Class 9

1
Class 9

• Contemporary Music

2
Class Announcements

• Listening for Wednesday Some on DAR, some not
• http//dustedmagazine.com/features/749
• http//zzzsss.com/media (watch first YouTube
  video)
  
• If you want to turn in your paper Wednesday, I
  can grade it for you by Friday
  
• Turn in listening logs on Wednesday

3
Complexity and Drone

• (Drone maybe not the best word)

4
Performance Practice

• Remember last week, when we discussed changes in
  performance practice?
  
• Performers becoming more robotic
• Less inflection, vibrato rubato
• Some music attempts to combat this trend

5
Brian Ferneyhough

• 1943- (England)
• Associated with New Complexity movement, but
  didnt invent that term himself
  
• Currently teaches at Stanford University used to
  teach at UCSD

6
Brian Ferneyhough

• It of course can be argued that the amount of
  detail that one puts in a piece, or that I at
  least put into a piece, is far higher than that
  which can be realized. But that's because I don't
  expect that the performers are going to be
  exposed to my music all the time. If you learn a
  Beethoven piano sonata, you don't learn and play
  only those things that are in the score. You
  learn and play the twenty generations of piano
  teachers who have learned from their teachers
  about how interpretation means not diverging from
  the text in front of you, but maintaining a
  fidelity to the text which might require you to
  play something differently from what is written
  in the score. Rubato is a case in point.

7
(continued)

• Look at any score from the Renaissance and
  you'll find something that looks really rather
  simple, two or three lines. But if you listen to
  a recording of so-called authentic performance
  you will find wild flourishes, you will find
  decorative embellishments typical of a period and
  of each type of instrument. The composers didn't
  think it worthwhile writing these things down
  because they were dealing with the instruments
  and the instrumentalists available, and the
  instrumentalists themselves were very often
  composers. But today that's not the case.

8
(continued)

• We've divided up the various tasks of music
  making much more than is perhaps ultimately good
  for us, but nevertheless it's what we're faced
  with at the moment, and so I'm attempting to
  provoke a consistent awareness in the performer
  when learning and playing the piece of the very
  mobile but rich relationship which different
  sorts of visual conventions may generate with
  respect to how one puts a piece across to an
  audience. So it's not as if I'm trying to create
  a sort of instamatic snapshot of a piece, but I'm
  interested in providing the steps, sometimes the
  interlocking and rather self-contradictory steps,
  via which a performer may ascend to an adequate
  performance.

9
An Example of a Ferneyhough Score
10
What Ferneyhough is Saying

• Performance practice traditions in earlier music
  add complexity to the information in the score
  
• Earlier pieces are thus much more complex than
  they appear
  
• With the demise of performance practice
  traditions, this complexity disappears

11
So

• Ferneyhough loads his scores with musical
  information in an effort to make up for that loss
  of complexity
  
• Also does this to put the performer in a sort of
  state--when the performer isnt in complete
  control of the situation

12
Listening log Ferneyhough, Bone Alphabet

• What might be difficult about this piece?
• Does the performer sound out of control to you?

13
Free Jazz

• Free jazz was created by Ornette Coleman in the
  late 1950s and developed throughout the 1960s
  
• Free from the beat of bebop
• Free from any pre-existing form
• Usually atonal
• Often completely or almost completely improvised

14
Cecil Taylor

• 1929- (New York)

15
Cecil Taylor

• Pianist who described instrument as 88 tuned
  drums
  
• Typically plays very loudly and percussively,
  using lots of clusters
  
• Classically trained
• Early recordings indebted to bebop
• But recordings throughout the late 1950s and the
  1960s become increasingly free

16
Listening log Cecil Taylor, Almeda

• How are the two players interacting with each
  other?
  
• What aspects of this music are like jazz?

17
Anthony Braxton

• 1945- (Chicago)

18
Anthony Braxton

• Background in jazz
• Composer, and plays saxophone, clarinet and
  several other instruments
  
• Music combines composition and improvisation
• Strongly influenced by Stockhausen, as well as
  Afro-futurists like Sun Ra

19
Taking a Wide View

• In part because of influence of Stockhausen and
  Cage, Braxton sees the boundaries of his music as
  almost limitless
  
• For example, has piece for 100 tubas
• Often speaks of writing music that will be
  performed in huge outdoor spaces
  
• Staged a huge recording session with 50 musicians
  playing for 8 hours in an ice rink

20
Blurring boundaries

• Braxton seems to see all his music as being part
  of a common pool
  
• That is, any piece can go with any other, and
  improvisation can join with any piece
  
• (Braxton also has a complex system to organize
  improvisation)
  

21
Listening log Anthony Braxton, Comp. 59

• What is going on here?
• Which parts sound composed? Which sound
  improvised?

