John Adams | Shaker Loops for string septet (1978) Shaker Loops was composed in the fall of 1978 using fragments from a string quartet, Wavemaker, written earlier in that year. First performance: December, 1978 in Hellman Hall, San Francisco by the New Music Ensemble of the San Francisco Conservatory, conducted by the composer. The version for string orchestra was made in 1983 and first performed in April of that year at Tully Hall, New York, by the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The original "modular" score, published by Associated Music Publisher, has since been withdrawn and replaced by the 1983 "string orchestra" version. The "string orchestra" version can be played either by a septet of soloists or by a string orchestra of any size. 3 violins, 1 viola, 2 celli, 1 contrabass I. Duration: 24 minutes John Adams on Shaker Loops: Shaker Loops began as a string quartet with the title Wavemaker. Shaker Loops continues to be one of my most performed pieces. ↑ Return to top of page
John Cage Not to be confused with John Cale. John Cage Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is sometimes assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.[7][8] The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. Life[edit] 1912–31: Early years[edit] Cage enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont as a theology major in 1928.
Justin Rubin Aleatoric Music When the intention is to present a traditional score based on procedures involving chance, the composer needs to decide which musical parameters are to be determined through some method of indeterminacy, and what the method itself will entail. The aforementioned American composer, John Cage, employed a variety of methods, including using characters of the I Ching (an ancient text featuring a series of symbols that relate to Chinese cosmology and philosophy), while the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) used scientific data compiled by a computer in some of his earlier compositions to provide him with a body of source material (pitches, rhythms, and other parameters) from which he made conscious decisions as to what would go into the final score. One composer/artist, Dick Higgins (1938-1998), even used a machine gun to puncture holes into score paper that he then distributed for performance. 3. Final Score. 1. 4.
The world’s slowest and longest piece of music: John Cage’s As S As Slow As Possible was composed by John Cage, arguably the most influential American composer of the 20th century. It was originally a 20-minute piece for piano, but later expanded by some crazy group of theologians, musicologists, philosophers, composers and organists to an unbelieveable 639 years. Yes, that means the song will take 639 years from start to finish. It was first played sometime in 2003, on a church organ in Halberstadt, Germany. The first 3 notes will last for more than a year! Needless to say, it won’t be of much interest if you’d actually sit down and listen to it. In fact, for the first 17 months, all that was heard was the sound of “the organ’s bellows being inflated”. Question: But why 639? SourceThe BBC, Feb 2003
Justin Rubin Aleatoric Music The central question that the composer must ask in terms of live aleatoric music is what parameters of the music need to be defined and to what degree are the materials to be controlled. We will create two original chamber works to explore some ways that this can be answered. 1. Defining Structure Without Specific Materials. One method developed by the American composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987) is to define only the number of notes to be played in a specified duration. The score is presented as a grid that reads in units of time from left to right, similarly to a standard score, with a numerical value placed within the grid squares to provide the performer the specified number of pitches. In this mode of thought, we will create a quasi-Feldman piece. 2. 1. Based on these instructions, the performers can choose to interact with one another - echoing each other's chosen fragments - or choose to go one's own way. 3.
library.music.indiana.edu/tech_s/mla/wgt2cm.txt Working Group on Terminology in 20th-Century Music Final Report, submitted by Michael Colby March 17, 1998 Introduction Members: Dan Cherubin, Michael Colby (chair), Ralph Hartsock, David Lesniaski, Brian Newhouse, Deta Davis (LC Liaison) The working group was appointed after the 1993 MLA meeting in San Francisco. Our charge was to identify and define key concepts in 20th-century music and to compile a list of terms derived from these concepts. We would then decide which of these terms sho uld be sent to the Library of Congress as proposals for new subject headings.
HISTORY 204 - THE REACTION AGAINST SERIALISM 1. Ascendancy of serialism in 1950's -- It was the only show in town - i.e. it was the dominant form of "new music" (except for Cage and a few American crazies) - everything else was "old hat" - Even successful composers like Copland, Britten and Stravinsky gave it a try Reaction against serialism took at least 4 forms: 1. Texture music - Ligeti, Penderecki 2. 3. 4. These styles have other motivations besides reaction to serialism, and serialism persists vigorously today, especially in the USA -- However, the issue was perceived at time (c.1960) as serialism vs. all comers, and several well-known (or later well-known) composers abandoned serialism during 1970s – e.g. 2. NB - This is not an official definition - It's based on the work of my student Randy Foy -- No one else uses the term, and many would probably reject it WHY would "texture music" be perceived as alternative to serialism? Examples of composers in this style: Ligeti, Penderecki, Xenakis 3. PLAY beginning as example of notation
Getting Started With Algorithmic Composition | Algorithmic Composer This page is a quick how to guide to get you started with Algorithmic Composition. Step One: Choose your software Max/MSP You can buy Max/MSP from www.cycling74.com Max is a graphical dataflow language where you connect objects together in a similar manner to a studio patchbay. Price: $399 Platforms: OSX and Windows PureData Puredata (or Pd) is a free open-source alternative to Max and is a similar visual programming language. Price: Free Platforms: OSX, Windows and Linux OpenMusic Open Music is a visual programming language for algorithmic composition that is written in LISP. CommonMusic Common Music (CM) is another Lisp based algorithmic composition environment. Slippery Chickenslippery chicken is an open-source algorithmic composition system written in Common Lisp which enables a top-down approach to music composition. Symbolic Composer SCOM is rich on generative functions, which enable to quickly create source material for your scores. Step Two
