of security in performance and the palpable tension of possible failure. That this process could occur at all is the result of a mutual trust between composer and performer, broadly described as an unspoken

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agreement that Kanga would manage the risks in performance of anything that Gorton threw at him, on the condition that Kanga could suggest amendments to the score where he felt they were necessary. This trust is underpinned by shared artistic and pragmatic interests, but also through another, more complex, aspect of risk management: that of selfcensorship. The theme of censorship pervades the history of the Orford Ness site and the Orfordness piece itself. It is most explicit in the piece in the programmatic metronome markings, with those in the first and fourth movements being denoted in degrees Celsius and terajoules respectively, and the marking in the second movement simply labelled ‘CENSORED: SECTION 40’ in reference to the censorship of declassified public documents about the site. By withholding critical information about the tempo of the movements, or at least making that information ambiguous, Gorton acknowledges that speed is a subject for negotiation, and thereby moves the interpretation of the metronome marks into the domain of the workshop. Censorship also operated on a broader scale across the collaborative process. On the one hand, Kanga deliberately refrained from providing Gorton with detailed information about his technical strengths and weaknesses. Instead, Kanga granted Gorton permission to challenge his skills from a position of ‘unknowing’, with the method of tailoring materials being used in the workshops when perceived limits were encountered. Similarly, Gorton did not share with Kanga the details of his compositional working, but rather, he allowed Kanga to make free suggestions in the changing of pitches and registers, and renegotiated these suggestions on the few occasions when a conflict of interests arose. Unlike most deliberate censorship, the withholding of information in the collaboration acted as a form of mutual empowerment, allowing each to challenge the other’s technical and artistic purview, a process that would have been inhibited had each known the other’s precise limits. It is within this process of challenge that innovation occurs, and it is through innovation that the balancing act of risk can be positioned and repositioned through time and across practices. Despite its dangers, risk is both appealing to artists and vital to artistic endeavour. Nobody wants to see the negative consequences of a high-risk strategy: a pianist breaking down in the middle of a performance or, returning to the opening metaphor, a Formula 1 driver crashing mid-race. Yet if the negative consequences were not a real possibility, however remote, then a vital aspect of the live, performative thrill of piano playing (and all high risk pursuits) would be removed, and the innovation of new approaches would be stifled. David Pye has described this dichotomy in

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terms of ‘the workmanship of risk’ and ‘the workmanship of certainty’.32 The latter can be found in its most pure state in the pre-determined quality production of full automation. In contrast, the workmanship of risk is found when ‘the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgment, dexterity and care which the maker exercises as he works. The essential idea is that the quality of the result is continually at risk during the process of making’.33 To this meaning Pye tentatively ascribes the word ‘craftsmanship’. This assigns a particular relationship between maker, tool, and environment—separate from the determined and automated world of our normal surroundings—to be found in pianist, piano, and concert hall, and even in our encounters with the abandoned military site of Orford Ness.

Acknowledgements Zubin Kanga’s post-doctoral position in the CTEL research centre at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis is part of the GEMME project on Music and Gesture, supported by funds granted by the ANR (National Agency for Research, France). Musical examples from Orfordness are © David Gorton 2012, reproduced by kind permission of the composer.

32

Pye, David, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p.4. 33 Ibid.

CHAPTER SIX NOTATION AS PROCESS: INTERPRETATION OF OPEN SCORES AND THE ‘JOURNEY FORM’ LAUREN REDHEAD

The performances which inform this discussion of graphic, text, and open notation took place between 2010 and 2014, and primarily from February to May 2014. Since 2010 I have commissioned and performed twenty new works for the organ, and for the organ and fixed media or organ and live electronics, with a special focus on scores which contain some element of open notation. In addition to new commissions I have also performed a number of works suitable for organ (and electronics) which have been composed during this time, primarily by British composers. This has allowed me to become highly involved in the process of the creation of the music from the point of the commission to the performance, including the possibility of discussion with the composers before the composition of the work, collaboration during its composition and in preparation for the performances, and ongoing evaluation throughout the process. The nature of organ performance is that radical differences in instrumental sound, construction, and concert space and acoustic are experienced from location to location and this has encouraged constant re-evaluation of the music and its performance as the music has travelled; this aspect of the experience of performing these pieces has encouraged further reflection, and it is from these experiences and this reflection that this discussion draws its information. Although the individual process of preparation and interpretation of open notation may be seen to be personal and individual from performer to performer, I wish to address the ways in which repeated performances of open scores reveal

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something about the compositions themselves and the interpretative process of engaging with the notation.1 It is the contention of this chapter that interpretation, in the context of this notation, is not a singular and linear process which begins when the performer first comes into contact with the score and ends with the performance, but an ongoing and iterative process, and a process which involves the composer, performer, and the score at every instance. This discussion will, then, seek to address the ‘work concept’ in the case of music, and to define the ‘work’ as a process. Discussions of interpretative issues associated with graphic notation are commonplace, and more recently discussions of individual collaborative relationships, which develop as a result of these types of notation, have become more prominent.2 In opposition to the discussion of interpretative issues, attempts to present such notation as artworks, or as archetypes of a graphic notational style, can also be found. John Cage’s book Notations,3 although undoubtedly important in documenting the many directions in graphic notations by the 1960s, also divorces the scores presented from their perception as music by presenting ‘highlights’ out of context and without the expectation that they will be performed. There is no doubt that these are ways of notating but there can be some doubt as to whether in this particular presentation they are all notation: broadly understood as communication of music intended for performance in western music. 4 1

From this point I will use ‘open scores’ to denote notation in which at least one element, but usually more than one, is open to decisions by the performer. This, then, encompasses works from those of space-time notation or those for nonspecified instrumentation to graphic notation or text instructions. It is recognized that these scores could also be seen as part of a spectrum which involves traditional notation at one end. 2 Cf. Heather Roche, ‘Dialogue and Collaboration in the Creation of New Works for Clarinet’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2012), and Zubin Kanga, ‘Inside the Collaborative Process: Realising New Works for Solo Piano’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Royal Academy of Music, 2014) for examples of recent work examining collaborative relationships with respect to open scores in great detail. 3 John Cage, Notations (New York: Something Else Press, 1969). 4 Oxford Music Online begins its definition of notation as, ‘any formal indication of how sounds and silences intended as music should be reproduced’; see Anthony Pryer, ‘notation’, in The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. by Alison Latham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007-2015), [Accessed 2 May 2015].

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Similarly, Teresa Sauer’s Notations 21 project fulfils a similar function today, documenting many new directions and ideas in notation. 5 Investigations of individual collaborations, on the one hand, and Cage’s and Sauer’s taxonomies, on the other, provide either very detailed consideration of single works or very general consideration of graphic notation as an almost singular compositional strategy. An exploration of the middle ground is needed. It is sometimes assumed that graphic notation offers performers a tabula rasa: the freedom to make any decisions and perform any actions that they like. This is simply not true. Cardew’s assertion that the score of Treatise (1963-7) is itself the music, and that any performance is a new work entirely, may be somewhat responsible for this.6 It also may be true that in the early days of the New York School the interpretative challenge of open notation was presented as it had not been before, and performers such as David Tudor readily took up this challenge. However, even if the same invitation is offered by this notation today, its context has radically changed. Over 70 years of history and tradition within the performance of this notation mean that any performer cannot help but be aware of the soundworlds, approaches, and historicity of experimental music within this tradition. As such, any and all decisions that they make take place within this context and composers who offer their notation for performance also cannot fail to be aware of this. This, then, must influence any discussion of ontology with respect to this music. Graphic notation may throw up questions about the authorship and ownership of music, of scores and their performance, and about the ontology of music itself, but such questions are not themselves new, nor are they re-newed by each new instance of graphic notation. Therefore, a brief description of a possible ontological position will be given here, in order to highlight some of the potential issues that can be addressed by an investigation which does not consider graphic notation in the abstract but in terms of the actual outcomes and realities of the music. Historically, ontology has not been seen to be as simple in the case of music as in other artforms. Nineteenth-century theorists, such as Hegel, 5

Theresa Sauer, Notations 21 (New York: Mark Batty Publisher, 2009) and Theresa Sauer, Notations 21 (2012) [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 6 Cf. Cornelius Cardew, Treatise Handbook (London: Edition Peters, 1971) p.vii (p.xii). He describes it as a ‘vertebrate’ that is composed according to ‘musical principles’.

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chose to make a special case for music,7 and many discussions of art and aesthetics choose not to discuss it at all, or focus on a narrow definition of the work (score) of absolute instrumental music of which performances are only a representation. Although the ‘work’ of music has been considered in a number of ways most of these ways require it to be in some way associated with an object: this is why music is thought to be a special case, since a number of objects seem to belong to the ‘work’ of music, including scores, performances, and recordings. While the work concept is increasingly scrutinized and called into question, 8 and while many musicological approaches now privilege experience and performance, the approach to graphic notation frequently retains both the composer-as-author and workas-score models which are said to be disputed by the creation and performance of graphic and open notation. The Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden—despite never directly addressing graphic notation—writes that in many traditional conceptions of musical works, the work itself remains like an ideal boundary at which the composer’s intentional conjectures or creative acts and the listener’s acts of perception aim […]. At that ideal boundary, the work remains one and the same in contrast to the many concretions in specific performances and thus […] it is in some respects de-individualized, although it does not cease to be individual.9

Ingarden therefore describes the ‘work’ of music as an ‘intentional object’,10 and notes that perceiving the work of music as an artistic work at all relies on a social exchange: music is ‘an intersubjective aesthetic object’ which is reliant on the correct behaviours and attitudes of performers and listeners in order to be received as an artwork.11 The idea 7

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics Volume II, trans. by T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp.893-909. It is my belief that most of the special cases made for music stem from this definition although earlier examples could be mentioned. 8 Cf. Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 9 Roman Ingarden, The Work of Music and the Problem of its Identity, ed. by Jean G. Harrell, trans. by Adam Czerniawski (Hampshire and London: MacMillan, 1986), p.119. 10 Ibid., p.120. 11 Ibid., p.122.

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of social exchange is one of central importance to the consideration of graphic notation, from Cardew’s early politics at the time of the composition of Treatise to Pauline Oliveros’s employment of notation as a social critique in her Postcard Theatre (1974) composed with Alison Knowles. In the case of performance art, Nina Sun Eidsheim writes that a problem of focusing merely on notation as the source of information in musical experience means that, ‘the abstractly yet fixedly notated overshadows the concrete, ever-shifting experience of music.’12 Similarly, Ingarden writes that unnotated but performable characteristics of music remain ‘existentially potential’ when music remains ‘in the form in which it has been notated […] as though there were only a possibility of their future realization in individual performances’.13 Despite these points, Ingarden’s ontology retains a focus on the musical ‘work’ as a singularity. It also focuses mainly on the objects which can be said to be part of the ‘work’: scores, recordings, and representations of these (performances). 14 That graphic notation asks questions about the ‘work’ and its relationship with itself in its performance, then, is not particularly surprising: it simply highlights that these questions remain unanswered for music as a whole. Many of the questions raised arise because an idea of the ‘work’ begins with the score. If performances of a single work were, for example, to be considered as a group which gives rise to a score that notates their common elements, and therefore cause the ‘work’ to be thought of as a multiplicity, such questions may seem less problematic. Indeed, it may seem unusual for a discussion of graphic scores not to focus heavily on their notation, but this change of perspective may provide tentative responses to these questions which examination of notation has left unanswered. In order to address this work concept as a process, I will discuss performances of three works, their change over time, and their contribution to an understanding of the role of process within an ontology of music. The three are Scott Mc Laughlin’s Music in Two Dimensions: 12

Nina Sun Eidsheim, ‘Sensing Voice: Materiality and the Lived Voice in Singing and Listening’, Senses and Society, 6 (2011), 133-155 (p.134). 13 Ibid., p.116. 14 Ingarden dismisses recordings altogether as being contributive to the identity of the work. Instead, he finds them to be representative of, rather than the work, one particular performance, and thus only as useful to his investigation as a single performance would be. This is a point with which I do not agree since the performing and listening contexts of works may radically alter them.

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No. 2a (2010), Adam Fergler’s Image Music Text (2012), and Caroline Lucas’s [Unnamed Maps Series] (2009-2012). Mc Laughlin’s piece was written for organ specifically and also for me as a performer; Fergler’s is open to interpretation by any instruments but commissioned by me for the organ; and Lucas’s is also open to any instrumentation, although I have performed this work on the organ more times than any other performer for any other combination of instruments. All three works employ graphic or text notation, and the uses of text and graphics are quite different in each piece. Scott Mc Laughlin’s Music in Two Dimensions: No. 2a is a set of specific text instructions, with some openness for interpretation. I have performed this piece four times in different spaces, and previously performed an earlier version of the piece for chamber organ and bassoon. There are two specific ambiguities in the piece that need to be addressed by the performer: its harmonic content and its rhythmic content. The piece calls for a single ‘complex chord’; there could be many interpretations of this instruction. It could be a tonally polyvalent chord, a cluster, or be considered complex with respect to the instrument. In three of the performances I opted for a chord that combined different harmonic qualities: at the lower end of the chord, a cluster is formed between the left hand and the pedals, but the chord is also open at its higher end to allow more perception of difference in the upper partials of the sound. The single note held by a weight also does not appear in the chord so there is no octave doubling and possibilities for the maximum number of upper partials in the sound. In the fourth performance I opted for a chord of three major seconds each separated by a fourth. As well as exploring possible variation in the sound of the piece, the practical reasons for this were the smaller size of the instrument and the less resonant space. The rhythmic ambiguity of the piece can be addressed in two ways. Within the piece there are two perceivable rhythms: that of the beating heard in the instrumental sound—which is a consequence of both equal temperament and of a combination of organ stops; and that of the stop changes which are determined by the organist. I decided it was necessary to plan the rhythm to accommodate these two competing layers, since it is easy to perform ‘with’ the sound of the instrument if one is not careful; the stop changes settling into a regular pattern with the beating of the instrument. As well as avoiding mimicking this beating, I wanted the rhythm to be interesting in and of itself and so created a rhythmic cycle that I could employ in performance using changes of tempo and metric feel. Because of the differences between instruments, this rhythmic and harmonic work needs to be re-done for each performance. What is not

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Figure 6.1: Scott Mc Laughlin, Music in Two Dimensions: No. 2a, © 2010, reproduced by kind permission of the composer.

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explained or revealed about the piece in the notation is that it is very instrument-specific. To be effective the instrument in the space needs to be considered first. When I put this to the composer, his response was as follows: I think your […] point about the piece being different for every instrument and space is something I was only becoming aware of then, it seeped into this piece by intuition rather than careful consideration, but it’s an early example of something that has become central to my work.15

This piece is a good introduction to the consideration of the role of process in an ontology of music because of the relative simplicity of the notation compared with the complexity of the aural outcome of the music, the nature of the music itself as process, and the clear link of process with instrumentality that is only revealed in the performance of the work. This music is both itself a process and one which reveals other processes. When considering performances of this work as a group, then, they testify to the nature of the score as Ingarden’s ‘ideal boundary’ and the music as Ingarden’s ‘intersubjective aesthetic object’. Mc Laughlin’s score is an ideal boundary of the piece Music in Two Dimensions: No. 2a since it expresses the majority of the paradigm of the piece within its notation. The notation is instructional rather than explaining the sound of the music which can only be discovered in performance. This is not a quality that is unique to Mc Laughlin’s work: George Kennaway finds this to be true when considering all musical scores as instructions, further observing that the context of the performer and composer may greatly alter their understanding and interpretation of these instructions.16 So, despite its eloquence, the focus on notation in Mc Laughlin’s work does eschew the experience of the music as Nina Sun Eidsheim feared. Music in Two Dimensions: No. 2a can also be considered as an intersubjective aesthetic object in particular because of the 15

Scott Mc Laughlin, Comment left at Lauren Redhead, ‘Interpreting Text Notation: Scott Mc Laughlin “Music in Two Dimensions: No. 2a”’, laurenredhed.eu, Blog Post (13.02.2013) [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 16 George Kennaway, ‘Bookcases, Fish Pie, and my Piñata: Musical Scores Considered as Sets of Instructions’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 42 (2011), 355-376.

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relationship between the performer, space, and instrument that is highlighted in performance. It also highlights the social dimension of close and careful, or ‘virtuoso’, listening that is often associated with experimental music that deals with large scale structures and small changes over time. While this notation can be considered open, as it allows some decisions to be made by the performer, it is also specific and its outcome in performance, although variable, is fixed in certain elements of the perception of the music. Music which uses notation that is open to a variety of outcomes still poses more problems in terms of performance, interpretation, and ontology. The next two examples are open in precisely this way. Therefore, in order to assess these still unanswered questions, an expansion of the theoretical model is required; the ideas of the ‘ideal boundary’ and ‘intersubjective aesthetic object’ can be augmented. Nicholas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics provides the possibility for further development of these ideas.17 Bourriaud describes a relational art as, ‘an art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space.’18 It is this difference between public and private that also highlights the difference between the process of preparing work for a performance and the work-asprocess. In the second case process can be understood as something in which the composer, performer, listener, and ‘work’ take part. In order to address some of the possible issues of interpretation in the notation of the scores I am examining, I will begin with my own general process of interpretation. At first, I investigate the different ways to interpret the symbols or instructions, and catalogue the sounds and approaches that I could attach to them. In combining these, I explore the different paths that are available to take through the score as a journey. This approach could be understood as that which Nicolas Bourriaud calls the ‘journey form’.19 Bourriaud describes the ‘journey form’ as something which forges a link between the finished artwork and the artist’s personal process, and this in itself can be considered to be an artistic aim. The ‘journey form’ links time and space not as concurrent but as a single material with possibilities for exploration, topological fluidity, and 17

Cf. Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, trans. by Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods (Dijon: les presses du réel, 2002). 18 Ibid., p.14. 19 Cf. Nicolas Bourriaud, The Radicant, trans. by James Gussen and Lill Porten (New York: Lukas and Sternberg, 2010), pp.106-131.

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temporal bifurcation within single artworks. With respect to this ‘journey form’ Bourriaud writes, ‘[t]he artist has become the prototype of the contemporary traveller, homo viator, whose passage through signs and formats highlights a contemporary experience of mobility, displacement, crossing.’ 20 Therefore the distinction between space and time becomes blurred within the ‘quotation’ of personal history that takes place in the creation of works, or in my case in the performance of works: the ‘work’ (score) and performance(s) become a kind of psycho-history on the behalf of the composer and the performer. This relates specifically to the performer of graphic notation as the materials she works with in performance are not only the score, any electronic materials, and her instrument, but also the artefacts of all previous performances (public and private) which build a repertoire of materials belonging to the work. By choosing to focus on performance as concurrent with notation in this way, the issue of authorship should also be briefly discussed. It is assumed, here, that the authorship of the music is not in question, and that the performer offers her experience as the interpretation of music which has a recognizable, and singular, composer. Nevertheless, discussion of authorship may help to pinpoint the disjoints between the traditional conception of the composer-as-author in the work of music and the case of authorship of open notation. Foucault’s reasoning in his essay ‘What is an Author?’ is that it is not enough to conclude that the author ‘has disappeared’ but that we must also ‘locate the space left empty by [this] disappearance’. 21 In defining an ‘author function’ which allows for the existence of those relationships which suppose the author, Foucault accepts that there is something which is in need of definition in the space where the author needs to be: there is no ‘empty space’ and thus there must be something in need of definition in the elimination of the author. Foucault also outlines the problem of the ontology of the work when he writes, [h]ow can one define a work amid the millions of traces left by someone after his death? A theory of the work does not exist, and the empirical task

20

Ibid., p.113. Michel Foucault, ‘What is an Author?’, in The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault’s Thought, ed. by Paul Rabinow (London: Penguin, 1991) pp.101-120 (p.105).

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What becomes of interest in the case of graphic notation, then, is not recognizing the performer-as-author but acknowledging the conditions of authorship that are supposed by this music. My description of relation of the ‘journey form’ to the performer of graphic notation above also highlights that the conditions of authorship for the performer are the same as those for the composer. What this means is not that the authorship of the scores of music, or of performances, should be contested, but that the status of the score and performances as musical objects or works can be contested: these do not stand apart from each other but are instances of the same process. My second example, Adam Fergler’s Image, Music, Text, presents twenty-four pages of images constructed from text or parts of text, blurring the boundaries between text and graphic notation. Fergler writes in his instructions for the score that: ‘[p]erformers are encouraged to explore a complex network of information, inference and understanding, as well as the relationship between the written word, structure and musical sounds.’23 Fergler’s further instructions emphasize the openness of the notation, but also draw the attention of the performer to structural relationships in the score. I have now performed the work ten times; the first four performances were for solo organ and the latter performances included a fixed media part that I created from sounds made using my voice. The change in the performance type (acoustic to mixed media) only represents part of the development of this music in performance: this development has also included the selection of different sections of the work, the development of a harmonic language for performance, and a structural development from a form containing contrasting materials to a monothematic form based on the articulation of the developed harmonic, rhythmic, and structural language. The stated importance of ‘information, inference and understanding’ to the work and the composer mean that the previous performances, although perhaps not even of the pages of the score addressed at the time, are part of the artefact of the piece.

22 23

Ibid., p.104. Adam Fergler, Performance Notes to Image, Music, Text (2012).

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Figure 6.2: Adam Fergler, Image, Music, Text, p.12, © 2011, reproduced by kind permission of the composer.

Figure 6.2 is an image of Page 12 of the score. This page combines text, which here allows more linguistic interpretation than some of the other pages, a recognizable symbol (the interrobang), and the implication of text-as-image. Whilst this page of the score has not taken part in every performance of Image, Music, Text, its inclusion in the third performance led to the specific development of a structural ‘language’ linked not only to the expression of proportion but to a relationship between gesture and the distribution of text on the page. This was further augmented by the construction of the fixed media part which now accompanies my performances of the score. This part comprises unprocessed vocal

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performances of each page of the score which are layered: this, then, expresses the complexity of the structural relationships in the score whilst obscuring their linear perception. It also provides an additional layer of structural language with which the live organ performance might interact, and further augments the performance by ensuring that a realization of each printed symbol is now always heard at every iteration. This journey of performance-development has also included a very public narrative of performance-composition when all of the iterations are heard together. While none of the performances can be considered more correct than any other, taken together these do highlight a ‘passage through signs and formats’ as described by Bourriaud, and as a group could be described as an ‘experience of mobility, displacement, crossing’: while the identity of the work is fixed across all performances, these audibly and publicly interact with and cross-reference each other, finally resulting in a performance-artefact which is both always present and functions as a quotation and statement of the compositional and interpretative process. This makes audible the work-as-process. Fergler’s score can then be thought of as Ingarden’s ‘ideal boundary’ not because it presents all of the information needed to realize the piece (although, arguably, it does this in the same way as Mc Laughlin’s) but because it is a complete and yet abstract expression of itself. In this way the score, as much as the music, also functions as an ‘intersubjective aesthetic object’. The final work for discussion, Caroline Lucas’s [Unnamed Maps Series], consists of three handmade cartographic scores, acetate overlays, two fixed media parts, and a suggestion that the space might be incorporated into the performance, with the combination of these things and the title of the eventual performance left open to the performer. I have performed the work for organ and tape in this combination fourteen times in thirteen spaces in total. A piece such as Lucas’s [Unnamed Maps Series] cannot help but draw the context of a performance into consideration partly as a result of its notation (see Figure 6.3); its focus is on a present and experienced geography. The journey form approach described earlier allows for multiple individual performances that approach the notation as a constellation. This reflects the approach I took in the first two performances; in the third performance I came to primarily consider the complex image in the centre of one of the scores and its significance within this system. I took a non-linear and holistic approach to the notation, reducing many similar actions into one action, in effect subsuming the previous performances into the performed psycho-history of the work. After the third performance, Lucas provided me with more

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parts of the score, allowing me once again to direct my efforts outwards from the image. As well as defining the interpretation of the piece as an evolving process in which I came to understand more about the notation and my relationship to it with each iteration, this later development caused me to contemplate the way in which location had affected my performance. It was the pressure of the change of location (and therefore space and instrument) that caused me to further the ‘journey’ of my relationship with the notation, and this process which caused me to consider place and geography as actors in the performance itself.

Figure 6.3: Caroline Lucas, [Unnamed Maps Series], notation extract, © 2012, reproduced by kind permission of the composer.