22
Morton Feldman

• 1926 (New York)-1987

23
Morton Feldman

• Meets John Cage and they bond over performance of
  Anton Weberns music
  
• Cage, Feldman and two other composers known as
  New York School
  
• In early career, makes indeterminate music

24
Late pieces

• Late in his life (beginning in the mid to late
  1970s, Feldmans music changes
  
• Long
• Fully notated
• Doesnt go anywhere
• Drone not really the right word, but lots of
  slow, inexact repetitions that dont head in any
  particular direction

25
Kyle Gann in Painter Envy

• On the surface, his music meets most modernist
  criteria. It is atonal. It is highly chromatic,
  rippling with dissonant intervals. It rarely
  articulates a steady beat. Its rhythms are
  complexly notated, even if they don't sound
  complex when played.What sticks in the
  classical-music craw is the stasis of Feldman's
  music, its absence of drama, direction, or
  virtuosity. What it has instead, and what sparks
  its influence, is its mood, a subtle and
  intricately etched melancholy found (as Feldman
  noted) in Kierkegaard, Van Gogh, Beckett, Rothko
  - but almost never in music...

26
Gann (continued)

• Because his pieces usually have one dynamic
  marking throughout, Feldman has been called a
  minimalist, and even, in an implied slap at Glass
  and Reich, the real minimalist. But how can a
  work as bristlingly complex, as difficult even
  follow its score, as For Samuel Beckett be
  considered minimalist? The idea is absurd. All
  Feldman's music shares with the minimalists' is
  its flatness of surface, and his pensive moods,
  nuanced via reminiscences and slightly varied
  repetitions, couldn't be more foreign to the
  mass-produced impersonality of minimalist music
  and art.

27
Listening log Feldman, Piano and String Quartet

• Feldman was a great admirer of Persian rugs. In
  what way is this music like a Persian rug?

28
(No Transcript)
29
Eliane Radigue

• 1932- (Paris)

30
Radigue

• Studied electronic music with Pierre Schaeffer
• Uses tape loops as well as synthesizers
• Music is notable not for its use of technology,
  though, but for what we bring to it

31
Listening to Radigue

• When we listen to most music, the music offers a
  sort of path--it takes us by the hand
  
• But Luciers music, the early gradual process
  music of Reich, etc. offer a different way
  
• The music is slow to change, and changes are
  subtle
  
• There are rarely any obvious changes that would
  provide clues
  

32
So

• The form of the music is, essentially, provided
  by you
  
• Maybe you think you hear things that arent
  there
  
• Your attention wanders

33
Listening log Radigue, Adnos I (1974)

• Dont write until after the example is played
• What changes do you hear?

34
AMM
35
AMM

• English improvised music group
• (Their music is spontaneously created, without
  notation)
  
• Created in 1965
• Inspired in part by free jazz, but disliked
  entertainment roots of jazz

36
Instead

• AMM sought to create long pieces that had no
  melody or harmony
  
• Focused on texture instead
• Very noisy early in career, then become quieter
  and more Feldman-influenced in later years

37
Listening log AMM, Generative Theme II

• What instruments do you hear?
• How do the instruments interact with each other?

38
AMM

• Pioneer of improvised music based around extended
  techniques
  
• Improvised music around extended techniques
  becomes a major trend in improvised music in
  1990s and 2000s

39
Musical hierarchies

• By burying themselves within texture, AMM avoid
  hierarchies
  
• Toop A traditional rock band--the Rolling
  Stones, say--represents a fairly simple
  hierarchical model vocalist Mick Jagger sharing
  the top of the heap with the Tommy Hilfiger
  logos, the rest of the band strung out below,
  followed by the hired hands--bass and
  keyboards--then an army of production
  functionaries and anonymous crew members packed
  down into the base of a vast pyramid.

