Audience-to-Artist Conversion

Freeman is driven by his desire that “everyone could share in this experience [composition] that I find so fulfilling” because he believes that “all of us are musically creative and have something interesting to say.” However, he laments that so few actually compose music despite increased music consumption. He cites the NEA 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which found that only 12.7% of American adults play a musical instrument at least once each year. Freeman reasonably assumes (although it was not part of the survey) that those who compose would be fewer.

What Freeman does not seem to note is that this is the highest rate of participation among the performing arts. Only 2.1% of adults participate in dance related activities in a given year and merely .8% participate in non-musial theater (.9% participate in musical theatre). Individual visual arts fare little better with only, for example, 9% who paint/draw/sculpt, although the overall participation in visual arts appears to be higher with 6% in pottery/jewelry, 13.1% weaving/sewing and 14.7% photography/movies. Furthermore, creative writing holds at 7% despite the fact that most adults can at least compose in English.

What is it that keeps an audience member from becoming a participant? Given the statistics for other, non-musical artistic endeavors, the lack of participation in music appears to not merely be an issue of being too difficult for the layman to approach. Most Americans can effectively use the English language and understand what many words mean and yet they do not use this knowledge toward creative or artistic ends.

Denatured Musical Language

And yet, Freeman’s solution to increase audience-to-composer conversion was to simply denature composition into a pseudo-visual/auditory task of piecing together blocks of musical gestures in a web-based platform called Piano Etudes. The approach resembles Earle Brown’s Available Forms I. However, the ‘composer’ need not read music, given that all of the musical fragments are represented visually by pseudo-registral/durational notation.

Western musical notation has been a long time in development. However, the more-or-less standardized notation of the modern era is hardly an obvious choice for the music it is employed to represent. For example, most of our modern music relies on equal temperament (i.e., all adjacent tones are equivalent). And yet, it hardly appears that the interval between D-sharp and F-flat would sound the same as E-flat and E-natural despite the equivalent aural result.

One solution to represent modern music would be a graphic notation where notes can be plotted against an x-axis representing time and a y-axis representing pitch. The visual representation would be easily understood as analogous to the aural realization. Freeman uses precisely this notation.

While this approach has its advantages for visual representation, it also lacks in its convenience for reading. The standard five-line staff groups pitches and allows us to easily recognize pitches in reference to a fixed point. It becomes difficult to maintain a reference point on an equally-spaced graph across groups of 12 lines.

Need Music Participation be User-Friendly?

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate cultural shifts in the past century was the move away from the ubiquitous teaching of our children how to read music. In years past, such knowledge could be assumed and would allow for the participation in amateur performance, composition and the like that is not approachable by those with little to no knowledge of the musical language.

And yet, I also do not think that familiarity with the musical language would result in any more participation. Given the rates of participation across all of the Arts, I believe we are in a crisis of leisure. Average Americans are more likely to consume art than make it.

The question of whether it is worth making music more user-friendly seems to hinge not on those who do not currently participate and are unlikely to start, but rather on the efficacious nature of musical notation for those who would otherwise be currently involved. If I’m right about that, then I would suggest we are right on track. Experiments with other methods of representation don’t hurt, but we should not kid ourselves about increasing Arts participation by dumbing-down its means.

• http://balldroppings.com/js/ (my personal favorite)
• http://www.incredibox.fr/
• http://www.optuswhalesong.com.au/
• http://www.whitevinyldesign.com/solarbeat/ (thanks to Erin Gamble!) (not really composition per se, but it is fun…)

But then I got to thinking about the music-making involved and started asking myself questions such as “What does it to take to make an application that can generate more-or-less pleasing music regardless of musical ability on the part of the ‘composer’?” That’s just about when I began reading Jason Freeman’s NYTimes opinion piece “Compose Your Own, Part 2” and its prequel “Compose Your Own.” This led to a number of other questions that I will address in separate posts in the upcoming week.

The ‘Building Blocks’ of Music?