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On each occasion, when working with the organs, I looked for imperfections in the instrument. Since all instruments are different, these must be worked out for each performance. At the premiere, the organ had two sets of pipes so there was beating associated with some stops. At the third performance there was little possible extraneous noise due to the good condition of the instrument, but it was possible to get beating from the low pedals and I made this a feature of the performance, which has subsequently remained a part of my performance of this piece. In the fourth performance, the electronics had been carefully spatialized to make the most of the acoustic in the church and it was necessary to work with this to enhance the organ sound. Further performances have also incorporated videos that I made using images of and from the scores themselves, different soundtracks using the audio provided by the composer, and which furthered this journey by inviting the audience to consider the relationship of my performance with the scores during the performance itself. As in Fergler’s work, these multiple performances have resulted in the development of a structural and gestural ‘language’ for the piece which is both specific and self-referential. This development has been similarly performative and compositional as I have taken on Lucas’s invitation to edit and intervene in the work to create the possibility for longer, shorter, and more multi-media performances. Again, my intention is not to conflate the roles of ‘composer’ and ‘performer’ within the work but to understand composition as performance and performance as composition: something that makes sense if both are journey forms. Lucas directly addresses exactly this issue in her PhD thesis when discussing the anonymity of the composer that is fostered first by this open approach to intervention in the performance and interpretation of the work, and second by signing the instructions for this work ‘The Cartographer’ rather than ‘The Composer’ or even her name. She writes: Modes of anonymity were not intended to suggest that there is no person behind a work, but the act of obscuring, through the masking of the composer, consciously becomes part of the construction of the work. Positioning the composer as one of the material forces in the facilitation of a piece is not intended to negate the initial creative intentions of the composer, but instead recognises their limitations in shaping the individual’s experience of a piece. The composer as ‘facilitator’ becomes someone that contributes towards the creation of the conditions for a particular experience, without having the power to define what that experience actually is. The aim of this is to recognise the intrinsic loss of control (and to some degree ownership) involved in the process of transferring ideas from the private realm of the creative mind to the

Notation as Process multiple public sites performances, etc.).24

of

creative

expression

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scores,

Lucas’s score, like Fergler’s, is an example of Ingarden’s ‘ideal boundary’ as it can be considered to contain all of the information needed for performance or, in her terms, for the ‘facilitation of experience’. In these terms it also has the same status as Image, Music, Text: an ‘intersubjective aesthetic’ object in its abstraction. The explicit openness of the composer both in her presentation of the score’s (very minimal) instructions and in her reflection on her creative practice in her PhD thesis also testify to the ‘domain of human interactions’ being at the ‘theoretical horizon’ of this work: it is relational. She addresses this explicitly in the above quotation when she describes the composer as a ‘material force’ in the work; presumably the same could be said of its performers. This further testifies to an equality of perceived relationship and autonomy of the composer and performer, not through the claim to co-authorship but through the claim to an equality of compositional and performance process in the work. Zubin Kanga testifies to similar experiences to mine when he describes the numerous levels of precision that have gone into his interpretation of David Young’s score (an extremely large watercolour painting) for the piece Not Music Yet (2012), which result in a performance that sounds ‘free’ and yet ‘complex’.25 Kanga writes: The choice of notation guided me to create a sound world with relatively little work compared to if the same piece had been conventionally notated, which would have become extremely complicated on the page, extremely difficult and time-intensive to learn, and more difficult to achieve the same spontaneity of expression. This efficiency of creation, communication and interpretation of the notation confirmed Young’s assertions to me on the advantages of graphic notation. The creative stagnation that could have resulted from this efficiency was counterbalanced by injections of creative resistance, forming a body of work-specific performance practice, imparted

24

Caroline Lucas, ‘The Masked Composer’, in ‘Portfolio of Original Components with Written Commentary’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, 2012), p.24. 25 Cf. Zubin Kanga, ‘“Not Music Yet”: Graphic Notation as a Catalyst for Collaborative Metamorphosis’, Eras, 16 (2014), 37-58 (pp.53-54).

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As Lucas does, Kanga notes that Young’s consideration of the role of the performer is of an equal partner in the work but that he also does not place ‘composer’ and ‘performer’ in a hierarchy which can only be reconciled by acknowledging the performer’s contribution as somehow compositional. In both cases the works can be considered relational since it would be correct to state that the ‘domain of human interaction’ is at their ‘theoretical horizons’. Of course, some composer–performer interaction may be considered implied by any open notation, but what is important here is not the potential for interaction in the interpretation of the music but the suggestion of performance-as-interaction. These observations have been drawn primarily from my own practice, but they do not only refer to my practice: there is potential for them to be relevant to the consideration of all open notation and, as originally observed, this notation simply makes explicit what might be a condition of all notation. The ‘journey form’ described in this chapter is itself a process. It is one without a defined beginning and end point: a process in which both the composer and performer take part in order to create the ‘work’. Even the first example, by Scott Mc Laughlin, can be considered in these terms. Aside from the musical process composed into the score the performancederived understanding of the work that I have described can also be seen as a journey form. Roman Ingarden’s conceptions of the score as the ‘ideal boundary’ and as an ‘intersubjective aesthetic object’ are, therefore, accurate. But they are accurate with respect to the score when considered as a single musical object rather than the work of music considered as a whole. In connection with this, Rancière’s assertion that, ‘[p]olitics and art, like forms of knowledge, construct ‘fictions’, that is to say material rearrangements of sign and images, relationships between what is seen and said, between what is done and what can be done’,27 is relevant. The work itself can be said to be one such fiction, represented in these ‘material rearrangements’. This discussion has suggested that the ontology of the work of music might be better expressed as the work-as-process, of which

26

Ibid., p.21. Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, trans. by Gabriel Rockhill (London: Continuum, 2004), p.39. 27

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the score-as-process and performance-as-process are iterations, rather than a process-of notation, or a process-of interpretation.

PART III: COMPOSITION OF/WITH PROCESSES

CHAPTER SEVEN TEMPORALITY, STRUCTURE, SYMBOLS, AND THE SOCIAL: GRAPHIC NOTATION AS PROCESS CHARLES CÉLESTE HUTCHINS

Although ground-breaking when they appeared in the latter half of the twentieth century, graphic scores have developed a language of shapes and symbols that have acquired a culturally bound sense of musicality. The forms of graphic pieces and their similarity to pre-existing cultural objects, including but not limited to traditional scores and graphic novels, gives clues about how to read and interpret them. In this chapter, I have analysed several pieces to determine how they signify trajectory, time, and musical content and have applied this to the creation of a piece commissioned by the Vocal Constructivists, a choir specializing in performing graphic notation. Ultimately, I found that the aspects of the production of a new graphic piece are not solely musical. When working with performers, there is also a social aspect to music creation that also determines how well the piece works. This research came about as a natural extension of my work as a performer in the Vocal Constructivists, who, in 2014 commissioned me to write a piece. When deciding what to write, I carried out an analysis of some of the most popular pieces in our repertoire. The pieces I examined are Treatise (1963-7) by Cornelius Cardew, Medium (2008) by Mark Applebaum, Falling River Musics (n.d.) by Anthony Braxton, Lektura (1979) by Bogusáaw Schaeffer and Concerto (2011) by Lauren Redhead. Since my own piece was to be a computer program generating live graphic notation, I was especially concerned with how these pieces communicated a sense of temporality—how different markings on the page relate to each other in time. This question seemed to be a fundamental structuring issue in the performance of graphic notation I would need to resolve in my own piece.

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Time in Graphic Notation I identified three broad categories of graphic scores: lifeline, gestalt and boxed. Each of these relies on their own set of graphical and cultural clues about how performers may approach navigating the score. Treatise by Cornelius Cardew is an example of a graphic score spanning multiple pages. Although the piece is graphic, it still retains several strong links to traditional notation, many of which have implications with regards to time. The lifeline, which is the line running across the middle of most pages, provides a structure around which the rest of the graphics are organized. It holds pages together, like a percussion staff might in western notation. Through this similarity to traditional notation, there is an implication of a left-to-right approach to reading pages. Reinforcing this approach are the double staff lines at the bottom of every page (see Figure 7.1), which Cardew described as giving only ‘the barest hints’ on how to approach the score.1

Figure 7.1: Cornelius Cardew, Treatise, p.2, © 1967 by Hinrichsen Edition, Peters Edition Limited, London. Reproduced by kind permission of Peters Edition Limited, London.

1

Cornelius Cardew, Treatise Handbook (London: Edition Peters, 1971), p.xix.

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The physical structure of the score adds to this traditional left-to-right reading. The score is assembled in a book, with numbered pages. If one was to unbind the score and arrange all the pages next to each other in order, every page would flow graphically into the next. The lines at the end of Page 12 line up with the beginning of Page 13 and so on, so the entire score is one long drawing. Thus, the increasing page numbers suggest they should be performed in the conventional ascending order. While any interpretation of the score is valid, these points of familiarity immediately suggest left-to-right reading. Another example of the use of a lifeline in a graphic score is in Medium by Mark Applebaum. Like Treatise, it has numbered pages that align. Unlike Treatise, it comes with instructions which indicate, among other things, that the main sections are meant to be read left to right. However, within that, there are complications of the temporality of individual elements. Medium is a quartet, in which the four parts have different bands of the page. Throughout, it often uses lifelines for each part. Unlike Treatise, where the lifeline is always horizontal and near the centre of the page, Applebaum’s lifelines move up and down the page, sometimes creating ambiguity around which part should be interpreting which symbol. The lifelines also sometimes curve back on themselves, so that the order of symbols on the lifeline is not strictly left to right within each page. This creates further ambiguity around the order of the symbols in the piece. A left-to-right reading of the score would mean performing the symbols in the order they appear on the page, rather than the order they appear on the lifeline. This is the approach taken by a number of digital music notation programs such as Xenakis’s UPIC system (1977), but it contains inherent limitations. UPIC is a computer program that interpreted lines drawn by a user in terms of pitch.2 Any drawn line describes the change in pitch of a particular sound over time. This reads strictly left to right, demarcated by a playback cursor, which is a vertical line moving left to right across the page. Everything under the line was playing at any one time and anything not under the line was not playing. The drawing interface did not allow for lines to double back, something that I have seen frustrate new users, including myself and my colleagues while studying at CCMIX (formerly Les Altiers UPIC). People seem to want to curve their lines back, despite the creation of ambiguity as a result. This was recognized 2

Iannis Xenakis, UPIC (Paris: CEMAMu, 1977).

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Figure 7.2: Applebaum, Medium, p.3, showing multiple lifelines, including one that curves back on itself, © Mark Applebaum, 2008, reproduced by kind permission.

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as an issue, since the newer program IanniX does allow lines to curve around; instead of a single cursor, each line has its own cursor that moves along it, mimicking the gesture used to draw the line.3 With a printed score, of course, the direction of a gesture can only be inferred, but performers in the Vocal Constructivists seem to be happy to follow a line, even if it reverses direction to go ‘backwards’ in time. This fuzzy approach to timing in graphic scores is not without precedence, but follows the reading of time in single panel comic strips. In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud presents an example of the single frame comic with several events unfolding roughly left to right. However, making sense of the comic as strictly left to right, like the UPIC cursor, ‘tangles time beyond all recognition’. 4 Instead, time functions like a ‘rope’, 5 or a curving lifeline, twisting around the panel. Most performers of graphic notation are familiar with comics and thus have learned to perceive the passage of time winding through an image in a manner not always strictly described as left to right. This is a major departure, since it is contrary to how traditional notation is read. McCloud states that, in comics ‘words introduce time by representing that which can only exist in time—sound’.6 That is, within a single comic’s panel, each word bubble takes place in time. Two characters speaking to each other in a single panel are having a conversation. It is no longer a single moment. Sound adds duration to the panel, sometimes, as explained above, in a complicated, non-linear path across the panel. Interestingly, it’s the use of more abstract artistic or graphical gestures in notation that creates a more complicated temporal path in sound and music. It is worth noting that although having multiple pages is a strong indicator of a trajectory in scores, not every lifeline score need have multiple pages. The iconic graphic score, December 1952 (1954), by Earle Brown, has instructions which state, ‘[the] composition may be performed in any direction from any point in the defined space for any length of time and may be performed from any of the four rotational positions in any 3

IanniX Association, IanniX (France: Iannix Association, 2004), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 4 Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Northampton: William Morrow, 1993), p.97. 5 Ibid., p.96. 6 Ibid., p.95.

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sequence.’7 Because the performer is expected to ffollow a ‘direection’ in their readinng, this piecee is most strrongly associaated with thee lifeline category. Gestalt grraphic scores are presented d on a single ppage. Examplees include Bogusáaw Schaeffer’s Grrafiki pieces an nd Anthony B Braxton’s Fallling River Musics piecces. Gestalt graphic g scorees may have drawings or symbols anywhere onn the page andd do not require or imply aany particular direction for reading.. Sometimes the symbols are clusteredd into variouss groups. However, thhe order in whhich the grou ups or individuual symbols should s be approached is left to the performer. p In the case of thhe Braxton sco ores, lines or dotted linnes may connnect several areas a of the ppage (see Fig gure 7.3). These lines do not appearr to imply a trrajectory in thee way that life felines do, since they aare not single lines with a clear c start andd end, but insttead more closely resem mble a diagram m or schematic.

Figure 7.3: B Braxton, Fallingg River Music (Piece #365b) , reproduced courtesy of Anthony Braxxton and the Trri-Centric Found dation.

Braxton ddoes use diaggrams in otherr works. In ann article, Grah ham Lock notes that, ‘‘[i]nstead of using u verbal titles, t Braxtonn assigns each work a 7

Earle Brow wn, ‘Prefatory Note’, N in Folio o and 4 System ms (New York: Associate Music Publishhers Inc., 1961)).

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visual title: a diagram, comprising a mix of lines, shapes, colours, figures, numbers, and letters, which encodes both the structural and what he calls the “vibrational” elements of the music.’8 These diagram titles use lines in a way that is visually similar to the Falling River Musics pieces (see Figure 7.4). Lock writes, ‘Braxton has consistently refused to discuss the titles, saying they concern mystical areas that language is unable to address.’9

Figure 7.4: Braxton, the title of Piece #69Q, reproduced courtesy of Anthony Braxton and the Tri-Centric Foundation.

Although Braxton has not discussed how to read the titles, both they and the Falling River Musics lines resemble diagrams in his books, TriAxium Writings.10 The books’ diagrams, which Braxton calls ‘integration schematics’, are meant as an aid to his readers—to help them understand his concepts, or ‘axiums’. As such, he explains how these are meant to be read: ‘The basic idea of this system is that all of the concepts in this book […] must be viewed in more than one context’, he writes. ‘[Each] given schematic should be viewed as axium tenets.’11 Each of these schematics have a specific ‘starting point’, he says, ‘[i]n actual fact [this starting point] is the subject of the schematic.’12 Braxton 8

Graham Lock, ‘“What I Call a Sound”: Anthony Braxton’s Synaesthetic Ideal and Notations for Improvisers’, Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 4 (2008), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 9 Ibid. 10 Anthony Braxton, Tri-Axium Writings (Synthesis Music, 1985). 11 Anthony Braxton, Tri-Axium Writings: Writings 1 (Synthesis Music, 1985), pp.xiv-xxiv. 12 Ibid., p.iv.

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explains that the schematics depict the contexts of the subject. Thus it would seem that the lines in those schematics show an interconnectedness, rather than signposting a specific trajectory through the image. In contrast to more traditional graphs indicating causality, what Braxton’s graphs show are connections, which can be considered in any order. However, while the graphs in Tri-Axium Writings do have a starting point, or subject, marked with an arrow,13 the Falling River Musics scores do not. The introduction to Tri-Axium Writings contains an example graph, mapping out a concept. After explaining the graph, Braxton states that, ‘[the] reader is expected to probe the dynamics of this axium as a means to better understand […] what is being posed […] as well as what all of this […] means when calibrated into a composite philosophy (my philosophy at first, after which the reader is expected to do this) […] (with substitutions when needed) for his or her own philosophy.’14 Thus, these graphs have a degree of openness of interpretation, and are intended as a tool for the reader to help organize the material in their mind. Similarly, the lines in Braxton’s musical pieces seem to draw connections, the meanings of which are left up to the performer. The longer lines, especially, do not suggest a direction of reading, but rather connections between sections of the page. These scores also often feature gestures in paint, in black or bright swathes of colour, with visible brush strokes showing the motion of the gesture. While this may suggest shapes of musical gestures, again, it does not necessarily suggest an order of reading the score. Instead, the score would often be taken as a whole image to be read or interpreted by whatever means or order decided by the performer. This more radical type of score has greater openness. Returning to McCloud’s discussion of comics, the gestalt score is analogous to comic ‘bleeds’, which is when a panel ‘runs off’ the edge of the page, giving no clues to the sense of its duration and producing ‘a sense of timelessness’. 15 This technique produces the same effect as a score without clues as to the timing or order. In the liner notes of his 2005 CD, 2+2 Compositions, Braxton compares the scores to paintings, saying they ‘seek to explore image logic construct “paintings” as the score’s extract music notation’.16 My own experience of 13

Ibid., p.ix. Ibid., p.xv. 15 McCloud, pp.102-3. 16 Charlie Wilmoth, liner notes to Anthony Braxton/Matt Bauder—2+2 Compositions (482 Music, 2005). 14

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navigating one of these scores in performance with the Vocal Constructivists mirrored viewing a painting, where one might take in the entire work at once, or focus on smaller details without the whole image strongly implying a particular order of doing so. Some scores, such as Lektura by Bogusáaw Schaeffer or Concerto by Lauren Redhead use a hybrid approach between lifeline scores and gestalt scores by bounding gestures or gestalt-type images in boxes. Lektura includes 528 boxed images in a sextet, such that each performer has 88 boxes arranged on the page in a strict grid. Every column is numbered. The boxes themselves contain a handful of shapes. Most boxes contain at least two shapes or symbols, and some have as many as nine. The score is intended for any kind of performer, including ‘musicians, dancers, actors, singers’.17 Although it is not directly stipulated in the instructions, the grid structure suggested so strongly that movement through the piece would be synchronized, that the six Vocal Constructivists performing the piece never even considered another option. In our rendition, we moved in unison, from one box to the next. Interestingly, Cardew briefly alludes to bounding boxes in the Treatise Handbook in a discussion about map projection and ‘grid lines’. His example drawing is an image of Australia surrounded by straight grid lines, coupled with a box surrounded by four distorted lines. Grid lines in these images only surround the object; they function as a bounding box. In the discussion, Cardew is primarily concerned with their ability to enclose and distort the image within: The altered grid lines in [the example figure] […] present a disintegrated mirror image of the outline of Australia (enclosing no space). The space is enclosed by the square that Australia has become. To attempt this on a map of the world would present serious problems. It is only possible when concentrating on a single object (event). By treating certain grid lines as the property of that object.18

Thus, for Cardew, the bounding boxes are intrinsically linked to the objects within. Although his example is extreme, boxes do constrain and affect the shapes within them. The boxes are highly reminiscent of comic strip panels. McCloud writes that the box, or panel in the genre’s terminology, is ‘comics’ most 17 18

Bogusáaw Schaeffer, Lektura (Vienna: Arioche, 1979), p.1. Cornelius Cardew, Treatise Handbook, p.v.

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important icon!’ He goes on, ‘[t]he panel acts as a sort of general indicator that time or space is being divided.’ 19 In boxed scores, like in comics, panels can act as divisions of time, arranged in a sequential order. In Comics and Sequential Art, Eisner describes comic panels as a ‘medium of control’ which ‘[dictates] the sequence in which the reader will follow the narrative’.20 That same function is clearly at work in boxed scores. The bounded images themselves do not, in the case of Schaeffer, give any indications about what order the symbols within them should be performed. Nor do the internal images contain any indication of time; this is provided solely by the framing. Thus, each panel functions like a gestalt score, with the provision that it would be performed only for a set duration and then the performer would carry on to the next panel. Redhead’s score, unlike any of the scores discussed previously, contains words. Because these are strings of characters arranged on a page, which western performers will naturally read from left to right, this implies a direction of movement within each frame. Concerto also has longer panels, making the shape of each panel more like an elongated image as in a lifeline score. McCloud says, ‘panel shape can actually make a difference in our perception of time.’21 He notes that a long panel, even when it shows the same action as a shorter version, has ‘the feeling of greater length’.22 In Concerto, the starts and ends of panels do not line up between players, so, for example, on Page 4, the third player would start performing their box in the middle of the fourth player’s box. Therefore, the fourth player’s box effectively has two halves when it is performed—the half where that part is a solo and the half where the third part is also performing. This provides stronger links to left to right temporality within the box. The score also engages time within panels specifically, by the use of staff lines and note heads, for example, in the first part on Page 4 (see Figure 7.5). However, the timing in the score is frequently subverted, for example, by placing text or traditionally notated gestures upside down or at odd angles.23 Thus, graphic scores containing clues about temporality are able to create ambiguity and room for performer interpretation, in keeping with the openness of the notation. 19

McCloud, pp.98-9. Will Eisener, Comics and Sequential Art (Tarmarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985), p.40. 21 McCloud, p.101. 22 Ibid. 23 Lauren Redhead, Concerto (Frankfurt: Material Press (2011) 2014), p.8. 20

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Figure 7.5: Redhead, Concerto, parts 3 and 4 on p.4, © Material Press (2014), reproduced by kind permission.

Symbols and Materials As described above, the use of pre-existing conventions aids performers in interpreting graphic scores. In her paper, ‘From Neume to Folio’, Jane Alden traces an evolution in Earle Brown’s work in his Folio from traditional notation to December 1952. 24 She makes a strong case that Brown’s increasingly bold graphic work gradually developed and derived from traditional notation. Similarly, performers of graphic works also draw on meanings from traditional notation. For example, in a review of Mark Applebaum’s DVD, The Metaphysics of Notation, which contains performances of his graphic score of the same name, reviewer Alicia Doyle notes: The performance excerpts reflect a common cultural understanding. For example, the musicians who rendered the score read from left to right, the more detailed sections in the panels encouraged the performers to play more notes with smaller note values, and the denser designs were interpreted at a louder dynamic. Shapes that were higher on the panel were interpreted at a higher pitch and shapes that were lower were played at a lower pitch. The lack of detailed instructions allowed the performers to follow the lines emotionally, and encouraged all involved to ask a variety 24 Jane Alden, ‘From Neume to Folio: Mediaeval Influences on Earle Brown’s Graphic Notation’, Contemporary Music Review, 26 (2007), 315-332.

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of questions, while at the same time offering no answers.25

In addition to applying pre-existing conventions relating to time and pitch, as noted by Doyle, this technique of adaptation also extends to symbols. Treatise uses graphical material which is related to standard musical notation, such as occasional staffs, note shapes, clefs and so on.26 These recognizable but deconstructed or abstracted shapes are sometimes recombined into allusions to other shapes, such as the ‘factory’ shape on Page 66. These bits of familiarity give performers hooks for their interpretation. A performer may wish to approach the factory by making machine sounds, which is the approach favoured by the Vocal Constructivists. Or, taking into account Cardew’s politics, they may wish to make sounds invoking unionization and labour. Or, equally legitimately, since the piece has no rules, they might ignore the allusion altogether as do some computer renditions treating it as if it were a UPIC score. At 193 pages, Treatise is rarely performed in full. However, the Vocal Constructivists have performed the entire piece at two concerts.27 In order to provide adequate variety of performance, we took on a variety of approaches to interpreting the notation, changing by page or section. The open but familiar symbols used by Cardew seemed non-arbitrary, and suggested a number of valid possibilities. Applebaum similarly uses musical shapes or allusions in Medium, but he also includes a great number of pictographic symbols including things like traffic signs or telephones. These, again, can be taken literally or not; the instructions are silent when it comes to the meaning of the symbols. Medium also makes allusions: for example, the periodic table on Page 9 or extremely concrete allusions in the ‘quotations’ on Page 14. 28 These quotations are literally traced outlines of the physical material of other pieces. Braxton’s Falling River Musics pieces are extremely abstract, with the use of hand drawn symbols that verge on recognizability and numbers 25

Alicia M. Doyle, ‘The Metaphysics of Notation (review)’, Notes, 68 (2011), 172173 (p.172), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 26 Cornelius Cardew, Treatise (Buffalo, New York: Gallery Upstairs Press, 1967). 27 Cornelius Cardew, Treatise, Vocal Constructivists, 16 September 2011, The South London Gallery, London; Cornelius Cardew, Treatise, The Vocal Constructivists, 10 December 2011, Morley College, London. 28 Mark Applebaum, Medium (2008).

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with no context within the score, as well as coloured shapes and paint. Wilmoth writes, ‘Braxton refuses to assign any specific meanings to the notations of his Falling River scores, since part of their purpose is to allow each performer to find her own way through them.’29 However, he still gives clues to his performers. The larger context of his work and writing provides clues to the performer about how to proceed. Braxton’s concerts often feature many of his different pieces played simultaneously and he has indicated to his students that he considers all of his works to be part of a connected whole. Therefore, a performer of Falling River Musics can apply concepts from Braxton’s improvisation language or any of his writings or performance practice. Schaeffer’s Lektura largely limits itself to simple lines and geometric shapes. Some of the boxes contain arrows and others have angles resembling crescendos or decrescendos. Some shapes with noteheads do appear from time to time. However, given that the piece is designed for a range of performers including some such as actors who might not be familiar with musical notation, it does not rely on an intimate familiarity with traditional musical notation as a point of reference for performers. Arrows, however, will be familiar to anyone who reads the score and thus do aid in interpretation. This is in contrast with Redhead’s Concerto, which relies strongly on both musical symbols and English text. All of the aforementioned pieces offer musicians some pre-existing practice to apply and use in their performance. While each piece leaves performers a large degree of freedom, they also have a sense of internal coherence and logic within their approaches which offer performers some handles to grasp and embody in performance. This is important not only because it gives performers a sense of structure, but also because it creates the idea that their actions matter and that better and worse interpretations are possible. Celia Springate, one of the members of the Vocal Constructivists expresses this as, ‘every sonic performance is musically valid, though by no means every performance or composition has equal artistic worth.’30 Drawing on my analysis of Vocal Constructivist repertoire, I set out to create a computer program to generate graphic notation in real time, displayed to performers on digital devices, Imramma.31 I took my gamut 29

Charlie Wilmoth. Celia Springate, Email to Charles Hutchins (3 March 2015). 31 Charles Hutchins, Imramma (GitHub, 2014-15), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 30

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of possible materials from what I felt were strongly useful aspects of the scores that I analysed. Following Cardew, I picked existing musical symbols, but placed them at angles or in large sizes. Following Braxton and Schaeffer, I made use of geometric shapes. And following Redhead, I took sections of text and placed them at odd angles. Drawing also from the name of the group, I took visual inspiration from Russian Constructivist and Suprematist painters, especially Kazimir Malevich, by embracing overlap and making some use of colour. The resulting piece is, to be overly literal, a process—it’s a Python script that picks semi-randomly from these elements to create images of notation. It uses random processes to select which elements are shown in what order, constrained by some rules. One of the choir members, Carolyn Rogers, suggested that rather than finding a poem or other pre-existing text, I use the text of the program itself, so that the performers sing or act on the code that is creating the notation. My program therefore picks up parts of source code text from itself and uses this within generated score pages. It is unusual practice to have code read itself in this way and my previous knowledge of it was in computer viruses which both read and modify themselves. However, this self-referencing has been previously used in Alex McLean’s program, feedback.pl, a text editor for writing music code.32 Interestingly, the critic Simon Yuill describes that software as a practice of musical notation in his paper, ‘All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses’.33 All of the pieces in the Vocal Constructivists’ repertoire up to this point had been static, paper scores, whereas my score is more unfixed and volatile, as is further discussed below. Due to this difference, the approaches to temporal organization which they had developed previously may not work for my piece. When constructing a live notation system, there are many options for moving through the score. For example, one of the options that I considered but ultimately rejected was to have animated notation elements which moved within a panel, changing size or location. The digital format would also allow the composer to have notation fade in or out. 32

Alex McLean, ‘Hacking Perl in Nightclubs’ (perl.com, 2004), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 33 Simon Yuill, ‘All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses: Free Open Form Performance, Free/Libre Open Source Software, and Distributive Practice’, FLOSS+Art, ed. by Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk (London: MUTE and GOTO10, 2008), pp.64-91 (p.69).

