MHL 603 – EXPERIMENT-3 – CHANCE AND
IMPROVISATION
(F-11)
1. (as necessary) Frederic Rzewski (b.1938) –
Little Bangs
Rzewski is American, piano prodigy,
leftist politics
Involved with Music Elettronica Viva in
PLAY excerpts from “The People United”
(1976) – 36 variations on a Chilean folk song (1-2, 5-6)
Essay begins with Steve Lacy anecdote:
Improv is very rapid composition – Rzewski asks: Are
composition and improvisation similar processes or fundamentally different
processes? [answer: fundamentally different]
Argues that improvisation is more like
the world really is: there are logical connections and likely outcomes – but in
the moment anything can happen
Music is a process in time –
Improvisation reflects or creates time processes in a more realistic way than
composition – Rather than an inevitable working out of the ‘big bang’ (metaphor
for composition), Improvisation is “an endless series of ‘little bangs’”
“Music can make us aware, if only
vaguely, of the possibility of other universes right under our noses . . . “
[But this applies to composed music as well as to improvised, and to poetry as
well as music]
2. Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988)
His music embodies many of the ideas
in Rzewski’s essay – Rzewski and MEV knew Scelsi
well, admired him, and promoted his music
Biography
– murky, self-mythologized
Italian count, involved in avant-garde
circles in 20s – studied and briefly advocated 12-tone music – also wrote poetry
(in French)
Nervous breakdown after WWII –
Renounced his previous works – discovered various sorts of mysticism – Says he
worked toward new composing style in asylum [represented in film as listening
to same note over and over on piano]
Believed that music was a way of
discovering and communicating secret knowledge about the universe – Composer is
only a conduit for these truths – Filmakers tried to
convey this in Casa Scelsi
Scelsi insisted that he was "not a
composer" but "one who receives music" from outside himself
(compare Bob Dylan: "It is like a ghost is writing a song like that. It
gives you the song and it goes away, it goes away. You don’t know what it
means. Except the ghost picked me to write the song.”
(if time) PLAY Casa Scelsi
Scelsi's Compositional process
Improvised at piano or ondiola (an obsolete French electronic keyboard) – captured
improvisations on tape recorder – Late at night - Said to have been in
trance-like state
Hired assistants to transcribe the
improvisations – adapt to instruments or voices as he imagined the piece
Edited the transcriptions with
performers (e.g. F-M Uitti, Michiko Harayama) – Uitti describes
at: http://www.uitti.org/scelsi.html
Published
Vieru Tossata’s
claims
Does participation of several people
detract from composition? from composer?
Does
it detract from myth? or enhance myth?
(if
time) – PLAY Casa Scelsi
Performance
issues – Sharon Kranach
Claims that transcribers “over-notated,”
i.e. they interpreted and fixed things too much (usually with Scelsi's encouragement) – she’d like to go back and
simplify many pieces, make them more like the initial transcriptions, leave
more leeway to performers
What is the “original” of a Scelsi composition? : the tape of the original
improvisation? the first transciption? the edited transcript? the first performance
(with Scelsi’s coaching)?
3.
Maknongan (1976)
Name comes from the Supreme (?) Deity
of the Ifugao tribe in highlands of Philippines
(Luzon) – Don't know whether he's a fierce or a laid-back god
HANDOUT score p.1 – whole piece is
based on a single note (g#) inflected by
dynamics
pitch
bending (sometimes noted as neighbor notes)
timbre
(dark vs. clear)
articulation
register
Scelsi wrote several pieces on single notes
with inflections – e.g. String quartet #4
PLAY voice version – listen for
additions to score – There are many
What is relation between this and
other versions? – Isherwood voice version seems to be based in some sense on Leandre's double bass version – it seems to be an ongoing
compositional process that includes performers, where a tradition of
performance practice builds up
Do we hear origins as improvisation on
ondiola?
Should Leandre's
or Isherwood's additions to the score be considered "improvisation"?
4. John Cage (1912-1992)
It
was Arnold Schoenberg who inspired Cage to become a composer, and Cage studied
briefly with Schoenberg in LA – After giving up on 12-tone music, he composed
for percussion ensemble, then prepared piano – Became involved in NY after WWII
with abstract impressionist painters, and a group of avant-garde musicians –
Also began to study Asian philosophy
C.
attributed his ideas about chance and indeterminacy to his study of Zen
Buddhism in the late 40s (with Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki in NY) –Zen notion of man's (or woman's)
role in life as becoming aware of the world, fitting himself into the world,
moving with the world instead of trying to shape and change the world
Applying
this idea to music, Cage believes that the composer shouldn't try to shape,
mold or determine what sounds will occur in music; composer should not impose
his own taste on the listener; composer should only create a situation in which
performers and listeners can find and experience music themselves
Corollaries
of this reasoning:
1.
