tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4562200483871659292024-03-28T09:25:30.077+00:00Concerning Temporality in MusicReviews and writing by Phillip HendersonPhillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-13407734852707797052011-07-15T15:13:00.001+01:002011-07-15T15:15:44.493+01:00Phenomenology of Perception, by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. (Part III, 2, Temporality).The chapter opens by stating that ‘…Kantian language…’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002 p.476) allows for a subjective understanding of time, in other words it is ‘…the form taken by our inner sense…’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002 p.476). It is important to consider that through this chapter Merleau-Ponty is attempting to highlight the way in which time links the cogito with freedom and as such he delineates freedom in terms of subjective perception.<br /><br />Merleau-Ponty moves toward his argument by beginning with the acceptance of a subjective and objective understanding of time. He does this by referring to Heraclitus’ metaphor of time as a flowing river. He imagines different perspectives on time by contrasting a view from the riverbank with a view from a boat floating on the river. He suggests that while standing on the riverbank, the melting ice further upstream represents an aspect of the future from which the present derives. However, from within the boat moving with the flow of river water, the melting ice represents something from the past. Merleau-Ponty decides that these subjectivities indicate that time does not have succession that can be objectively defined. In this way his critique of succession shares some resonance with Henri Bergson’s writing in Time and Free Will (Bergson 1990). However, unlike Bergson, Merleau-Ponty seems more comfortable allowing a subjective spatialisation of time because this enables a discussion around the perception of what appears to be succession. The discussion emphasises a subjective handling of succession and begins with the suggestion that in the present we see the ‘…future sliding into the present and on into the past…’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002 p.483). He goes further into the argument against objectively thinking about time;<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />‘…Time as the immanent object of a consciousness is time brought down to one uniform level, in other words it is no longer time at all… …Constituted time, the series of possible relations in terms of before and after, is not time itself, but the ultimate recording of time, the result of its passage, which objective thinking always presupposes yet never manages to fasten on to.’</span> (Merleau-Ponty 2002 p. 481-482)<br /><br />As he begins to outline his notion of subjectively perceived time, Merleau-Ponty refers to Husserl’s explanation that retentions of prior moments are present too, almost as if they are still accessible underneath the present moment. In Husserl’s diagram; a horizontal line represents the series of present moments where the past is on the left and the future is on the right. On this timeline, diagonal lines draw away from successive present moments representing moments seen from an ulterior perspective as shadows of moments. A vertical line represents a present moment within which shadows of other moments are layered. Merleau-Ponty explains that he does not simply ‘…pass through a series of instances of now…’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002 p.484), instead moments of the past change as new moments occur. Past moments are ‘…sinking away below the level of presents…’ (p.484), and they are being continually modified by this stratification. He explains that Husserl described the immediately past moment as if it were literally in his hand, which shows that Husserl used this diagrammatic expression of time to construct a comprehensive cross section of an instant with retentions in it’s past and protensions in it’s future. Merleau-Ponty considers that the layered protensions of a moment yet to come are positioned in the present adjacent to the retentions of a moment that has recently passed. In this way he argues that succession is evident and that Henri Bergson;<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />‘…was wrong in explaining the unity of time in terms of its continuity, since that amounts to confusing past, present and future on the excuse that we pass from one to the other by imperceptible transitions; in short, it amounts to denying time altogether.’</span> (Merleau-Ponty 2002 p.488)<br /><br />Merleau-Ponty prefers to describe succession in the sense that every moment is the anticipation of the next moment in the same way as it supersedes the previous. In this way the subjective present is an aspect of the future and of the past. The past that is yet to come is in the future in the same way that the future of a moment that has just been is now in our past. This outlines what Merleau-Ponty calls an ‘…intuition of time’s permanence…’ that can be undone by objectifying time as he describes in the case of some scientific descriptions of time. He is saying here that an individual’s consciousness of time is subject to continual consciousness rather than a series of states of consciousness. The continual subjective experience of time is a rich and layered form that is characterised by the past and the future in the same way as the past or the future are by the presents, pasts and futures surrounding them.<br /><br />This diagram described by Merleau-Ponty illustrates that there is a potentially endless depth to each moment, a depth that consists of strata of past and future, or presents gone and yet to come. In doing so the illustration shrugs off some of the earlier problems raised about the objectivity of a linear view of this problem. Merleau-Ponty draws back from the linearity of this diagram to look at the experience of being in the world and how this clashes with the objectivity of the world. There is a contrast between the different subjective views of individuals drawing on different subjectivities. He is saying that in awareness of these differences, individuals may objectify the world in an attempt to understand it and in doing so, prevent themselves comprehending another person’s subjective experiences, including those of time. This is the point at which Merleau-Ponty approaches the notion of freedom and it’s relationship to the subjectivity of being described in the final section of the book.<br /><br />BERGSON, H. (1990). Time and free will: an essay on the immediate data of consciousness. Trans. Pogson, F. L., Montana, Kessinger Pub. Co.<br />MERLEAU-PONTY, M. (2002). Phenomenology of perception. London, Routledge.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-19567016077964203332011-01-28T14:31:00.004+00:002011-01-28T15:35:28.625+00:00Time and free will: an essay on the immediate data of consciousness, by Henri Bergson (trans. F. L. Pogson)Henri Bergson’s thesis (Bergson 1910) was first published in 1889. The English translation by F. L. Pogson was published in 1910. Bergson’s overall argument is that ‘Inner duration is a qualitative multiplicity … In the external world we find not duration but simultaneity’ (Bergson 1990 p.226~227). The argument is presented to contradict determinist philosophers like Kant who evaluated duration spatially rather than as pure duration. Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Kant 1966) was first published just over one hundred years earlier in 1781. In it Kant argues against the free will of the human being with respect to the empirical character. He argues that human choice is traceable to conditions determined by the empirical character, the sense self rather than the intelligible character, the thinking self. Kant (1966 p.375) states that ‘…if we could investigate all the manifestations of … [human] will to the very bottom, there would be not a single human action which we could not predict with certainty’. Kant’s argument is an example of what Henri Bergson referred to as a determinist’s objection to free will. At the beginning of his essay Bergson indicates his intention to argue against objections raised against free will by determinist philosophy. The essay is arranged as three chapters, the first and second of which deal with intensity and duration respectively. In doing so they introduce the third chapter, which aims to dispel the ‘…confusion of duration with extensity, of succession with simultaneity, of quality with quantity…’ (Bergson 1990 p.xx).<br /><br />While Bergson’s conclusions are profound and expressed with clarity, my interest in this work has been sparked by his insightful illustrations, particularly those regarding the nature of intensity and duration. His descriptions of pure duration encourage the reader to consider temporalities outside of a necessarily sequential framework. He disassociates duration from spatial definitions and in doing so inspires the reader to consider past and future events without experiencing an internal separation from the present. I find Bergson’s descriptions of consciousness and memory inspirational because they show me how to consider overlapping moments as heterogeneous. I will look at Bergson’s writing before reflecting on temporality in my work with consideration to pure duration.<br /><br />Bergson begins chapter 1 by distinguishing quantitative differences between intensity and magnitude and asking ‘…why an intensity can be assimilated to a magnitude.’ (Bergson 1990 p.2). He recognises that magnitude is a quantitative measure of the difference between container and contained but he questions why we resolve to use the language of magnitude when talking about intensity when there is no longer a scale of physical containers. In short, Bergson seems to be looking into the question of why we describe psychic intensities or qualitative experiences in terms of quantifiable magnitude. In tackling the question he considers some ways in which sensory perception could be considered in terms of magnitude.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">‘…every state of consciousness corresponds to a certain disturbance of the molecules and atoms of the cerebral substance, and that the intensity of a sensation measures the amplitude, the complication or the extent of these molecular movements.’</span> (Bergson 1990 p.6)<br /><br />However, he suggests that this mechanical activity is the work our organism and that the magnitude of the work is measurable as if the intensity is located in our consciousness. His further examples of desire, hope, joy and sorrow are more readily understandable as intensities without the requirement to refer to quantities of spatial magnitude. The intensity of hope is an outstanding example as it concerns the potential for joy in the future. Bergson discusses the intensity of hope in this way as a vivid example that is described and associated with temporal intensities before spatial ones. The intensity of sorrow is also discussed in terms of time with reference to the past rather than the future.<br /><br />Bergson starts to consider the intensity of aesthetic feelings by reflecting on the ‘…pleasure of mastering the flow of time and of holding the future in the present.’ (Bergson 1990 p.12) He doesn’t refer to a specific artistic medium at first but refers to movement in general and the fluidity of motion. He talks about graceful curves and suggests that they are pleasing because the turns comfortably indicate where they are going. He seems to be saying that the audience finds pleasure in being able to anticipate the turns of motion because this allows them to prioritise emotional intensity over reflective consciousness. To Bergson reflective consciousness ‘…delights in clean cut distinctions, which are easily expressed in words, and in things with well-defined outlines, like those which are perceived in space.’ (Bergson 1990 p.9). There is a description of the ‘invisible threads’ (Bergson 1990 p.12) that connect the dancer and the audience. Bergson is saying that the threads seem to be associated with the rhythm of a performance and that when the audience feels able to anticipate motion they partly sense a connection to the movement of the dancer. His use of the word thread implies the connection between puppeteer and puppet, but of course qualitative intensities are transmitted in this case rather than physical movement.<br /> <br />In the sections on muscular effort, emotions and affective sensations Bergson continues to find evidence that physical phenomena and states of consciousness have some magnitude in common. The writing suggests that psychic intensity is equivalent to physical sensation experienced during muscular effort or an emotional experience. He refers to the research of Charles Darwin, Hermann Helmholtz and William James to expand on his examples of physical intensities and their relation to psychic ones. He describes how our sensations of pleasure and pain become associated with past conditions as we remember them and we therefore orientate affect in the future. Bergson offers examples of representative sensations in intensities of sound, heat and weight. His example of pitch intensity is particularly interesting because he relates the experience of listening to sound to the experience of producing sound. He suggests that the ‘…suggestive power of music [can] be explained … by admitting that we repeat to ourselves the sounds heard, so as to carry ourselves back into the psychic state out of which they emerged’ (Bergson 1990 p.44). It would seem that as listeners we interpret the intensity of a musical sensation in relation to the magnitude of force required to produce such a sound. Bergson says that ‘…high notes seem to us to produce some sort of resonance in the head and the deep notes in the thorax…’ (Bergson 1990 p.45). He presents this as a possible reason for the way we think of pitch as if it is arranged vertically, in line with the human body. Bergson also says that when singing a range of pitches, as the effort changes from one part of the body to another, our perception of the difference between pitches becomes fragmented into ‘…successive notes as points in space, to be reached by a series of sudden jumps…’ (Bergson 1990 p.45). Bergson has illustrated the problem that arises from psychophysical analysis of this experience, that intensities are often described as magnitudes. The confusion often caused by spatial interpretations is applied to duration in chapter two of Bergson’s essay when he defines pure duration.<br /><br />In chapter one Bergson isolates intensities from causes. He clearly describes the confusion of quality and quantity and how this confusion has introduced ‘…space into our perception of duration…’ (Bergson 1990 p.74). In short this happened because quantification entails spatialised explanations, whereas qualities are non-spatial. In chapter two he isolates duration from space to enquire into the multiplicity of perceived experiences as they unfold in pure duration.