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Figure 7.6: Hutchins, Imrramma panel, © Charles C Céleste Hutchin ns (2015), reproduced byy kind permissiion.

One apprroach, used byy composer Rob R Canning iin his piece Parallaxis P (2013) uses a scrolling wiindow interfacce to a long sttrip of multipaage score. Rather thann have a sinngle playback k cursor likee UPIC, the score is windowed so that the performer p caan play anythhing within a certain distance of tthe cursor.34 This T approach h works well ffor his piece but b relies on using higgh quality dispplay hardware. For Imraamma, I wanteed to be able to display thhe score on an ny device with a web browser, inclluding my ow wn relatively aaged smartph hone, so I was unable tto adopt any animated a apprroach. My inteention was to use fixed panels like R Redhead or Scchaeffer, with h one panel acttive and the next n panel visible and queued up, soo singers cou uld look aheadd and thus bee ready to transition. T This, however,, also presenteed a problem w with phone tecchnology, since most ssmartphone sccreens are too o small to cleaarly display tw wo panels at once. Thhus, I finallyy decided to display only one panel of o gestalt notation for 25 seconds before b it is rep placed by the nnext one (for example, see Figure 77.7). Whilst this t sequentiaal design of reectangular sm martphone 34

Rob Cannning, ‘Interactivve Parallax Sccrolling Score Interface for Composed C Networked Im mprovisation’, Proceedings off the Internatioonal Conferencce on New Interfaces forr Musical Expreession (2014), pp.144-6 p (p.1455), [Accessed 5 January 2016].

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screen-shapeed images cleearly has a relationship to bboxed scores, there is a significant ddifference in that the sections are boxe d in temporally rather than graphiccally.

Figure 7.7: H Hutchins, Imraamma panel (2)), © Charles C Céleste Hutchin ns (2015), reproduced byy kind permissiion.

Displayinng only the cuurrent panel also a means thaat the perform mers must react immeddiately as the score updates, rather than having the possibility p of scanning through a priinted score to ‘read ahead’ and place an ny gesture within a largger context off the symbolss around it. M McCloud notess that this ability to loook forwardss and back within w a narraative is a speecial and significant qquality of a coomic strip—though his com mments equally y apply to any painted or printed scoore: ‘[u]nlike other media, in the comicss the past is more thann just memorries for the au udience and thhe future is more m than just possibillities! Both thhe past and th he future are rreal and visiblle and all around us.’335 Therefore, the panels in Imramma I becoome more likee film—a medium whhich requires those watching to fall in with its sense of the present mom ment being shoown on screen n—and less likke comics.36 In order tto have the grreatest possiblle compatibiliity with many y kinds of devices, thee images whicch make up th he Imramma score update by auto35 36

McCloud, pp.104. Eisener, p.440.

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refreshing a webpage on the device. Different devices will not be in sync with each other. There is normally up to two seconds’ difference in updates between different devices, and they can be further separated in the case of network glitches. This, however, turns out to be an advantage in transitioning between score pages/panels, since there will be overlap as some of the choir moves on to the new image while others are still on the previous image. It thus avoids awkward silences while performers take in the new page of notation and decide how to react. In concert, the performers tend to look often at the phone screens, checking if the image has updated. As a consequence, the piece also functions as a commentary on how smart phones and other devices are changing interpersonal interaction. The performers are not ‘present’ in the same way they are for pieces using a more traditional paper score, as their attention needs to be directed more at the device and less to their colleagues. The Vocal Constructivists are a democratic ensemble and tend to use consensus when approaching pieces. I have tried to avoid giving authoritative opinions on how to approach the piece as much as possible. Should I wish to be more dictatorial, the unfixed nature of the piece would create some barriers to doing so. With other pieces, the choir tends to do some pre-planning, for example, by assigning parts of a page to a particular performer. Because this piece changes in real time, that kind of planning becomes much more difficult. The choir is forced to act responsively to notation, and thus far has done something between improvising and sight-reading. After watching them run through several times, I would not be able to predict what they would do when given a particular generated page. However, I would likely be able to describe a page based on their singing. This is not to say there is no opportunity for them to plan. For example, the piece only uses a few colours and has a limited gamut of notational symbols and geometric shapes, including circles, rectangles, dots, lines and squiggly lines. Some characteristics, such as the colour yellow, were discussed and prepared in advance, even if the exact moment of their appearance cannot be known (for example, see Figure 7.8). By contrast, typical practice for the Vocal Constructivists usually involves some time spent looking at and discussing a fixed score, taking many decisions at this point; musical concerns, like ensuring changes in pitch and timbre are taken into account. Some of this sort of preparation works with live notation, but other aspects do not. Yuill comments on this effect in live systems: ‘New notations required performers […] who could respond creatively to the unknown and unexpected. The performer, therefore, could

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not rehearsee such musicc but rather ‘trained’ for it like a maartial art, developing w ways of actingg upon contingency.’37

Figure 7.8: H Hutchins, Imraamma panel (3)), © Charles C Céleste Hutchin ns (2015), reproduced byy kind permissiion.

Social Aspects A As menttioned above,, by drawing g on previouus symbols or o pieces, graphic notaation can be accessible ev ven to perform mers inexperiienced in non-traditionnal notationss. As their confidence increases, peerformers become opeen to increaseed musical an nd notational rradicalization n. Cardew wrote, ‘[a] ssquare musiciian (like myseelf) might usee Treatise as a path to the ocean oof spontaneityy.’ 38 Seeming gly contradictoorily, perform mers may also developp a personal or group lexico on in which a more fixed meaning m is attached to what was prreviously an unfixed, u abstrract symbol, which is what the Voocal Constructtivists have done, d to at leaast some extent, in the rehearsal annd performannce of graphicc scores. Forr example, on ne of the pieces of nootation Imram mma uses is circles of varyying sizes. On n one run through, theese came up particularly p larrge and alludeed very strong gly to the 37 38

Yuill, p.76. Cardew, Trreatise Handboook, p.i.

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large circles around Page 133 of Treatise. Because the choir was reacting to score changes in real time, they had not had an opportunity to imagine a new approach and so, with limited time to respond, they chose to interpret those circles in a manner very similar to how they had for the Cardew. Cardew and Brown both wrote about wanting to open up notation to greater flexibility. 39 Brown specifically wanted to challenge ‘the deterministic, “heroic” ideal of music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ 40 and encourage an ‘increase of performer involvement on a creative level; more accurately and to the point, on the level of creative collaboration’. 41 Vocal Constructivists member Celia Springate agrees, saying, ‘[i]n graphic pieces the performance dictates the structure as well as the interpretation.’42 From my perspective, the performers approaching graphic pieces do want to engage with them creatively, including their agendas of spontaneity and liberation. Their demand for seriousness is not a nostalgic clinging to composer heroism, but rather the feeling that they want him or her to be doing their part in the collaboration. Springate goes on: It seems to me that many contemporary composers seem to delight in a species of obscurantist pretension which they deem ‘cool’. As a performer, or audience member for that matter, I find this a complete turn-off. I don’t see why I should bother to prepare the score properly and will certainly take the piss out of it when performing if the composer seems more concerned with personal image than artistic content.43

Her perspective, and that of many of the rest of the choir, seems to be centred around issues of notation more than issues of authorship. They wanted to do something meaningful with the music and so needed something which they, as a group, see as meaningful to work with. Although graphic notation attempts to resist systematization, the accumulation of historical performance practices, and the influences of these on the construction of new works, offer new possibilities to create 39

Ibid., p.xiv; Earle Brown, ‘The Notation and Performance of New Music’, Musical Quarterly, 72 (1986), 180-201 (p.182). 40 Ibid., p.183. 41 Ibid., p.182. 42 Springate. 43 Ibid.

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taxonomies of notations, as does analysis of similarities to other forms of graphic arts. Both graphic notations and live notation offer relatively new possibilities for the construction of time and the trajectories used by performers in reading a score. Some aspects, like Applebaum’s reversing timelines, offer possibilities for further study and experimentation, both in the form of further pieces and experimental studies on performer reactions to different kinds of lines. Graphic notations appear to be coming back into fashion and continue to develop. I, for one, eagerly await seeing what will shortly come.

CHAPTER EIGHT NAVIGATING THE UNCERTAIN: PERFORMERS IN DEVISING PROCESSES MICHAEL PICKNETT

Devising is a workshop-based practice that arose from experimentation in theatre and dance in the mid twentieth century. The concept of devising was drawn from common ideas explored in diverse creative practices that had developed independently—such as Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop (1945-present, especially Oh What a Lovely War, 1963), or Richard Schechner’s The Performance Group (1967-1980). This makes devising unlike other theoretical frameworks for theatre, such as Stanislavski’s Method, or Grotowski’s Poor Theatre, in which an individual artist developed a clear theoretical framework that could then be turned into a system of creation or performance. As devising is a creative framework that can be applied to many disparate artistic practices, there is little consensus on the elements of devising beyond the broad approach. Devising’s lack of concrete theoretical structures means that it is particularly difficult to define. Through my own research in applying concepts from devising to creating music, I developed a general definition of devising: any workshop-based creative process in which the performance material is created and developed with the performers. Devising is primarily a creative tool used in closed rehearsal rooms. Because of this, academic study of devising was slow to develop. The first major study of devising in theatre was Alison Oddey’s 1994 Devising Theatre.1 Oddey’s work focused on devising within the British theatrical tradition, emphasizing communal practices and community work. More recent works on the subject include Heddon and Milling’s Devising 1

Alison Oddey, Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook (New York: Routledge, 1994).

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Performance: A Critical History2 and Govan, Nicholson, and Normington’s Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices.3 These later works explore contemporary devising within a global context including dance and dance-theatre work and highlighting hierarchical models of devising and theatre-based work. Academic study of devising is still relatively uncommon despite the prevalence of devising approaches in contemporary theatre and dance. In fact, as Heddon and Milling point out: Perhaps it is precisely because devising is so prevalent, so present that critical enquiry has been so sparse. Devising may appear to be a given, something that simply ‘is’.4

Devising was originally seen as a communal practice where groups of artists would create performance works, making decisions through consensus. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the role of the devising director became more prevalent—where a single artist has overall creative control of the process.5 Present day devising companies are rarely communal,6 most preferring the director-led model. However, most director-led devising processes are still highly collaborative, with performers taking part-ownership over the project. Devising remains a common, but by no means universal, practice in both contemporary dance and theatre. In practice, a devising director, composer, or choreographer will often set the performers improvisation tasks or exercises from which some improvised materials are chosen to be further developed and moulded into a performance.

2

Deirdre Heddon and Jane Milling, Devising Performance: A Critical History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 3 Emma Govan, Helen Nicholson, and Katie Normington, Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices (New York: Routledge, 2007). 4 Heddon and Milling, p.1. 5 See Heddon and Milling, pp.4-5 for a detailed examination of changing rhetoric around communal practice in devised theatre through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 6 Notable exceptions include The People Show and Shunt, both of which continue to function as collectives. For information on the collective structure of The People Show see: Synne K. Behrndt, ‘People Show in Rehearsal’, in Devising in Process, ed. by Alex Mermikides and Jackie Smart (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p.33; for Shunt see: Alex Mermikides, ‘Clash and Consensus in Shunt’s “Big Shows” and the Lounge’, in ibid., p.147.

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The devising performer is central to the process. It is their background, skills, and interpretation of the tasks that generates performance material, and their personality and interests that shape the material through the devising process. The same performers will eventually perform the piece, and it is their relationship to the material that drives the performance. All of this is generated through the workshop-based creative process. In this chapter I focus on the performers’ role in the devising process: how that creates a distinctive relationship between the performers and the piece, and how that relationship shapes the final performance. Devising has also been used to varying extents in the creation of music, most notably in some works by Heiner Goebbels7 and Meredith Monk.8 However, these practices are very rarely viewed through the mechanisms and terminology of devising. As in the early days of devising study, devising practices in music are inferred through descriptions of rehearsals and comments in interviews. There is no comprehensive text on devising in music. My current research is a practice-based exploration of the creative possibilities generated through applying dance- and theatrederived concepts, terminology, and techniques to devised music processes. Some devising techniques taken from theatre and dance have little practical application in music. However, the general approach can be easily applied to the specifics of devising music. In this chapter I have treated devising as a process that can be applied to any performing art equally. My examples are largely drawn from the literature on devising practice in dance and theatre, and, where appropriate, I have described how these examples may be applied to devising music. Devising processes are usually convoluted and difficult to define, as material is developed organically throughout the creative period. Here I have divided the creative process into four distinct processes, allowing for a more focused discussion: research, creation, rehearsal, and performance. I explore how these processes are distinct from one another; however, within the creative chaos of a living process, they can, and often do, occur simultaneously as ideas are generated and explored concurrently. 7 For examples of Goebbels’s use of devising approaches, particularly in works such as The Liberation of Prometheus (1993), see Heiner Goebbels and Stathis Gourgouris, ‘Performance as Composition’, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 26 (2004), 1-16. 8 For an exploration of Monk’s use of devising approaches, for example in Dolmen Music (1980-1), see Nancy Putnam Smithner, ‘Meredith Monk: Four Decades by Design and Invention’, The Drama Review, 49 (2005), 93-118.

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Process 1: Research Devising processes do not always begin with a research phase, but making time and space for pure research is often a crucial concept for many working companies. This phase is usually undertaken with only a few performers and is therefore a much cheaper and more flexible set-up for exploring uncertain creative practices than running full-company rehearsals. The director/composer brings a specific research idea to the process; the performers’ role is to explore the creative possibilities of this idea. The purpose of a research phase is to explore the creative possibilities of the project idea, without making performance material. Occasionally material is generated during research which can be developed into the final performance, but this is not the primary function of the research phase. Research phases often culminate in an open showing of the research where the performers demonstrate a few tasks. Occasionally the director/composer outlines the research undertaken or explains how the tasks relate to the research. These work-in-progress showings are usually open to an invited audience who will normally offer constructive critical feedback.9 Since no performance material is generated in a research phase, the process can initially be confusing for the inexperienced devising artist. Performers will usually be called upon to engage with a large variety of tasks in a short space of time, exploring the tasks as fully as they can within the time frame. During a research phase tasks are often abandoned as the focus of the research changes. Pina Bausch, 10 for example, commented, ‘three weeks now, what we did, is just finding material, just material. From this material I’m using five percent maybe.’ 11 As ideas come and go without any solid material being developed, the performer is often left feeling that the project is not progressing. The direction of 9

For an interesting example of the role of work-in-progress showings in a devising process see: Philip Stainer, ‘The Distance Covered: Third Angel’s 9 Billion Miles from Home’, in Devising in Process, pp.110-127. 10 Pina Bausch (1940-2009) was a hugely important choreographer, especially known for her work with Tanztheater Wuppertal (1973-2009). Her influence on contemporary performance extends well beyond contemporary dance. For an overview of her life, work, and influence see Royd Climenhaga, Pina Bausch (London; New York: Routledge, 2009). 11 Quoted in Climenhaga, p.55.

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research is not always apparent to them and they are often called upon to trust the director’s guidance. This was a clear issue in my own research. For example, when working with musicians Charlotte Webber and Fontane Liang on my work Apologetics (2009-14),12 Webber noted: If I try something I want to have some clear results at the end of the rehearsal—so I can go away and say: ‘Right, we did that and that and that’. In the first rehearsals, that didn’t really happen, so I left thinking that I don’t really know what we did. It was a long time, and I felt like we had been there for hours and we still don’t know what we are doing.13

Research tasks frequently require performers to take creative risks in the way in which they engage with the tasks, trying approaches that do not work, or cannot be performed satisfactorily. For these reasons the research phase can potentially be one of the most tiring and frustrating stages in a devising process. This can cause the performers to feel exposed or vulnerable in the process. It is therefore vital that the group is open and supportive of each other, and that the research is conducted in relative privacy. It is common for a devising director to specifically choose performers based on their personality, interests, and particular skills. One of the things that first attracted me to working with devising techniques was the way the process engages performers. Performers are invited onto each project because of their unique artistic interests, skills, personal background, and personality. Most devising performers seek to learn new skills or improve existing skills in their free time. Throughout my research in musical devising, the instruments the musicians played became of secondary importance to who they were. Part of the devising process is finding ways of working together, and this will include finding material that fits the performers’ instruments. Because the material for the project is created through the performers’ improvisations on those instruments in rehearsal, the piece forms around the instrumentation of the group and is idiomatic to that particular group of musicians.

12 Compositions by the author mentioned in this article can be seen online at: http://www.michaelpicknett.com/Projects.html 13 Quoted in Michael Picknett, ‘Devised Music: Applying Creative Approaches from Dance and Theatre to Music Composition’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2014), p.95.

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Choosing performers is one of the most important creative decisions that a director makes in any devising process. The unique challenges of the research phase call for a particular kind of devising performer. Researching performers are generally quick to engage with concepts that they do not fully understand, and generous with their feedback. They are often willing to take risks in experimenting with the material and suggesting directions for expanding the research. Because of the specialized qualities required for devising performers in research, it is tempting to employ one set of performers for research and another set for performance. This approach tends to create issues over ownership. Although the director/composer leads the process and usually holds overall ownership of the project, devising gives the performers collaborative ownership of the material that they make. Research processes do not generally generate material, but they do set the groundwork for the material that is subsequently made. Performer substitutions can be made for amicable reasons, such as lack of time, or lack of interest in pursuing the project. In these cases, issues of ownership are much less of a problem. Research phases are vital to the creative process in that they give the director/composer space to pursue genuinely new ideas. Without a specific research phase, there is often pressure to create performance material—to have something to show for the hours spent in the workshop. This can lead to directors falling back on creative strategies they know will produce workable material, rather than taking risks with new strategies, which can have a serious effect on the eventual performance. A research process, with all its endless false starts and ideas that go nowhere, can be intensely frustrating for all parties, but this frustration is often an important stage to go through to find new approaches. The frustrations of a research phase usually give way to performers developing strong relationships with the material created and with each other. In my work on Apologetics, musician Fontane Liang remembered that, ‘[i]n the beginning […] we were still finding the process from ground zero. That was difficult. We have come a long way from there I feel.’14 One of the necessary outcomes of a research phase is a demonstration of the creative validity of the idea in order to proceed onto the next stage of creation. Besides those concerns, the artistic outcomes of a research phase can vary from company to company. Generally the research phase 14

Quoted in Picknett, p.94.

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helps the director to find basic tasks and ideas for the material, and for the group to find a good working practice. For example, Nancy Putnam Smithner describes Meredith Monk spending three to four weeks researching with her performers through play and improvisation. This would be followed by a break of up to six months where Monk would revise the work they had made, making changes and writing new material based on the interactions of the ensemble. Finally the group would come together to create the finished work.15 As research phases are experimental in nature, they are sometimes not developed into full creations. It is often better, for companies working within strict timeframes or budgets, to take risks within a specifically defined research period, with only a few selected collaborators, than to commit large resources of time, money, and expectations to an unexplored creative idea. It is not unusual for the creation process to take a very different form to the research process, as the experience of trying ideas can often alter the director’s perception of the project.

Process 2: Creation The creative phase of the devising process centres on the generation and development of performance material, ideas, and the group. As with the research phase, performers improvise responses to tasks set by the director/composer. The director/composer then looks for interesting aspects of the improvisation that could become material for performance. In musical devising, these could include: specific harmonies, gestures, a performance attitude, the relationship between certain pitches, or the relationship between performers. As Monk says, ‘I integrate material furnished by the participants into my personal creation.’16 Material at this stage does not need to be of performance quality; the only criterion is that it has the potential to become a part of a performance. It is tempting for a director/composer to choose a good improvisation and to fix it into a performance material. This approach is effective, and can create interesting performances and many devising companies habitually record all rehearsals in the creative phase for this very reason. For example, Monk would record on cassette tape17 and Bausch would 15

Cf. Smithner, p.110. Quoted in ibid., p.93. 17 Meredith Monk and Mo Bates, ‘Crossing the Boundaries of Art’, Theatre 16

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both write notes and video rehearsals.18 However, I have often found that it is worth trying to find deeper ideas and connections within the improvisation and bring them out through the process, rather than immediately preserving a ‘good’ improvisation and discarding the rest. Many of the most interesting performance materials I have discovered were found after pursuing initially unpromising tasks. Finding materials usually involves returning to a particular task many times, gradually building up a dense relationship between the performer, the task, and the nature of the improvisation. When the performer is able to find new ideas and stronger connections, then the task will typically generate more interesting materials. A single task can often generate several sets of related materials, which could then be developed into radically different performance ideas. I developed this approach after observing choreographer Vera Tussing’s19 creative practice which uses many of these ideas. In my research, I have often found first-time devising artists are initially uncertain about the level of input and control they have in the creative phase. I find it important to encourage performers to push their personal boundaries when responding to tasks in the creative phase. In my work I prefer eccentric—rather than safe—responses to tasks, as I find they are easier to develop into interesting performative material. The creative phase of a devising process thrives on open discussions, which are often led by the director/composer. Devising artists are invited to engage with the process on many levels, from the technical—such as exploring different approaches to performing a task, to the emotional— how the performer relates personally to the material, to the artistic—how the current work fits into the performer’s body of work. This multi-layered engagement allows the performer a high level of investment in the work, and because of this, performers are often prepared to argue a case for material they feel attached to, although the final decision always belongs to the director/composer. This power relationship is an important feature of director-led devising processes. For example Climenhaga notes that ‘Bausch is the leader, but the efforts of the entire company are what makes Ireland, 15 (1988), 18-20 (p.19). 18 Climenhaga, p.55. 19 Vera Tussing is a contemporary dance choreographer based in Brussels and London creating devised works around a small group of dancers. More information on Tussing’s work can be found at: or [Accessed 5 January 2016].

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the pieces function’.20 Director Elizabeth LeCompte also notes, ‘I like to have the final say, not so much because I want the power of it, but because otherwise, I lose my way.’21 However, it is important that performers feel they have a level of ownership over their material and a stake in the process. A sense of ownership allows the performer to take risks in performance, and a sense of investment in the project puts limits on that risk.22 The freedom to take risks is a vital element in my devising practice. Materials in the creative phase are often initially generated through simple tasks. These could take the form of questions, such as Bausch’s ‘How do you cry?’,23 improvisations on given material,24 or games. In my work Apologetics 3 (2012), I used a game where one musician would play a pitch and the other would have to play the same pitch as quickly as possible, once the pitch was matched the first musician would change pitch—the musicians were free to change roles at any time. This game was created initially as an exercise to develop complicity between the performers, but ended up forming the final section of the completed work. It is generally useful for performers to begin the creative phase by using simple improvisations to explore the tasks set. This allows the performer to focus on exploring precise aspects within the improvisation. As material is selected and the task revisited, layers of complexity are gradually added to the materials. Because the complexities in the material are developed through the performer, rather than imposed on them, the technical difficulty of performance is often reduced. This has the advantage of allowing the performer to focus on the content of the performance, rather than the mechanics of production. However, there is a danger of developing recurring performance habits, as the performer relies on familiar techniques. This can be mitigated if both the performer and the director/composer maintain a critical awareness of the problem. The director and performers often use the creative phase to explore other aspects of performance besides creating material. For many 20

Ibid., p.44. Quoted in David Savran, Breaking the Rules: The Wooster Group (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1988), p.115. 22 Cf. ‘On Risk and Investment’, in Tim Etchells, Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp.48-50. 23 Quoted in Climenhaga, p.52. 24 Susan Letzler Cole, Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 1992), pp.116-7. 21

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practitioners, non-performative ideas such as building a particular group dynamic or developing a performance aesthetic, are essential elements of the devising process. To develop non-performative ideas, directors will use specialized tasks, often known as laboratory techniques. The term ‘theatre laboratory’ has a long history, but has come to mean ‘all those theatres in which the preparation of performances is not the only activity that goes on’. 25 Laboratory techniques were developed from laboratory theatre practices and include any task that does not aim to generate performance material. Catherine Alexander outlines a typical game used as a laboratory task by Complicite:26 Divide the group in two. One group stands in a large circle to define the edge of the playing area, and to stop the blindfolded players from leaving the space. The other group put on blindfolds. One of the blindfolded players is named the cat and the rest are mice. The game is about maintaining perfect silence and listening. The cat must listen very carefully and catch all the mice. […] If a player is attempting to walk out of the circle somebody in the wall must turn them gently.27

Such a game could easily be useful in a music-based devised process, even if the final performance has no movement-based material, as it helps the company start to create together, to warm-up as a group and to develop their awareness of each other. Occasionally devising companies will have specific laboratory tasks to which they habitually return. These tasks are generally used to create a group aesthetic, or to train performers in the techniques of the company. Smaller scale projects also often use laboratory techniques—usually as warm-ups or to create a specific effect within the project. The nature of the creative phase has a distinctive impact on the resulting performance. More time spent developing a deeper understanding of the tasks can significantly expand the possibilities of the material.