As I pondered what makes composition apps work in a musical sense, my attention was drawn to the issue of sequence or—perhaps more appropriately—the lack thereof. The composer/designer of the app relinquishes the decision-making power over the order of musical events and must therefore accommodate the potential musical outcomes. Each app is designed in such a way that more-or-less pleasing music will result regardless of the actions of the user.

Such an approach to composition is by no means novel. In many ways, these apps conceptually resemble Earle Brown’s Available Forms I, in that the lines between audience, performer and composer are blurred by giving more responsibility for the sequence of musical events in the final musical product to someone other than the initial composer (Überkomponist?). In this sense, the initial composer has produced musical ‘building blocks’ that may be put together in any ‘legal’ (i.e., permitted by the rules of the initial composer) way such that the result will always be effective.

Freeman’s app is perhaps the most clear realization of this conceptual approach. He denatured composition into a pseudo-visual/auditory task of piecing together blocks of musical gestures in a web-based platform called Piano Etudes. Unlike Brown’s piece, however, the ‘composer’ need not read music given that all of the musical fragments are represented visually by pseudo-registral/durational notation.

Beyond Musical Sequence

The simplistic impression suggested by the ‘building block’ analogy is perhaps misleading. Much Western music written before the twentieth century has some significant sequential component that cannot be arbitrarily dismissed. An obvious example might include the so-called ‘sonata form,’ with the resolution of secondary material in a principal key area upon its return. In any other sequence, it would simply not be a sonata (especially by definition, although the musical impact would also be lessened).

Even the popular music of earlier times had specific sequential determinants. A performer could not simply piece together the various phrases from a Baroque dance suite and hope that the outcome would make sense. Rather, the harmonic and cadential schemata require accurate sequencing. This differs greatly from modern popular dance music. If there happens to be a differentiation between ‘verse’ and ‘chorus,’ the order of presentation likely makes little difference. Even more explicitly sequence-free is the product of the live DJ that combines various repetitive patterns in overlapping layers with other musical gestures that need not suggest any particular musical event.

The composition of musical fragments that can truly go in any order is an entirely different matter.

Non-Sequential Music and the Audience

Music that can come in any sequence must essentially be more-or-less effective regardless of when the audience begins listening to the materials. In this sense, the listening should be able to begin at any point. An audience member could theoretically walk in during the middle of a performance and still appreciate the music because any component can sound like a ‘beginning’ just as much as an ‘ending.’ That is, no component of the music will rely on any previous component and can thereby serve as an entry or exit point to the audience’s attention.

This seems to have great implications for keeping an audience in their seats according to the traditional model. Part of the value of sitting through an entire classical symphony, for example, is hearing the logical conclusion of that which comes before. Missing some earlier portion of the music may preclude appreciation of a later portion. Therefore, rapt attention is incredibly useful, if not necessary. If there is no sequence to be perceived, is such rapt attention the most useful audience model? And yet, much can be appreciated in each new performance of such a work.

As many new music ensembles seek to maintain or increase audiences, one notable trend is the shifting of attention away from the music. Such ensembles play in bars or clubs where talking and mingling is not only accepted, but also encouraged. Concerts are paired with dinners or other artistic endeavors that deserve their own attention. Music is no longer the focus at such events, so much as is the sensory experience.

In a way, this also reflects popular consumption. Students listening to their iPods between classes are by no means paying rapt attention to the music. Music is everywhere and paired with every sort of experience from movies to museums, elevators to telephones, and the like. Even classical music on NPR is often transformed into ‘background’ music that can be entered into or exited from with ease. Without understanding the logic and sequence of the music, it too becomes non-sequential.

Could it be that listening habits are changing to better appreciate the music? Does the music change to meet the listening habits? It’s hard to know for sure, but musicians and music advocates alike must take these issues into consideration.

Sequence vs. Non-Sequence

I will not suggest that either sequence-dependent or non-sequential music is somehow superior [I definitely enjoyed BallDroppings!]. Rather, I merely want to examine the related issues. However, what I will end with is an interesting note from the results of Freeman’s project. He allowed users to submit ‘compositions’ to be judged (by himself). The winning ‘compositions’ would then be prepared for performance and recorded (you can hear the results in the NYTimes article).