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />‘…Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when the ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states.’</span> (Bergson 1990 p.100)<br /><br />Difficulty arises when we attempt to differentiate events within pure duration, are we required to abandon linearity? In chapter two Bergson approaches this area when he discusses the mathematics of infinity when describing the indivisibility of number. He recognises that a number can be said to be the sum of equally sized but distinct units. To imagine number we are required to arrange the units spatially, for example in a row. Bergson suggests that if we focus on a single unit within this row we will blur the surrounding individual units so that they appear to be an indivisible line. If we apply this notion to the recollection of an event in time, we can make a comparison with the human ability to remember details of a specific past event as if in slow motion replay. Bergson makes this comparison when he describes recalling a melody from memory.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">‘…if we interrupt the rhythm by dwelling longer than is right on one note of the tune, it is not its exaggerated length, as length, which will warn us of our mistake, but the qualitative change thereby caused in the whole of the musical phrase. We can thus conceive of succession without distinction, and think of it as mutual penetration…’</span> (Bergson 1990 p.100~101)<br /><br />Bergson has defined pure duration as a conception of time that is not spatialised by succession or quantity. This illustration reminds me of some thoughts I have had about drones. During some performances more than one note has been held continuously on the harmonium. This drone can be described as melody where the notes have a mutually penetrative character and as such the drone can be perceived as having a pure duration that can be understood as a singularity. The drone is non-linear and cannot be described in a spatial way.<br /><br />BERGSON, H. (1990). Time and free will: an essay on the immediate data of consciousness. Trans. Pogson, F. L., Montana, Kessinger Pub. Co.<br />KANT, I. (1966). Critique of pure reason. Trans. Müller, F.M., Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday Anchor.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com274tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-73071526501590370922010-02-09T16:13:00.004+00:002011-01-28T15:36:17.938+00:00Improvisation it’s nature and practice in music, by Derek Bailey<meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/philliphenderson/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>938</o:Words> <o:characters>5352</o:Characters> <o:lines>44</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>10</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>6572</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1282</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Verdana; panose-1:0 2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:8.0pt; font-family:Verdana; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:2.0cm 2.0cm 2.0cm 2.0cm; mso-header-margin:35.45pt; mso-footer-margin:35.45pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Guitar player Derek Bailey began improvising in the early 1960s. In writing about its various forms he managed to describe improvisation and portray its ubiquity with respect to individual performers;<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Improvisation enjoys the curious distinction of being both the most widely practiced of all musical activities and the least acknowledged and understood. While it is today present in almost every area of music, there is an almost total absence of information about it. Perhaps this is inevitable, even appropriate. Improvisation is always changing and adjusting, never fixed, too elusive for analysis and precise description… (Bailey 1992, p.ix)</span><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br />In saying that improvisation is always changing Bailey focuses on its ability to be unpredictable and fresh. The opening chapters of this book offer a concise analysis of Indian music, Flamenco, Baroque, Organ music and Rock music. The chapters are enlivened by conversations and interviews with musicians working within these idioms. Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead offers his thoughts on group improvisation;<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;">
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<br />…the sense of individual control disappears and you are working at another level entirely. Sometimes this feels to me as though you don’t have to really think about what’s happening. Things just flow. It’s kind of hard to report on but it’s a real thing. I mean we’ve checked it out with each other and after twenty-five years of exploring some of these outer limits of musical weirdness this is stuff that we pretty much understand intuitively but we don’t have language to talk about it. (Bailey 1992 p.42)</span><o:p style="font-style: italic;"></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;">
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<br /></span>Garcia represents an interesting case study for Bailey and for any reader on improvisation because of his experience of Alzheimers Disease and his recovery. He describes having to re-learn neural connections between his thoughts and actions. There are many implications of this experience on his improvised music. Foremost seems to be Garcia’s sense of a change of perspective. He states that he plays better than he used to because of the more present need to readdress his musical position. The discussion on how an improvising group remains fresh and unpredictable after years of playing together, sits comfortably with points raised in other chapters. Particularly those points regarding freshness and the immediacy of intuition. In the chapter on Baroque music Bailey talks to Harpsichordist and ensemble director, Lionel Salter. Again Bailey focuses on the intuition of the improviser(s) and publishes Salters comment on the composer / performers relationship with the score / improvisation;<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When it came to slow movements particularly, of course, you find that the notes written down represent a very bare outline, and people who try to play … let’s say Handel sonatas, strictly according to the text, end up with something, at which Handel would probably have laughed uproariously, because he never expected it to be played cold-bloodedly, just like that. In those days composers expected to perform their own works and sometimes out of sheer lack of time they wouldn’t write everything down on paper, they’d just put a thing down to remind themselves that here they were going to do something rather special. (Salter in Bailey 1992 p.20~21)</span><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br />Bailey’s book on improvisation was originally published in 1980 and revised in 1992. Bailey defines two main areas within improvisation. This helps classification of the improvisers he discusses.<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I have used the terms ‘idiomatic’ and ‘non-idiomatic’ to describe the two main forms of improvisation. Idiomatic improvisation, much the most widely used, is mainly concerned with the expression of an idiom – such as jazz, flamenco or baroque – and takes its identity from that idiom. Non-idiomatic improvisation has other concerns and is most usually found in so-called ‘free’ improvisation and, while it can be highly stylised, is not usually tied to representing an idiomatic identity. (Bailey 1992, p.xi~xii)</span><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br />So what are the <i>other concerns</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> that Bailey is referring to? It seems that his musical output is essentially concerned with free improvisation and his writing leads toward a clearer comprehension that free improvisation can occur without the apparent clutter of stylistic categorisation usually attached to idiomatic improvisation. Bailey acknowledges that definitions of improvisation vary widely and he dissects his own definition of it by overcoming the classification of idiom. His book on improvisation leads the reader toward the view that only free (as opposed to idiomatic) improvisation has the ability to:<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">renew and change the known and so provoke an open-endedness which by definition is not possible in idiomatic improvisation (Bailey 1992 p.142)</span><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br />During his life Bailey became increasingly uncomfortable with the use of musical systems for his own improvisations and I suspect that from John Zorn’s perspective Bailey is an artist much like Bill Frisell who disengages from the tussle of Zorn’s games but nonetheless plays intensively throughout. Derek Bailey’s participation in <i>Cobra: Game Pieces, Vol. 2</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> (Zorn et al 2002) in 2002 should be understood in comparison to his collaboration with John Zorn and bassist William Parker on the three track improvised recording <i>Harras</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> (</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;" lang="EN-US">Bailey, Zorn & Parker, 1995</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">).<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br />The application of Bailey’s terminology is useful as a comprehensive exercise in classification, which simplifies data handling for the researcher. However, it is easy to meet complications once any such categorisations become applied outside the context of improvisation and it’s analysis. For example <i>The Shape of Jazz to Come</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> (Coleman et al 1987) can be categorised alongside <i>Spy Vs Spy</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> (Zorn et al 1989) as idiomatic improvisation. On the other hand <i>The Moat Recordings</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> (</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;" lang="EN-US">Jospeph Holbrooke Trio 2006</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">) by Bailey’s own <i>Joseph Holbrooke Trio</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> is very clearly free or non-idiomatic improvisation because although the musicians have come from a jazz background the music no longer fits within that idiom. Furthermore the musical output is not scored or prepared in advance of its performance. However, unless it is popular with the general public, non-idiomatic improvisation is frequently categorised by catalogues and libraries according to broader vague descriptions like alternative and contemporary, which reinforces the contradiction of classifying music with a term that implies that it is unclassifiable.<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
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<br />BAILEY, D. (1992). <i>Improvisation: its nature and practice in music</i></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">. London, British Library National Sound Archive.</span> Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-55174953425815295662009-04-20T14:36:00.006+01:002011-01-28T15:34:59.622+00:00Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation, by Ben WatsonBen Watson’s book about Derek Bailey is largely composed of interview transcripts with Bailey. The interviews are intimate and present Bailey as a sensitive and gentle person. The introduction to this book however, is very punchy and Watson gets straight to the subject of free improvisation. He talks about musical improvisation with heated immediacy and emphasises that his own abrupt mode of delivery is akin to his perception of the abruptness of musical improvisation itself. It lives in the moment. In particular he portrays Bailey the guitar pioneer as a strong-willed individual whose fiery output was partly ignited by the oppressive confines of working as a studio musician for over ten years during the 1950s. Improvisation, particularly Derek Bailey’s guitar work from 1963 onwards is described with an emphasis on the moment in which it is performed. This emphasis highlights the aims of the music industry to package and mass-produce recordings of artists work. So it comes as no surprise that Watson and Bailey’s shared concerns on capitalism and the mainstream music industry quickly come to the surface to counter these aims. It is worth considering that although Bailey had strong opinions on recording, he recorded and published many improvised works until his death in 2005. Watson describes Bailey’s attitude toward improvisation with an almost Marxist polemic.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Derek Bailey’s philosophy of Free Improvisation is fully in line with that of Heraclitus – you can’t step into the same river twice. The water changes, you change, everything changes. The first take is the best because it’s unique, and all imitations are ghastly. The real world is concrete, ever-changing and specific, irreducible to fixed concepts and laws For Bailey, music is a tissue of concrete utterances, irreducible to scores and systems: Free improvisation is thus militantly dialectical. It confounds bourgeois assumptions about music being a matter of scores and records, fixities derived from the world of property relations and promising profits to those with capital to invest.</span> (Watson 2004 p.8~9)<br /><br />Derek Bailey was born in 1930. In an interview with Henry Kaiser broadcast by KPFA in 1987, and also published on UbuWeb (Kaiser 1987) Bailey talks through his early career and the motivation to make improvised music. He began playing guitar for big bands, dance halls, nightclubs, theatres and studios as a commercial musician. By the late 1960s Bailey was growing tired of the restricted freedom he found in commercial music. As a studio musician he felt increasingly confined. In 1963 he met drummer Tony Oxley who also grew up in Sheffield, and Bassist Gavin Bryars. They started working together almost immediately as the Joseph Holbrooke Trio. Oxley acquired lots of drumming experience when he served in the British army as a military drummer and Oxley, Bryars and Bailey felt that they needed to take music in a new direction using their improvisation. The trio played together until 1966 during which time Bailey claims to have defined his personal style of playing. Within three years as a group they moved from playing new music compositions and some jazz to performing free improvisations.<br /><br />KAISER, H. (1987). Derek Bailey Interview by Henry Kaiser, February 7, 1987 Berkeley, KPFA. Available at http://www.ubu.com/sound/bailey.html [Accessed 9th April 2009] Republication on UbuWeb edited by Kenneth Goldsmith 2004.<br />WATSON, B. (2004). Derek Bailey and the story of free improvisation. London, Verso.