Noises are as valuable and as useful as so-called musical tones – all sounds
can potentially be music
2. Silence is crucial to music – Silence isn’t
the absence of sound but the absence of intended sound – If we give up
intention, then we hear silence – This was the meaning of 4’ 33”
3. There is no firm line between
"music" and "not music" -- "Everything is music"
if we want it to be
Remember: In Perilous Night was not either
chance or indeterminate music – Cage was very much molding the sounds by
preparing the piano and presenting sounds he liked to the listener – Cage later
felt that this piece was too ego-driven
5.
Indeterminacy and chance music
indeterminacy vs.
chance – This is a distinction that wasn’t made much at the time (Cage didn’t
make it), but it’s useful
Chance
music – composer determines pitches, rhythms, timbres, etc by using chance
operations (e.g. flipping a coin), But the composer notates entire piece in all
aspects, and the performer plays what the composer has written – Also called “aleatoric” music
Indeterminacy
– Composer notates only some aspects, leaves others up to decisions by
performers or happenstance of performance situation
Chance
and Indeterminacy both fit Cage’s definition of “experimental music” in that
the composer doesn’t “foresee the outcome” in advance - The composer only
partially determines what the listener is going to hear – his influence is
attenuated, highly mediated – But NB this is the case also the case in Bach
(continuo realization) and Rossini (vocal coloratura)
Many
Cage pieces are both “chance music” and “indeterminate” – He uses chance
procedures to create a score that leaves many things indeterminate
Indeterminacy
and chance vs. Rzewski's notion of improvisation
Similarities
– Rzewski very aware of Cage! - outcome unforeseen in both – both open to what
happens in the moment
Differences
– chance music composed in advance – improv open to
tastes of performers
Cage's
indeterminacy is closer to Rzewski's improv
Cage
techniques for composing “chance” music:
I
Ching - e.g. Music of Changes (1951),
Computer
randomization - e.g. HPSCHD (1967-69)
Deriving
notes from star map – e.g. Atlas Eclipticalis (1962)
Deriving
notes from imperfections in music paper - Music for Piano (1952-56)
Deriving
notes from pre-existing pieces by subjecting them to chance operations – e.g.
Cheap Imitation (1969)
Cage
techniques for indeterminacy
Indeterminate notation - Concert for Piano and Orchestra
(1958)
Interchangeability
of parts and segments, overlapping pieces -- e.g. Music for X instruments,
Musical vacuum -
e.g. "4 minutes, 33 seconds"
Cage's
stated goal: "It is thus possible to make a musical composition the
continuity of which is free of individual taste and memory (psychology) and
also of the literature and "traditions" of the art." (Silence, p.59) – Is this a worthwhile
goal? Does it lead to worthwhile musical
compositions?
“My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I
don't hear the music I write. I write in order to hear the music I haven't yet
heard.” (Autobiographical Statement, 1989)
Carping
at Cage’s methods: a) The procedures are arbitrary and overcomplicated; b) he
didn’t apply them consistently from piece to piece or even within a piece; c)
they don’t remove intent, they just
displace intent to the performer
6
Concert for Piano and orchestra (1958)
Score
consists of a “solo for piano” (HANDOUT) plus parts for 3 violins, 2 violas, vc, cb, fl, cl. bn. trpt.trb. tb – Also a conductor who moves his arms like a clock for
the players – I’ve never seen the orchestra parts
How
was piano part composed? – Part consists of 63 pages with fragments of music
distributed around each page - Cage devised a system in which he would have to
continually invent new methods of composition, notation and performance – The
legend at the beginning is a list of what turned out to be 84 methods – Each capital
letter indicates a different method of composition and a different procedure
for the performer to follow – The methods indicate musical parameters
graphically, with many decisions left to the performer
As he went to write a fragment, Cage would
consult the I Ching to decide whether that fragment
would be a formerly used method, a new method or a variation on a former method
– The particular configuration of “notes” in each fragment was determined by
unspecified random methods – Thus it is “chance” music as well as
“indeterminate” music
Instructions
at beginning say performer may play everything or nothing and in any order–
Most likely he will choose some of the material to play, i.e. some of the pages
and a selection of material on the pages – The order of pages seems to be
important, because many fragments continue from one page to the next
Example
pp. 1-2 - HANDOUT
Some
of these were notations that Cage had used before – Purpose was to create
indeterminacy in many different ways simultaneously – probably also to created
variety and perhaps also unity (by re-using methods)
Pritchett
says the concert was written specifically for David Tudor, who had played many
of these methods before and was very scrupulous about realizing the notation
Instrument
parts are said to be less complex and less diverse
Cage
composed many other works were written using these and similar methods – They
can be played simultaneously with the concert if desired – also individual
parts from the concert can be played as solos – Thus it forms part of a
“family” of pieces
PLAY
2 versions (Tudor, 1958; Kotik, ?)
7. Cage on YouTube
Water Walk
(I’ve got a secret)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U
Variations V
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLOWy3ys8Ag
Bacchanale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0BwwF9cLwM
Organ2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qReYWKfduE4
Cage
Interviews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGrhL49-YQw
4”33”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E
(orchestral)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HypmW4Yd7SY
(David Tudor, piano)