40
Hierarchical Model

• Hierarchies also present in contemporary
  classical music, with composer at top
  
• In AMM, what are the hierarchies?
• Everyone fits into a collective texture
• Players avoid virtuosity, thereby preventing
  differentiation
  
• Extended techniques disguise identities of
  instruments

41
Hierarchies and technology

• Summarizing Toop in Haunted Weather
• There is a world of sound out there that comes
  mostly from machines
  
• (Think of Russolo and Cage)

42
The environment

• Cage and musique concrete encourage listeners to
  embrace the sounds of their environment

43
Machines and music

• Increasingly, machines are also used to make
  music
  
• These machines reduce individuality by
• Masking virtuosity--you cant see someone doing
  something technically impressive
  
• Reducing real-time interaction
• You cant see what actions produce what results

44
So

• In much recent music
• Individuality takes a backseat
• For example, businesspeople struggled to market
  techno music in the 1990s because they couldnt
  associate a face with it
  
• Much music comes to embrace this absence of
  individuality

45
And

• The performer, and often even the music itself,
  fades into the background
  
• Music often becomes hard to distinguish from
  other sounds in its environment

46
Toshimaru Nakamura
47
Nakamura

• Japanese musician, played in rock groups
• When I stopped playing the guitar its like I
  noticed, I found out I cant play the guitar
  anymore because I felt the guitar is not my
  instrument anymore. Because you need something to
  express, you need some movement to play the
  guitar.
• Claims he wants to remove emotion from his music

48
No-input mixing board

• Nakamura plays no-input mixing board
• Think about the symbolism of that

49
Keith Rowe

• 1940- (England)

50
Keith Rowe

• Guitarist for AMM
• Plays guitar on its side
• Prepares the guitar
• Uses it to make droning, sustained sounds

51
Listening log Keith Rowe and Toshimaru Nakamura,
Weather Sky

• How does this compare to the Eliane Radigue
  piece?
  
• What sounds improvised about this?

52
Nmperign

• Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley

53
Nmperign

• Based in Boston
• Rainey grows up studying jazz, Kelley studies
  classical music
  
• Rainey I was always interested in timbreThe
  main bridge to the music I do now was
  microtonality The search for microtones on the
  saxophone brought out timbres that became closer
  to me than the microtones themselves.

54
Listening log Nmperign

• What instruments?
• What is the interaction pattern like?

55
To me

• The pattern of interaction is like passing
  clouds
  
• For the most part, jazz is built on
  moment-to-moment interaction, but Nmperign does
  little of that
  
• It is like environmental sounds bouncing off each
  other

56
Matt Taibbi, Spanking the Donkey

• This is the tenth time I have heard Deans
  speech in the last three days, and Ive developed
  a code system to describe it. Deans stump speech
  has fifteen or sixteen interchangeable parts that
  vary slightly from venue to venue, but contain
  the same punchlines each time.

57
(continued)

• After the third time I heard the governor speak,
  I broke the speech down and numbered each of the
  parts, memorizing the numbers so that I could
  record each speech simply by writing down the
  numbers in sequence. My notes for Portland,
  Oregon, for instance, read, PORTLAND
  4-5-1-6-3-7-8-9-10-11-15-12-13. The abbreviated
  Town Hall address the next morning, on the other
  hand, reads, SPOKANE 7-9-2-6-3-10.

58
Question

• What application to music might this have?

59
Absence of narrative

• Think of Stravinskys Rite of Spring, with its
  continual re-setting
  
• Or think of Ligetis Piano Concerto, which jumped
  from idea to idea without regard to transition
  
• Deans speeches are much the same way they need
  not be in a particular order, because one idea
  does not flow to the next

60
Absence of substance

• Taibbi While Dean in the background pushed
  through 12 and 13--Blah blah blah John
  Ashcroft! hooting and boos, blah blah blah
  send him back to Crawford, Texas! cheers and
  raucous applause--we exchanged contact numbers

61
(continued)

• As I found out on the Sleepless Summer tour, no
  candidate with momentum looks good up close
  and the realities of modern campaigning make it
  hard to spot a mirage, even at close range.
• The first axiom of campaign journalism, one that
  should be memorized by any reporter who tries it,
  goes as follows Substance is impossible.

62
Andrew Hamilton

• 1977- (Ireland)

63
Andrew Hamilton

• Music is fully composed
• Influenced by minimalism
• Prefers tonality
• And yet his music is not (intentionally)
  pleasing
  
• I also think I use these types of material as
  they are familiar objects, in a way comforting,
  so that it makes the play with structure more
  audible. I want the listener to be concentrating
  on this instead of wondering how a sound was
  produced by an instrument.