25

Mirella Schino, Alchemists of the Stage: Theatre Laboratories in Europe, trans. by Paul Warrington (Holstebro, Malta and Wroclaw: ICARUS Publishing Enterprise, 2009), p.8. 26 A theatre company based in London that produces both devised works and more conventional script-based theatre. 27 Catherine Alexander, Complicite: Developing Devising Skills (2001), available as a pdf from: [Accessed 5 January 2016].

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Process 3: Rehearsal The rehearsal process changes the raw material generated in the creation phase into performance-ready sequences. The first stage is to find connections between the materials generated in the creative phase. Often this involves simply juxtaposing pairs of material and gradually finding relationships between them. As the relationships are exposed the materials develop, coalescing to form longer sequences. Many devising companies use a collage technique to create performances from sets of material sequences. Pina Bausch, for example, used a pile of papers, each with the title of a different material written on it, literally arranging and rearranging them on a table to find a structure for her work.28 It is also possible to use other structuring devices. For example, the New York based theatre company The Wooster Group often structures their works on pre-existing plays, using and adapting plot lines as they need. 29 In many devised performances, such as plot-based devising works, the transitions between sequences can be seamless. Occasionally new sections of material are developed specifically to support the emerging structure. It is often difficult, therefore, to determine when the rehearsal process begins and the creative process ends. The creation and rehearsal processes are not always clearly delineated within a company’s practice, they frequently overlap with materials being developed, rehearsed then developed again. Once a structure is set, the materials are rehearsed in a conventional manner, often through numerous repetitions. As material is repeated the content becomes gradually fixed, with scope for invention within the material limited by the director/composer’s taste and the necessities of the structure. At this stage, the director/composer often gives much more precise instructions, and takes greater control over the content of the material than is generally the case in the previous stages of the process. The devising process allows for a range of ideas about what constitutes performance-ready material. Not all material needs to be set to a specific level of detail to be effective. Ciane Fernandes recounts how she watched 28

Renate Klett, ‘In Rehearsal With Pina Bausch’, in The Pina Bausch Sourcebook: The Making of Tanztheater, ed. by Royd Climenhaga (New York: Routledge, 2013), p.78. 29 For more information on this see David Savran, Breaking the Rules: The Wooster Group (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1988), especially p.52.

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five performances of Bausch’s Two Cigarettes in the Dark (1985) in the same week noticing how, ‘there was definitely a basic structure for the piece, and many detailed gestures were just the same. But many differences also occurred from night to night.’30 Through my research, I became fascinated by the possibilities of using the devising process to change how the performer relates to the material in performance. For example, it is common for musicians to create group cohesion through the use of a shared pulse. I became interested in using the concept of complicity to fulfil the role of the pulse. The level of understanding between performers needed to create such a strong complicity takes many hours of dedicated rehearsal using specific exercises and improvisations. The performers must be completely aware of each other in performance, with a deep understanding of each other’s material. As the performers play they use their understanding of each other’s material and performing style to create the overall cohesion of the group. I worked with musicians Charlotte Webber and Fontane Liang on the Apologetics project for four years, specifically devoting rehearsal time to developing complicity between them. Both musicians have described how the use of complicity in this way gave them much more control when performing devised music, often feeling ‘much more in the moment’.31 Liang found that our work on complicity allowed her to ‘not worry about so many things’32 in performance. She was aware that she could take risks during the performance, as she was confident that the other musician would follow. Webber summed up the experience as: I don’t find that I drift at all mentally, because I’m always judging what I’m going to do on what has happened before. I really like the fact that the piece moves and you can drive it yourself. You can feel where it is building and where it is going.33

For the performer, the principal challenge of the rehearsal phase is to retain a sense of ownership over the material whilst the freedoms of the creative phrase are stripped away. As the material is set through repetition, it is easy for performers to become disengaged from the source of the 30

Ciane Fernandes, Pina Bausch and the Wuppertal Dance Theatre: The Aesthetics of Repetition and Transformation (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), p.31. 31 Webber quoted in Picknett, p.89. 32 Liang quoted in ibid. 33 Ibid.

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material. Because the material was originally created through the performer, and often based on their personal biography, it is important for the performers to find ways of reconnecting with the root ideas from which the material was originally drawn. This is especially difficult as their material becomes a part of a larger structure within the performance. To prevent the performer losing their connection with the material, many devising processes continue to use creative tasks and laboratory techniques right up to, and often beyond, the first performance. Talking and critical feedback are also crucial tools for keeping the material fresh for the performers.34 Since not all material is necessarily completely fixed for performance, it is essential that the performers have a clear understanding of how each material works within the structure, and how flexible it can be in performance. Because of the long engagement with the material that the devising process requires, it is rare for performers not to be aware of the material’s possibilities in performance. But performers can occasionally be unaware of how much flexibility in the material the structure can support. In my experience of contemporary dance processes, performers who are not rehearsing material often take on a secondary role of being an outside eye. Devising relies on a high level of collaboration between participants, and so critical feedback is encouraged throughout all the stages of the process. Feedback from the performers on their and their colleagues’ performances is an essential part of the rehearsal process. Feedback and critical analysis are also often achieved through audio or visual recordings of runs, usually watched and critiqued as a group.

Process 4: Performance Devising performance is a broad subject, about which much has been written. In this chapter, I focus on devised performance as an aspect of the overall creative process. The act of performance changes the nature of the materials being performed. The moment of publicly expressing material opens the connection between the performer and the facets of themselves that formed the basis of the material. Devised processes are often deeply autobiographical, using the performers’ own histories to create material, 34

For an example of how companies retain their connection to material see Jackie Smart, ‘Sculpting The Territory: Gecko’s The Arab and The Jew in Process’, in Devising in Process, pp.165-185.

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and the connection between the autobiography of the performer and their material is often explicitly highlighted in performance. For example, Pina Bausch’s dance-theatre works almost always refer to performers by their real name in performance, often referencing biographical information. When watching a performance by the company, a relationship between the viewer and the performers is established through the use of autobiography, resulting in an increased level of awareness of the meaning of the material for the performer. Equally the performer is confronted by an awareness of the origins of the material through the act of performance. This creates a distinct relationship between the performer and material that is only exposed by the act of performance. Performer Charlotte Webber sums up this relationship when she observes: You genuinely know the reasoning behind everything you are playing; you know where it has come from and you know why it first happened because you were there. You never have that with any other piece of music in the world.35

Devising processes in theatre and dance-theatre often use the concept of persona in relation to performing autobiographical or personal material. Philip Auslander described the term ‘persona’ as a situation where the ‘performed presence is not a character […] but that also is not quite equivalent to the performer’s ‘real’ identity’.36 Personas are often created as the material evolves from a performer’s personal response to a task, into becoming part of a larger performance structure. Personas allow performers to use the links created with the audience through their personal connection to the performance material to communicate the larger-scale ideas of the project. In performances with no spoken text, the creation of personas can be less obvious to the audience, but are often a good way of connecting the performer to their material. In my work on Apologetics I worked with the group to create personas based on childhood memories. This allowed us to create narratives within the music that acted as one of the structural devices for the musicians. Devising is a process based on the performers’ relationship to the material, and through that their relationship to the performance. It 35

Webber quoted in Picknett, p.98. Philip Auslander, ‘Task and Vision Revisited: Two Conversations with Willem Dafoe (1983/2002)’, in The Wooster Group and Its Traditions, ed. by Johan Callens (New York: Peter Lang, 2004), p.95. 36

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therefore places an emphasis on the performers’ communication of their connection to the material in performance. Dynamic performance structures, which can react to the performance situation, allow performers to explore these relationships with each new audience. Even precisely set performances can exploit the performers’ familiarity with the source of the material to allow the piece to react to the performance situation. Dynamic performance structures also help to place performances within the contemporary situation of the performance, for example, referring to recent news events, or culturally specific concepts. Devising is not the only creative process that makes use of dynamic performance structures,37 but this is a key aesthetic within many devising practices. As a project matures, it is often necessary for the piece to be re-worked to fit the changing circumstances of the performers. For example, performing in another country/culture, a change to their relationship with the material, or a new performer joining the company. Terry O’Connor notes how the meaning of her text, ‘try not to think about dust and ash and smoke’ in First Night by Forced Entertainment (2001) changed in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York.38 Occasionally performances are revived using archive material and new performers, as in the case with Stan’s Cafe’s 1999 remake of the Impact Theatre Cooperative’s The Carrier Frequency (1984). However as Heddon and Milling note: Both more and less than repetition and revision, this second performance represented what is always at stake with devised performance, not only the forgetting of its performance, but the forgetting of its making. The second performance was pieced together by quite different means from the first, from a visual and verbal score without39 devising. In this example, then, the process had become distinctly divorced from the product.40

If performers no longer wish to perform a piece, or it has lost its significance for them, then the performances, which are so intimately tied up with the performers and the creative process, can no longer take place. I 37 For example, improvised theatre and dance often makes use of current affairs or culturally specific concepts. In music, graphic and text-based scores can also make use of dynamic performance structures. 38 Quoted in Tim Etchells, While You Are With Us Here Tonight (London: Live Art Development Agency, 2013), p.62. 39 Original italics. 40 Heddon and Milling, pp.23-24.

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have always seen this as a healthy process, allowing a new generation of performance to emerge. Devising is, at heart, an ephemeral practice, based around a ‘discourse akin to an aural culture’.41 Remembered performances become part of the fabric of the company, and even, occasionally, of the performing community in general. Devising is not the only way of creating a strong bond between performer and material, but it does engender a very particular attitude towards the material by the performers. Performers feel the material as much as a mind-state as it is a specific set of pitches, text, or movements. The devising process allows performers to engage with the act of performance through a wide variety of approaches—from the very precise to the very free. Performers often feel empowered to take risks, to explore the piece during performance. Director Tim Etchells in his essay ‘On Risk and Investment’, 42 linked this quality of risk-taking in devised performance to the performers’ sense of ownership. Etchells writes that ‘direct lines of investment get drawn—between performers and task, between witnesses and performers’ 43 allowing the process of creating devised work to inform and enrich the performance. Devising has its problems: for example, it requires extensive rehearsal time and performers who are prepared to dedicate themselves to a longterm project with uncertain outcomes. But I have always found it to be a uniquely rewarding approach to creation. Devising need not be an isolated process and many practitioners will use devising practices alongside conventional choreography or scripts. For example, Bausch would often give her performers movement patterns to be learnt and incorporated into devised material.44 There are many ways to incorporate devised elements into a notation-based practice. For example much of Meredith Monk’s devised works are being notated for conventional publication.45 Devising practices could also form a section of a larger notated work. Or devising can be used as a rehearsal practice.

41

Mike Pearson, ‘Special Worlds, Secrets Maps: A Poetics of Performance’, in Staging Wales: Welsh Theatre, ed. by Anne-Marie Taylor (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp.85-99; p.85. 42 ‘On Risk and Investment’, in Tim Etchells, Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp.48-50. 43 Ibid., p.49. 44 Climenhaga, p.55. 45 Smithner, p.114.

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Many devising theatre companies make performances by adapting existing texts (often radically) to create new interpretations.46 Devising skills are not innate or easy to acquire, but in my experience they allow a performing artist to expand their relationship with performance, even when engaging with non-devised pieces. After meeting whilst working on Apologetics for four years—a devising practice that focused on developing complicity between the musicians, Fontane Liang and Charlotte Webber formed a successful performance duo Folie a Deux Femmes that performs commissioned works, adaptations of existing music, and improvisations.47 Liang notes that the process of working on Apologetics changed how she approached performance in general: I think devising trains you to always really know what you mean. So that everything you play is meaningful. When you go into pre-composed, written out music, you need to search for that meaning because you are used to thinking in that way.48

When I first discovered devising, I was searching for a new way to engage with making music, both performance and composition. Devising offered a completely new paradigm for relating to music. Devised performance, to me, has the feeling of improvisation, but the composition can be as detailed as a notated score. However, it took me a long time to understand how these practices worked and to begin to use them effectively. Devising processes, although unsettling in their uncertainties, are essentially simple and applicable to musical ideas. I would encourage anyone who wishes to explore the relationship between performer and performance to experience a devising process in dance, theatre, or music.49

46 Susan Letzler Cole, Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 1992), pp.91-123. 47 For more information on Folie a Deux Femmes see: [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 48 Liang quoted in Picknett, p.98. 49 Compositions by the author mentioned in this chapter can be seen online at .

CHAPTER NINE TRANSLATION AS PARADIGM AND PROCESS FOR PRE-COMPOSITION IN LEIDEN TRANSLATIONS INSTALLATION AND FILM ALISTAIR ZALDUA

The audio-visual installation Leiden Translations, premiered in March 2014 at the Borealis festival in Norway, employed processes of translation in its pre-composition. These processes are the focus of this chapter. In this work I took the English translation of a third-century Ancient Greek text, the Leiden Papyrus, which is an exoteric alchemical document consisting of 111 short recipes for metallurgical conversion, and created three further kinds of translation: Ancient Greek alchemical symbols, or sigils (notation), British Sign Language (action as communication), and contrabass notated music and improvisation (performance). These three translations were filmed and, in the installation, are presented as two films shown next to each other. I understand this as an inter-semiotic translation in which verbal signs are re-encoded in nonverbal sign systems. My final aim for the installation, when encountered live, was that the processes of sonification of an arcane text, and the visualization of the layers of translation presented, should be clearly perceived as musical processes. In this discussion I shall relate the results of the processes of translation for the installation to theories of translation from Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, and Actor Network Theory, and present a perspective of the practice of inter-semiotic translation as a possible live process of sonification. This chapter considers the role translation theory has for my creative practice and how translation can be seen as a process for composition. For me translation occurs between a musical vision and its realization. This can be applied to composition that uses a text, or an extra-musical idea, as

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well as that which doesn’t. Translation is also here seen as a part of a set of related activities within the idea of ‘pre-composition’ that comprise translation, relational materiality (derived from Actor Network Theory, or ANT), and notation. Taken together these three activities create a conceptual ‘meta-instrument’1 for each composition. Sociologist John Law describes relational materiality as a semiotic-analytical tool that includes how material practices generate the social: ‘analytically speaking’ the cause of every event, object, and person is, ‘generated by a network of heterogeneous, interacting, materials’.2 These notions can be transferred as part of the poietic aspect of composition. I will examine my installation, Leiden Translations, as a case study for this process. I shall examine theories of translation derived from Thomas Hermann, Roman Jakobson, Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, Paolo Bartoloni, and Homi Bhabha and examine how I have applied these theories within my approach, or how they can be used to comment on the realization of this installation in order to establish a useful set of terms and perspectives for this practice. Leiden Translations is one of many examples of work that foregrounds a translational process. Ferruccio Busoni uses the word ‘transcription’ to describe the immediate notation of musical ideas as and when a composer thinks them.3 Although he describes some technical obstacles facing the composer, I prefer the complexity of the concept of translation for its potential insights into the creative process. Works such as Cornelius Cardew’s Four Pieces (1960-1965) and Stockhausen’s Plus Minus (1963), which are kits for composition, can be described as translations which rely on an arranger or performer for their realization. More recent examples can be found in the work of Hans Wütrich (for example, Wörter Bilder Dinge, 1989-91), Cornelius Schwehr (in Wörte/Worte, 2010), Carola Bauckholt (in Schraubdichtung, 1989-1990), or Annette Schmucki (in am 1

Helmut Lachenmann describes his meta-instrument as being the composition of the acoustic whole of a piece, in my sense the meta-instrument relates more to the direct concept of a work and to the pre-compositional constructs this concept produces. 2 John Law, ‘Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics’, HeterogeneitiesDOT net: John Law’s STS Web Page (25.04.2007) [Accessed 12 September 2012]. 3 Ferruccio Busoni, ‘A New Esthetic of Music’, in Three Classics in the Aesthetics of Music, trans. by Thomas Baker (New York: Dover Publications, 1989), pp.73102 (p.85).

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fenster, 1996, and most recently 1 tag, 2015), all of which foreground the continuously complex relationship between music and language. The work of Johannes Schöllhorn presents a different set of concepts which recognize interpretative realization—a ‘reading’ of the music of another composer—as a rich set of problems for composition by itself. This aspect of Schöllhorn’s oeuvre stresses how new and hybrid forms are created out of a synthesis between Schöllhorn himself and the work of the composer he examines. A particularly successful example of this is About the Seventh (1992), for mixed chamber septet, which is a critical realization, or ‘setting’ of the four canonic pieces from Music for Any Instruments by Stefan Wolpe (1944-1949). When listening to this piece it is almost impossible to distinguish which of the two composers one is hearing at any point: one hears both synthesis and distanced commentary as an essential part of Schöllhorn’s aesthetic.

Translations in Leiden Translations In the multi-media installation Leiden Translations the problem of translation is foregrounded as an essential part of the aesthetic experience. Leiden Translations exists in two forms: an installation to be displayed in a gallery and a thirteen-minute film. The project began with a commission from the Borealis Festival in Bergen, Norway, for two related works: a twenty-minute piece for solo piano (Spagyria, 2014) and an installation. Since the theme of the Borealis Festival was alchemy, my initial research focused on reading classical alchemical literature by authors such as Hermes Trismegistus, Zosimos of Panopolis, Avicenna, Jabir Ibn Hayyan, and Nicholas Flamel. I gradually came to the conclusion that, while illequipped to decipher these deeply encoded and symbolic texts, I was confronted by a highly complex and ancient culture: any response on my part should seek to avoid a reductive or representational engagement. Instead, I sought a technical means to engage with alchemical texts, through music and image. The installation uses the clearest (i.e., the least hermetic) text I could find: the Leiden Papyrus X which was discovered by chance in 1829 in Thebes, Egypt, hidden inside a sarcophagus. It dates from around the third century AD and its author is unknown. This papyrus now resides in Leiden, Holland, and consists of 111 recipes exclusively concerned with the physical and technical processes required to produce a substance or to improve and master nature by means of artifice. The direct and uncomplicated style of these recipes represents the practical or ‘exoteric’ (as opposed to ‘esoteric’) side of alchemical writing and relates directly to

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‘lab-alchemy’.4 The original language of the text is Ancient Greek, and some passages make use of Ancient Greek alchemical symbols, or sigils. In his Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic, and Alchemical Sigils, Fred Gettings explains his preference for the term ‘sigil’ over ‘sign’, ‘symbol’, or ‘glyph’, since for him ‘sign’ has too wide an application, and ‘glyph’ is used more readily for architecture and sculpture.5 ‘Sigil’ derives from the late Latin ‘sigilum’ and also appears in mediaeval magical contexts. Gettings writes: ‘the word in the eighteenth century did carry the specialized meaning of a small image.’ 6 Here a sigil is amuletic, or, ‘charged with power […] many are “small images” of cosmic processes, and in almost every case linked with the occult’.7 These alchemical sigils were considered as a means of writing hermetic code—written by alchemical experts either for other experts or their students—to provide instruction about how to set free and transmute the ‘frozen life’ within all inanimate material. Taking the English translation of the Leiden Papyrus X, I encoded the recipes into Ancient Greek sigil formulae. Gettings’ Dictionary contains over nine thousand sigils with explanations of their origin and one is presented with a multitude of images recorded at different times in history. During my work it would have been possible to choose the sigils arbitrarily, however I decided to derive the sigils from the exact time the Leiden Papyrus was written. Each sigil and its historical variations is accompanied with a reference and date of invention. When describing the history and discovery of the Leiden Papyrus X, Hunt describes how Marcellin Berthelot and Charles Rouelle, both academics translating ancient Greek alchemical texts, were the first to interpret this text. 8 Berthelot, famous for his three-volume Collection des Anciens Alchimists 4

Stanton J. Linden, ‘Introduction: Anonymous (late third century AD) From Leyden Papyrus X and the Stockholm Papyrus’, in The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton, ed. by Stanton J. Linden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.46-49 (p.46). 5 Fred Gettings, Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic, and Alchemical Sigils (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), p.9. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 L. B. Hunt, ‘The Oldest Metallurgical Handbook: Recipes of a 4th Century Goldsmith’, Gold Bulletin Journal, 9 (1976), 24-31, [Accessed 16 April 2014].

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Grecs,9 is often referenced by Gettings in his Dictionary and so—as often as possible—I chose the Ancient Greek alchemical sigils recorded by Berthelot over all others presented in Gettings’ work. In the composition of the installation I used three types of translation: writing (notation as translation), British Sign Language (enacted translation), and short miniatures performed on contrabass (performed translation). Each of these were filmed and each film lasts one minute; fifteen films of each category were made. In the installation itself one always only sees either one or two films presented in portrait orientation; the images do not touch each other and are separated by a black band. Each film is selected by the computer program (written in Max/MSP/ Jitter) in two randomly chosen steps: first the category is chosen for both left and right sides of the screen; then the film in each category is determined. The only pairings that are not allowed are two blank screens or two contrabass films. A further rule allows a contrabass sound file to be chosen at random even in the absence of a contrabass film. When a contrabass film is projected, the patch—programmed in Max/MSP/Jitter— decides randomly whether its sound file is played or not, but only the correct sound file is chosen. After each minute-long film coupling, a new coupling is chosen, setting up a regular rhythm. In the short interim before each film pairing appears, the patch makes three main decisions: pairing (selected randomly from the fourteen options listed above); exact film(s) (selected randomly from each film category); and whether a sound file is heard or not. According to modern-day alchemist Rubaphilos SalfluČre, alchemical knowledge is traditionally disclosed by a master to his disciple via initiation. 10 One of the typical techniques used is a practice known as visualization, the purpose of which is to fuse, or ‘marry’, both the conscious (or male) and ‘dream’ (female) parts of the psyche, also known as a ‘Chymical Wedding’.11 Presenting the film categories in pairs allows the comparison of languages, represents a ‘marriage of opposites’ between the symbolic and the enacted, and offers the translations as a visualization of musical processes. In the installation I attempted to find a means of 9

Marcellin Berthelot, Collection des Anciens Alchimists Grecs (Paris: Georges Steinheil, 1887-88). 10 Rubaphilos SalfluČre, ‘Lab and Inner Alchemy’, Hermetic-Alchemy Yahoo Group (25.02.2015) [Accessed 25 February 2015]. 11 Linden, p.248.

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presentation that is both transparent and archaic; one where the translations can be seen, in some way, to communicate with each other. This determined how I thought about what kind of music this needed, what kind of listening this implied, and how the passage between the two poles of meaning—these being the sigil notation and the contrabass music— might be constructed. My main concern in the composition of the music for contrabass was to create a discontinuous music that focused on the possible tension between silence, stillness, and a music consisting of a large mosaic of isolated and at times very quiet playing techniques: in short, a music in-between appearance and disappearance. In addition to this I was interested in how degrees of improvisation and interpretation could be set up to further engage and challenge the performer with differing levels of interpretation. The bassist is called upon to employ a large number of playing techniques. There are two main types of music: in the first the bassist draws the sigil shapes with the bow on the strings. The notation here is similar to Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression for solo cello where the fingerboard is represented as a clef; the actions notate the position and movement of the bow in relation to where it takes place on the fingerboard.12 The second type is a more fragmentary music derived from data taken from the sigil shapes themselves. This music is constructed by analysing the characteristics of the sigils and by using a combinatory algorithm to determine eight parameters. In spite of the automatic procedures and the almost ‘atomic’ level of detail, these two types of music are set within minute-long miniatures where silence and stillness (decided non-systematically) are used either to frame or interrupt. In addition to the contrabass stave an upper stave is included representing four degrees of improvisation: the first degree (seen in Figure 9.1, in the first two bars, above left), indicates that the score is to be played as notated; the fourth degree (final bar in Figure 9.1, below middle) indicates that the notation need not be regarded at all and that the performer may improvise in the style of the music notated. The two degrees in-between indicate increasing levels of deviation and/or embellishment of the music notated. I worked very closely with Adam Linson (a highly accomplished improviser in his own right) on the interpretation of the notation especially the changing degrees of improvisation as indicated in the upper stave.

12

Helmut Lachenmann, Pression (Breitkopf und Härtel: Wiesbaden 1972).

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Figure 9.1: Zaldua, Leideen Translationss, notation off recipe number 51 for contrabass: G Gilding of Silveer. The notation n shows the usse of the fingerrboard clef (upper left) w where the bow draws the sigil on the stringss which are ind dicated by roman numerrals. The upperr stave with the thick black lline shows fou ur different degrees of im mprovisation. Since S each min niature lasts onee minute, by im mplication each stave lassts twenty seconnds.