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-58042719582852704482009-01-14T13:23:00.007+00:002011-01-28T15:37:00.112+00:00Treatise & Treatise Handbook, by Cornelius CardewTreatise (Cardew 1967) is a graphic score by Cornelius Cardew. It was written in stages over a period of four years and completed in 1967. As with many graphic scores I feel that interpretation of the score is best carried out by performance rather than by written critical analysis. Nevertheless I will continue to describe the pages of the score as a means of introducing Cardew’s interpretation of his score. At the bottom of each page Cardew has included a double staff, which implies that this is a linear musical score to be read from left to right. The work appears to be a collection of abstract markings and shapes that evolve over its 193 pages. Most of Cardew’s hand-drawn markings are, to a greater or lesser extent, visibly inspired by the musical symbols of western standard notation. Abstracted minims and crotchets appear, as do ties, slurs, dots, points, lines and numbers. Other forms also share the score; for example there is a very large black disc on page 133 and similar smaller discs and partial discs on surrounding pages. Towards the end of the score many thin lines divide and sub-divide giving tree-like appearances. The composition should be improvised by any number of performers on their choice of instruments or non-instruments and the score should be used as a guide to the performance. In writing this score, Cardew has taken great care to not suggest ways in which it should be read or interpreted by performers of the work.<br /><br />The Treatise Handbook (Cardew 1971) brings together several texts and two scored compositions by Cornelius Cardew. The title indicates that the book is intended to accompany the score and the introduction announces Cardew’s apprehension at the publication of the notes that follow. He states the implicit contradiction in attempting to describe a piece of work that has been constructed in order to remain open to interpretation. However, some justification is made by the fact that Cardew has the opportunity to publish two scores within this book and the lecture Towards an ethic of improvisation.<br /><br />The chapter entitled Treatise: Working notes is a chronologically arranged collection of personal notes made by Cardew during the years he spent writing the score from 1963 to 67. His thoughts resonate with a raw earthiness appropriate to the score. On 11th March 65 for example, Cardew was obviously thinking about the score while reflecting on the central black line that runs throughout the piece with only the occasional break;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Treatise: What is it? Well, it’s a vertebrate… (Cardew 1971 p.vii)</span><br /><br />This suggests that the work is a living organism with a spine. As such, performances of this work will naturally reflect the interpretation of its performer(s) more than necessarily the score as a traditional composition. Some of the symbols in the score clearly echo western notation. However, Cardew allows resemblances to occur only as a reminder of the works musicality.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Interpreter! Remember that no meaning is yet attached to the symbols. They are however to be interpreted in the context of their role in the whole. Distinguish symbols that enclose space (circle, etc.); those that have a characteristic feature. What symbols are for sounding and what for orientation. Example: The horizontal central bar is the main and most constant orientation; what happens where it ceases (or bends)? Do you go out of tune (eg)? (Cardew 1971 p.iii)</span><br /><br />In Treatise: Résumé of pre-publication performances Cardew has included a quote from the program notes of a performance given at Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, 1966. The program notes succinctly describe the score and it’s use.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Treatise is a long continuous drawing – in form rather similar to a novel. But it is composed according to musical principles and is intended to serve as a score for musicians to play from. However, indications of sounds, noises, and musical relationships do not figure in the score, which is purely graphic… Each player interprets the score according to his own acumen and sensibility. (Cardew 1971 p.xii)</span><br /><br />Cardew’s lecture Towards an Ethic of Improvisation delves into some of the philosophical content of the Treatise score. He opens with reference to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1918) and Philosophical Investigations (1945) because of the texts application to music. He goes on to describe improvisation as a relationship between performer, audience and music that is lodged within the time-span of its performance. He describes his experimentation as a member of the improvisatory group AMM. During 1966 the instrumentation of the group expanded far beyond saxophone, piano, violin and guitar. They began using many other instruments and non-instruments, resonant objects made from glass, metal and wood. This period of experimentation seems to have allowed Cardew to consider the role of the improviser as a kind of athlete.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This kind of thing happens in improvisation. Two things running concurrently in haphazard fashion suddenly synchronise autonomously and sling you forcibly into a new phase. Rather like in the 6-day cycle race when you sling your partner into the next lap with a forcible handclasp. Yes improvisation is a sport too, and a spectator sport, where the subtlest interplay on the physical level can throw into high relief some of the mystery of being alive.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Connected with this is the proposition that improvisation cannot be rehearsed. Training is substituted for rehearsal, and a certain moral discipline is an essential part of this training. (Cardew 1971 p.xvii)</span><br /><br />This emphasises the temporal immediacy of the presence of the improvised performance and, as Cardew goes on to say, renders the recording of an improvisation somewhat hollow by comparison. He compares music with and without notation and outlines advantages of notation and it’s absence. He suggests that a sudden absence of notation might leave a performer feeling abandoned. Alternatively it could allow forms of improvisation. Cardew has noticed that well trained musicians that can over-interpret the work Treatise in the sense that they might attempt to literally read the score in a method as close as possible to a reading of standard western notation. However, he says that graphic artists and mathematicians may be more prepared to creatively interpret the score although they may have less capability controlling a musical instrument and producing their desired sound.<br /><br />Cardew refers to Wittgenstein again and quotes him equating the logical structure of recorded music to the logical structure of a score. Cardew draws the conclusion that an improvisation cannot be scored or recorded within out some loss occurring because of the absence of this structure.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Who can be interested purely in sound, however high its ‘fidelity’? Improvisation is a language spontaneously developed amongst the players and between players and listeners. Who can say in what consists the mode of operation of this language? Is it likely that it is reducible to electrical impulses on tapes and the oscillation of a loudspeaker membrane? (Cardew 1971 p.xx)</span><br /><br />Cardew concludes the lecture with a list of Virtues that a musician can develop.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Simplicity</span> is highlighted as the most appealing virtue. However, a simplistic musical expression must also subtly express how it was achieved.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Integrity</span> is the importance of a performer remaining true to the concerns of the music. Cardew exemplifies a professional musician as making the sound and the improvisers in AMM as being the sound.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Selflessness</span> is included to highlight the performers required concern for the work rather than the documentation of it.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Forbearance</span> is the permissive characteristic required of an improviser in order to allow the music to exist.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Preparedness</span> is defined as a delicate balance. The performer should be the music throughout it’s performance while simultaneously being prepared for the music to change unexpectedly.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Identification with nature</span> is similar to preparedness. Cardew says the performer with this virtue will live;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">…like a yachtsman to utilise the interplay of natural forces and currents to steer a course. My attitude is that the musical and the real worlds are one. Musicality is a dimension of perfectly ordinary reality. (Cardew 1971 p.xx)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Acceptance of death</span> is ultimately vital to performers of improvisational music from Cardew’s perspective as it broadly represents the acceptance of the impermanence of music.<br /><br />CARDEW, C. (1967). Treatise. Buffalo, New York, Gallery Upstairs Press.<br />CARDEW, C. (1971). Treatise handbook, including Bun no. 2 and Volo solo. London, Edition Peters.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-24970422471880163662008-12-10T22:28:00.016+00:002012-02-22T14:47:41.491+00:00The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies, by Jonathan D. KramerComposer and music theorist Jonathan Kramer proudly introduces his book The Time of Music (Kramer 1988) with the annunciation that musical time has been largely left out of musical study to date. He describes how this publication will take us through some necessary questions and musical analysis in order to arrive at some current notions of musical time. At the conclusion of the book it is clear to see that he lauds musical nonlinearity, in particular vertical music.<br /><br />When Kramer discusses two particular opposing temporalities he tips his hat to philosopher Susanne Langer whose ideas stem from Basil de Sélincourt. Kramer wrestles with the difference between virtual time (the time in music) and clock time or absolute time. The reference to Aristotle’s Principle of Non-contradiction is strong throughout the book and is mentioned early on in the text to highlight the differences between virtual and absolute time. Kramer explains that the Principle of Non-contradiction is challenged in music because our experience of musical time may differ from the duration counted by a clock or any other mechanical temporal measuring device. Particular pieces of music make use of this contradiction both as a matter of consequence or as a main function. Some pieces of music might give a strong feeling that a short or long time has passed, but if you were to run a stopwatch during the music and measure it’s duration you might be surprised that the stopwatch contradicts your sense of time. This contradiction is generally accepted because people trust the clock and as a result the time of music is located as a property of the music. In Chapter One, Music and Time, Kramer tackles another dual aspect of time, that of being and becoming. These conditions are described with respect to the terms linear and non-linear. He refers to linearity recurring in the logic of western philosophy and to non-linearity especially found in Zen Buddhism. The terms are further described as Sacred and Profane with reference to anthropologist Edward T. Hall who Kramer quotes describing sacred or mythic time. Kramer also quotes psychologist Robert Ornstein in a description of linearity and non-linearity.<br /><br />In chapter 2 Kramer begins to define linearity and non-linearity in music. He offers various examples of linearity of tonal progression and states that this progress within a piece of music can be characterised by change and motion. In defining non-linearity Kramer refers to stasis, the persistent absence of change. He also clearly sets out the circumstances under which composers of the late twentieth century were better equipped to embrace a wave of musical non-linearity due to the dawn of electronic technology and to an increased awareness of music from cultures in which linear progress is not always a foremost characteristic. Kramer introduces the term Vertical in reference to music that is non-linear in structure with particular focus on the musical phrase and it’s quality of suggesting progress within a piece of music.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Phrases have, until recently, pervaded all Western music, even multiply-directed and moment forms: phrases are the final remnant of linearity. But some new works show that phrase structure is not necessarily a component of music. The result is a single present stretched out into an enormous duration, a potentially infinite “now” that nonetheless feels like an instant. In music without phrases, without temporal articulation, with tonal consistency, whatever structure is in the music exists between simultaneous layers of sound, not between successive gestures. Thus, I call the time sense invoked by such music “vertical.” (Kramer 1988 p.55)</span><br /><br />Kramer’s definition invites me to question verticality and how some vertical music can sound like it contains phrases that imply linear structure? Later in the same chapter, Kramer elaborates on his definition by analysing the phrase formations in works by Terry Riley. He explains that the rising and falling phrases that occur in this work may at first seem to resemble linear music. The phrases however do not take priority over each other and no particular phrase is dominant or takes the role of introducing or concluding the piece. The phrasing here is continuous and non-hierarchical. In the following pages Kramer discusses the difficulties of such temporal categorisation and by doing so accepts that although the examples he cites to illustrate various temporalities are specifically demonstrative, they are such because of their definitively unique temporal characteristics.<br /><br />The impact of technology on time in music is discussed in chapter 3. Kramer describes some compositions from the early twentieth century that have almost no repetitive form or phrase and he implies that the dawn of recording technology coincided with a surge in this kind of music. By the time performances were being widely recorded and distributed, composers were beginning to respond to the simultaneous shift of compositional method and audience listening habits. He defines mobile form as a response to this shift. In mobile form, the sequence of sections within a piece, are permitted to differ from one performance to the next and as a result, recordings of individual performances are nothing more than a partial document of the overall work. Kramer quotes from a conversation between he and Stockhausen (Kramer 1988 p.69) in which Stockhausen states that a recording of open form is akin to a photograph of a bird in flight. The difference between the bird and its photograph is as vast as the difference between a performance in open form and its subsequent record.