Two interesting features emerged in the winning ‘compositions’: 1) minimalistic repetition; 2) goal orientation. On the one hand, this could simply reflect Freeman’s tastes as a composer and audience. However, the comments of the ‘composers’ were also rather revealing in these respect:

“I’m interested in patterns in nature, and I was thinking about them when I composed the etude. A pattern is a sequence that repeats in time, space, or both. Because our world is finite, patterns must have boundaries. What does the edge of a pattern sound like? What about the boundary between related but different patterns?”

“I began with what I felt like were the more ‘pop’ elements of the score and created a loose musical narrative around those ideas.”

“I organized the material to create shifting states of rhythmic and harmonic tension within an overall hypnotic, pensive space. My intention was to allow this ebb and flow of tension to gradually unwind into a closing series of calming, pacific breaths.”

“I actually took a course from John Cage in the ’60’s at UC Davis, and am familiar with such ‘alternate’ forms of composition. … The choices were made with an aesthetic in mind — definitely not aleatoric!”

It is intriguing to me to see these ‘composers’ describing the opposing forces of order and chaos, sequence and non-sequence as they composed. They were interested in the moods created by repetition and yet were driven to seek some goal. There seems to be a satisfaction in both the appreciation of a single item in detail just as there is in recognizing global relations over the scale of a composition. Semper idem, sed non eodem modo (always the same, but not in the same way), invoking the memory of Schenker.

Before the performance began, Emily and I were looking over the schedule for the season and in particular discussing one of the upcoming CMC concerts featuring John O’Conor on piano (3/6/10). One of the potential difficulties of listening to an evening of piano music is that it can become tiresome with the lack of variety in terms of timbre and dynamic envelope available to the pianist. Whereas many other instruments and the voice can vary these parameters in a variety of different ways, the pianist makes musical gestures out of a different set that, for example, includes intensity of attack, but not dynamic envelope.

This is worth mentioning as these thoughts were fresh in my mind as the Ying Quartet began Schumann’s Quartet in A Major, op. 41, no. 3. I was amazed at the unity of interpretation and technique with which the ensemble played that might only be expected by a solo pianist—only now, with a wide range of expressive timbres and dynamic possibilities. Granted, it might have something to do with the fact that the ensemble only recently added Frank Huang (violin) into what has been an all-sibling quartet since 1992. That said, it is hard to imagine such a unified sense of time, as is necessary for a movement such as the delightful variations in the Assai agitato second movement. [As a side note: I was particularly drawn to this movement and recognized some familiar metric displacements that were similar to those used in my own quartet writing last year. I figured that I must have studied it around that time, but as I look at the score today, I do not think that I have ever seen it before. Perhaps I had heard it somewhere? Either way, I must say that I enjoy the scherzando-like way in which each figure reaches across the barline and never literally articulate the meter.]

The ensemble also played a recently commissioned piece, Next Atlantis, by Sebastian Currier involving electronics that for the most part depicted water sounds of various sorts. Phillip Ying, the violist, took the opportunity to explain the piece ahead of time, which initially suggested to me that they figured it might be a hard sell to an audience that is not only unfamiliar with electroacoustic music, but also predominantly interested in the classics of the Western repertoire. He also noted that it was a first for the ensemble, as they had never worked with prerecorded material before. In the end, I suspect the announcement might have been more related to the latter as I consistently felt slightly on edge as I attempted to discern the relationship between the live and prerecorded materials. It was only by the end that I really felt like the two were dove-tailing, as I suspect was intended throughout. It was hard to tell what was at the root of the slight delays and awkward silences that were making me uneasy. I did not necessarily hear a great number of audible cues in the prerecorded materials, yet the ensemble seemed to be locking in with certain acoustical events that were surprisingly aligned. On the other hand, it was hard to imagine that the incredibly unified voice that played the Schumann would now seem somewhat misaligned as it worked together with the tape.