I will bbriefly describbe how recip pe number 220 (entitled ‘Another Formula’) w was realized as a an examplle of the geneeration of thee musical material. Thhe English trannslation of thee text reads: Take a Pttolemaic Stater,, for they contaiin copper in theeir composition n, and immerse iit; now the com mposition of the liquid for the iimmersion is th his:

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Chapter Nine lamellose alum, common salt, in vinegar for immersing; (make of) slimy thickness. After having immersed and at the moment when the melted metal has been cleaned with this composition, heat, then immerse, then take out, then heat.13

Using Gettings’ Dictionary I derived the following formula (Figure 9.2):

Figure 9.2: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, sigil formula for Leiden Papyrus X recipe number 20.

This interpretation consists of four lines; the first line is my version of the Greek for ‘Ptolomaic Stater’, as this could not be located anywhere in Gettings’ Dictionary. The second line contains a circle inside four dots (‘vinegar’), 14 in brackets is the square figure (‘lamellose alum’) 15 accompanied with the ‘X’ shape (‘salt’).16 The remaining two lines present a triangle with the wavy line (‘heat’).17 The data derived from each sigil formula was used to compose the contrabass music. I chose eight fundamental characteristics to yield eight ‘bits’ of data for each sigil:

13 The Leyden and Stockholm Papyri: Greco-Egyptian Chemical Documents From the Early 4th Century AD, ed. by William B. Jensen, trans. by Earle Radcliffe Caley (Cincinnati, Ohio: University of Cincinnati Press, 2008), p.23. 14 Gettings, p.278. 15 Ibid., p.47. 16 Ibid., p.224. 17 Ibid., p.133.

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1. Number of vertical lines 2. Number of horizontal lines 3. Number of cross-over points 4. Number of diagonal lines 5. Number of circles 6. Number of triangles 7. Number of points (or dots) 8. Are there ornaments (shorter lines, curls, wavy lines, etc.)?

This data was used to provide information on the musical parameters: playing technique (arco, col legno, pizzicato), dynamics, pitch, degree of improvisation, density of notes, and even if the material should be freely composed. The combination of these results yielded the musical material for each miniature. Figure 9.3 shows the pre-compositional sketch to derive and combine data for all eight processes.

Figure 9.3: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, pre-compositional sketch showing data derived from the sigils created from recipe number 20.

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Figure 9.4 shows the final composed version of this recipe:

Figure 9.4: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, notation of recipe number 20, ‘Another Formula’ for solo contrabass.

For some, this process could be reminiscent of an example of sonification as defined by Thomas Hermann: ‘the data-dependent generation of sound, if the transformation is systematic, objective and

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reproducible, so that it can be used as scientific method.’18 Hermann here describes sonification in purely algorithmic terms. Sonification extracts data either from sound, or from any other continuously active phenomena. This data is then mapped onto sonic media separate from the original source. In order to isolate precise aspects of the chosen phenomena the preferred practice—as implied by Hermann’s definition—avoids creative intervention. Avoiding interpretative changes to the result allows one to trace the sounding results back to the original data. For me this area of research places emphasis on the character a ‘target’ sonification has in relation to the original onto which it has been mapped. The algorithmic nature of sonification stresses the proximity between both origin, or source data, and target, or its sounding realization. Although Leiden Translations could in some ways be described as a sonification, this would only hold as far as the generation of material is concerned: it does not describe the way this material is positioned or set in the score, especially given my concern with the tension between the musical material and silence as described above. As useful as sonification might be as a paradigm for composition, it conforms to a conventional perspective of translation that views the target language as subservient to the original. The Russian structural linguist, Roman Jakobson, distinguishes three types of translation: 1. Intralingual translation or rewording: an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language; 2. Interlingual translation or translation proper: an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language; 3. Inter-semiotic translation or transmutation: an interpretation of verbal signs by means of nonverbal sign systems.19

From this list, the third most clearly describes interdisciplinary translation and the processes aimed at for this piece. Jakobson describes the creation of a work of art (especially that derived from a verbal text) as a transmutation via interpretation: non-verbal art forms (music, dance, 18

Thomas Hermann, ‘Sonification—A Definition’, at SONIFICATION.DE: Thomas Hermann’s research on Sonification, Data Mining and Ambient Intelligence (2010), [Accessed 10 June 2014]. 19 Roman Jakobson, ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation’, in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. by Lawrence Venuti (London: Routledge, 2004), pp.138-143 (p.114).

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cinema, painting) attach themselves to concepts within an original text and replace them with a system of signs. Clearly interlingual translation takes place between the alchemical recipes and British Sign Language (BSL), but within the context of an inter-semiotic translation. The translation from the English version of the Ancient Greek text into BSL was not as complex as its musical counterpart. BSL is the fourth indigenous language in the United Kingdom and there are specific differences between English and BSL, as Lauren Redhead, the translator recorded for the installation, explains: The biggest difference is in word order and the way that I communicate the information. Sign language is not the same in its grammar and syntax and it is not a word-for-word replacement for English.20

Where English has a subject-object structure, BSL has a topic-comment structure. In Redhead’s description: The important part of the sentence, or the main point, has to go at the beginning; in the alchemical recipes often the most important part was the process so therefore the verb was the thing that went at the beginning.21

One problem Redhead encountered was that some of the recipes did not contain a verb: It is very difficult to say anything in sign language without a verb. Often I had to talk to Alistair to work out the context of the recipe in order to be able to communicate it.22

The structure of a typical sentence in BSL often proved difficult to create not only due to missing verbs but also because much of the archaic terminology found in the recipes cannot be found in standard BSL vocabulary. The recipes needed to be ‘pre-translated’ before being interpreted properly in BSL; to get around this problem Redhead developed a strategy common in BSL interpretation: I decided to finger-spell the word the first time, and then to use a sign derived from the first letter, which is what you would normally do if 20

Lauren Redhead, Interview with the author, 19.03.2014. Ibid. 22 Ibid. 21

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interpreting a technical word that you don’t know […] I also used some signs based on things that Alistair was able to tell me either about the etymology of the word or about what the objects or the metals themselves were. So things like colour, where a substance may come from, and the reason for its having a certain name.23

Since this particular inter-linguistic translation relied on Redhead’s questioning the composer on the source of meaning of some words, and on her invention of signs derived from first letters, the whole process creates results, or ‘differences of voice’, not normally found in BSL usage. In his discussion of Jakobson, Derrida points to the presence of many voices, or linguistic systems in a single language. 24 Derrida uses the term ‘plurivocalities’—a term normally used to discuss narrative in literature: [T]here are, in one linguistic system, perhaps several languages or tongues. There is impurity in every language. This fact would in some way have to threaten every linguistic system’s integrity, which is presumed by each of Jakobson’s concepts […] if the unity of the linguistic system is not a sure thing, all of this conceptualisation around translation […] is threatened.25

Given the impure character of any language, spoken or otherwise, Derrida describes the complex process of translation, interdisciplinary or otherwise, as one that involves a ‘semiotic of decentered transformations’26 rather than a simple process of one-dimensionally re-encoding any given text. For Derrida, writing is considered as a ‘constantly transformed and transformative activity’. 27 My understanding of the phrase ‘decentered semiotics’ relates to the translator’s understanding and usage of both source and target languages and acknowledges the existence of difference in each speaker. This understanding can never be regarded as coming from a privileged ‘centre’ as, for Derrida, language contains impurities, or foreign elements, which have the potential to create dynamic and liminal spaces of meaning. All the stages of translation that occurred in Leiden 23

Ibid. Jacques Derrida, ‘Roundtable on Translation’, in The Ear of the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation. Texts and Discussion With Jacques Derrida, ed. by Claude Levesque and Christie McDonald (New York: Schocken Books, 1988), pp.91-162 (p.100). 25 Ibid. 26 Derrida, p.96. 27 Derrida, p.98. 24

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Translations exemplify this decenteredness and highlight the degree, or lack, of knowledge and experience of both source and target languages in the translators themselves. Derrida traces the origins of linguistic plurivocality in the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, which he regards as the first translation. He derives his compound term, disschemination, to describe the reason for the unbridgeable gaps between two languages in more differentiated terms. Read in the original ancient Hebrew, the word Shem, the name of the tribe that decided to erect the tower, ‘already means “name”: Shem equals name’.28 The intention of the Shem people is to build a monument to make a name for themselves and to further establish universal power via the singularity of their language. This is divinely punished and, in Derrida’s narrative, God condemns mankind to a baffling multiplicity of languages which confounds their speech, alienates the people, and scatters mankind from the tower. The word Babel itself becomes untranslatable as it can be taken both as a noun and as a proper name; this lack of clarity allows it to both be understood as, and signify, confusion. Disschemination is applied to explain how the distances and differences arise between an original text and its translation. Derrida provides four meanings for this word: 1. As being against the Shem (de-Shemitising) as a proper name—against the act of ‘naming’ itself 2. Dissemination 3. De-schematisation: against making plans 4. De-routing, or diverting from a path: chemin (French) means road or path.29

This complex of notions within disschemination does not only apply to interlingual translation (from recipe to BSL), but also to inter-semiotic translation as outlined above. Further examples of disschemination are also demonstrable in the way that the film aspect of the work was considered: liminality, the difficulties of naming, dissemination, decentredness, distance, and diversion become almost celebrated rather than concealed. Film artist Adam Hodgkins describes his attraction to this collaborative project in the hidden potential of marrying the opposition of an arcane language with processes that are specifically from the twentieth and 28 29

Ibid. Ibid., p.103.

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twenty-first centuries, such as automatic, algorithmic procedures and their random access to a database of short one-minute long films. 30 For Hodgkins the dialogue of sound and image is essential to the experience of film and video work. When placed in a gallery space sound is an inescapable part of an installation; eyes can shut out an image and, unless a viewer physically leaves the room, sound cannot be fully avoided. For Hodgkins, ‘sound claims space’.31 Hodgkins stresses how the history of sound and image in moving image has influenced the choices made in this work despite the fact that the shots are very simple, almost static, and without changes of focus, and their all being one minute in length recalls a duration common to early film. In their visualization of the world the expressive immediacy of both early film and video art is one Hodgkins finds energizing, and the way early cinema frames and positions its actors is pivotal to this experience: In early cinema the compositions are very theatrical and the actors are often full body, as if they were on a stage. That was the medium they were using as their base-line. As cinema becomes more confident, by 1901 you have films like The Big Swallow,32 or The Big Sneeze,33 where you will encounter the extreme close-up. It is the close-up which is cinema’s gift to art; it has changed the way art works now. You didn’t have something like the big close-up as a compositional device within art before cinema. So, the framing of each of these sequences is a kind of journey from the theatrical framing to the big close-up. There is an added twist in that we have chosen to shoot in portrait mode, which is un-cinematic, but then again some of the early forms of cinema didn’t have the same shape of screen as we are used to now.34

From his analysis of early film and video, Hodgkins is concerned to frame his part of the collaboration from within a film vocabulary derived from these eras. As Walter Benjamin observes, translation extends the life of a text and facilitates the renewal and maturation of both the source and target languages as a direct consequence: 30

Adam Hodgkins, Interview with the author, 6.03.2014. Ibid. 32 James Williamson, The Big Swallow (Williamson Kinematograph Company: United Kingdom, 1901). 33 Fred Ott, The Big Sneeze (Edison Manufacturing Company: United States, 1894). 34 Adam Hodgkins, Interview with the author, 6.03.2014. 31

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Chapter Nine Translation is so far removed from being the sterile equation of two dead languages that of all literary forms it is the one charged with the special mission of watching over the maturing process of the original language and the birth pangs of its own.35

For inter-semiotic translation, this observation can further the understanding of Derrida’s disschemination in the installation. Not only can one speak of the three main languages (BSL, contrabass performance, and writing), but the methods of framing and proximity to the camera also play their role in how Hodgkins’ visual language is composed. All the films were captured in portrait orientation and together represent different phases of a close-up. In the contrabass films the whole musician can be seen, he is framed by the floor and the curtain above his head; in the BSL films the camera frames the body from the knees to just above the head; the writing films close in on the small and intimate space of the pencil drawing the sigil formulae. As already stated, in the installation one either sees a single film or two films next to each other (Figure 9.5 and Figure 9.6). Viewed horizontally both portrait orientation films (Figure 9.6) resemble a single strip of film. Whether intended or not this is reminiscent of a structural approach to film-making, such as in the work of Paul Sharits or William Raban. In so doing Hodgkins extends the life of these third-century alchemical recipes into the film vocabulary of structural film. The quality of the films as determined by Hodgkins has a certain graininess of image; this rawness of the aesthetic was drawn out of discussions between Hodgkins and myself. For Hodgkins, current video art has tended to become highly polished and has followed the production values of mainstream film, a development that he regrets. Hodgkins describes his approach as follows: We purposefully adopted an aesthetic which is stripped down, raw and simple in terms of the composition, that uses single—and not multiple— takes, and in terms of the rawness of the image, the harshness of the lighting, and the muted nature of the colours.36

35

Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’, in Illuminations, trans. by Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1969), p.73. 36 Adam Hodgkins, Interview with the author, 6.03.2014.

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Figure 9.5: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, still of installation showing contrabass (Adam Linson) coupled with a blank (dark) screen, © Adam Hodgkins (2014), reproduced by kind permission.

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Figure 9.6: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, still of installation showing writing (Alistair Zaldua) coupled with BSL interpretation (Lauren Redhead), © Adam Hodgkins (2014), reproduced by kind permission.

The raw and minimalist film aesthetic, informed by lo-tech production values derived from early film and video, is applied actively in his interpretation and translation of this piece into film. There are almost always problems when placing musicians in front of a camera, as this presents unexpected challenges even for experienced performers. Hodgkins elaborates on some of the techniques that he used during the shoot as a director:

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My directorial input was in terms of creating an atmosphere within which the musicians and the performers—who are not used to the situation—are naturalized with being in front of a camera. It is the off-camera work: helping them feel fine, helping their poise, delivery, movement, and then play games to ensure that what they are doing is what you want them to do. In some instances it was about being more natural, in other instances it was about being more stylized and slightly artificial.37

To extend this last point, one such game was the challenge to write the formulae ‘upside-down’ (Figure 9.7); placed in front of the writer the camera captures the writing the ‘right-way up’ and this was demanded by Hodgkins, despite the author having practised writing the sigil formulae every day for a month previous to the shoot. For Hodgkins, the implementation of unexpected and creative challenges whilst the performers are being filmed does create added energies to the final mix that would not have existed otherwise. Conventional translation theory has tended to frame its discourse in terms of how a target language faithfully serves every meaning a source language contains. This view often ignores the passages and processes that exist between both languages. The implication that both languages develop during translation, as for Benjamin, implies the existence of a potentially dynamic space. Derrida describes the nature of this space as plurivocal, and a perspective of translation which is decentred, and he offers his complex notion of disschemination to unpack the causes for this. The intercultural space opened up by disschemination offers perspectives that are highly critical of the conventional understanding of translation, especially regarding its essentially binary perspective of source and target languages. This change of perspective suggests that the space dividing both languages is itself potentially transformative. This space, otherwise known as ‘the interstitial zone of translation’, 38 has been discussed and developed by theorists like Paolo Bartoloni and Homi Bhabha both of whom are critical of the conventional—and for Bhabha, as a post-colonial thinker, imperialist—conception of translation. To allow this interstitial zone of translation to emerge, the necessity of a goal oriented movement progressing from one state to another would need eradicating. Once the teleology inherent in translation is removed then the idea of something 37

Ibid. Paolo Bartoloni, ‘Translation Studies and Agamben’s Theory of the Potential’, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 5 (2003), 1-10 (p.5). 38

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becoming something different, of erasing itself continuously in order to arrive at a fixed target, is bypassed. While it is true that the three, or four if Adam Linson as improvising contrabassist is also included, translators produce translations—i.e. end results derived from a ‘foreign’ text—the framing, arcane context, and randomization they are subject to, to a great extent, relativizes these results as opposed to a situation where absolute translations are constructed. For me, this installation presents a literally suspended set of translations-as-portraits; liminality of meaning is, if not immediately apparent, latent or potential within every unfolding situation.

Figure 9.7: Zaldua, Leiden Translations, the author writing the sigil formulae. From the writer’s perspective each formula had to be written upside down for the image to be captured correctly, © Adam Hodgkins (2014), reproduced by kind permission.

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Bartoloni argues that liminality of knowledge created during translation suggests a revised concept of movement peculiar to the interstitial zone of translation. For him this is ‘predicated upon a movement that does not go anywhere outside but that keeps on moving within the inherently dynamic borders of the interstices’.39 As a process of bringing two cultures together the interstitial zone is a moment of cultural hybridity predicated upon a dynamic of becoming. Bartoloni includes Homi Bhabha’s concept of the ‘Third Space’ 40 into this discussion which Bhabha defines as the interstitial space and time of cultural hybridization. I add this final quote from Bhabha as a comment upon the results so far of Leiden Translations and as a perspective that may shed light on future work involving intersemiotic translation: Translation is the performative nature of cultural communication. […] The ‘time’ of translation consists of that movement of meaning, the principle and practice of communication that in the words of de Man ‘puts the original in motion to decanonise it, giving it the movement of fragmentation, a wandering of errancy, a kind of permanent exile.’41

It would be going too far to argue that Leiden Translations presents a successful example of cultural hybridization as described by both Bartoloni and Bhabha. What I hope to have achieved is an installation that at least raises questions regarding cultural plurivocality, and the liminality, or relativization inherent to inter-semiotic translation.

Acknowledgements All musical examples are © Alistair Zaldua and reproduced by kind permission of the composer.

39

Bartoloni, p.4. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (Routledge: London, 1994), p.38. 41 Bhabha, p.228. 40

CHAPTER TEN SUBJECTIFYING THE OBJECTIVE: MATHEMATICAL PROCESSES AND THE SEARCH FOR BALANCE STEVE GISBY

Mathematical processes have been at the heart of my work as a composer for the last six years. Hearing Tom Johnson perform Abundant Numbers, from his series Music for 88 (1988), during a seminar in London in February 2009 brought some clarity and direction to ideas that I had been working with at the time, and these concepts have formed the basis of my music ever since. In more recent years, I have developed particular interests in combinatorial processes, and in the juxtaposition of strict logical systems with elements of indeterminacy. The latter of these stems from ongoing research into the dynamics of ensemble performance. In Part 1 of this chapter, I provide an aesthetic and historical context for my work. Drawing on the music and writings of Tom Johnson and Steve Reich, I discuss the particular influences on my own thinking and approach to composition, from Johnson’s articles on ‘found’ mathematical objects,1 to a number of Reich’s assertions in his 1968 essay, ‘Music as a Gradual Process’.2 I also address, from a personal perspective, some of the issues surrounding working with these compositional techniques, including questions of expression and identity.

1

Tom Johnson, ‘Found Mathematical Objects’, Editions 75 (2001), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 2 Steve Reich, ‘Music as a Gradual Process’, in Writings on Music (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp.34-36.

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In Part 2, I offer five pieces of my own as examples of process compositions: Coming Home (2010) for percussion ensemble, Symmetry | Reflection (2011) for duo, Point To Line (2012) for tape, Fragmented Melodies (2014) for solo or ensemble, and Iterative Music (2014) also for tape. Each of these pieces is analysed in terms of process and musical material. I also discuss some issues relating to performance and perception. In the conclusion, I consider various questions that arise as a result of working with mathematical processes, including the balance between a personal act of creativity and the potentially impersonal nature of such an approach, as well as why it is that working with such ideas holds interest for me. This chapter is not intended to be a comprehensive discussion or analysis of all the topics, musical as well as philosophical, surrounding composing with mathematical processes. Instead, I offer a personal take on the subject, drawing on some of my own work for the purposes of illustration.

Part 1 To begin, it makes sense to give an outline of the kinds of processes and ideas that I have been working with for the last few years. I will then examine these concepts in greater detail in the second part of the chapter, in the context of some of my own music. In his book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, Michael Nyman offers the following categories of processes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Chance determination processes People processes Contextual processes Repetition processes Electronic processes3

To this list, in his article ‘Process as Means and End in Minimalist and Postminimalist Music’, Galen H. Brown adds mathematical processes. 4 3

Michael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 4 Galen H. Brown, ‘Process as Means and End in Minimalist and Postminimalist Music’, Perspectives of New Music 48 (2010), 180-192.

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These, Brown suggests, include those based on the ‘manipulation of pitch and rhythmic materials through permutation, addition, subtraction, multiplication of durations, changes in rate, etc.’.5 It is the second, and to a certain degree also the fourth, of Nyman’s categories, as well as those described by Brown, that interest me. Within my more recent work, as I later discuss, I make use of additive and subtractive processes, combinatorial processes, repetitive processes, and people processes. To date, and certainly in the music presented here, my two most significant influences have been Tom Johnson and Steve Reich: Johnson with his highly ordered, logical approach to composition, as well as the idea of ‘perceptible processes’ that Reich refers to in ‘Music as a Gradual Process’.6

Found Mathematical Objects Tom Johnson has written a number of articles and essays on the subject of composing using ‘found mathematical objects’. The use of the term ‘found’ associates this approach with Marcel Duchamp’s concept of ‘objet trouvé’, or ‘readymade’ art. In ‘Found Mathematical Objects’, Johnson describes this approach as, ‘[f]ind an object, any object, declare it a work of art, and it is a work of art.’ He later suggests that, ‘it is now quite natural that a composer or artist might choose to work with a found mathematical object, like Pascal’s triangle, or the Narayana sequence or some automaton [...].’7 In ‘Explaining my Music: Keywords’, he observes ‘how these things provide a means of avoiding subjective decisions and permitting objective logical deductions’.8 Such an approach is at the core of Johnson’s work as a composer, and is also at the heart of my own music. Johnson has used a wide variety of mathematical objects as the basis for pieces, including structures and systems discovered or devised by, amongst others, Blaise Pascal, Natayana Pandita, Marin Mersenne, and Leonhard Euler. Steve Reich also touched 5

Ibid., p.186. Reich, p.34. 7 Tom Johnson, ‘Found Mathematical Objects’, in Editions 75 (2001), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 8 Tom Johnson, ‘Explaining my Music: Keywords’, in Editions 75 (1999),

[Accessed 5 January 2016]. 6

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on the idea of ‘found’ objects when, in ‘Music as a Gradual Process’, he made reference to ‘discovering’ a musical process: ‘discovered’ as opposed to created.9 The indeterminate and aleatoric procedures of John Cage, and the intention of removing oneself and one’s subjective tastes from the creation of a work are perhaps at the extreme end of using ‘found’ objects and processes. Rather than the self and subjectivity being entirely absent from my work and Johnson’s, I feel the use of mathematical processes unavoidably involves elements of subjectivity: why choose to work with one process over another? How, once that choice has been made, is the process then rendered as music? My purpose here is to outline the ideas and initial questions that result when creating music with found mathematical objects. In the conclusion of this chapter, I discuss what it is that draws me to working with such material and, from a personal viewpoint, address these questions and implications in relation to my own music. To the best of my knowledge, none of my own works to date use processes or systems that bear the name of a mathematical or musical discoverer or inventor. I have no training as a mathematician, and I acknowledge the possibility that some of the processes used in my work may have already been documented by, and are attributed to, others. Any omission of accreditation is due to the limitations of my knowledge, rather than a belief or claim that I ‘found’ the object.

Process and Autonomy Returning to Nyman’s list of different types of processes, he states that people processes, ‘allow the performers to move through given or suggested material each at his own speed’.10 Combining some degree of freedom, as suggested by this notion of people processes, with the strict rigour of mathematical systems has been an increasing area of interest for me. Reich states that, ‘[o]ne can’t improvise in a musical process—the concepts are mutually exclusive.’11 This does not, in my opinion, mean that these two ideas are incompatible. I believe it all depends on where one sets the parameters of a process: how the process determines the material itself; or how the material is used. Two of my own pieces, Coming Home 9

Reich, p.34. Nyman, p.6. 11 Reich, p.36. 10

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and Symmetry | Reflection, feature some degree of autonomy for performers with regards to the number of repetitions they play of different patterns. In the series Iterative Music, I permit myself, as the composer, significant freedom with the choice of material that is run through the process. As I later discuss, these ideas do not, I believe, undermine or contradict Reich’s assertion. Related to the subject of performer autonomy is another area of my research, although one that is not directly connected with mathematical processes: the issue of ensemble dynamics. As a performer myself, I am interested in the ways in which ensembles interact, how they find a balance between dependence and independence on collective and on individual levels, and particularly the unexpected challenges that certain musical material and performance situations can present. The next part of this chapter combines some of the ideas I am developing about ensemble dynamics with my discussion of mathematical processes in the context of specific compositions.

Part 2 Coming Home (2010) is the first piece for which I consciously used a strict mathematical process. It is scored for two or more unpitched percussion instruments. The process is a catalogue: using semiquaver notes and semiquaver note rests, the music works through all of the patterns possible within the durational unit of a crotchet note. There are four 1-note patterns, six 2-note patterns, four 3-note patterns, and one 4note pattern (Figure 10.1). Each pattern is bracketed by repeat bars, with performers free to choose how many repetitions of each pattern they play, within a range of eight to sixteen times. Once the 4-note pattern is reached, the process then runs in retrograde and the piece ends where it began—with the silent pattern. All performers begin Pattern 1 at the same moment, share the same underlying pulse throughout, and yet proceed through the patterns at their own rate. The piece ends when the final performer has completed their chosen number of repetitions of the final pattern.

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Figure 10.1: Gisby, Coming Home, the first sixteen patterns.

Returning to Reich’s assertion regarding processes and improvisation, the idea of having a variable number of repetitions does not, I believe, constitute improvising ‘in’ a process. The process in Coming Home is simply the working through of all the permutations as previously described. The piece is a combination of process and improvisation, but the rigour of the process remains unaffected by the freer approach to repetition. The phase pieces of Reich, 12 the works of his to which his assertion is most relevant, use process as a means of gradual transition. Coming Home is different in that the process dictates the sequence of the patterns, to a certain degree, but does not control the precise movement from one to the next. Within the process as it is used here, there is significant scope for variation. There are 24 possible permutations for the order of Patterns 2 to 5: 1. 2. 3.