64
But I would contend

• That Hamiltons music is not comforting at all
• To me, his music sounds is reminiscent of the
  alienating repetitions of advertisements and
  political talking points
  
• The audacity of saying something ridiculous over
  and over
  
• Like a song you cant get out of your head

65
Listening log Andrew Hamilton, Music for People
Who Lose People

• Is this enjoyable or not? Why?

66
The Threshold

• As with much of the music weve listened to,
  something funny happens when you listen for a
  long time
  
• You reach a threshold where the point stops being
  how annoying it is, and becomes about the
  audacity of how annoying it is

67
Zs
68
Zs

• New York-based
• Began as a collective of composers with classical
  training
  
• Plays rock music, but mostly notated
• Play from music stands
• Charlie Looker described the influence of rock as
  a sonic aesthetic
  
• I take him to mean that he likes music to be
  brutally loud and harsh

69
Zs

• Music tends to be extremely repetitive
• But not repetitive in the pleasing way minimalism
  is

70
Listening log Zs, trio piece

• How are the players interacting with one
  another?
  
• How might you describe the structure of this
  piece?

71
Zs and Hamilton

• Their music sounds different, but they share a
  similar approach to repetition
  
• Repetition is not pleasing
• Mirrors the crushing repetition of advertisements
  and political campaigns
  
• In that sense, this music has a lot to say about
  our world

72
Conclusion

• Oliver Kamm, The Guardian An impressionable
  writer last week quoted one of Stockhausens
  acolytes Stockhausen gave us the courage to
  think anything was possible in music. But not
  everything is possible in music, any more than it
  is in poetry. If you read a poem you need, at a
  minimum, to be able to understand the language in
  which it is written, the conventions of the genre
  and the tradition of the art form. Musical
  appreciation does not depend on the ability to
  read a score, but it does require the ability to
  hear sounds in relation to those that precede
  them.

73
Is this true?

• Well?
• Overall, does modern music go too far, too fast?
• Does the average listener have to like it for it
  to have value?

74
Why did art music change the way it did in the
past 110 years?

• Bernard Goldberg If you want to make believe it
  doesnt matter what kind of songs people write,
  then when they write that women are nothing but
  bitches and hos, lets just sit there and say,
  hey, its no big deal, its only the culture.
  Its either a big deal or it isnt.
• Jon Stewart Nah, I disagree with that. I think
  that it is the general detritus and static that
  exists in a world that is complex.

75
Rapid change

• Not suggesting that modern music is the
  equivalent of misogyny in hip hop
  
• Simply that it is a byproduct of a world that is
  becoming increasingly complex

76
How is it becoming more complex?

• Russolo World becoming increasingly noisy
• Predicts that music would also eventually become
  more noisy and machine-like
  
• We see this throughout the 20th and 21st centuries

77
(continued)

• From musique concrete, to Lachenmanns
  exploration of extended techniques, to
  contemporary improvised music like that of
  Nmperign
• Relatedly, we see musicians trying to converse
  with their environment, and understand the sounds
  around them
  
• Think Cage, but also, again, contemporary improv
  and musique concrete

78
Changes in Technology

• Contemporary music, in its quest for progress,
  alienates many listeners
  
• But is this really surprising? Arent we all a
  little alienated by the rate of technological
  progress throughout the world?
  
• We worry about the environment, and are annoyed
  by the noise that surrounds us, annoyed by
  development, annoyed by crappy mass-produced
  food, annoyed by highway congestion
• We worry that someone might blow us up, or that
  the planet might heat up to a dangerous degree

79
Our relationship to progress

• is a troubled one
• So maybe its not surprising that contemporary
  music troubles us as well
  
• It is tense and confusing music for tense and
  confusing times
  
• Not saying that its bad, only that if it annoys
  you, there may be a reason for that

80
Reminder

• Final exam review session, tomorrow at 6PM,
  Mandeville 127
  
• Heres one of your exam questions
• Describe Luigi Russolos argument in The Art of
  Noises. Is the argument convincing? How well does
  it foreshadow what happened in art music since it
  was written? Describe the music of at least five
  composers discussed in this class in making your
  argument.