My initial impressions of the ensemble as an incredibly unified voice were reconfirmed by the performance of Beethoven’s Quartet in C major, op. 59, no. 3 to end the concert. They launched into the fastest rendition I had ever heard of the final Allegro molto while maintaining an utter clarity and preciseness that was remarkable. As scalar fragments passed from one player to another, I could hardly believe that I entirely missed the switch-off—every single time. Also notable was the ensemble’s great sense of what might be termed by some the grande ligne or by others the Urlinie: while each note was precisely in its proper place, they all signaled the overall directionality that pointed to the final cadence. This was perhaps most noticable in the final moments of this piece as Beethoven delays the cadence through one false ending after another until you lose any surety of when the cadence might actually arrive.

The Ying Quartet definitely lived up (and perhaps even surpassed) the high expectations I have for the artists that Chamber Music Columbus hosts each year. Even as think about how much I enjoyed watching them live at the Southern Theatre, I am already looking forward to seeing the Jupiter Quartet on November 7. I hope to see you there!

One likely source of inspiration is that a similar generator; in the case of composers, another composer. One composer with whom I studied, Nikola Resanovic, made it evident that he drew some of his inspiration from other musicians; namely, The Beatles. He made no attempts to hide such inspiration, but rather made it evident with occasional titles such as “Igor’s Pet Walrus” alluding to the source of a harmonic progression (as well as components from Stravinsky). It became apparent, however, that such preferences leaked into his music even when he hadn’t necessarily consciously intended to do so, e.g. preferences for particular progressions typical of pop music, and became part of a wonderfully engaging personal style.

Another source of inspiration might come from the materials with which a composer works. Brandon Paul, a student at The Ohio State University, published a study on the music of Einojuhani Rautavaara. Paul’s observations regarded the symmetrical nature of Rautavaara’s music around an axis that is largely the result of playing piano and the symmetrical positioning of one’s hands. The interesting revelations of the study, however, come with the discovery that the non-piano music also conforms to the same sorts of patterns. The language that was developed due to physical limitations in one medium, spilled over to create a unique style in all media.

My current impetus for thinking about the subject of inspiration came when I read about Satie’s daily routine during the period when he moved to Arcueil, 10 km outside Paris. He made nearly daily returns to Paris on foot, when according to Templier, “he walked slowly, taking small steps, his umbrella held tight under his arm. When talking he would stop, bend one knee a little, adjust his pince-nez and place his fist on his lap. The we would take off once more with small deliberate steps.” His consistent routines were marked by periodic stops at street lamps to jot down some music.

This habit becomes interesting in regards to an observation made by Roger Shattuck during a conversation with John Cage in 1982, that “the source of Satie’s sense of musical beat—the possibility of variation within repetition, the effect of boredom on the organism—may be this endless walking back and forth across the same landscape day after day… the total observation of a very limited and narrow environment.”

In the case of Satie, a habit that is not particularly inherently musical, yet permeates the daily life of a composer, becomes a source of stylistic inspiration.

Surely every composer is in some sense inspired by not only what is heard or played, but also lived.

One of the great questions of the day was, “What’s the hardest part of maintaining ethical speech?”

The answer? Silence.

He writes quite brilliantly on this topic in his own blog at Net Cotton Content, and therefore, I won’t retell the whole story. I will just repeat his closing thoughts about a time in which he showed tact by staying quiet:

But, man, that moment is still awkwardly quiet. Because there are certainly things that could be said.

Isn’t that true in music as well? How often do we composers look to stock filler because the silence is just too overbearing? A run; churning arpeggios in the inner voices; overly complex transitions—there are plenty of easy ways to fill those isolated seconds of silence.

I’d venture to say that there is definitely a sense of “tact” in composition. The audience, knowingly or not, will develop a set of expectations for each piece they hear. They know when you have gone too far, said too much, i.e. left out the silence.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if the audience caught a faux pas before the composer. Surely, as in speech, a great deal of control must be developed over time so as to not go to far.

The hardest part is a silent moment.

Last night we had the pleasure of visiting with them and taking in a concert at the Copley Bandstand. It was a fun night of big band music, courtesy of Swing Machine. Great memories of playing second tenor in a big band came rushing back to my mind as I listened to charts such as Basie’s “April in Paris.”

After the concert, we talked to a couple who was friends of our relatives and a friend of theirs. The couple was from Puerto Rico and the friend was from the Dominican Republic. The began talking about music and Bob, the husband of the Akron “cousin” remarked, “This couple taught me the samba.”