2345 2354 2435

12 Steve Reich, It’s Gonna Rain (1965); Come Out (1966); Piano Phase (1967); Violin Phase (1967).

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200 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

2453 2534 2543 3245 3254 3425 3452 3524 3542 4235 4253 4325 4352 4523 4532 5234 5243 5324 5342 5423 5432

This rises to 720 possibilities for Patterns 6 to 11. Ultimately, the precise ordering of the patterns in Coming Home was subjective, decided using trial and error to determine which sequence, for me, yielded the most interesting results. Coming Home presents an interesting challenge for performers. Due to the constantly shifting combinations of the patterns, and the nature of the patterns themselves, the downbeat can be very hard to follow at times. Although the whole ensemble shares a common pulse, from a perceptual point of view there is a tendency to gravitate towards the downbeat implied by the lowest instrument. Even if all the instruments have a more consistent register and timbre, a dominance of patterns that do not involve playing on the first semiquaver note can create a misleading sense of where the downbeat is. A very effective solution to this issue was developed by the percussion ensemble of California State University at Long Beach, under the direction of Dave Gerhart, for a performance in 2013. Half of the ensemble fixed their number of repeats up until Pattern 6, thus providing a backbone at the start of the piece that was the same for each performance. At Pattern 6, with the first entry of two beats within the same part, a clearer sense of pulse was established and the ensemble then continued the piece with each performer having individual freedom regarding repetition.

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Symmetry | Reflection (2011) makes use of the same idea of variable repetition as featured in Coming Home. It is a partly open instrumentation requiring a duo of pitched instruments, and was first performed by Luis C. Rivera and Justin Alexander at the University of South Alabama at Mobile in September 2014. The piece is built on all the combinations of ascending and descending scales, with the rule that the two scales must have a minimum of one pitch in common (Figure 10.2).

Figure 10.2: Gisby, Symmetry | Reflection, the seven basic structures.

Each of these scales is then either constructed or deconstructed using a process of either addition or subtraction. The additive process sees each pattern being extended by one beat at a time, starting with just one (Figure 10.3).

Figure 10.3: Gisby, Symmetry | Reflection, the additive process.

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There are two possibilities with regard to the placement of the new pitches, as well as two regarding direction. Firstly: is the new pitch added to the beginning of the end of the pattern? Secondly: is the new pitch higher or lower than the adjacent note? Thus, there are four permutations of the process for each scale structure: 1. 2. 3. 4.

An ascending scale is gradually constructed A descending scale is gradually constructed An ascending scale is gradually deconstructed A descending scale is gradually deconstructed

Although, as I have already stated, Symmetry | Reflection uses the same approach to repetition as Coming Home, in this later piece the patterns are not all contained within a single durational unit. The performers are therefore not guaranteed to share a downbeat, other than at the very beginning of each new structure. It is, of course, a mathematical possibility that they may end up doing so at one or more points during a performance, but it is by no means a certainty. Point To Line (2012) is a piece for tape, realized using piano samples. An 88-note cluster (A0 to C8) undergoes a gradual process of displacement so that, one pitch at a time, it slowly becomes an 88-note chromatic scale. The piece was constructed in Logic using a bar with the time signature of 88/16. In the first bar, the full 88-note cluster is heard on the first semiquaver note beat. In bar 2, the highest pitch (C8) is displaced one semiquaver note to the right, thus the cluster is now 87 pitches (A0 to B7). In the third bar, C8 is displaced once again, now onto the third semiquaver note beat, the second highest pitch (B7) moves onto beat two, and the cluster reduces to 86 pitches. Over a single octave, the process runs as illustrated in Figure 10.4. In Point To Line, the process unfolds across the full register of the piano keyboard until finally, in the 88th bar, the pitches are heard as an unbroken chromatic scale. The realization of this piece, created in Logic, used the fastest tempo available: 999bpm. As a result, it ceases to be possible to hear the process as anything other than an effect, being too fast to hear the pitches individually.

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Figure 10.4: Gisby, Point To Line, the process over one octave.

Like Coming Home, the process in Fragmented Melodies (2014) takes place within a fixed unit or duration—in this instance, a bar of four crotchet notes. This is then divided equally in half: four quaver note beats and four quaver note rests. The rhythmic material was conceived of as binary patterns, with ‘1’ representing a quaver note beat and ‘0’ being a quaver note rest. Beginning with 11110000, the process runs in reverse binary order. The opening eight patterns are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

11110000 11101000 11100100 11100010 11100001 11011000 11010100 11010010

 The process continues through all seventy combinations until arriving at 00001111. The pitch material in Fragmented Melodies is an ascending E dorian scale, with notes fixed to specific beats regardless of whether or not those beats are played within a given pattern (Figure 10.5).

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Figure 10.5: Gisby, Fragmented Melodies, basic scale material.

Thus the eight patterns listed above are heard as illustrated in Figure 10.6.

Figure 10.6: Gisby, Fragmented Melodies, opening eight patterns.

This piece can be performed solo or by an ensemble of any size and combination of instruments. If performed by more than one player, the melodies can be unison, or doubled (or more) in successive octaves in either direction. Fragmented Melodies was premiered by D. Edward Davies and Antoine Beuger in Düsseldorf, Germany, in August 2014. Started in 2014, Iterative Music is an ongoing series of pieces that all share an identical additive structure. In 2012 I received an invitation from David McIntyre to submit a piece for a project he was curating on his Irritable Hedgehog record label. He had recorded several audio files of improvisation using an EMS VCS 3 ‘Putney’ synthesizer and the project’s only remit was that these had to be used as the sound source for the new compositions. In David’s own words, ‘there are no restrictions as to length or how you use it. Re-mix, re-mash. Add beats. Subtract overtones, and undertones. Overdub guitar solos. Layer in twelve tubas. Put it in a blender and hit frappé.’13 Given the nature of the audio material—timbres and pitches largely unquantifiable by any traditional means—it was impossible to divide it up 13

David McIntyre (email to the author, 23 October 2014).

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in any other systematic way, and the process behind Iterative Music is based solely on units of duration. The process involves taking a short extract of audio material and then dividing it into five equal segments (Figure 10.7).

Figure 10.7: Gisby, Iterative Music, segmentation of audio material.

Within Logic, an empty loop of the same duration as the short extract was then created. In the first pattern of the piece, the opening four segments of the loop are initially silent, with the first segment heard at the very end (Figure 10.8).

Figure 10.8: Gisby, Iterative Music, the first pattern.

Having repeated this loop eight times, the first segment is then displaced on step to the left, and the second segment is introduced at the end (Figure 10.9).

Figure 10.9: Gisby, Iterative Music, first displacement and addition.

This process continues, with eight repetitions of the loop every time a new segment is added, until the original extract is heard in full (Figure 10.10).

Figure 10.10: Gisby, Iterative Music, end point.

Using the same process, a further four extracts are superimposed on one another. Once the mid-way point of the piece has been reached, when all

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five extracts are heard simultaneously in full, the process then becomes one of subtraction (Figure 10.11).

Figure 10.11: Gisby, Iterative Music, process of subtraction.

This process continues, one segment at a time, each extract reduced in a similar way to that of Coming Home. The difference here is that the last sound to be heard is the very last segment of the fifth layer which, by the end of the piece, is at the start of the loop. There is also a similarity with Symmetry | Reflection in the way that Iterative Music combines both additive and subtractive processes. Although, as with Coming Home, this all takes place within fixed durational units. Compared to either of the earlier pieces, there is a key difference with Iterative Music in that, even if the basic process has been correctly perceived by the listener, there is no possibility of predicting exactly what musical material each new step in process will bring—the piece is simultaneously predictable and unpredictable. To return, briefly, to the list offered by Nyman mentioned in Part 1: Iterative Music does not, I believe, fall within the definition of his fifth category—that of being based on an electronic process. Although these particular pieces are, by the nature of the audio material, dependent on electronics for their realization, the same process could just as easily be carried out using acoustic instruments and different material. Strict, logical processes are, it could be argued, highly impersonal. As mentioned earlier, Tom Johnson has said, ‘these things provide a means of avoiding subjective decisions and permitting objective logical deductions.’ 14 Reich also touches on this issue when he observes that processes, ‘determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall form simultaneously’, as well as pointing out that, ‘once the process is set up and loaded it runs by itself.’15 Using them as the basis for musical composition therefore raises a question: what is it that is being expressed?

14 15

Johnson, ‘Explaining my Music’. Reich, p.34.

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There are two points at which personal, and therefore subjective, choices need to be made when working with processes: the choice of the process itself, and the choice of musical material. Of course, it may be the case that one influences, or even determines, the other; as Reich states, ‘[m]aterial may suggest what sort of process it should be run through [...] and processes may suggest what sort of material should be run through them.’16 I am interested in the balance between the objective nature of mathematical processes and the subjective roles of the composer and performer. I have tried—and will unavoidably yet unintentionally in the future try—to write music based on processes that I find fascinating, only to discover that the resulting music holds no interest for me at all. I am not willing to arbitrarily accept the outcome of using a process, and have no desire to create a musical work to which I feel no personal connection. At one extreme of the line connecting expression and non-expression, at the point of avoiding expression completely, must surely be the act of doing nothing, of bringing nothing new into existence at all. From this position, even the smallest of steps towards the opposite end of the line, towards an act of creation based on unrestricted free expression, inevitably involves a subjective choice being made. Even if the result of that initial step is to create a work using objective mathematical processes, it is nevertheless a subjective choice not only to have brought something into existence using these methods as opposed to others, but indeed to have decided to bring something new into existence at all. Given my unwillingness to necessarily accept the results of running material through a process, two further questions arise: 1. 2.

Why use certain processes? Why use certain material?

For me, these two questions are inextricably linked. As stated, I am always looking for a balance between structure and sound, therefore a finished piece must combine both in a way that is interesting. Of course, what constitutes ‘interesting’ is highly subjective. The composer Richard Glover once asked me what I meant by the word after I’d used it during a presentation on Iterative Music. In reply, I said, ‘I don’t know. But I know it when I hear it.’ On the one hand, this is a very 16

Ibid.

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vague answer, revealing nothing within itself. On the other hand, it connects directly to a fundamental point in my approach to composition: that of there being room for subjectivity in the ways in which I use objective processes, and the balance between the personal and the impersonal. I am drawn to a combination of procedural rigour and intuitive appeal. Combinatorial processes can quite quickly yield large numbers of permutations, which potentially present two challenges. The first of these regards the initial clarity of the process: I want the structure of the music to be as clear as possible, which can require judicious choices of musical material in order to achieve this. Secondly is the matter of sustaining interest, both for listeners and performers. Some processes become progressively harder to follow the further they unfold. With a closed process, such a Coming Home, this is not an issue. With an open process, which could potentially continue indefinitely, there will be choices to make about how far to allow it to run. Depending on the instrumentation, this might be dictated by the physical limits of the instruments. It can also be governed by performer stamina, of course. As a listener, I am drawn to pieces where I have a strong sense of what it is I’m listening to. To return to the two earlier questions, for me it is about ensuring that the process doesn’t obscure the material, and the material doesn’t obscure the process. As previously discussed, both Coming Home and Symmetry | Reflection pose challenges for the performers with regard to ensemble dynamics. My interest in this area connects to my work as a performer, and focuses on collective improvisation. I am fascinated by the balance of dependence in independence in autonomous ensembles, and in the differences between expectation and reliance. My research examines what the requirements are for being a good ensemble performer, and how these skills can be developed. I am interested in how ensembles listen, think, and move collectively. Mathematical processes provide, for me, a sense of calm. Their immutable nature allows for the creation of structures that are completely transparent: there are no secrets. They fully reveal themselves, leaving me free to engage with them on my own terms. I find a deep connection with what Tom Johnson referred to in ‘Explaining My Music: Keywords’ when he talked about, ‘something that doesn’t try to manipulate my emotions’.17 I find beauty in the predictability of mathematical processes. They 17

Johnson, ‘Explaining my Music’.

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unyieldingly permit no diversions, no digressions. They exist independent of time and place. Yet to be turned into music they require the touch of a composer, and this unavoidably involves idiosyncratic choices. This balance between the impersonal and the personal is central to my approach to composition. The timeless nature of mathematical objects: where do they come from? Who, or what, created them in order that they might be ‘found’? The individual nature of identity: why is it that I am drawn to certain processes and material but not others? What, and where, is the point of equilibrium between the subjective and the objective?

Acknowledgements All musical examples are © Steve Gisby and reproduced by kind permission of the composer.

CHAPTER ELEVEN ‘I AM JUST PRACTISING’: A PERSONAL CONVERSATION AMONG THE BOUNDARIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES OF CURRENT MUSICOLOGIES CHARLOTTE PURKIS

Music studies and their connections to music have undergone sustained re-examination over the last few decades, and ‘critical musicology’ has reshaped the discipline. 1 Musicological processes are now more diverse than ever due to the fallout from dialogues between competing models for analysing music and the scope of the territories with which musicology intersects. This chapter argues that ‘creative musicology’ is in emergence as an extension and reframing of the work of critical musicology. Creative musicology seeks to demonstrate ways of relating critical studies to the subjectivities inherent within the creative act of music-making itself, rather than relating only to a constructed musical ‘object’. In highlighting roles that writing practices such as fictocriticism, storytelling, flux-writing, selfreflexivity, autobiography, and performative writing are playing in current approaches to understanding music, in this chapter I weave a fabric of questioning to display how imaginative reflection is extending musical reception within musicology. I suggest how connections to writerly experimentation from the other performing arts inform models of practiceas-research applicable to the processes constructing the discipline, as much as to the processes of its products. Explicit in this argument is that 1

Dai Griffiths, ‘What Was, or Is, Critical Musicology?’, Radical Musicology, 5 (2010), [Accessed 5 January 2016].

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musicology is itself a creative process; implicit is that personal musicologies, as their processes develop, foreground this dimension. What follows is intended as a defence of writing which constitutes, rather than explains, artistic creativity, and inhabits a research process which, akin to the practices of playing/making/listening to music, may also be essentially performative. How to write about music always seems to be in question. The decentering of music, caused by continual writing around and self-critique, brings to mind the issue of how central ‘music’ is now to musicology.2 Is this a helpful comment or an unnecessary one? For me, meaningmaking is central to my processes as an ‘academic’ writer, and musicology is involved in making meaning. Surely, without music there can be no musicology? Is musicology as a discipline a product of the creative arts, or a process running alongside them, or is it hiding somewhere uneasily in-between? The discipline area concerns performance, imagination, and experience: all of which are qualities central to ‘musicking’ in Christopher Small’s definition. 3 Miranda Tuffnell and Chris Crickmay’s A Widening Field declared itself a ‘handbook for working in the creative arts’ and concerned itself with the poetics of experience in that field, ‘in which we perceive and experience our lives’.4 They wrote about the need to move ‘out of our heads and into the present moment of what is within and around us’.5 Such active kinetic visions of creativity accept process as product. Every individual can be considered the product of experience, and their writing comes from within themselves. This may be done well—by their or someone else’s standards—or it may be done clumsily. Responses may connect with the experiences of others, or, they may not. The words of others trapped out of context within my writing, may not be within the boundaries of your musicology, or they might be. Whichever it is, some of these words may be provocative, instrumental, and productive for you; 2 Kevin Korsyn, Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 3 Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1998). 4 Miranda Tuffnell and Chris Crickmay, A Widening Field: Journeys in Body and Imagination (Hampshire: Dance Books Ltd, 2003), p.ix. 5 Ibid.

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equally, you may not know what to make of their expression. Perhaps you will trace some resonances into your musicological activities? The process that has led to the product you have before you has been ‘creative’, relatively speaking, if you will forgive any unintended arrogance by this claim. I mean compared with the usual expected ways for approaching writing for an academic publication. Its approach is inspired by the permissiveness of the Creative Writing field right now, which has invoked practice which is ‘much more flexible than writing an academic paper’ and enabled trajectories of exploration in which material can develop in its own way.6 No process of understanding or deployment of methodologies for talking about music can be fixed, but assumptions about what is appropriate can be fixed. Thinking about one’s musicological journey has not got an explicit place within the discipline but this is changing as subjectivities are being foregrounded—even cautiously welcomed. Relationships between experiences and their expressions are complex, as the musicologist Martin Clayton has recognized: because musicological discourse does not only comment on practice and experience; it is not merely parasitical. It also influences that very practice and experience, insofar as musicians and listeners are aware of it.7

AN ASSIGNMENT designed to situate this chapter as a work-in-progress8 Collect the words of others to express the range of intentions currently on the musicological market for approaching/understanding/expressing/ criticizing/appreciating/analysing music from a/any creative perspective and also, where possible, identify to which music/s such a perspective is responding. Write something which makes a case for musicology as a creative practice. 6

Hazel Smith, ‘The Erotics of Gossip: Fictocriticism, Performativity, Technology’, Continuum, 19 (2005), 403-412 (p.408). 7 Martin Clayton, ‘Comparing Music, Comparing Musicology’, in The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, ed. by Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert, and Richard Middleton (New York; London: Routledge, 2003), pp.86-95 (p.88). 8 Quite by coincidence the recent book Creative Criticism: An Anthology and Guide, ed. by Stephen Benson and Clare Connors (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014) takes a comparable starting point and discusses approaching assignments from a range of mindsets in its introduction, pp.1-47.

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This is a formative assessment, and it is intended that you will receive constructive personalized feedback. NOTES TO SELF It is entirely up to me how to approach this. Use lots of ‘I’ sentences (borrow their ‘I’s as I see fit, to make them fit to my agenda!!). Hooray, a polemical opportunity at last; a chance to consider if there could be a place for creative writing in the process of doing musicology. And I can define this all for myself, as I see fit without fear of critique. There might also be other ways that musicology is more than merely re-creative, and could be thought of as involving something ‘primary’ rather than just its set of secondary, parasitic acts. I think it will be important not to box things in too much (‘a’ case, not ‘the’ case). It seems to present a chance to find out what’s already there as a basis, not just what could be happening in the future. But, what can one person’s insights and experiences offer to others? I might hold back my own story then, but probably it will creep in. It is impossible to write objectively about something one cares about. Trawling through the related work of others will require perseverance, and it might really hold up my thinking, preventing some original ideas. Hopefully this will hold the reader’s attention, and of course, it’s scholarly. On the other hand, extending the territory of a topic beyond one’s own head is potentially quite stimulating, because using the ideas of others as a springboard suits the narcissistic tendency of the academic task, but writing it all up can still be rather tedious—both to do and to read. A START One place to start might be to invoke a well-respected scholar, such as Jann Pasler, —but please note: I cannot speak with her soft focus as I am not her, I can only quote, thus using her words to mirror her view of questioning,

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‘not so much about interrogating something as engaging in a certain way.’9 I know this is legitimate as it has indeed been normalized in all types of writing practices. Ah, Jann—if I may—do let me know if I am being true to your way; does my writerly spirit embody the ‘question-spaces’ you ‘look for’ which you have observed in the work of Susan McClary, and others?10 I know you borrowed this notion from your composer/theorist friend Ben Boretz.11 Although I am not a composer of music, only of words, I strive to know my spaces as an insider, not just your spaces only as an external reader, and thus to engage in debate as ‘with a work of art’ adding my ‘own “interests” to those of the artist’. Will I succeed? I think I can do it Jann; I can dice with chance, and yes I do confess I will take pleasure in it.12 The meaning of the music I will inscribe will indeed be ‘open and vibrating’ because I desire polyphony, alongside your and the other writers’ experiences on and through and with all musics. I grasp that what we think music means has been strangling us; yes, we need other engagements. Is ‘What does music, this music mean?’ really now less of a question than it once was? Is that because it has been answered so many times over or that it is unanswerable, because a question is now a space? Thank you for your invitation, Jann. I plan to be there at that promised gig—to ‘listen for music’s resonance in the world and, through music, to help us imagine our future.’13 [It’s possible to start in any number of places, engaging with another primary source. ‘There are a myriad ways in which to continue’, according to Benson and Connors, ‘to have one’s own words hold the words of others.’14

9

Jann Pasler, Writing Through Music: Essays on Music, Culture and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p.8. 10 Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). 11 Pasler explains in a footnote on p.8 that ‘question-spaces’ is a term she has taken from her private unpublished correspondence with the composer-theorist Benjamin Boretz about McClary’s work. 12 Pasler, pp.8-9. 13 Ibid., p.6. 14 Creative Criticism, p.27.

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(Go on then, you try! There are loads of ‘writers’ you can select from— here are some of my examples)]. REVERBERATIONS AND ECHOES, or CALL AND RESPONSE ...of course... ‘the musicologist’s persona is present behind his or her discourse’!15 That’s all very well, but how can I find out what it is? ‘It is a fact never to be forgotten that music makes profound sense to people who have never read a word of musicology.’16 Ooh-er… so does he mean I should be thinking the opposite of profound? ‘we might sometimes wish to harness the narrative or illustrative power of any of the several genres of creative writing.’17 Indeed, and some people are doing this. ‘While I am very far indeed from rejecting all, or even a significant portion of what musicologists do by way of analysis or evaluation, I am struck by how much does not receive their critical attention [...]’18 There is still a lot to write about, and a lot of ways to do it. ‘the best music writing [...] was never written with any eye to longevity.’ And so a new idea spread: as Marcus19 puts it, the notion of writing about music ‘passionately [...] as if it was the most important thing in the world, 15 Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Towards a Semiology of Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), p.201. 16 Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, ‘Musicology and Performance’, in Music’s Intellectual History: Founders, Followers and Fads, ed. by Zdravko Blazekovic (New York: Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, 2009), pp.791-804 (p.791). 17 Jonathan P. J. Stock, ‘New Directions in Ethnomusicology: Seven Themes Toward Disciplinary Renewal’, in The New (Ethno)Musicologies, ed. by Henry Stobart (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2008), pp.188-206 (p.196). 18 Edward Said, Musical Elaborations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p.xiii. 19 Greil Marcus, author of Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (London: Martin Secker and Warburg,1989). See also:

[Accessed 5 January 2016].

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as if the stakes were high, as if everything mattered. There were no rules. There was nobody there to tell you, “This is silly, this doesn’t make sense, this is too long, why are you connecting this with that?” There was no procedure. There was no such term as ‘rock criticism’, really. No one knew what they were doing.’20 High kicks! POST-IT NOTE What genres, which composers, musicians or particular pieces attract the writer rather than the musicologist (assuming there is a difference)? Short answer: John Cage, Wagner, Beethoven’s Ninth, Van Morrison, other pop, electronic; also film music. Sounds a bit vague but it will do for now. It’s not the which but the what happens around these examples that needs to be considered next. I’m still a little unclear: should I be looking for responses to music then which enable the music to speak? Or are the responses themselves going to be my narrators? Nicholas Cook’s suggestion that, ‘the real target for an educational agenda aimed at promoting creativity should not be one genre of music or another but rather the ways of thinking, talking, and writing about music that we have inherited from the 19th and 20th centuries’ is reassuring.21 But also scary. That’s a big agenda for review! METHODOLOGY: theoretical ideas The creation rather than the explication of meaning is now a given in reception studies. Is there a writing/thinking alliance which appears to offer the potential for the receiver to extend the creative work, matching and merging the creative-critical acts? For example, rather than setting up an opposition between the speculation of fiction and the explication of criticism, these could come together in what some term, ‘creative 20

John Harris, ‘Don’t Look Back’, The Guardian (Saturday 27 June 2009),

[Accessed 5 January 2016]. 21 Nicholas Cook, ‘Beyond Creativity?’, Afterword to Musical Imaginations: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by David Hargreaves and Dorothy Miell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp.451-459 (p.458).

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criticism’. The encounter ‘between the writer’s emergent, embodied subjectivity and what is written about’ interests Anna Gibbs, because, ‘the researcher is implicated in what is being written about.’ 22 She shares Schlunke and Brewster’s manifesto for fictocriticism because of the possibilities it offers for invention: As always when we begin to define or declare what fictocriticism is or is not, fictocriticism loses its purpose, which is first and foremost a space of possibility. There is even a touch of romance here—give me your awkward political phrases, your strange troubles with practice as theory, give me your passions about place in a global imagining, hand me your in-between beingness: all that is cast out from the lingering categories and I will give you a home here.23

The process of such writing can be dramatic, and it might be staged. This notion builds on how in Roland Barthes’ mind, critical text could be performance; commentators on Barthes have discussed the intertextual interplay in his writing in terms of theatricalization.24

METHODOLOGY: practical ideas In ‘scripting’ a process in order to share it, there will also be a disclosure of the self. For example, if a life is shared through a compilation of musical enthusiasms, the musical responses are part of the retellings: the music and the life become mutually inscripted. Why is it never known what music academic musicologists actually like to play or to listen to, whereas all sorts of people happily talk about the music they love?25 There are writers who share their musical enthusiasms. This difference between musicologists and others does seem to connect to the objectivity/subjectivity 22

Anna Gibbs, ‘Fictocriticism, Affect, Mimesis: Engendering Differences’, TEXT, 9 (2005) [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 23 Katrina Schlunke and Anne Brewster, ‘We Four: Fictocriticism Again’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 19 (2005), 393-395 (p.394). 24 For example: Michael Moriarty, Roland Barthes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), p.178. 25 Cook is also interested in the ‘virtual playlists we all carry around in our heads, which serve to define who we are both in our own eyes (and ears) and in those of the other people in our lives’, in Musical Imaginations, p.241.