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Stockhausen once compared the recording of one version of an open form to a photograph of a bird in flight. We understand the picture as showing but one of a multitude of shapes the bird may take. But which is the artwork, the bird or the photograph? And which is the composition we are hearing, the abstract open form that we might intuit with the aid of score or program notes, or the realization on the fixed, carefully engineered recording? (Kramer 1988 p.69)</span><br /><br />Musique concrète is described alongside other methods of tape splicing editing. The absence of a performance is discussed here, as is a composer’s experimentation with continuity. Kramer compares this method of making music to methods employed by filmmakers of the 1920s particularly the Russians, Kuleshov and Eisenstein. The concept of Absolute time is introduced by Kramer’s description of tape works by Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Kramer states that absolute time is determined by certain discrete durations that are specific to a piece of technology. Riley uses the method of tape head echo to generate repetitions of musical phrases. The recorded sound is passed through the record head directly from the play head of a machine so the sound is heard again less than a second after the first recording. This technique was used on the album A Rainbow in Curved Air (Riley 1969). Steve Reich’s method of making tape loops is also described as the use of an absolute duration within composition. Reich simultaneously played several loops of similar duration in order to generate phasing within his work. The chapter continues and includes Kramer’s comparisons of human performance and sequencer playback. He focuses on the rhythmical inaccuracy of human performance compared to a computer program and the chapter concludes with a brief description of the rapid turnaround time from composition to performance aided by modern computer software.<br /><br />The chapter on meter and rhythm opens with an acknowledgment that many theorists have tried to describe meter and rhythm. Kramer’s definition of meter is concise and communicable. He describes meter as if it is a point on a graph where axes converge. In this sense meter doesn’t constitute sound. Kramer refers to the point of meter as a timepoint.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We hear events that start or stop at timepoints, but we cannot hear the timepoints themselves. A timepoint is thus analogous to a point in geometric space… Space itself is three-dimensional; a plane has two dimensions; a line has one, and a point has none… Musical events give us information about which timepoints are significant (accented), but we sense rather than literally hear the degree of metric accentuation at each timepoint. (Kramer 1988 p.83)</span><br /><br />He goes on to describe types of accent and questions whether meter points are necessarily always evenly spaced within a piece of music. The chapter concludes with metric analysis of the second movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, op.13. He offers analysis of passages from the works of Schoenberg and Webern using an array of terms defined in different chapters of the book. As Fraser does in Time as Conflict (Fraser 1978), Kramer uses a list of temporalities that enable him to handle the material of his analysis. He updates his list of temporalities throughout the book. Here is my summary of the list;<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Absolute time</span> There is linear procession of moments.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Social time</span> The system of time organisation reliant on timetables and plans.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Clock time</span> The linear procession of moments as described by the reading of a clock.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Virtual time</span> The subjective time felt by a person absorbed in listening to a piece of music.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gestural time</span> The significant gestures within a piece that determine the continuity.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Goal-directed time</span> The musical events move toward foreseeable conclusions.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nondirected time</span> The musical events move toward unforeseeable conclusions.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Multiply-directed time</span> The musical movements occur in multiple directions.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Vertical time</span> There is no differentiation between past, present and future. There may be no separate events.<br /><br />Kramer also defines linear and nonlinear time. Linear time refers to events that stem from earlier events in a piece. Nonlinear time refers to events that stem from a piece’s overall idea or theory. Kramer dedicates a chapter to Moment, Moment time and Moment form. He defines moments as,<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">…self-contained entities, capable of standing on their own yet in some nonlinear sense belonging to the context of the composition. (Kramer 1988 p.207)</span><br /><br />Moment form allows priority for each item or article of time within a piece of music instead of giving prime concern to the time of the whole work. Kramer describes how Stockhausen and many other twentieth century composers sought to allow music to have a smooth overall texture by this means. He cites Stravinsky, Messiaen, Debussy and Bartók as generators of this mosaic form and compares moment form to some Japanese art. The composer Elliott Carter is mentioned as a critic of moment form simply for his personal desire to retain an underlying subtly linear structure within a piece of work. Kramer describes some of the paradoxes of moment time that are founded in its reliance on the audience’s memory. The main paradox is that moments can only be compared to one another by the audience once they have all been heard, which implies that the audience should perform the impossible and not experience linearity during a live performance.<br /><br />The eleventh chapter on The Perception of Musical Time addresses the psychological question of how virtual time, as perceived by an audience, compares to clock time. Kramer indicates that this area of psychology is studied by some scientists but presents obstacles in that it is such a very subjective area to quantify. Memory is brought back into the fore as Kramer discusses the necessity to remember timepoints to be able to compare sections of a piece from memory and subsequently comprehend their duration. He describes the human mechanism of cumulative listening, which is the active storage of musical information while we are listening to a piece of music and after it has finished. Kramer refers to William James in his description of the specious present and describes notions of the duration of the present. He states that according to some psychologists the present can have a clock time duration of up to 10 seconds.<br /><br />In the chapter on Time and Timelessness Kramer opens by stating that perceived timepoints are used to achieve chunking of durations within a piece. This information is then used in order to make decisions about the overall duration of the music. Vertical music often removes obvious timepoints and other auditory cues usually associated with chunking memory and determining duration. Kramer quotes psychologists that link certain conditions with the reduction of linear thinking. These conditions or activities include meditation, dreaming, hypnosis and some mental illnesses. It is Kramer’s implication too that vertical music possesses qualities that may distort a listener’s sense of duration. He posits Thomas Clifton’s argument against his own. Clifton is quoted describing the thoughts and consciousness of an audience member. The thoughts provide some form of linearity to the listening experience and therefore resist the claim of nonlinearity within the music. Kramer replies to this point with descriptions of his personal experiences of timelessness in music. The example he describes where he attended a performance of Erik Satie’s Pages mystiques (1893) in 1971 gives clear insight into Kramer’s transition from linear listening to vertical listening during the performance. As a section of the work was repeated for numerous hours Kramer found he quickly became frustrated and almost bored by the early repetitions, however this soon shifted into the pleasurable absence of expectation.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I had left behind my habits of teleological listening. I found myself fascinated with what I was hearing… I became incredibly sensitive to the smallest performance nuance, to an extent impossible when confronting the high information content of traditional music. (Kramer 1988 p.379)</span><br /><br />Towards the end of the book, Kramer arrives at conclusions relating to his appreciation of vertical music. He reiterates a reference to Fraser’s temporal levels in Time as Conflict (Fraser 1978) and by hinting at world cultures he suggests that an awareness of the possibilities of temporal experimentation in art is good for you.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The nonlinear mode of thinking is present to some degree in everyone and in every culture. Our left-brain society has tried to suppress it. But, in reaction against the excessively linear values of our technological society, vertical music has become an important force in recent years. It is a holistic music that offers a timeless temporal continuum, in which the linear interrelationships between past, present and future are suspended. (Kramer 1988 p.387)</span><br /><br />FRASER, J. T. (1978). Time as conflict: a scientific and humanistic study. Basel, Birkhäuser.<br />KRAMER, J. D. (1988). The Time of Music: new meanings, new temporalities, new listening strategies. New York, Schirmer.<br />RILEY, T. (1969). A Rainbow in Curved Air. New York, CBS Records.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-59191244451313540532008-08-01T13:26:00.005+01:002011-01-28T15:38:22.552+00:00Time as conflict: a scientific and humanistic study, by J. T. FraserThe books introduction begins with an assertion that deductive reasoning is only useful in tandem with intuitive passions. This sensitive opening statement allows Fraser to tackle many aspects of the human experience of time. He addresses mathematical physics, behaviour and art. The conflict of time is immediately brought to the fore as Fraser pits the clockmaker against the cycle of nature illustrated by the annual opening of a pinecone.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Underneath our technical skills, as well as beneath our reflective modes of dealing with time we may suspect, therefore, the presence of the existential tension of man clockmaker and clockwatcher. (Fraser 1978 p.19)</span><br /><br />Fraser establishes several levels of time that enable his handling of the topics in the book. He gives the label Temporalities to the levels of time and then goes on to define each one. He also states in what way each temporality is relevant to the purposes of his argument. For example, atemporality is encountered in physiological experiences and eotemporality is encountered in the organic functions of life. There is work in later chapters on measuring neurological timescales. Here is a basic breakdown and summary of Fraser’s Temporalities;<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Atemporal</span> There is no event, no before/during/after.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Prototemporal</span> This is the first level, there is barely a difference between now and then. Prototemporal entities are countable but not orderable.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Eotemporal</span> There is succession but not direction, <span style="font-style: italic;">“…Time may be said to flow, but past-present-future cannot be distinguished from future-present-past…” (Fraser 1978 p.23).</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Biotemporal</span> This is determined by living creatures. Maintaining autonomy of creatures, in the “creature present”. Futurity and pastness become polarised.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nootemporal</span> Nootemporal is of the mind. <span style="font-style: italic;">“…Beginnings and endings are well defined and form the bases of private cosmologies whose central theme is personal identity…” (Fraser 1978 p.24).</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sociotemporal</span> Fraser states that his book hopes to point towards this temporality as it is the only one that has the potential to exist outside the individual and is related to the progress of human experience.<br /><br />In chapter XI Freedom of the Beautiful, Fraser discusses temporality in the arts. The opening section entitled Timelessness, exemplifies sensations of timelessness through various states of ecstasy that are accompanied by Fraser’s temporalities. An example is the ecstasy of the dance, which is described as a<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“…method of lessening the burden of individuation. The tension of selfhood lessens, the direction of time retreats from consciousness, and the Umwelt of the mind is again eotemporal…” (Fraser 1978 p.282).</span><br /><br />Fraser lists the temporalities and relates each to works of art in a section called The Moods of Time. According to Fraser, Atemporality is demonstrated in the mood of a poem by Nishida Kitaro and prototemporality is hinted at in the second movement of Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite. Berg’s Suite has an unpredictable structure and the sounds are <span style="font-style: italic;">“…purposely incoherent…” (Fraser 1978 p.284)</span>. Fraser explains however that like Dada, Berg has not achieved prototemporality <span style="font-style: italic;">“…because a striving for meaninglessness remained meaningful…” (Fraser 1978 p.284)</span>. Eotemporality is most simply exemplified in art by cubist paintings. As Fraser puts it <span style="font-style: italic;">“…Cubist doctrine demands the combination on the canvas of various views which belong to the same structure, but are not perceivable at a single instant; cubism insists on an eotemporal mood.” (Fraser 1978 p.287)</span>. Fraser also cites Egyptian art for its ability to evoke a flow or progression of time within a single image. The biotemporal mood in art is described by the construction of temporal parameters. Fraser references Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and describes how the mood of the story evokes a sense of constructed time. He also quotes Marcel Proust in Remembrance of things past. Proust’s description implies that objects are fixed because our perception fixes them. In identifying the nootemporal mood in art Fraser gives examples from Hieronymous Bosch, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. He sets out with focus on the observations of Freudian psychoanalysis and goes on to explain that the nootemporal in art is often found in depictions of repressed feelings and the emergence of the sense that something is uncanny.