George Crumb Biography[edit] Crumb was born in Charleston, West Virginia, and began to compose at an early age. He studied music first at the Mason College of Music in Charleston where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1950. He obtained his Master's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and then briefly studied in Berlin before returning to the United States to study at the University of Michigan, from which he received his D.M.A. in 1959. Crumb retired from teaching in 1997, though in early 2002 was appointed with David Burge to a joint residency at Arizona State University. Crumb has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1968 for his orchestral work Echoes of Time and the River and a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition in 2001 for his work Star-Child . Crumb's son, David Crumb, is a successful composer and, since 1997, assistant professor at the University of Oregon. Crumb's music[edit] Works[edit] Orchestral[edit]
Georg Friedrich Haas’s Works Are Rooted in Microtonality Photo “Is the idea that this is the right world, and this is the destroyed world?” the Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas asked recently, after playing and comparing the same chord on the three upright Yamaha pianos — each tuned differently — that form a triangle in his small studio at Columbia University. “This is not the wrong piano and the right piano,” Mr. Haas added during the lesson with Stylianos Dimou, a doctoral composition student, referring to the startling harmonies that sounded after he played the chord on the piano not tuned to the conventional Western scale. Alternate tunings and the alluring sonorities they produce have long fascinated Mr. Mr. In Mr. Classical musicians are usually not taught how to perform quarter-tone music at conservatories, and alternate tunings and harmonics can prove challenging for performers. John Pickford Richards, the JACK Quartet’s violist, said that Mr. “I would be interested in how someone who cannot see could perceive it,” he said. Mr.
Musica ricercata Musica ricercata is a set of eleven pieces for piano by György Ligeti. The work was composed from 1951 to 1953,[1] shortly after the composer began lecturing at the Budapest Academy of Music.[2] The work premiered on November 18, 1969 in Sundsvall, Sweden. Although the ricercata (or ricercar) is an established contrapuntal style (and the final movement of the work is in that form), Ligeti's title should probably be interpreted literally as "researched music" or "sought music". This work captures the essence of Ligeti's search to construct his own compositional style ex nihilo,[3] and as such presages many of the more radical directions Ligeti would take in the future. In response to a request by the Jeney Quintet, six of the movements were arranged for wind quintet as Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet (1953).[4] They are, in order: III, V, VII, VIII, IX, X. Pitch structure[edit] Movement by movement[edit] I. II. Both the material and mood of this movement differ markedly from the first. IV.
Gallery of Graphic Musical Notation Here's 24 examples of unusual or graphic musical notation, from the cuneiform markings of the oldest song in the world, to the graphic notation of Stockhausen, Crumb, Cage and Eno, to the painted musical inventions of Adolph Wolfli. Click each picture for a larger image. Key to composers of above works, arranged by row, left to right: Row 1: Bernard Rands, John Cage, Adolph Wolfli Row 2: John Cage, Unknown, Cornelius Cardew Row 3: George Crumb, Earle Brown, Earle Brown Row 4: Brian Eno, Unknown, Hermeto Pascoal Row 5: Iannis Xenakis, John Stump, Unknown Row 6: Unknown (oldest song in the world), Unknown, Unknown Row 7: Krzysztof Penderecki, Krzysztof Penderecki, Hans Christoph Steiner Row 8: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Unknown
Notes on Penderecki Krzysztof Penderecki, Wrocław, 2008, fot. Wojtek Wilczyński / FORUM Krzysztof Penderecki is now celebrating his 80th birthday. Where is the composer from, what does he have in common with Tadeusz Kantor, what links him do Salvador Dali? Dębica Krzysztof Penderecki was born in 1933 in the town of Dębica, Dembitz in Yiddish. It is strange that after all these years, the music that I had in my ears, comes back. A synagogue in Dębica in 1961, 3 Krakowska street, photo: Jerzy Żurawski / source: www. sztetl.org.pl Family (1) Penderecki comes from a family of Armenian, German and Polish roots. Education Unlike a great many composers, Krzysztof Penderecki did not come from a musical family. Awards As we know very well, Penderecki chose music and quickly claimed his first merits. Krzysztof Penderecki, photo: Bruno Fidrych Strofy, based on Greek, Persian and Hebrew texts, have entered the programme of the Warszawska Jesień (Warsaw Autumn) festival. Composing The Dangerous Score The Holocaust Film music
Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno’s Prompts for Overcoming Creative Block, Inspired by John Cage by Maria Popova “If a thing can be said, it can be said simply.” “Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences,” ambient music pioneer Brian Eno wrote in his diary. It is precisely this ethos that explains Eno’s medium-blind, experience-centric creative impulse underpinning the visual arts career that he undertook in the 1960s, which developed in tandem with his growth as a musician. That is precisely what Christopher Scoates, director of the University Art Museum at California State University, explores with unprecedented depth and dimension in Brian Eno: Visual Music (public library) — a magnificent monograph spanning more than four decades of Eno’s music projects and museum and gallery installations, contextualized amidst a wealth of exhibition notes, sketchbook pages, and other never-before-revealed archival materials. Brian Eno lecturing at the MoMA, 1990. Oblique Strategies, 1974 '77 Million Paintings,' Sydney Opera House, 2009