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divide. Maybe this cannot apply to all, but some musicologists are only writing for other musicologists. Where it does not apply, often readers have to guess why an academic has chosen the subject they have. Gary Tomlinson encouraged musicologists back in 1993 to ‘begin to interrogate our love for the music we study’, but urged us not to ‘try to stop loving it’.26 Passion can seep out but it often seems ashamed of itself. The spoken word is helpful here; think of the difference at conferences where someone shows they care what they are talking about. Eulogy is better expressed orally than in the passive academic style so often taught in universities. I have shared Marion Guck’s worry that, ‘some theorists would like the writing of personal accounts of musical experience to go away.’ 27 Academic writing is so very limiting of the potential for words to engage with art; it can delimit and control the music at the heart of it all. Avi Santo is not alone in desiring to transform academic writing, suggesting alternatives, such as to, ‘repurpose argumentation as conversation, with the academic recast as a member of a community, stewarding and participating in discussions, rather than as an expert explaining the community to itself’. Allow work ‘to become “lost” or embedded in the fabric of an ongoing conversation.’28 ...like the idea that a symposium might happen in writing; does blogging or tweeting achieve this, or is that too unstructured to function well? At least then the reader could dip in whenever and wherever they like, or with an element of chance which is always exciting. This could also democratize because no one would be telling anyone else how to think. Others who ‘want to expand some of the traditional boundaries of academic practice’ have contributed to a collection of essays put together by Jackie Stacey and Janet Wolff which asks, ‘what else we might want to say about our subjects and about ourselves if we were to move beyond the expected forms through which our thinking and writing as academics have 26 Gary Tomlinson, ‘Musical Pasts and Postmodern Musicologists: A Response to Lawrence Kramer’, Current Musicology, 53 (1993), 18-40 (p.24). 27 Marion Guck, ‘Music Loving, Or the Relationship with the Piece’, Music Theory Online, 2 (1996), [2]. 28 Avi Santo, ‘The Future of Academic Writing?’, Transformative Works and Cultures, 3 (2009), 1.2-1.7. [Accessed 5 January 2016].

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previously flourished?’29 What this volume offers is a range of thinking which coalesces as, ‘some kind of cultural criticism’.30 Could it help Mari Yoshihara, the pianist and American Studies professor who has written about spending years ‘doing cultural criticism and thinking about the relationship between the scholar and her subject’ but was ‘at a loss as to how to negotiate between my critical thinking as a scholar and my personal experience as a musician’?31 Mark Samples has liberated himself through blogging, approaching musicology just as he likes. He is ‘convinced that the weight of the academic process can at times quash creative thinking before it gets off the ground, simply because one is writing to a set of specifications rather than giving the argument time to be messy and develop.’32 It might be possible to emulate the ethnomusicologist Jonathan Stock who has declared, ‘it is not difficult for an author to clearly label shifts of voice when switching between presenting the views of various insiders and his or her own understanding.’33 Mmm, you might not think so, but academic writing is meant to be such a seamless argument that special needlework skills are required. Not everyone is good at this. And there are such dry models out there. You may be right that case studies of participants can liven things up. But ‘performative writing’ allows bypassing of this as it ‘takes its goal to dwell within multiple perspectives, to celebrate an interplay of voices’, creating space ‘where others might see themselves’.34 No need to sew on any labels then! 29

Jackie Stacey and Janet Wolff, Writing Otherwise: Experiments in Cultural Criticism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), p.1. 30 Ibid., p.3. 31 Mari Yoshihara, Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), p.xiii. 32 Mark Samples, ‘Taruskin Challenge Wrap-Up’ (February 25 2012),

[Accessed 5 January 2016]. 33 Jonathan Stock, ‘Music Education: Perspectives from Current Ethnomusicology’, British Journal of Music Education, 20 (2003), 135-145 (p.142). 34 Roland J. Pelias, Performance: An Alphabet of Performative Writing (Walnut Creek California: Left Coast Press, Inc., 2014) p.13.

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I think you are one who would appreciate the scenario below, Professor Leech-Wilkinson, because, yes, ‘more recently musicology has begun to fancy itself as performative.’35 SCRIPT Steve Almond’s book (Not That You Asked),36 is ‘a truly stunning piece of… what? Criticism? Memoir? Essay…’ And in Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life 37 he turns a ‘mirror upon ourselves through the sort of selfreflection that essay aficionados crave’.38 Thanks Steven—let me introduce Steven Church everyone, he’s been telling me that there are fascinating books by Steve Almond which ‘cannot be easily […] pigeonholed’; they provide us with ‘meditation’—but of the ‘mad bouncing’ kind, a ‘digressive journey through [Almond’s] love of music’. Almond may be worth reading if you want to get into conversation with an essayist who lets you, ‘think like they do and allow[s] you to watch their mind at work on the page’.39 Indeed, Steven thinks reading Steve’s work is, apparently, like hanging out with him. Charlie Bertsch! Hi! Welcome. I am attracted to your idea of ‘useful fictions’. I listen therefore I am! That’s brilliant. Why has it taken so long for that to be said? Just a small observation—you talk about ‘Autobiography and Music Criticism’ and you don’t say which songs call you to a particular identity… what do you listen repeatedly to and how does it make you the person that you are? Will I ever know your tracks too? Who has interfered with your pleasures?! Music critics, you say? Shame on them. Remember that critics are probably only playing

35

Leech-Wilkinson, p.791. Steve Almond, (Not That You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions (New York: Random House, 2008). 37 Steve Almond, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life: A Book by and for the Fanatics Among Us (New York: Random House, 2010). 38 Steven Church, ‘Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, or Encounters with Steve Almond’s Annual Meat Hoard’, Brevity ‘non-fiction blog’ (7 May 2010), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 39 Ibid. 36

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around—they take on roles; they are characters in their writing just as you can be if you want… You too can be an authority, Charlie.40 When the term ‘I’ is used by a writer, it can transgress the boundary set by the writer into the territory of the reader. The word ‘I’, though, seeming abstract, referring to no-one in particular, means the reader can feel it refers to him or her. Defining both the subject written and the material in their relationship to one another as, ‘an undoing of the I while asking “what do I want wanting to know you or me?”’41 That’s really quite difficult to understand Kevin. May I call you by your first name, or do you prefer Kopelson? Do stay and chat. Hey, don’t worry—the undoing you speak of is not an unravelling. Some of us like your work, we especially liked the new –ism, ‘pianism’; that one word conveyed so much about your desires, and opened up the space for them to be part of the history. Did you know that Lawrence Kramer, although he acknowledged it was ‘tacit’ says that you provided ‘solid scholarly backing’ and that your very personal and confessional work is ‘up to date’? He also told everyone who would listen—on your paperback—that the performative style of memoir meditation was not traditional: that’s hopefully what you wanted to put over?42

FIELD OF RESEARCH 1: ‘The Relevance of History’ Pasler’s considered view is that: ‘For too long, historians have left music out of their stories. […] By writing through this medium [i.e. history] we can enrich our understanding of music’s capacity to illuminate meaning itself.’43 Such exemplars as those provided illuminate the historiographical strivings of so much contemporary historicizing about the performing arts. Alun Munslow and Robert Rosenstone have gone further and confronted the disciplinary challenges claiming History as, ‘a narrative discourse, full of unfinished stories’.44 They have compiled a collection of ‘innovative 40

Charlie Bertsch, ‘Autobiography in Music Criticism’, Bad Subjects, 44 (1999), [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 41 Kevin Kopelson, Beethoven’s Kiss: Pianism, Perversion, and the Mastery of Desire (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1996), p.178. 42 Ibid. Kramer comment on back cover of paperback edition. 43 Pasler, p.5. 44 Experiments in Rethinking History, ed. by Alun Munslow and Robert Rosenstone (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. i.

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and experimental pieces of historical writing’ to illustrate the ‘performative and fictive nature of history’.45 Their key question, ‘[h]ow shall I engage with the past today?’ offers scope for experimentation, to ‘express something about our relationship to the past which has hitherto been inexpressible, to include in history things which have been excluded, to share insights that cannot be carried by traditional historical forms’.46 For example, because third person writing does not successfully convey the world through the subject’s eyes (we all know, it really doesn’t), other techniques are tried, for example, present tense, self-reflexivity, second person narration, first person narration (of the subjects not the author), invention of characters such as the biographer, flash backs forwards or sideways. The call is out to write history using literary strategies accepting that history is a text written about the past. Yes, but some of this kind of writing is just making things up—it is potentially fantasy under the guise of alternate historicizing, or an ‘imaginative historicism’ which could become an almost occult conjuring47—should I support the decay of history? Surely if I ask my readers to fill in for themselves, I am expecting them to respond to uncertainties, which may not have been realities. At the very least I ought to say when I know there is a gap in knowledge. It is common practice to explain the limits of research! Anything less would be so dishonest. Don’t we have to tell the truth in the academy?

FIELD OF RESEARCH 2: ‘Literature’ Writing on ‘Poetrics’ in The Space Between, an edited collection which sets itself against ‘the academic’ because it ‘corrupts the poetic’, Lynn McCredden denigrates acts of theorizing, for instance, analysis, criticism, ideology because she sees them as opposed to the thing, the experience, the emotion.48 Her view is that the critic can be antagonistic to the creative 45

Ibid. Robert A. Rosenstone, ‘Introduction: Practice and Theory’, ibid., pp.1-6 (p.2). 47 Paul Crosthwaite, ‘Trauma and Degeneration: Joy Division and Pop Criticism’s Imaginative Historicism’, in Litpop: Writing and Popular Music, ed. by Rachel Carroll and Adam Hansen (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp.125-140 (p.127). 48 Lyn McCredden, ‘Poetrics’, in The Space Between: Australian Women Writing Fictocriticism, ed. by Heather Kerr and Amanda Nettelbeck (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1998), pp.285-292 (p.285). 46

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agent, in their desire to do or know better than the art or the artist. The following passage is not irrelevant to reflecting on how musical works might be subjected to analytical probing of this type: ‘I, the critic, need to know more and better than you or your poem.’49 Some musical poetry which could redress this balance is contained within a recent article, ‘Creative Listening: Poetic Approaches to Music’ in the interdisciplinary journal Mosaic. Jean L. Kreiling has chosen poems that ‘communicate the perceptions of notably creative listeners’.50 I looked at this because I wanted to find out, oh poets, what is notable about you and your listening and how is it creative. Yes, I do appreciate that, ‘the attentive reader of such poetry may discover a distinctive layer of poetic meaning, a fresh perspective on the musical work in question, and a new appreciation for the intersections between music and poetry’,51 but I have not yet done so… oh, I’m pretty disappointed by the ranging and non-contextual historical scope—I really thought you were going to give us academic readers the voices of new poets. How difficult can it be to write a poem about music? Aimlessly thrown together, this English-language haiku-of-sorts was constructed as quickly as any academic sentence, then redrafted twice. It may not be of any lesser use as a provocation than as an academic sentence simply because of its shape, or its authorship. Does it matter if it is any good or not, if it’s serving a different purpose: criticism not art? Power of music Resounding in passions of Musicologists52

FERMATA

49

Ibid., p.287. Jean L. Kreiling, ‘Creative Listening: Poetic Approaches to Music’, Mosaic, 43 (2010), 23-39 (p.23). 51 Ibid. 52 Reader, I wrote it. 50

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What kind of authority does musicology proffer writers within its domain? Certain publications confer authority; the entire discipline seems to carry particular weight, such that writing critically either self-consciously or culturally situated outside the discipline cannot. But then from its other location, unconcerned with musicology, such writing has the capacity to act transgressively upon it. Every discipline needs to be looked at from outside as well as inside, because thinking about one can inform thinking about the other.

FIELD OF RESEARCH 3: ‘Aesthetics’ However would it be if all academics became more creative in the humanities? If there were more awareness of ‘Real Presences’ in intellectual processes rather than fixed presences in outcomes. Could George Steiner’s vision of the primacy of the primary—the world in which criticism ceases to exist—ever take hold? 53 Perhaps when creative industries really do provide employment for our many graduates and where there is little money available for education in being critical. The control of the critic may no longer then be appropriate to other writers. For example, for some time the works of Barthes and Deleuze have been acknowledged for their creativity. The occupation of ‘writer’ is no longer reserved for a creative writer but still it carries the connotation of creating, making, and capturing in a new way, rather than the recreation or secondary pursuit of the academic. Musicology does have within its boundaries critics performing the role of critic, enacting their own identity politics on behalf of others. Critical activity in the discipline does not only comprise impersonal, seemingly disinterested prose. Finally, consider what the realms of expression developed through the traditions of philosophical writing enable as far as contemporary musical understanding is concerned. For this, I shall need some help, and Aaron Ridley is usually available. You philosophize and you listen; you write more eloquently than you speak in the pub, but much of this was ‘written’ in the pub wasn’t it? You tell us so, and I know, I have seen you. How come you seem to write as you speak as you want? It is because you truly are a superman, drunk with your 53 George Steiner, Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say? (London: Faber, 1989).

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ideas on Music, values, and the passions?54 You inspire as you ramble and yet you are so precise. You tackle what many skirt around and also change your mind. I like that. Drink soon? Perhaps before dinner. Thank you for sharing some fine moments.

Conclusion If I am to decide to write without prescription, and if I can think of imaginative writing as more of a practice and less of a gift, what sorts of writing become appropriate? Is it possible to write freely if there are so many different views on freedom, and if I am bound to my culture, context, gender? For some, the answer to this question is to match the writing to what you are writing about. Katharine Norman, author of the ‘unashamedly personal’ Sounding Art, explains how ‘each chapter reflects its subject’.55 Katharine, not enough people bothered to respond to your ‘Eight Literary Excursions’, which, oh joy, one can ‘feel free to go in any direction’ with.56 And yes, since you mention it, I do find some of what you’ve written ‘inspiring, engaging, boring, different, aggravating, fascinating, pretentious, imaginative, foolish, creative or even just mighty strange’.57 From the vantage point of your prized window, where do you think you have taken these ideas?58 Whilst your concern is with sounds, you are also ‘writing’. Your work is practice-led from several directions because words are sounds too. The personal journey is finding a place within the stories of disciplines, but personal narrative often ‘sparks both celebration and suspicion’.59 If a 54

Aaron Ridley, Music, Value, and the Passions (New York: Cornell University Press, 1995). 55 Katharine Norman, Sounding Art: Eight Literary Excursions through Electronic Music (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), p.xi. 56 Ibid., p.8. 57 Ibid., p.xiii. 58 Katharine Norman, ‘Window’ (2012), winner of the New Media Writing Prize, [Accessed 5 January 2016]. 59 Kristin M. Langellier, ‘Personal Narrative, Performance, Performativity: Two or Three Things I Know for Sure’, Text and Performance Quarterly, 19 (1999), 125144 (p.125).

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discipline has a development and a history, then the self-development and biographies of those who sustain it, and practice within it, need to be acknowledged. Often these narratives have been hidden, or appear absent. Any one of us could weave our presence into the narration of this chapter I am constructing (on our behalf, if I may claim that?) supporting Norman’s argument that, ‘[t]he metanarrational performer-presence strengthens the authority of related actuality which [may be] elaborated wildly by the creative interpretation of the teller.’60 Can she count on our ‘creative involvement’ in future? Perhaps you would go so far as to argue that in your experience music, as other art objects, is a questioning and interpretive presence in its own right, a presence always in process, always meaning-making? One can thank Kramer for the formulation that, ‘[m]usic is the art that questions meaning; therefore its meaning is always in question.’61 Does music sustain resistance to comprehension because it has a means of communication within ‘itself’ that a respondent can barely approach? The play of the imagination in response to music can be unrestricted, released from any sense of restraint. Music can be very different from what it gives rise to. If ‘good prose is musical’, when I write well I may succeed in creating music. Is this in my head or also in any readers’ heads? Richard Goodman’s designation of soul in creative writing is that, ‘at the highest level, the sound a writer makes on the page is music.’62 But it concerns me that this so-called musical writing may not be in a format everyone can ‘read’. Or should I be listening for meanings, instead? Even if everyone were a brilliant stylist, they still may not be able

60

Katharine Norman, ‘Telling Tales’, Contemporary Music Review 10 (1994), 103-109 (p.105). 61 Lawrence Kramer, Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History (Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 2001), p.147. 62 Richard Goodman, The Soul of Creative Writing (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2008), p.9; p.7.

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to actually speak the same language, but, I agree we should try; let’s ‘authorize ourselves to listen to music and to talk about it’ how we want.63 With the multifarious influences around, choosing to write to display interactions with music seems more open than ever. It seems clearly up to writers to match methodologies of their own making to whatever intentions they may have in the contexts of these graspable freedoms. The perceived unintelligibility of music seems really productive for writers of all kinds, whether they are inspired by noise, particular musics, an idea they have about music, or by silence. There continues to be strong affirmation of a received, ‘trajectory into the unsayable’. 64 While liminalities are celebrated in musical compositions and ethnographical perspectives in music sociology, they seem neglected in the area of reception studies. Yet it may be because the interface between listener and music is so often presented as impossible to penetrate that there are so many options for imaginative writing to try to fill the silence in the gaps. Dear Reader, I have been thinking a lot about reflective writing which is capable of infinite flexibilities. But I still feel I need help to get beyond what has now become an absolute cacophony in my head. All these soundings reverberating and demanding resolution! What do you think is to be gained from the reflections collaged here? These thought-processes may make more sense in the context of future writings on, around, and about music, or am I being too arrogant in suggesting this? I have explored and I sense routes for subjective ‘knowing’, yet, I am not sure of destinations… whether there is yet a convincing case for knowledge to be formed in this way … whether this critical process of knowledge-formation might be acknowledged as legitimate, or what that even means… Nevertheless, I am ready to share something personal with you. Out of a combination of fear 63

Kramer, p.1. ‘Introduction’, in Silence, Music, Silent Music, ed. by Nicky Loessef and Jennifer Doctor (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp.1-14 (p.3). The editors comment additionally that the responses within the book ‘attempt to break through the rather rigid bounds that still confine the field of musicology, often wandering into realms of the personal or spiritual that may embarrass many who protect as paramount “objectivity” in the discipline’.

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and curiosity, a moment came when the creative turn happened; it was as exciting as that. Reasons for past difficulties became immediately clearer: it has been the means of communication, not the message that has restricted me. Now the mode of writing is mine to grasp, everything could change!65 I am not claiming to be a creative writer, but this does not mean I am uncreative. It makes sense to encourage academic writers to ‘speak’ in creative terms if the subjects and objects of their discussions are fundamentally concerned with creativity. In toying with resonances in the relationship between creative and theoretical writing I hope to have highlighted some emerging practices which may affect how I/you regard any musics/musicking in future. I would like to emphasize my interest in how the other arts, such as film about performance, can re-interpret music, extending and challenging its nature, role, and very being. In so doing, practice-as-research deepens because no words need to be used. I believe that music’s power extends in scope when it is experienced as a means to enter into life as a state of performance. Can the performance of writing/talking/thinking about music thus challenge and extend us as it does the authors and makers of many types of art-works which incorporate music? What can be learned from artistic responses in other art forms to music, and do words have any role that contributes further to understanding? I have not kept good records of my development (have you?), but what I have thought has, over time and in its time, been productive and continues to inform those intellectual processes in which I seek to open up, rather than present conclusions. I seek always to raise questions worth asking. Academic writing is a practice and something that also needs practice because so often it just doesn’t feel ‘right’. Maybe all that I can do is to attempt the best way that I think constructs knowledge and experience at any one time? It’s difficult to allow myself to think that my writing lives are merely rehearsal, their product just the ephemeral moments of a 65

My self-assessment is that I find the text I have produced is wanting as a piece of performative writing; it wants, nay desires, its own ecstatic rhetorical flourish! Wherein lies its performativity? I use the elements identified by scholars but I still write about. Am I really doing it yet? Is it because I don’t have the space to explain where I am in relation to all this, or because written-down-writing-to-be-read-at-adistance-from-the-act can never truly become a personal narrative performance?

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‘dress’ or ‘technical run-through’ which may linger in memories for a while, while in the wings flutter the fragments of my old, abandoned incomplete works waiting forever for their cues. The myth of flawless ‘performance’ sometime in the future is a glorious one, a prospect that many writers may never attain. One could be prouder of non-completions and not see them as failures, because they could show how much is not known and what can’t be done and exposure might lead to further experimentation. For now, I am just practising, enjoying playing with potential interpretations. Even though I don’t feel ready to join the ensemble, I don’t mind that you have overheard my exercises. If you have actually been listening, perhaps you would kindly now take the time to let me know if there are useful keynotes for you amongst the sketches of my work-inprogress?66 I look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, The Author.

66

I am grateful for initial feedback on the ideas discussed in this chapter and for encouragement received from co-panellists and participants present at the following symposia: The Royal Musical Association annual conference 2010 ‘Boundaries’, Senate House, University of London; University of Winchester Faculty of Arts 2010 ‘Creativity, Writing, Culture’; University of Roehampton ‘ReWrite’ 2013 ‘Practice-Process-Paradox: Creativity and The Academy’.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Steve Gisby is a composer, bassist, and educator based near London, UK. He holds a PhD from Brunel University. His music has been performed, recorded, and broadcast in the USA, Europe, and the UK. He has given lectures and presentations at IRCAM in Paris, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Furman University in South Carolina, California State University at Long Beach, Canterbury Christ Church University, Surrey University, the University of Huddersfield, and the University of Birmingham. He is on the committees of the Society for Minimalist Music and the RMA Music and/as Process Study Group. Two of Steve’s works appear on the CD, Symmetry | Reflection by US percussion duo Novus Percutere, alongside music by Steve Reich, John Psathas, Christopher Adler, Ivan Trevino, and Luis Rivera. He has recently released his own CD, four iterative pieces, as part of an ongoing series of compositions. As a bassist, Steve performs with a wide range of ensembles throughout the UK. In May 2014, along with pianist Michael Bonaventure, he gave the world premiere performance of Tom Johnson’s Intervals. Steve also works as an examiner for Trinity College London on their Rock & Pop syllabus, having conducted exams in the UK, Northern Ireland, Italy, India, Vietnam, South Africa, Malaysia, Brunei, and Thailand. David Gorton is a British composer interested in microtonal tuning systems and performer virtuosity. A winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, he has worked with ensembles that include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Exposé, CHROMA, HERMESensemble and the Kreutzer Quartet. Much of his recent music is recorded on the Métier label. He is the Associate Head of Research at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and an Associate Researcher at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent. www.davidgortonmusic.com Vanessa Hawes is a Senior Lecturer and Subject Lead for Music at Canterbury Christ Church University. Her current research, the Hanging Garden Project, is an ongoing interdisciplinary research project focusing on Schoenberg’s 1908-9 Opus 15 song cycle. The project interrogates and

244

Contributors

combines approaches from a number of sub-disciplines within musicology as a whole, involving aspects of analysis, music psychology, empirical musicology, historical musicology, music education, and collaborative work. Her broader interests lie in the processes of analysis, interdisciplinarity, ethnomusicology, and popular music. Ellen Hooper is researching transformations of emergent practices of performance for a PhD at the University of New South Wales, Australia, funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award and the Roger Covell PhD Scholarship in Music. She has a BA and MA in Performance from the University of York. As a singer, Ellen has performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, York Spring Festival of New Music, Leipzig Bach Festival, York Early Music, Cheltenham, and Sydney festivals. Charles Céleste Hutchins was born in San Jose, California in 1976, and lives in London, UK. He is a member of the board of directors of Other Minds, an organization that produces an annual festival in San Francisco. Hutchins attended Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied with Maggi Payne and acquired a love for the sound of analogue electronics. In 1998 he graduated with a dual B.A. in music and computer science. In 2005, Charles graduated from the MA programme at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, where he studied computer music and SuperCollider with Ron Kuivila and improvisation with Anthony Braxton. Following that, he attended the year-long course at CCMIX in France and then the Sonology course at the Royal Conservatory of the Netherlands. He has just completed his PhD at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he studied with Scott Wilson. He has performed in North America—in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Canada, and Connecticut; and in Europe—in the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Austria. His music has been played on European and American radio. He is exploring using his computer to do things that his analogue synthesizer cannot do, including just intonation and granular synthesis. His most recent work has concentrated on live laptop performance, especially in an ensemble setting. London-based Australian pianist, Zubin Kanga has performed at many international festivals, including the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, London Contemporary Music Festival, Cheltenham Festival (UK), ISCM World New Music Days, Metropolis New Music Festival, BIFEM (Australia), IRCAM Manifeste Festival (France), and Borealis Festival

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(Norway) as well as appearing as soloist with the London Sinfonietta and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Zubin has collaborated with many of the world’s leading composers including Thomas Adès, Michael Finnissy, George Benjamin, Steve Reich, and Beat Furrer, and commissioned more than 50 new works including two piano concerti. He is a member of Ensemble, Offspring, one of Australia’s leading contemporary music ensembles, and has also performed with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ensemble Plus-Minus, Endymion Ensemble, and the Kreutzer Quartet, as well as performing piano duos with Rolf Hind and Thomas Adès. Zubin has won many prizes for his performances, including the Australian Art Music Award for Performance of the Year, the ABC Limelight Award for Best Newcomer, and the Greta Parkinson Prize from the Royal Academy of Music. His recent recordings include Not Music Yet (Hospital Hill Recordings), Orfordness (Métier), and Piano Inside Out (Move Records), which was nominated for Best Classical Album at the Australian Independent Music Awards. A Masters and PhD graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, Zubin is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Nice and IRCAM, Paris, and a Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music. He was the convenor of the Inventing Gestures symposium in the 2015 Manifeste Festival at IRCAM and is a guest editor for a special issue of Contemporary Music Review on new interactive technologies. www.zubinkanga.com. Nicholas McKay is a Reader in Musicology and Head of the School of Music and Performing Arts at Canterbury Christ Church University. He completed his PhD thesis on the semiotics of musical meaning in the music of Igor Stravinsky at Durham University in 1998 and worked as Head of Music and Director in the School of Humanities at Sussex University between 1998 and 2013. He was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2005-06) to work on the semiotics of quotation, allusion, and topical reference in Stravinsky’s music. He is Assistant Editor of the Journal of Music and Meaning. His many publications focus on Stravinsky, semiotics, opera, music theatre, musical meaning, and analysis. Michael Picknett is a composer and theatre artist specializing in creating music as stage performance. His doctorate at Guildhall School of Music and Drama examined how devising practices taken from theatre and

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Contributors

contemporary dance can be applied to creating music. www.michael picknett.com Keith Potter is Reader in Music at Goldsmiths, University of London. The author of Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), he is currently undertaking further research on Reich, including a detailed examination of the composer’s sketch materials. Charlotte Purkis is a Lecturer in the Department of Performing Arts at the University of Winchester, where she has worked for two decades teaching drama, devised performance projects on personal identities, and creative nonfiction. Originally trained as a musician and musicologist, she pursues interdisciplinary projects in cultural history specializing in creative-critical interactions in writing about performance and has published a number of articles and chapters resuscitating the work of forgotten critics. Charlotte has a strong interest in the nature of the performing arts disciplines today, how they have developed, and what their boundaries and interactions are, and might be. Lauren Redhead is a Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University. Lauren is an internationally performed composer, whose recent music is published by Material Press, Berlin. She has worked with many high-profile performers and with national and international festivals. Her music has been released on the engraved glass, Innova, and pan y rosas discos labels, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Concertzender Netherlands, and Resonance FM. As an organist Lauren has performed in the UK, Europe, and North America, receiving funding for a tour of the UK in 2014 from Sound and Music. A CD of her performances of music for organ and electronics was released on the sfz music label in 2015. She publishes on the aesthetics and socio-semiotics of music. Geraint Wiggins is Professor of Computational Creativity, and Head of the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London. His work focuses on computational theories explicating the cognitive mechanisms of creativity, and musical perception and creativity is his primary domain of interest. Suzie Wilkins has a particular research interest in musical experience and completed her PhD, Aesthetic Experience in Music: Case Studies in Composition, Performance and Listening, at the University of Sussex in

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2013. After this she worked at the University of Sussex and on the IDyOM project at Queen Mary University of London. Alistair Zaldua is a composer of contemporary, experimental, and live electronic music and has been performed internationally and in the UK. His oeuvre contains work for chamber ensemble, installation, and for solo forces including live electronics. Alistair’s installation Leiden Translations, commissioned by Borealis in 2014, was selected for the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival in Hawick, Scotland (April 2015). His work has been broadcast by BBC, NordWest Radio Bremen, and in July 2015, Carolin Naujocks made his work the subject of a portrait programme on Deutschlandradio Kultur (Berlin). He was the editor for the double issue of Contemporary Music Review (December, 2015) which focused on Music and Politics. Since 2014 Alistair has performed as an improviser using live electronics in duet with video artist Adam Hodgkins, and with Lauren Redhead (organ, and voice). From 1998 he worked as conductor and lecturer for contemporary music performance at the University of Music, Freiburg. After studying composition with James Dillon, Alistair received a DAAD scholarship to study with Mathias Spahlinger. Alistair received his PhD in composition from Goldsmiths in 2015, and currently teaches at Canterbury Christ Church University.