<br /><br />Fraser describes a difference between human and animal with particular reference to aesthetic ability. While butterflies are beautiful, their colouring is practical. Birds on the other hand do appear to utilise some sense of attractiveness. Fraser states that humans are different from animals in their experience of the moods of time, <span style="font-style: italic;">“…Animals could not share the biotemporal or eotemporal moods associated with sense experience, because these moods are the reactions of the mature mind to those respective Umwelts” (Fraser 1978 p.294).</span> Fraser refers to animal behaviour again in the section on music’s related temporalities. He describes a Chimpanzee troop going on a carnival. They shout and beat tree trunks, Fraser describes the communication necessity of this action and others in the animal world. He mentions whale and bird song made for survival and for pleasure. He discusses rhythmic repetitions and states that they begin to hint at the marker of difference between emotive and intellectual utterance.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Rhythmic repetitions determine par excellence an eotemporal world of pure succession; the unpredictable or only probabilistically predictable elements determine prototemporality. The spectrum of sound brings into play all the physiological and psychological faculties that we normally employ in time perception and in constructing our sense of time. In music we are called upon to use very short term and long term memories as well as expectations. Unlike the visual arts that modify, behold, and create an external reality that appears to be independent of the viewer, music and poetry enter directly into the audio loop that helps define the self. The tension and relaxation of musical metaphors and their multilevel play are paradigms of existential stress. For this reason, music can reflect emotive cosmologies, complementary to the cognitive cosmologies of science.” (Fraser 1978 p.297-298)</span><br /><br />Fraser is talking about states of mind brought about by a feeling of timelessness. He lists musical sources in which moments of timelessness can be found; Zangetsu (Morning moon) by Kinto Minezaki, this piece evokes the timeless dawn. Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten has an introduction that has the same subject as above. Bolero by Maurice Ravel is repetitive and climactic. Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss uses musical representations of male and female orgasm. Fraser’s list includes examples of ecstasies in music that can be identified by his temporalities. His book concludes with a chapter of pages of questions that are in many ways informed by the books overarching enquiry into a temporality that characterises human experience.<br /><br />FRASER, J. T. (1978). Time as conflict: a scientific and humanistic study. Basel, Birkhäuser.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-54125167774533081962008-05-22T22:24:00.002+01:002011-01-28T15:38:38.314+00:00Shamanism, by Mircea EliadeMircea Eliade’s book Shamanism carries the additional title; <span style="font-style: italic;">Archaic techniques of ecstasy</span>. It gives an excellent global view of the mystical vocation of Shamanism. It describes in detail practices pertaining to Shamans from various parts of the world including; Australia, Siberia, and South America, Tibet, China and the Far East. The chapters are laid out according to Shamanic practices and comparisons are made between their geographical differences and similarities. The book has especially significant chapters offering details of; Initiation, Symbolism of costume and drum, Cosmology and powers, healing and sickness, myths symbols and rites.<br /><br />ELIADE, M. (1989). Shamanism. London, ArkanaPhillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-77338542396968675092008-05-22T22:20:00.002+01:002011-01-28T15:38:53.109+00:00The way of the shaman, by Michael HarnerMichael Harner’s book opens with lengthy detailed accounts of his experiences with Jivaro American Indians during 1956 & ’57 and Conibo Indians in 1960 & ‘61. He is aware that an ethnocentric approach to anthropological study of the particular rituals he describes might have produced blinkered results. So the first chapter appropriately tackles his very strong learning experiences encouraged by consuming the sacred ayahuasca. He describes preparing for the supernatural journey for a day and consuming the drink at night under the strict guidance of a local Shaman. He describes many visions and related emotional responses that at first appear to be very personal. During the following chapters, Harner relates these experiences to his comprehension of the practices and philosophies of Shamanism. In Chapter three he describes two illustrative examples of the healing purpose of the journey made between realities by a shaman;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A shaman may be called upon to help someone who is dis-spirited, that is, who has lost his personal guardian spirit or even his soul. In such cases, the shaman undertakes a healing journey in nonordinary reality to recover the lost spirit or soul and return it to the patient. Or a shaman’s patient may be suffering from a localised pain or illness. In such a case, the shaman’s task is to extract the harmful power to help restore the patient to health.</span> (Harner 1990 p.44)<br /><br />In the following chapters Harner describes methods and rituals that can be undertaken by the inexperienced practitioner including making a journey to find a power animal or spirit guide. Rituals of healing are described and methods of drumming and dancing are illustrated in relation to inducing trance.<br /><br />HARNER, M. J. (1990). The way of the shaman. San Francisco, Harper & Row.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-45489017114557029582008-05-22T22:14:00.003+01:002011-01-28T15:39:07.822+00:00Genesis of a Music, by Harry PartchHarry Partch’s book was first published in 1947. It is clear to see that Partch was an enthusiastic entrepreneur who possessed a very strong drive to create his musical compositions and performances in spite of the fact that the instruments and tuning systems required had not been completely constructed yet. Partch had an endearing and eccentric distaste for equal temperament tuning. His book, Genesis of a music (Partch, 1974) outlines a history of tuning defined by intervals of ratio. Early on in this work, Partch signals Ling Lun in the twenty-seventh century BCE. This court musician is documented as scribing a pentatonic scale that forms the beginning of Partch’s journey through tuning. In chapter fourteen <span style="font-style: italic;">History of Intonation</span> Partch attempts to describe a chronological development of tuning which can be cross referenced with a comprehensive diagram in chapter five. The diagram charts the Chronology of the recognition of intervals and Partch has included himself in the final most recent stages of the chronology. With this book, Partch tips his hat to Helmholtz’s <span style="font-style: italic;">On The Sensations of tone</span> (Helmholtz, 1885) by referring to what Helmholtz calls the beats found in dissonant combinational tones. Partch gives detailed descriptions of his own systems of tuning that suit his method of just intonation with up to fourty-three notes per octave. There are photographs of dozens of Partch’s new musical instruments and close-ups of the keyboard of his Chromelodeon and it’s many additional keys. Like many composers, Partch highly valued the human voice as a source of inspiration and as his work progressed he began to rely more heavily on the corporeal performance. His increasingly large instruments with many keys or strings required great physical agility of each performer, so it follows that Partch developed a fine sense for the appearance of the performances of his works.<br /><br />HELMHOLTZ, H. V., & ELLIS, A. J. (1885). On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music. London, Longmans, Green.<br />PARTCH, H. (1974). Genesis of a music; an account of a creative work, its roots and its fulfillments. New York, Da Capo Press.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-34635202046252917252008-05-17T18:12:00.003+01:002011-01-28T15:39:24.667+00:00On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music, by Hermann HelmholtzPart 1 of Helmholtz’s book opens with an explanation that the sensation of hearing is unique to any other human sense in that only the ear can be stimulated by such precise exterior conditions of vibration. On page 128, Helmholtz explains that the ear detects simpler elements of detected waves and vibrates sympathetically with those waves. He continues to describe the workings of the ear and in Parts 2 and 3 he moves on to describe sounds in terms of waveform in relation to music.<br /><br />This work became a major influence on composers during the twentieth century especially for its annunciation that western, or twelve-tone tuning systems seem to have become accepted largely in spite of tonal quality. To be more specific, the central message of the book is that frequencies generated by two or more tones can cause by-products that are disharmonious to the ear.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When two or more compound tones are sounded at the same time beats may arise from the combinational tones as well as from the harmonic upper partials. (Helmholtz 1885 p.197)</span><br /><br />The beats that Helmholtz is referring to here and all through his book are the beats or pulsations of a vibration or oscillation. Visualised in waveform the vibrations can be understood in terms of the frequency of the wave. When two or more tones are sounded at intervals a combination frequency is sounded. Helmholtz explains this principle through diagrams, illustrations and explanations of the mechanics of numerous musical instruments. He focuses his point by talking about intonation and tuning methods. He explains that some of the beats produced by composite frequencies within twelve-tone equal temperament happen to fall outside of this framework. Helmholtz shows that these by-products are dissonant when perceived in relation to the tuning system from which they derive.<br /><br />It could be said that Helmholtz has addressed aesthetics from a mathematical perspective when you consider that dissonance is an unfavourable vibration and Helmholtz is stating that vibrations can be deemed to be unfavourable when they produce results that noticeably fall outside the framework of tuning used in Western Europe from around the sixteenth century.<br /><br />HELMHOLTZ, H. V., & ELLIS, A. J. (1885). On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music. London, Longmans, Green.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-9119990101497547172008-04-15T00:44:00.009+01:002011-01-28T15:40:25.090+00:00Talking music: conversations with John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and five generations of American experimental comp... by William DuckworthThe American composer William Duckworth conducted a series of interviews with late 20th century composers for his comprehensive textbook written during a period of around ten years from the mid 1980s. He has compiled interviews with seminal composers and included a brief biographical introduction to each at the beginning of each chapter. He applies labels for convenience to further categorise each artist and I will look at his interview with Young and Zazeela, which is placed at the front of the section entitled Minimalists.<br /><br />Duckworth begins by introducing La Monte Young’s childhood through an enquiry into his Mormon family upbringing in an Idaho community of only 149 people. The Mormon notion of eternal life is mentioned as a possible source of inspiration in Young’s drone work. Young elucidates on this by explaining that as he matured and questioned his beliefs he began to focus on the spiritual rather than the religious. He quotes the singer Pandit Pran Nath when describing spiritual music and names Ali Akbar Khan as an early influence on his musical taste. Duckworth asks about Young’s childhood memories of constant-frequency sounds and some examples are mentioned. Young recalls listening closely to telephone poles as they hum with electricity in remote landscapes. He remembers the grasshopper’s constant pulse and perhaps one of his earliest memories is reported to be the sound of the wind gently howling through his log cabin home. Young grew older and began buying records of music from other cultures. He heard drones in music from southern India that echoed his memories of childhood and influenced his developing personal philosophy.<br /><br />Young describes a very personal attitude when talking about his relationship to long tones. He clearly talks about a distinction between rhythm and tone while considering both forms within the same frame of reference.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I felt that the rhythms, as we find them in normal music, tended to lead one back to a more earthy and earthly kind of existence and behaviour, whereas the long sustained tones tended to lead me – and I felt it would other people – toward a more spiritual path. They were a higher form of vibration. (Duckworth 1999 p.218)</span><br /><br />It is clear from the interview that Marian Zazeela and La Monte Young’s lives are inscribed within each other and Zazeela’s presence in the interview is complimentary as she supports Young’s recollections from time to time. Duckworth enquires about the inspiration behind several of Young’s compositions and Zazeela draws out some childhood memories that relate directly to sounds written into scores. She refers to the sounds of metal wheels on the train tracks echoed in Young’s Trio for Brass. Young discusses the compositional techniques applied to different works. Trio for Strings was composed on the organ at UCLA so that he could use an instrument that enabled him to listen to the long tones. He also states that it is partly because of this method that the work itself became very difficult to play with relative accuracy on the violin. He describes his and Zazeela’s interest in the compositional methods employed by Webern, Stockhausen and Boulez, which he describes as notated in terms of duration. They were developing new ways to write duration into a score. Young explains that after studying with Stockhausen in 1959 he became more aware that Cage and Stockhausen were not coming from very different approaches, that their scores influenced each other and that they shared concerns.