I responded, “Oh, that’s fun!”

To which the couple asked me, “You know the samba?”

At this point I got confused. I thought, “Sure, I know the samba. I’ve played plenty and heard even more.” But I knew that I was missing something.

The other man then offered to teach us all the calypso and gave a quick sample as he shuffled his feet.

I got it: they meant “Can you dance the samba?”!

It’s amazing to look back at how many style or genre terms originated as names for dances. It would perhaps even be fairly safe to say that instrumental music began as dance music.

We’ve come a long way since then… and I don’t necessarily mean in a one-way track of improvement. Popular music still knows how to dance; some of these musicians may be making some of the best dance music ever. “Classical” music, on the other hand, has two left feet. I think we are starting to see a little swing (pun partially intended) back in the other direction, especially as the neo-romantic-post-minimalist trend seems to have hit it big with audiences. I wouldn’t be surprised to see well-crafted, quality dance music reappear in the next couple of decades as composers begin to reconnect with culture, and the “hidden language of the soul.” [Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer]

As many conductors and music educators have often said, “Let it dance!”

My wife came across this video of a Swan Lake presentation that is a must see!

I am amazed that these dancers have achieved the ability to move in ways that I would not have even considered (not that I am by any means a very well trained dancer).

This reminds me again of the value of consistent practice in any endeavor. Clearly, these dancers have put in a great deal of work and have probably been dancing their entire lives.

Similarly, any performing musician worth their salt is the result of a great deal of practice.

What makes young composers think that they are somehow exempt from this? Is there something I am missing? I don’t think so…

There seem to be 3 general components that go into making a great composer

1. High levels of creativity, i.e. the capacity for, or state of, bringing something into being
2. An incredibly large mental library of music by great composers
3. Continuous practice and hard work

Can you doubt the results of the hard work from these dancers?

“Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots … you stop.”

… and this passage, Col 1:9-14, as Exhibit B:

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

When I first read Exhibit A, I thought, “Wow, here is someone who really knows how to use the English language.” The ability to build and build the tension to the very end is enviable.

A few days later, I heard Exhibit B spoken aloud (a world of difference from silent reading!) and I noticed the same increase in intensity. Here is a man who is about to explode with the message he has, and you can actually feel that as he comes to his joyous climax.

What does all of this have to do with music?

I can’t help but think of pieces such as Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” The seemingly unending increase of tension and excitement amazes me every time.

There also seems to be a corollary to the difference between Exhibits A and B in terms of music. Consider the endless sequences or 5ths progression from a lesser Baroque composer. It is obvious that the tactic works, but in the end, there is not always a payoff when the material itself is not that meaningful (A). On the other hand, the same tools in the hand of a master, such as Bach and the like, will never cease to delight. The essential value of quality material allows such composers to display incredible expression that is unmatched in the musical medium (B).

Although any composer can use the tools of the trade to pull at our emotions as the audience, the composers who use the same tools AND incredible content will always stand out.

Interestingly, Barber’s “Adagio” was later set as to the text of “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God).

1. Sounds that used to arouse negative valance (i.e. digital distortion and the like) are now free game for musical exploitation.
2. Music that using Western materials that maintains stasis for entire pieces.

Concerning (1), I sense that composers are playing with “forbidden” sounds much like the Diabolus in musica.

Concerning (2), hasn’t this already been exquisitely accomplished by composers such as Messiaen, as in the Quartet for the End of Time.

In the midst of all of this, I ran across Kyle Gann’s blog, “View from Outside the Cage” on PostClassic. He acknowledges that John Cage was no different from any other composer that has a preferred aesthetic that he deems the best or coolest. His aesthetic just happened to be worlds away from the other composers of his time.

I bring this up to point out that I am able to clarify my personal aesthetic the more I see major trends that I would rather not happen.

Fortunately, much of what I heard was actually quite good, or at least almost there. I am excited each day to get back to my own work as I see and hear all of the amazing things that can be done. In the meanwhile, I just avoid the things I don’t particularly like.