INDEX

Abundant Numbers (Tom Johnson), 194 actor network theory, 173, 174 adaption, 57, 58 aesthetics, 4, 11, 119, 246 affordance, 57, 58, 59, 104, 235, 242 Agawu, Kofi, 3, 12, 14, 81, 82, 230 agent (active), 3, 4, 6 alchemy, 175 Alden, Jane, 146, 230 algorithm, 178 alienation, 10, 12, 14, 22, 23, 25, 33 Almond, Steve, 220, 230 analysis (musical), 4, 5, 14, 75, 81, 82 Apologetics (Michael Picknett), 160, 161, 164, 167, 169, 172 Applebaum, Mark, 7, 136, 138, 139, 146, 147, 155 atonal, 60, 62, 75, 76, 231, 234, 240 audio-visual, 7, 173 Auslander, Philip, 169 authorship, 2, 118, 125, 126, 154, 223 auto-ethnography, 4, 7 axium, 142, 143 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 50, 237, 244 Bakhtin, Mikhailovich, 13, 29, 30, 32, 230 'Ballo' (from Folk Songs, 1964 Luciano Berio), 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 95, 96 Barrett, Estelle, 4, 230 Bartoloni, Paolo, 174, 191, 193, 231 bassoon, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 121

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 14, 15, 22, 77, 216, 221, 235, 236, 241 Benjamin, Walter, 11, 173, 174, 187, 188, 191, 214, 231, 245 Benson, Stephen, 97, 212, 214, 231 Berberian, Cathy, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 95, 96 Berec, Jonathon, 57, 58, 235 Berio, Luciano, 6, 82, 83, 95, 96, 238 Berthelot, Marcellin, 176, 177, 231 Bertsch, Charlie, 220, 221, 231 Bhabha, Homi, 174, 191, 193, 231 Bharucha, Jamshed J., 36, 37, 50, 53, 231, 236 Bianchi, Jules, 97 Bolt, Barbara, 4, 230 Boretz, Benjamin, 11, 214, 231 Boss, Jack, 76, 231 Boulez, Pierre, 11, 15, 17, 231 boundary (section), 59, 60, 61, 64, 68, 69, 73 Bourriaud, Nicholas, 124, 128, 231 Brahms, Johannes, 13, 69, 235 Braxton, Anthony, 7, 136, 141, 142, 143, 147, 149, 231, 237, 244 breath, 73, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95 Bregman, Albert S., 47, 231 Brewster, Anne, 217, 239 British Sign Language (BSL), 173, 177, 184, 185, 186, 188, 190 Brown, Earle, 140, 141, 146, 154, 230, 231 Brown, Galen H., 231 Busoni, Ferruccio, 174, 232 Cage, John, 117, 197, 216, 232 Canning, Rob, 150, 232

Music and/as Process Cantoni, Angelo, 11, 232 Cardew, Cornelius, 7, 118, 120, 136, 137, 144, 147, 149, 153, 154, 174, 232 catalogue, 124, 198 CCMIX, 138, 244 censorship, 114 Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP), 80 Chaffin, Roger, 58, 59, 77, 232 Church, Steven, 220 Clarke, Eric, 57, 58, 59, 61, 80, 98, 99, 101, 104, 232, 233 Clayton, Martin, 212, 233 Climenhaga, Royd, 159, 163, 164, 166, 171, 233 collaboration, 2, 6, 7, 80, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 113, 114, 116, 117, 154, 157, 161, 168, 186, 187, 233, 235, 239, 244 combinations, 200, 201, 203 comic, 140, 143, 144, 151 Coming Home (Steve Gisby), 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 206, 208 composition, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 34, 58, 75, 82, 88, 116, 120, 130, 135, 140, 148, 158, 160, 172, 173, 174, 177, 178, 179, 183, 188, 194, 196, 206, 208, 209, 234, 239, 243, 246, 247 computational analysis, 5 concealed authoritarianism, 61 Concerto (Lauren Redhead), 30, 31, 33, 136, 144, 145, 146, 148 Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (Igor Stravinsky), 30, 31 Connors, Clare, 212, 214, 231 Cook, Nicholas, 3, 13, 14, 61, 98, 103, 216, 217, 230, 232, 233 cracking event, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95 creative arts, 2, 4, 211 creative musicology, 210 Crickmay, Chris, 211, 241

249

dance, 23, 156, 157, 158, 159, 163, 168, 170, 172, 183, 246 Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (Arnold Schoenberg), 6, 56, 62, 64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75 Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (Stefan George), 62 de Falla, Manuel, 6, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 Dean, Roger, 4 December 1952 (Earle Brown), 140, 146 decentered, 185 defamiliarization, 10, 12, 23, 24 Deleuze, Gilles, 88, 224, 235 Derrida, Jacques, 173, 174, 185, 186, 188, 191, 236 developing variation, 60 devised music, 158, 167 devising, 1, 7, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 234, 235, 237, 238, 245 dialogic, 13, 230 dialogics, 29 dialogue, 10, 13, 14, 15, 98, 117, 187, 239 Dibben, Nicola, 60, 236 direct perception, 56, 57, 76 discourse, 2, 3, 5, 6, 13, 15, 22, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 98, 171, 191, 212, 215, 221, 237, 238 disschemination, 186, 188, 191 distributional analysis, 14, 16, 17, 28 Doffman, Mark, 80, 98, 99, 101, 104, 232, 233 Domek, Richard, 60, 63, 64, 75, 76, 233 Doyle, Alicia M., 146, 147, 233 Duchamp, Marcel, 196 dudki, 15, 18, 19, 20 dulcimer hammers, 104, 106, 108, 109 dynamic practices, 96 dysphoria, 33

250 e-bow, 102, 104, 105, 112 ecological perception, 57, 58, 59, 61, 76 Eidsheim, Nina Sun, 120, 123, 233 empirical, 2, 4, 56, 57, 77, 82, 125, 235, 244 English Country Tunes (Michael Finnissy), 110 environment, 57, 58, 59, 75, 77, 115 esthesic, 5 Etchells, Tim, 164, 170, 171, 233 Euler, Leonhard, 196 expectation (schematic), 37, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 expectation (veridical), 37, 50, 51, 52, 54 experience, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 35, 38, 45, 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 62, 76, 88, 99, 105, 116, 119, 120, 123, 125, 128, 130, 131, 143, 162, 167, 168, 172, 175, 186, 187, 211, 212, 218, 219, 222, 226, 228, 246 experimental music, 1, 2, 118, 124, 247 expression, 14, 66, 127, 128, 131, 150, 194, 207, 212, 224, 232, 239 extroversive, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 19, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, 33 Falling River Musics (Anthony Braxton), 136, 141, 142, 143, 147 Fergler, Adam, 6, 121, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131 Fernandes, Ciane, 166, 167, 234 fictocriticism, 210, 217 Finnissy, Michael, 98, 110, 245 Fitch, Fabrice, 98, 100, 234 flux-writing, 210 Folk Songs (Luciano Berio), 82, 83, 96 formalism, 13, 15 Formula 1 motor racing, 97 Forte, Allen, 63, 64, 69, 75, 76, 234, 235

Index Fosdyke Wash (David Gorton), 104 Foucault, Michael, 2, 125, 239 found mathematical objects, 196, 197 Four Pieces (Cornelius Cardew), 174 Fragmented Melodies (Steve Gisby), 195, 203, 204 genre, 144, 216 gesture, 12, 14, 31, 58, 61, 77, 109, 115, 127, 140, 143, 151, 230, 234 Gettings, Fred, 176, 177, 180, 234 Gibbs, Anna, 217, 234 Gisby, Steve, 7, 194, 199, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209, 243 Glass, Philip, 5, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55, 246 Goebbels, Heiner, 158, 234 Goehr, Lydia, 2, 119, 234 Goodman, Richard, 226, 234 Gorton, David, 6, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 243 Govan, Emma, 157, 234 Gradus (Philip Glass), 5, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 graphic notation, 2, 3, 6, 7, 117, 118, 119, 120, 125, 126, 131, 136, 140, 148, 153, 154 graphic novel, 7, 136 Guck, Marion, 81, 218, 234 Haimo, Ethan, 11, 60, 63, 68, 234 Hanninen, Dora, 81, 82, 235 Hargreaves, David, 216, 235 Hasty, Christopher, 88, 96 Hatten, Robert, 14, 15, 22, 77, 235, 241 Heddon, Deirdre, 156, 157, 170, 235 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 118, 119, 235

Music and/as Process Hermann, Thomas, 174, 182, 183 hermeneutics, 3, 14, 33, 233 Heyde, Neil, 98, 100, 234 Hirst, Linda, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 95, 96 Hodgkins, Adam, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 247 Hunt, L. B., 176, 235 Huron, David, 35, 52, 57, 58, 69, 235 IanniX, 140 idea, 4, 5, 37, 51, 56, 58, 60, 61, 75, 76, 80, 81, 82, 88, 94, 96, 115, 119, 120, 142, 148, 159, 161, 162, 173, 191, 196, 197, 199, 201, 215, 218, 220, 227, 231, 240, 241 ideal boundary, 119, 123, 124, 128, 131, 132 Image Music Text (Adam Fergler), 121 improvisation, 1, 7, 104, 142, 148, 150, 157, 162, 164, 172, 173, 178, 179, 181, 199, 204, 208, 232, 233, 237, 244 Imramma (Charles Hutchins), 148, 150, 151, 153 indeterminacy, 194 Ingarden, Roman, 119, 120, 123, 128, 131, 132, 235 installation, 7, 173, 174, 175, 177, 184, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 247 intensity, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 94, 109 intentionality, 33, 89, 95, 119 interanimation, 29, 32 interdisciplinarity, 4, 183, 185, 223, 244, 246 interpretation, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 20, 23, 33, 58, 61, 77, 98, 114, 116, 121, 123, 124, 125, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 138, 143, 145, 147, 148, 154, 158, 178, 180, 183, 184, 190, 226, 230, 232, 235, 241

251

introversive, 5, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 28, 29, 33 invariant, 59 iterative, 1, 11, 15, 17, 24, 117, 243 Iterative Music (Steve Gisby), 195, 198, 204, 205, 206, 207 Jakobson, Roman, 15, 174, 183, 185 Johnson, Tom, 7, 11, 194, 196, 197, 206, 208, 234, 235, 243 Justus, Timothy C., 36, 37, 50, 236 Kammer, Salome, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96 Kanga, Zubin, 6, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 115, 117, 131, 132, 236, 244 Kennaway, George, 123, 236 Kerman, Joseph, 3, 76, 236 Kopelson, Kevin, 221, 236 Korsyn, Kevin, 13, 211, 236 Kramer, Lawrence, 218, 221, 226, 227, 236, 241 Kreiling, Jean, 223, 236 Kreutzer Quartet, 98, 104, 243, 245 Lachenmann, Helmut, 174, 178 Landowska, Wanda, 30 Lauda, Niki, 97 Law, John, 174 Leavy, Patricia, 4, 236 LeCompte, Elizabeth, 164 Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel, 215, 220 Leiden Translations (Alistair Zaldua), 7, 173, 174, 175, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 186, 189, 190, 192, 193, 247 Lektura (Bogusáaw Schaeffer), 136, 144, 148, 239 Lewin, David, 75, 237 Liang, Fontane, 160, 161, 167, 172 Liederkreis (Robert Schumann), 89 lifeline, 137, 138, 140, 144, 145 Lim, Liza, 98, 101, 232 Linson, Adam, 178, 189, 192 listening strategies, 34 Lock, Graham, 141, 142, 237

252 Lucas, Caroline, 6, 121, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 237 Malevich, Kazimir, 149 Mansoux, Aymeric, 149, 237 Marcus, Greil, 34, 215, 237, 239 mathematical processes, 7, 194, 195, 197, 198, 207, 208 Mc Laughlin, Scott, 6, 120, 121, 122, 123, 128, 132 McClary, Susan, 214, 237 McCloud, Scott, 140, 143, 144, 145, 151, 237 McCredden, Lyn, 222 McIntyre, David, 204 McKay, Nicholas, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 23, 30, 237, 245 McLean, Alex, 149, 237 Medium (Mark Applebaum), 136, 138, 139, 147 memorization, 58 Mersenne, Marin, 196 Meyer, Leonard B., 35, 237 Milling, Jane, 156, 157, 170, 235 minimalist music, 1, 34, 35, 37, 38, 45, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 190, 195, 231, 239, 243 Mlada (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov), 19 modernism, 10, 13, 20, 237 Monelle, Raymond, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 22, 28, 238, 240 Monk, Meredith, 158, 162, 171, 238, 240 Moriarty, Michael, 217, 238 multimedia, 4 multi-modal, 7 Munslow, Alun, 221, 238 musette, 18, 20 Music for Any Instruments (Stefan Wolpe), 175 Music in Two Dimensions 2a (Scott Mc Laughlin), 123 musicology, 2, 3, 7, 8, 13, 14, 32, 57, 61, 76, 77, 82, 83, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, 218, 219, 220,

Index 224, 227, 233, 234, 235, 236, 239, 241, 244, 245 Mussolini, Benito, 23, 24 Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, 3, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 215, 238 neoclassicism, 11, 15, 29, 30, 232, 237, 241 new music, 2, 4, 56, 75, 76, 154, 195, 231, 237, 240, 244 new musicology, 2, 76 Nicholson, Helen, 157, 234 Norman, Katharine, 225, 226, 238 Normington, Katie, 157, 234 Not Music Yet (David Young), 131, 236, 245 notation, 2, 3, 6, 7, 63, 105, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 136, 137, 138, 140, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 173, 174, 177, 178, 179, 182, 230, 231, 233, 236 Notations 21 (Theresa Sauer), 118 Nyman, Michael, 195, 196, 197, 206, 238 objective, 3, 7, 34, 53, 82, 83, 182, 194, 196, 206, 207, 208, 209, 217, 227, 239 oboe, 18 Oddey, Alison, 156, 238 Oedipus Rex (Igor Stravinsky), 10, 19, 20, 21, 23, 241 ontology, 2, 6, 13, 118, 120, 123, 124, 125, 132 Orford Ness (Place), 104, 107, 109, 111, 114, 115 Orfordness (David Gorton), 6, 97, 100, 101, 102, 104, 107, 108, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 245 organ and electronics, 6, 246 ornament, 84, 85, 87, 89, 90, 96 Östersjö, Stefan, 98, 104, 238 ostinato, 85 Pandita, Natayana, 196 panpipe, 18

Music and/as Process paradigmatic analysis, 24 Parallaxis (Rob Canning), 150 Pascal, Blaise, 196 Pasler, Jann, 213, 214, 221, 238 pastoral, 15, 18, 19, 22, 24, 26, 29, 232, 238 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 28, 238 performance, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 30, 35, 37, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 70, 73, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127,128, 130, 131, 136, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 188, 194, 195, 198, 200, 202, 211, 215, 217, 219, 225, 228, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 239, 241, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247 performance practice, 2, 30, 81, 87, 101, 131, 148, 154 performance studies, 4, 80, 99, 103 performative, 114, 130, 163, 193, 210, 219, 220, 221, 222, 228, 239 performative writing, 210, 219, 228 Petrushka (Igor Stravinsky), 17, 26 pluri-vocalities, 185 Plus Minus (Karlheinz Stockhausen), 174 poietics, 5 Point To Line (Steve Gisby), 195, 202, 203 ‘Polo’ (from 7 Canciones Populares Española, 1922, Manuel de Falla), 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98 polyrhythm, 11 Postcard Theatre (Pauline Oliveros and Alison Knowles), 120 postmodernism, 12, 241

253

Potter, Keith, 5, 34, 35, 37, 38, 50, 51, 52, 53, 239, 246 practice, 2, 4, 7, 8, 30, 59, 81, 87, 89, 95, 101, 131, 132, 148, 149, 152, 156, 157, 158, 162, 163, 164, 166, 171, 172, 173, 174, 177, 183, 191, 193, 210, 212, 217, 218, 222, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 232, 236, 240 practice-led research, 2, 3, 4, 100, 240 Pression (Helmut Lachenmann), 178 process, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 51, 56, 57, 60, 64, 67, 68, 69, 73, 75, 76, 79, 81, 82, 83, 98, 100, 101, 105, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 120, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 149, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 211, 212, 213, 217, 219, 224, 226, 227, 228, 231, 234, 236, 237, 239, 240, 243, 244 process music, 1, 4, 5, 6, 34, 56, 57, 76, 239 psychology, 2, 25, 35, 36, 56, 57, 59, 77, 98, 99, 232, 235, 236, 244 psychology of music, 2, 57, 59, 77, 232, 244 Pye, David, 114, 115, 239 Quinn, Ian, 76, 239 Raban, William, 188 Rancière, Jacques, 81, 132, 239 ranz des vaches (Alpine horn), 20, 23 readymade, 196

254 Recital I for Cathy (Luciano Berio), 83, 95 Redhead, Lauren, 1, 6, 7, 116, 123, 136, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150, 184, 185, 190, 246, 247 registeral break, 84, 86 register-timbre, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96 rehearsal, 1, 7, 59, 60, 62, 66, 67, 69, 73, 77, 103, 106, 109, 110, 153, 156, 157, 158, 160, 164, 166, 167, 168, 171, 172, 228, 233 Reich, Steve, 1, 194, 196, 197, 199, 206, 207, 239, 243, 245, 246 relational, 82, 124, 131, 132, 174 Rendlesham Forest Incident, 107, 232 repetition, 17, 24, 34, 38, 39, 46, 49, 50, 53, 56, 60, 167, 170, 199, 200, 201, 202 reputation, 99 Ridley, Aaron, 224, 225, 239 Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, 19 Rink, John, 61, 75 risk, 6, 80, 81, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 164, 171, 230, 233, 234 Roerich, Nicholas, 19 Rosenstone, Robert, 221, 222, 238 Russia (compositional heritage), 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 24, 28, 149, 183, 241 Ruwet, Nicholas, 14, 23, 239 SalfluČre, Rubaphilos, 177 Samples, Mark, 219 Santo, Avi, 218, 239 Sauer, Theresa, 118 Savran, David, 164, 166, 239 Schaeffer, Bogusáaw, 7, 136, 141, 144, 145, 148, 149, 150, 239 Schlunke, Katrina, 217, 239 Schoenberg, Arnold, 5, 6, 11, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68,

Index 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 231, 232, 233, 234, 237, 240, 243 Schraubdichtung (Carola Bauckholt), 174 score (music), 2, 6, 7, 13, 35, 38, 42, 51, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 73, 75, 82, 83, 84, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 106, 109, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 137, 138, 140, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 170, 172, 178, 183 Second World War, 102 self-reflexivity, 210, 222 self-report, 232 semiotics, 3, 5, 12, 14, 15, 20, 23, 30, 174, 185, 230, 235, 238, 240, 241, 245 shape, 58, 66, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 85, 87, 145, 147, 158, 180, 187, 223 Sharits, Paul, 188 shawm, 18 sigil, 176, 178, 179, 180, 188, 191, 192 sign, 18, 19, 28, 29, 132, 173, 176, 183, 184 signifier, 20, 30 Simms, Bryan R., 60, 62, 63, 240 Small, Christopher, 211, 240 Smith, Hazel, 3, 4, 212, 240 Smithner, Nancy Putnam, 158, 162, 171, 240 Snegurochka (Nikolai RimskyKorsakov), 19 sonata forms, 11 Steiner, George, 224, 240 stikhíya dialect, 18, 24, 28, 29, 32 Stock, Jonathan, 215, 219, 240 Stravinsky, Igor, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 237, 240, 241, 245 structuralism, 14

Music and/as Process structure (musical), 3, 6, 24, 28, 32, 51, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 76, 83, 85, 88, 94, 95, 126, 137, 138, 144, 148, 154, 157, 166, 167, 168, 169, 184, 202, 204, 207, 208, 234, 236 style (musical), 1, 11, 14, 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 58, 60, 62, 117, 167, 175, 178, 218, 221, 239, 240 subjectivity, 2, 8, 197, 208, 217 surprise, 5, 19, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 51, 52, 53 Symmetry | Reflection (Steve Gisby), 195, 198, 201, 202, 206, 208, 243 Symphony of Winds (Igor Stravinsky), 28 syntax, 12, 15, 22, 25, 28, 29, 32, 82, 184 Syrinx (Claude Debussy), 18 Taruskin, Richard, 12, 13, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28, 30, 219, 241 texture, 19, 31, 38, 47, 70, 71, 72, 74, 83, 87, 96, 103 Thatcher, Margaret, 107 The Rite of Spring (Igor Stravinsky), 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 26, 28, 33 theatre, 23, 156, 157, 158, 165, 166, 169, 170, 172, 245 theatre laboratory, 165 Tomlinson, Gary, 218, 241 topic theory, 12, 14, 18, 22 Towers of Silence (Rolf Hind), 105 transformation, 4, 59, 60, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 94, 95, 96, 167, 182, 234

255

translation, 7, 13, 63, 84, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 193, 231, 236, 241 translation theory, 7, 173, 191 Tre canzoni popolari (Luciano Berio), 83 Treatise (Cornelius Cardew), 118, 120, 136, 137, 138, 144, 147, 153, 232 Tudor, David, 118 Tuffnell, Miranda, 211, 241 Tussing, Vera, 163 Two Cigarettes in the Dark (Pina Bausch), 167 UPIC, 138, 140, 147, 150 vibrato, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 91 virtuosity, 6, 97, 98, 100, 106, 109, 111, 113, 124, 243 Vocal Constructivists, 7, 136, 140, 144, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154 Wagner, Richard, 216 Webber, Charlotte, 160, 167, 169, 172 Weill, Kurt, 83 Whittall, Arnold, 15, 241 Wiggins, Geraint, 5, 34, 35, 37, 51, 239, 246 Windsor, W. Luke, 57, 58, 242 Wolff, Janet, 218, 219, 240 Xenakis, Iannis, 138 Yoshihara, Mari, 219, 242 Zaldua, Alistair, 7, 173, 179, 180, 181, 182, 189, 190, 192, 193, 247 zampogna, 20