<br /><br />Young describes the ongoing compositional method applied to The Well-Tuned Piano. This piece is a lengthy example of Young’s fascination with long tones and just intonation. Since it was first performed in 1964 the piece has organically grown in duration and form almost every time it has been performed. It is in some sense still being composed. Zazeela’s use of light is discussed in relation to this ongoing work entitled The Well-Tuned Piano in The Magenta Lights. Young describes performances that share characteristics with the Fluxus movement but insists that he withdrew from that association because of his individuality. Duckworth asks how Young feels to be entitled “Father of Minimalism”. Young accepts this title with pleasure and explains that Terry Riley followed Young in the sense that he began to make repetitive rhythmic sounds within a limited tonal range. Steve Reich and Philip Glass also took inspiration from Riley and Young and soon minimalism in music took root and was growing strong.<br /><br />Young talks about the history and make up of the group The Theatre of Eternal Music, especially the coming together of Young and Zazeela with drummer Angus MacLise. Duckworth asks about the teachings of Pandit Pran Nath and his influence on their work. Young and Zazeela talk affectionately about his teachings, they talk about him as a guru who initiated a study of Hindustani music that enriched their work and enlightened them spiritually. Young also discusses improvisation and indeterminacy in relation to the necessary meditative condition of their execution.<br /><br />In the following chapter Duckworth outlines Terry Riley’s work with particular reference to his seminal composition In C. The composition was first performed in 1964 in San Francisco. Riley describes the premier as an underground performance and Duckworth reflects that it was this particular performance that contributed to Riley’s rapid rise in popularity as the audience was made up of performers, musicians and dancers. Riley refers to La Monte Young’s influence upon his work and talks at length about the spiritual side to music especially tuning and intonation. Referring to just intonation, Riley emphasises the spiritual in his work;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You know the idea of Yoga is union, union with God. And tuning means atonement, or trying to make two things one, right? So, just intonation has a lot to do with achieving the correct proportional balances of notes in order to create one. And when you sing into a perfectly tuned tambura, you sing one note, which is as satisfying as any other musical experience. So I think that’s the spiritual significance. (Duckworth 1999 p.283)</span><br /><br />In this interview and in those of La Monte Young interviewed by Richard Kostelanetz (Young & Zazeela 1969), the physical presence of Pandit Pran Nath in New York appears to herald the beginning of a wave of consciousness about the work being produced by this group of artists. Riley states that Young helped to fund Pran Nath’s residency in America and was the administrator for several of his concerts. Both Young and Riley became his disciples and they individually state that they learned a lot from his musical and philosophical teaching. Riley is questioned about taking and using a tradition from a non-Western source and whether he considers himself to have done a disservice. He quickly responds as a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath that he has learned the raga and how to improvise within that framework. Riley also refers to the parallel that Young draws with the blues. He states that in Dorian Blues in G Young handles twelve bar blues in a very similar way to a raga but that they are different frameworks.<br /><br />DUCKWORTH, W. (1999). Talking music: conversations with John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and five generations of American experimental composers. New York, Da Capo Press.<br />YOUNG, L. M., & ZAZEELA, M. (1969). Selected writings. München, H. Friedrich. Available at http://www.ubu.com/historical/young/index.html [Accessed 9th December 2007] Republication on UbuWeb edited by Kenneth Goldsmith 2004.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-9953152954522803312008-03-27T15:13:00.010+00:002011-01-28T15:40:53.413+00:00Charlemagne Palestine: Sacred Bordello, edited by Antonio GuzmanThe book, Charlemagne Palestine: Sacred Bordello (Guzman 2003) edited by Antonio Guzman contains five written accounts of Charlemagne Palestine’s life and work and a comprehensive biography of his career as a practicing artist. The accounts are by writers in various fields and I will review them in chronological order. The book is published by Black Dog Publishing and in their method and choice of subject, they certainly achieve their aim;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">…to represent an eclectic take on contemporary culture (Black Dog Publishing, 2008)</span><br /><br />Contrasting typefaces are used to distinguish the five chapters and more than half of the 191 pages are full colour prints of Palestine’s various works. There are printed photographs of Palestine playing the Bösendorfer piano, this is the only piano manufacturer that he will use. There are many more images of installations of his family, an enormous collection of soft toy animals. The bold contrasting colours and large prints make a reading of this book into a demanding visual experience. Palestine’s apparently eclectic method is taken up by Antonio Guzman in the first chapter; Let all the children boogie; Blood on the keyboards / Brooklyn boy / Choir boy / Golden boy / Old boy / Bad boy: A preface. Guzman is an art critic, art historian and writer on contemporary art. In 1991 he took on directorship of L’Ecole des Beaux-arts of Valenciennes. Guzman compares Palestine’s installations to his music and performance and in doing so identifies a striking heterogeneity across the contrasting techniques employed by Palestine.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">His work manipulates opposite poles of the sacred and the secular, the mystical and the popular, the quick and inanimate. It juxtaposes discrepancies; classicism and kitsch, culture and vulgarity, maturity and childhood, good taste and bad. (Guzman 2003 p.17)</span><br /><br />Guzman observes that the music performances by Palestine function within temporality and the installations of toy animals are derived from sculpture. His music performances given at the piano are often very long and repetitive. The installations appear to consist of vast gatherings of toys arranged on the floor or in galleries, boxes, on makeshift shelves, step ladders and fabric covered plinths. Guzman refers to the writings of Hubert Damisch, Lessing, Hegel and Schopenhauer to describe Palestine’s non-hierarchical application of artistic disciplines across different media within his practice.<br /><br />The titles of various installations, including Sacred Bordello are listed to illustrate the view that Palestine’s work can be located between ritualistic and totemic. Guzman suggests that Palestine is transforming the disposable consumer item into the vehicle of a deity by means of magic Gnostic ceremony. The soft and cuddly animal toy is elevated to God status by Palestine. This fetishisation presents a profound contrast to the audience; the signification of childhood innocence idolised as the presence of a divinity.<br /><br />The second chapter; Divine Insurrection is written by Edwin Pouncey. Pouncey is a practicing artist and writer known as Savage Pencil. He writes and draws for The Wire Magazine and much of his report on Palestine is harvested from an interview published in issue 154 of The Wire in 1996 (Pouncey 1996). Pouncey begins with a biographical account of Palestine’s childhood and early career. Palestine was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York (although other articles state he was born in 1945). He describes his traditional Jewish upbringing and focuses on the synagogue as the place where he discovered spatial acoustics resonance and perhaps most importantly the long recitals of Hebrew texts. This is a clue to the durational element within his performances at the piano. Pouncey describes that when Palestine became the carillonneur at Saint Thomas church he developed a kind of corporeal sense of how to play. He performed church music twice weekly for six years and was eventually given the window of opportunity to perform his own experimental works. He performed for fifteen minutes per day what is described as a musical soap opera. Where he finished one day he would begin again the next. This drew crowds and the attention of Tony Conrad who, as Palestine recalls, later introduced him to other eminent New York artists of the time. Conrad asked Palestine to play bells for the film Coming Attractions along with other musicians including Young and Zazeela, Riley and Cale.<br /><br />Pouncey describes that while working on synthesised drones at The Intermedia Centre, New York he became influenced by the teachings of Pandit Pran Nath. Palestine was working on The Spectral Continuum Drones for church pipe organ, which would later evolve into an early form of Strumming music for piano. He moved to California and continued work on synthesised drone whereupon he built an electronic Drone Machine comparable to the Indian Sruti box (a small hand-operated reed drone maker). He found that the very clear sounding overtones of the Bösendorfer piano was as pleasing to him as his very precise Drone Machine. He began to compose for the piano and as Pouncey reports, performed Strumming Music countless times during the 1970s and became an instrumental figure within the minimalist movement. Palestine’s return to New York in 1973 heralded a new phase of video work and very physically and mentally demanding live performances at the piano. He describes how he would anesthetise himself with cognac and Indonesian kretek cigarettes prior to performances of Timbral Assault. Palestine would sit almost in a trance at the piano for several hours playing repeated notes, listening to the overtones and consequently often producing a bloody keyboard. He highlights his influence on performers including Chris Burden and Iggy Pop.<br /><br />The essay Sacré, Sacré, Sacré Charlemagne! is written by Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux an artist and writer. He opens with an anecdotal reminder of Palestine’s manner of simultaneously evoking the sacred and the profane. Labelle-Rojoux goes on to give a personal account of one of Palestine’s performances in the early 1980s. Palestine was sat between two Bösendorfers performing Strumming Music to the entranced audience. He uses the word purring to describe other minimalist music of the time and then says this of Palestine’s work;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The music spoke to a sense of dislocated sacredness, inadequate and bizarre, that was far removed from religion of a more conventional coin… (Labelle-Rojoux from Guzman 2003 p.100)</span><br /><br />He states that Palestine’s work retained a sense of sacredness and unease as it evolved throughout the 1980s from music into art installation. He draws a comparison with Joseph Beuys’ ritual shamanic works involving inanimate animals and the religious equipment of the Chinese prayer table. A more striking comparison is made between he and Sun Ra. Labelle-Rojoux is proud to have witnessed a performance by Sun Ra in the 1970s and recalls the personal cosmography that Sun Ra seems to use that corresponds to Palestine’s method of evoking an atmosphere of ritual within his performances. Labelle-Rojoux acknowledges that Sun Ra and Palestine’s work are of course very different in form and content. The similarities are brought out in mystic symbolism.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">…as surely as Sun Ra’s flying saucers. Charlemagne’s swarm of coloured stuffed animals does not conjure up a childhood idealised by memory, but instead evokes childhood’s residence in the present, populated by the soft caresses, irrational fears, secret pleasures, and incommunicable thoughts of the distanced, repressed world of adults: an animal carnival, far from ordinary socialised life… (Labelle-Rojoux from Guzman 2003 p.105)</span><br /><br />Labelle-Rojoux concludes his essay with a final comparison of Palestine’s work to that of Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley. Here the comparison draws attention to the contrast of a child’s rites and rituals to the asserted value system of the adult responsible world. The implication remains that Palestine’s work is often characterised by intuition that is at odds with a traditional or commonly accepted sense of responsibility.<br /><br />The next essay by Edwin Pouncey consists of an elucidation on Palestine’s use of stuffed toy animals. The chapter is almost exclusively composed of Pouncey’s interview with Palestine on this subject. The essay is titled; Sponges and Magnets: The Shamanic Art, which refers to a comment Palestine makes about the gathering of stuffed toys ‘Charleworld’ in the context of throwaway consumer culture. He is explaining that the stuffed toys he uses in his works are collected or rescued from thrift stores and they have a particular energy partly because of this source. Pouncey asks how Palestine decides which animals to use, Palestine replies;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">…when I look at these animals for a certain period of time, they seem to present themselves in this inanimate, but animated world of sponges and magnets. Like a sunflower, when the sun shines they open up, and by doing so they reveal who they are. They become characters in this strange, continuous theatre of inanimate animism… They absorb a certain kind of energy and then they transmit it into the other space. (Pouncey from Guzman 2003 p.143)</span><br /><br />The energy appears to have been there throughout Palestine’s life as the chapter opens with Palestine’s recollection of an early artwork made at the University of Buffalo, which consisted of arrangements of stuffed toy animals. This work echoes his memory of being eight years old watching television in bed under a blanket arranged like a tepee, surrounded by toy animals that he felt were there to protect him. He watched the television with his favourite bear while the other toys around him held plastic weapons. He describes that as he grew older, the animals remained close to him and became central to his work during the 1980s.<br /><br />Palestine recalls feeling close to other primary American artists of the 1960s and 70s when he also felt regarded as an outsider. He describes having difficulty positioning his work in the context of an art audience that was becoming increasingly hungry to consume objects and perhaps a little tired of minimalist concepts. He didn’t feel that he had enough practical business knowledge to compete with younger artists, for example Mike Kelley and Tony Ousler. However, Palestine seems to have maintained confidence in the durational presence of his work. His attitude towards his work appears to appropriately transcend the distraction of contemporary concerns while he brings ancient practices into the present. This attitude reflects Palestine’s ability to signify the continuum in his works. The shamanic nature of his performances is picked up when Palestine reflects on his Russian-Jewish upbringing. He states the he was surrounded by ritual and that this has naturally become integrated into his artistic practices. In a passage of text on page 129 Palestine vividly describes a trance-like state achieved during his early piano performances where the animal creatures are sitting on the piano;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The people around me who were watching and listening became a blur of energy to me. The things that looked at me straight in the eye with this sense of constant ‘presentness’ were these creatures that were sitting or hanging from my instrument… All of a sudden, all of the things around me become a blur, except that I became very conscious of space itself. The air became more important than the room or the things in it; and together with my animals we would experience this eternity of air. (Pouncey from Guzman 2003 p.129)</span><br /><br />Towards the end of the 1970s Palestine began to work exclusively with the animals as his primary medium. He gives a detailed account of the build up to his exhibition of God Bear in 1987 at the Documenta 8 exhibition in Kassel. The bear is influenced by a model of the hindu god Ganesha depicted with three heads. The exhibition marks a shift in his creative output towards the installation and sculpture and away from the ritualistic performance of music. He has clearly illustrated that some of the animals in his work appear to be on a transcendental journey with him. A profoundly succinct comment on the maturation of his method is made by Palestine in response to a question about the character Blind Monkey. He explains that the third eye of the blind monkey is symbolic of a kind of primal spiritual sense that Palestine has discovered and has used to navigate his way along a personally challenging and dynamic journey. Palestine describes the nature of his intuitive method with reference to John Cage.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I didn’t have a concept like John Cage, which I could immediately present, and then spend my life showing the permutations and combinations of all that can be done with this approach. I came ‘blind’ like Blind Monkey, bumping into everything. After a lifetime of bumping into things I began to understand, like blind people do, how the planets are placed in my solar system, so I don’t continually bang into them all the time. (Pouncey from Guzman 2003 p.143)</span><br /><br />In the final chapter of the book Guy De Biévre attempts formal musical analysis of Palestine’s work beginning with a focus on the works Holy 1 and Holy 2 composed 35 years apart. He seems to imply the conclusion that analysis of Palestine’s compositional notes and instructions for performance are not particularly enlightening as to his vitally important performance and method. The descriptions of piano works such as Piano Drone and Strumming Music are technically illustrative as is the reference to Palestine’s carillon work; Music for Big Ears.<br /><br />BLACK DOG PUBLISHING, (2008). [online]. London: Black Dog Publishing. Available at: http://www.blackdogonline.com [Accessed 17th February 2008].<br />GUZMAN, A. (2003). Charlemagne Palestine: sacred bordello. London, Black Dog.<br />POUNCEY, E. (1996). Charlemagne Palestine. Divine Insurrection. The Wire magazine #154. December 1996.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-25275133949593290482008-03-14T12:49:00.008+00:002011-02-02T14:47:13.830+00:00Selected Writings, by La Monte Young & Marian ZazeelaLa Monte Young began to focus on the potential of Sinusoidal waves in 1964 when he integrated an oscillator within The Theatre of Eternal Music. In an interview with Richard Kostelanetz, Young explains the basics of his work around that time. Selected Writings (Young & Zazeela 1969) was first published by Heiner Friedrich in 1969 and republished on UbuWeb in 2004 edited by Kenneth Goldsmith. Much of the writing appeared in the original Aspen Magazine and in it’s digital republication on UbuWeb. The Selected Writings is a concise historical documentary of Young and Zazeela’s collaborative work up to 1969. The second text Dream House describes an installation of light and continuous sine frequencies with occasional singing at Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich. The work is entitled Dream House and is an ancestor of the later works to be permanently installed at Young and Zazeela’s house in New York. Young’s text describes the use of sine waves in the enclosed gallery space;<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When a continuous frequency is sounded in an enclosed space such as a room, the air in the room is arranged into high and low pressure areas. In the high pressure areas the sound is louder, and in the low pressure areas the sound is softer. Since a sine wave has only one frequency component, the pattern of high and low pressure areas is easy to locate in space. (Young & Zazeela 1969 p.11)</span><br /><br />YOUNG, L. M., & ZAZEELA, M. (1969). Selected writings. München, H. Friedrich. Available at http://www.ubu.com/historical/young/index.html [Accessed 9th December 2007] Republication on UbuWeb edited by Kenneth Goldsmith 2004.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-15164398292277860302008-03-14T12:45:00.005+00:002011-02-02T14:47:42.565+00:00Notes on The Theatre of Eternal Music and The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, by La Monte YoungIn his essay; Notes on The Theatre of Eternal Music and The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys (Young 2000), La Monte Young offers the reader personal reflections on his experiences at the time he set up and worked within the group; The Theatre of Eternal Music. The essay is sub-divided into eight sections and is published on the MELA foundation website of whom he and Marian Zazeela are artistic directors. On reading the essay it is clear to see that Young has published it in order to indicate his undeniable position as composer of the work, albeit ongoing, The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys. In the penultimate section, Young states that the work is his composition and not a co-composition with John Cale and Tony Conrad. In writing this essay, Young is responding to an assertion that Cale and Conrad are co-composers. Nevertheless the essay is a clear, well-written description of Young’s activities in founding, setting up and composing the group. It offers strong contextual foundations for an attentive reading of his work at a time when Young’s work was of enormous significance.<br /><br />Section I is entitled, Regarding the underlying composition of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys. This section offers precise descriptions of composition and improvisation techniques set out by Young, particularly the use of prolonged held notes to produce drones and their resulting harmonics. It is important to remember the continuity inherent in Young’s compositions prior to setting up the Theatre of Eternal Music; he composed strict rule based and algorithmic pieces. He describes the make up and dynamic of the group known as The Theatre of Eternal Music that formed to facilitate this work. The early group is made up of La Monte Young, Sopranino Saxophone; Terry Jennings, Soprano Saxophone; Marian Zazeela, voice drone; Tony Conrad, violin and John Cale, viola. Reference is made to Angus MacLise’s calendar poem YEAR, which appears to have informed a method employed by Young and Zazeela for naming recordings and subsequently for providing titles to compositions. The series of numbers and letters used to form titles for works also indicates the ratio of frequencies played as a drone within the piece.<br /><br />There are significantly large sections dedicated to Young’s personal descriptions of frequency systems, both pre, during and post Theatre of Eternal Music. He describes the relationship of tones to one another in terms of ratio, or as Just Intonation. This frees him from the confines of a necessarily geographical or cultural system of notation. In his description of the primary concerns of the group, Young presents the elements of duration, rhythm, harmony and melody.<br /><br />Young describes the underlying musical composition of the body of work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys in terms of it’s structure, formed entirely of intervals factorable by the primes 7, 3, and 2. He claims the creation of his own musical mode that excluded major thirds. He describes his style developed on the Saxophone as fast combination-permutations (Young 2000 p.1) in which a chord is inferred by rapidly playing notes one after another rather than by playing individual notes simultaneously. It is impossible to play more than one fundamental at a time on an instrument such as the saxophone. However, the listening audience remembers recent sounds and allows echoes from memory to become part of a current listening experience. The result is a feeling that simultaneous notes are sounding to form a chord. La Monte Young was generating original work by method as well as inspired intuition. In a quote from the programme notes of Trio for Strings (Young 2000 p.2) he points to the works for Brass [1957], for guitar [1958] as the utility of focused sustained tones in which combination-permutations are the original raw material. It is important to remember that Young took a practical leap throughout the realisation of these compositions. This is evident in his written notes on Trio for Strings. He has developed his method from the sequential rapid sounding of notes to the overlapping of long sustained tones. He also makes the claim that he was credited for being the first to make a work composed entirely of sustained tones where the presence of such was not simply an accompaniment or the assertion of a fundamental as a basis to a melodic frame.<br /><br />Section II, History of My Groups, is a detailed rundown of Young’s career. He begins with a nod to jazz groups he played in at school. He mentions his and David Tudor’s performances of John Cage compositions and the attention he attained for his contribution to other composers work. Section II positions a historical context that relates Young’s practical experience and technique prior to and during work on The Tortoise. He describes his duet work with Terry Riley at Ann Halprin’s Dance Company in 1959 and their subsequent tape improvisations. There is a description of the relevance of dance and gesture in his work at that time.<br /><br />Young had started playing saxophone again with MacLise on drums in 1962 when he got together with Marian Zazeela. The recordings continued and John Cale appeared for the first time on tape in autumn 1963. Young describes numerous performances and comings and goings of group members throughout the next few years. In a manner appropriate to eternal music, Young states that,<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">My involvement with The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys was so complete and consuming that I continued performing sub-sections of the work through 1975, and wrote that I fully expected to be performing throughout my lifetime. (Young 2000 p.11)</span><br /><br />In section III Young begins to place emphasis on the nature of silence in relation to his underlying work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys. With particular reference to the program notes for the 1963 composition The Four Dreams of China, Young states that the work is an interweaving of the sounded and silent parts of the composition. In this section of the essay he describes imagery, particularly that of the word dream to express the possibility of endlessness. The use of the word tortoise stems from the gift of a turtle to he and Marian. They began to keep turtles in their loft on Church Street where improvisations and recordings took place. Young includes programme notes from a performance given in 1965 that mention generations of turtles. The longevity of the species of tortoise is obviously a symbolic vehicle for the sustenance of a drone. The existence of the turtle in Young and Zazeela’s loft is also a motivation to acquire the aquarium motor that will maintain a perfect habitable temperature for the tortoise. The motor when amplified provides the 120 cycle hum required as what Young terms a primary drone. Section IV concerns primary and secondary drones. Primary drones centring on the 60 Hz AC power line of the American grid. This is focused in the small tortoise motor. Young recognises that by 1965 his primary drone was a concert B and that secondary drones are harmonics thereof. He briefly mentions difficulties associated with the playback of tape recordings made during the 1960s in relation to tape speed and the present day AC power supply.<br /><br />Section V is a break down of issues surrounding ownership of the composers credit to a work of significant improvisation with an emphasis on the Copyright Act revision of 1978. Since the revision, Young states that sound recordings can be deposited when registering compositions. He cites three areas related to his practice; Jazz improvisations and the complexities of crediting the composer of an improvisation over a standard tune; Basso continuo (figured bass) in which the performer of a work is given freedom by the composer to ‘improvise’ around the structure. This is typical in baroque works and Young draws attention to it in a contemporary context and relates it to his point of crediting the composer; Indian classical music is Young’s final example. He describes and evidences a tradition that often gives credit to the improvising master soloist but sometimes no credit at all to other supporting musicians who also often improvise. In section VI Young asserts his position as producer of his group The Theatre of Eternal Music by listing his actions and responsibilities that set the group in motion. Section VII is clearly a statement of composer status attributable to Young, evidenced in the title,<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Tortoise, His Dreams and Jouneys is a composition by La Monte Young</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Young 2000 p.17)</span><br /><br />The section is dedicated to first person accounts that all verify Young as the composer of this work. He cites fellow performers including Angus MacLise’s widow, reviewers and engineers. He concludes with reference to his compositional method as outlined in section I and restates that John Cale and Tony Conrad are performers, not co-composers of this work. Finally in section VIII entitled On the Release of Recordings of My Music Young announces that Cale and Conrad threatened to sue in 1987 should any recordings be released that contained their performance. Young outlines how this threat has become an obstruction to the publication of such works, if only by making record companies fearful of potential legal battles. He concludes the essay with the announcement that he and Zazeela have produced a DVD disc publication of the recent 6-hour 25-minute performance of The Well-Tuned Piano in The Magenta Lights. He states that with financial support he would like to be able to release a 1958 recording of Trio for Strings and some other recordings that predate The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys.<br /><br />YOUNG, L.M. (2000). Notes on the Theatre of Eternal Music and The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys [online]. New York: Mela Foundation, Inc. Available at: http://melafoundation.org/lmy.htm [Accessed 14th November 2007]Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-48741391512473083972008-03-14T12:31:00.004+00:002011-02-02T14:48:01.902+00:00On Sonic Art, by Trevor WishartIn the text On Sonic Art by Trevor Wishart (Wishart 1985), the reader is offered a perspective on new methods of making music in light of advancing computer technology during the 1970s. The book is packed with Wishart’s diagrams, drawings and is accompanied by two cassette tapes that replay hundreds of numerically ordered examples of various sounds. The audio examples illustrate points made throughout the chapters. Tape one largely consists of examples of recorded music and other sounds. He has addressed the qualities of the recordings and found material in terms of pitch, duration and timbre, in many cases blending sounds together to create original sounds.<br /><br />The book’s prelude is a description of the term Sonic Art. Wishart defines this term as an artistic handling of music, electro-acoustic music and categorisations such as text-sound and sound-effects. Wishart states that he sees no distinction between these areas.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This is why I have chosen the title “On Sonic Art”, to encompass the arts of organising sound events in time. This, however, is merely a convenient fiction for those who cannot bear to see the use of the word music extended. For me, all these areas fall within the category I call music. (Wishart 1985 p.4)</span><br /><br />The first of the following four sections of the book is entitled The Sonic Continuum. Wishart quickly identifies the lattice’s primary function in western classical composition to date. The lattice is characterised by three intersecting planes; pitch (frequency), duration and timbre, each of which when combined can produce a diagram or model of sound. He acknowledges the importance of pitch, duration and timbre in music but states how written composition has developed a dependence on the lattice that has led to a restriction of freedom, especially improvisational freedom. Methods of scribing musical composition have become synonymous with political and religious power structures in the same way as the written word. Wishart describes the similarity of speech and musical gesture in a historical context. He looks at hieroglyphs, ideograms and alphabets and relates them to historical and contemporary methods of analytic musical notation.<br /><br />Wishart discusses the perceived primary nature of pitch as opposed to the perceived secondary nature of timbre by means of measurements made possible thanks to mathematics. He takes the reader through Pythagoras’ stable vibrations and the practical discovery of the octave. Wishart offers a clear explanation of Helmholtz’s breakthrough made while attempting to study the behaviour of heat in solids. The relationship of a lowest tone (fundamental) to higher tones (partials) corresponds directly to the timbre of the composite sound. Wishart goes on to explain indeterminacy by reference to Fourier analysis and that a fundamental is not necessarily the source of higher partials.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We can say that a system vibrates five times in a second but we cannot talk about how many vibrations it undergoes at an instant in time. Hence the instantaneous energy of a system is not definable. (Wishart 1985 p.33)</span><br /><br />He discusses the topology of sound spaces and contextualises oscillatory motions. This reflects his concerns on electro-acoustic music and is backed by the comprehensive study of the dimensions of music found earlier in the book. Wishart also interrogates spoken language via expletives, paralanguage and the sounds of animals. He is known for working with his vocal skills as the second accompanying cassette tape confirms.<br /><br />WISHART, T. (1985). On Sonic Art. York, Imagineering Press.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-35533972148004895542008-03-14T11:30:00.011+00:002011-02-02T14:48:15.927+00:00Experimental Music Cage and beyond, by Michael NymanThe book; Experimental Music Cage and Beyond (Nyman, 1999) was written by Michael Nyman in 1974 with a second edition appearing in 1999. Nyman is a composer directly influenced by, and practicing within the culture of late twentieth century minimalist music. Nyman’s career is laden with examples of working with filmmakers on soundtracks [especially Peter Greenaway] to create a symbiosis of moving image and music. He has also composed a huge repertoire of music for strings and more recently, operas. Nyman’s work is audibly influenced by the canonistic nature of baroque music.<br /><br />This book clearly indicates the significance of John Cage’s presence in the beginnings of post war experimental music. Nyman starts chapter one with analysis of Cage’s 4’33’’, the undeniably experimental work which requires the performer only to sit at the piano for the duration specified in the title of this work. Nyman quickly gets to the point of identifying a difference between experimental and avant-garde music, which can be summarised in two quotes from Cage and Stockhausen (Nyman 1999 p.29). Cage suggests here and in other parts of Nyman’s book that he attempts to create experiments or situations within his work, and that the work can begin to exist in the mind of the audience as a consequence. Stockhausen is referenced for the avant-garde and describes how he accepts that experiments should be allowed to happen as long as the results do not clash or set components off balance thereby leading the composer to fail in creating harmony.<br /><br />In chapter four, Nyman gives a good review of Fluxus actions with respect to sound and music. He offers many examples of George Brecht’s pieces of written instruction. He compares Cage’s instruction works to Brecht’s and suggests that Cage allows all performers equal involvement allowing for differences in their abilities. Brecht on the other hand, sets up situations that already seem very ready-made by including simple written instructions often in the form of a short list. Brecht uses a deck of cards, a vessel of water or a hair comb. Nyman guides us toward the work of the pioneering experimentalist La Monte Young, who by Nyman’s term could also be described as an avant-garde composer. He states how Young composed several works to apparently re-consider the function of musical instruments and traditional performance situations. He describes several of Young’s fluxus works in terms of their persistence, aggression and apparent direction at the audience.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />In one of these the audience is locked in a theatre, the event ending when they find their way out; in another, tickets are to be sold between eight and nine pm, but at nine pm an announcement is made that the play has already started and will end at twelve pm, yet at no time will the audience be admitted. (Nyman 1999 p.85)</span><br /><br />In the first half of chapter seven Nyman reviews American minimalism in light of developments in New York at the hand of La Monte Young and his Theatre of Eternal Music. He also explains that by the early 1960s; Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and La Monte Young were about to begin to limit the very high levels of indeterminacy with which they had been working. Nyman explains that Young was attracted to the work of Anton Webern in terms of it’s use of tones that are held across octaves throughout large portions of Webern’s work. Nyman places Young’s composition Trio for Strings (1958) in context as a serial composition of long notes. He describes Young’s modal techniques and the arrival at drone Young experienced with his group The Theatre of Eternal Music.<br /><br />Nyman follows the course of Terry Riley’s compositional work at a time when he was also performing with The Theatre of Eternal Music. Riley was performing solo improvisations that multiplied themselves on a cellular level. Riley would tape record his Saxophone and keyboard utterances during a performance and replay them immediately continuing to layer the fragments of melody played. Riley’s most well known work In C reminds the listener of earlier instruction works by Cage and Brecht. The performers of In C work through 53 modal phrases repeating each form as many times as they choose. One performer keeps tempo by repeatedly playing middle C. This work with a few simple rules can be played by any number of musicians working collectively as individuals on whichever instruments they choose capable of the required range.<br /><br />NYMAN, M. (1999). Experimental Music Cage and Beyond. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-86662784186511078112008-03-14T11:29:00.007+00:002011-02-02T14:48:33.671+00:00Musimathics, by Gareth LoyVolume one of Gareth Loy’s book Musimathics (Loy 2006) is a concise description of the properties of music and composition from the perspective of a composer with a mathematical approach to the science of music. Loy gives clear explanations of key music concepts. In chapter one he uses his explanation of simple harmonic motion to explain the sinusoidal character of sound and the movement of pressure as a waveform. Loy’s approach throughout this book is to refer to natural systems as starting points for elucidation of complex musical concepts. The illustration of a pendulum is used to help the reader visualise the steady perpetual motion of a system in equilibrium. The summary for the first chapter includes a simple explanation of the physics of sound relative to music.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Frequency, onset, and duration are time-based aspects of sound, and intensity is a measure of the energy in a sound. These physical properties of frequency and intensity correspond to the perceptual cues of pitch and loudness. Onset and duration largely determine musical rhythm. (Loy 2006 p.9)</span><br /><br />Loy moves on to describe forms of musical notation with western common music notation as a starting point. He explains the diatonic scale and compares different modes within a historical context. His definitions of Pentatonic, Hungarian Minor and Whole-tone scales are clearly illustrated with notation. Chapter three defines scales in terms of their frequencies and describes the use of ratios within tuning. Loy offers a strong historical foundation and clearly illustrates the mechanics of tempered tuning, European microtonal and Hindustani tuning. There is a description of late twentieth century music research including the work of Heinz Bohlen and John Pierce. Bohlen-Pierce tuning is described in detail as it contains a very high degree of internal order. In chapter four Loy explains duration in music with reference to Sir Isaac Newton’s theories on time and returns to a visualisation of the waveform by describing it’s kinetic energy. Tangential velocity and circular motion are compared in the chapter focused on geometry. Loy returns to a comparison of harmonic motion in time and the sinusoidal wave. The book closes on an analysis of human perception of sound and music. The clarity of Loy’s explanation throughout this book suggests that it is a useful companion to understanding the complex tuning executed by La Monte Young and his contemporaries. The book can also be used to place some more cellular minimalist music, like that of Tony Conrad or Steve Reich, within a mathematical framework.<br /><br />LOY, D. G. (2006). Musimathics the mathematical foundations of music. Vol. 1. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-456220048387165929.post-24819730720114614412008-03-14T11:14:00.011+00:002011-02-02T14:49:02.079+00:00For The Birds, by John Cage and Daniel Charles & Silence, Lectures and Writings, by John CageThe critic Daniel Charles talks with and questions John Cage in the book For The Birds (Cage & Charles 1995) first published in 1976. Cage’s immersion in Zen Buddhism is evident in the title of this book and throughout. The reader is reminded of the Zen Mondo by the decision to separate chapters into interviews, discussions, dialogues and answers to questions. The chapter Sixty Answers To Thirty Questions introduces us to a frame of thought, it is a philosophical statement that references music as much as it does Cage’s fascination with silence. During the following chapters, Charles interviews Cage on particular works and compositional methods. There are many references to sonority found in Indian classical music and Balinese and Javanese music. He refers to his teacher Schoenberg many times and discusses the equal weight given to each note in the twelve-tone scale. Cage also describes how Webern and Satie demonstrated confidence when handling silence within composition. He defines his use of chance in composition with particular reference to the I Ching.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">An element that has nothing to do with either repetition or variation; something which does not enter into the battle of those two terms, and which rebels against being placed or replaced… (Cage & Charles 1995 p.45)</span><br /><br />The subject of the dialogue turns to computers via technology and the prepared piano. Cage critiques many compositional techniques in terms of his methods and explains how he came to compose experimental music that allowed the performer and audience similar status.<br /><br />Cage’s collection of texts, Silence; Lectures and Writings (Cage 1999) elaborate further on his compositional method. Indeterminacy is illustrated by his work in comparison to J. S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue and pieces by K. Stockhausen. Bach is described as composing completely determined patterned melodic cells and Stockhausen as composing pattern that allows the performer a system of choice regarding the sequence of the cells. In other lectures Cage explains the techniques of Edgar Varèse and his unique imagination that seems to slice through technology as if there were no difference between the tape player and the string section. Other published writings including the Lecture On Nothing have the appearance of concrete poetry and can be said to echo Cage’s written performance instructions.<br /><br />CAGE, J. (1999). Silence; Lectures and Writings. London, Boyars.<br />CAGE, J., & CHARLES, D. (1995). For The Birds. London, Boyars.Phillip Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106285319771646862noreply@blogger.com0