Re: OT: Composition Contest: in search of the lost chords

[mike@michaelplishka.com]

Thanks!

> Below is the whole deal-i-o, one has to join the Times to see the online
> article so I've reposted Chris's post. Looks like basically you can just
> send a link to your recording to Glenn at his email address.
>
> Daryl Shawn
> www.swanwelder.com
>> What was the original link here?  I tried to search the archives but the
>> word chord is quite common in this group;-)
>>
>
> The following is exerpted from the blog called "Score", connected to the
> New York Times online at:
> http://thescore.blogs.nytimes.com/?excamp=mkt_at12
>
> March 6, 2007, 11:13 pm
> The ‘In Search of the Lost Chords’ Contest
>
> By
> Glenn Branca
> glenn@glennbranca.com
>
> The sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard are still inside my head.— Richard
> Rogers
>
> We discussed the widespread contempt in which ukulele players are held -
> traceable, we concluded, to the uke’s all-but-exclusive employment as a
> producer of chords - single, timeless events apprehended all at once
> instead of serially. Notes of a linear melody, up and down a staff,
> being a record of pitch versus time, to play a melody is to introduce
> the element of time, and hence of mortality. Our perceived reluctance to
> leave the timelessness of the struck chord has earned ukulele players
> our reputation as feckless, clownlike children who will not grow up. —
> Thomas Pynchon from "Against The Day”
>
>
> Yes, this is a contest.
>
> And it’s open to any and everyone.
>
> Here are the rules. Write and record up to three minutes of startlingly
> new and original instrumental chords. They can be scored in any fashion
> whatsoever, using any instrumentation or sound producing devices. You
> can submit a static series of chords or you can perturb the chords in
> any fashion. You can just submit one big gorgeous chord if you wish.
>
> The submissions can be sent here in the form of a posted link to a site
> where a recording of the piece can be heard (like MySpace, for example).
> Leave the link in a comment at the end of this post. Don’t send any
> music files.
>
> At the end of the month I will announce the winners on my last blog 
>entry.
>
> I was hoping to be able to have some kind of small rewards for the
> winners, but it’s not possible at this time. The links to all of the
> entries will stay posted in the comment section so that people can judge
> for themselves if they don’t like my choices. But I will only post
> entries that seem to be within the spirit of the contest.
>
> [Legal Note: By submitting a link to music you represent and warrant
> that the music found there is your original creation and that it does
> not infringe on any existing copyright.]
>
> Anyone who can’t post an entry because they’re not a member of
> TimesSelect can just send the link to me at glenn@glennbranca.com and
> I’ll post it.
>
> In searching for lost chords there can only be one method, and that is
> the method that eschews all pre-existing methods.
>
> THE SECRETS OF HARMONY
>
> Are there natural laws of music? Are the rules of harmony like a science
> that reveals to us the inner workings of a system? Are modulations and
> cadences like formulae that will produce accurate results? Is the
> history of music more or less a map which if followed to a logical
> conclusion will leads us to the perfect destination? Or is music a
> mysterious, irrational problem that even a gifted savant could not solve
> without the help of an intuitive muse and perhaps a little white-hot
> inspiration?
>
> The secrets of harmony are buried in a safe place beneath hundreds of
> years of music theory. Originally theory was called counterpoint and was
> invented
> solely as an instruction manual for rural choirmasters. It was cheaper
> than commissioning the likes of a Bach to give your town its own musical
> identity. Since theory was necessarily derived from an analysis of
> previously existing music, then any music based on that theory must
> itself sound like the music that the theory was derived from. In fact
> that was the whole point. Of course my point is that if you want to
> write something that doesn’t sound anything like anything you’ve ever
> heard before then this kind of self-referential theory can’t get you
> there.
>
> But there are other reasons to support anti-theory. If there were a
> natural law of music it would be the harmonic series:
> http://cnx.org/content/m11118/latest/
> Being infinite it contains within it all music: every interval, every
> mode, key or cluster in every possible tuning or temperament, all
> resonating in multifarious rhythms and melodies from a single
> fundamental tone. To create a system based on a particular set of
> intervals, chords or keys over any other is a matter of cultural
> preference that becomes entrenched over time, attaching meaning that is
> illusory.
>
> PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC SUBJECTIVITY
>
> Music must be heard. This is the corollary to Varese’s “music must
> sound.” Unlike the other arts music can never be literal. By its very
> nature it is abstract. But it can move a listener in ways that no words
> or pictures can ever do.
>
> When a major triad is voiced in a particular way and is heard in a
> resonant acoustic space, sometimes voices or even choirs seem to be
> heard. This psycho-acoustic phenomenon can be explained simply by the
> fact that the music is voiced in a manner that people associate with a
> choir. This is the reason why early dissonant music often reminded
> people of traffic jams, or certain types of clusters sounded to them
> like a swarm of bees. The mind must categorize what it hears based on
> previous reference. Music sounds like music because it sounds like music.
>
> Composers can’t ignore this subjective aspect of perception. But they
> can exploit it in the gray area between perceived musical sound and
> non-musical sound. This is the point at which a moment of perceptual
> tabula rasa can imprint music that’s never been heard before.
>
> FULL RANGE CHORDS
>
> Nicholas Slonimsky once wrote that it had been determined that there are
> 479,001,600 permutations of a single musical phrase based on the 12
> tones of the chromatic scale. In that same light it can be shown that
> there are 4095 different chords that can be derived from those same 12
> tones. But if one thinks in terms of chords that extend over the full
> orchestral range, using the 88 keys of the piano as reference, there are
> approximately 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different chords that
> can be derived from those 88 tones. That’s 2 to the 88th power. Of
> course this calculation does not take into account microtonal intervals
> which would increase the size of the number astronomically considering
> that it is possible to get meaningful
> audible differences down to at least an eighth tone.
>
> The point of such a demonstration, similar to what Slonimsky was trying
> to show, is that the number of possible chords is inexhaustible. And of
> course with timbre and orchestration introduced the potential is
> virtually infinite.
>
> AMBIGUOUS TONALITY
>
> One example of a chord that defies analysis is the “unison cluster.”
> This is a type of dense cluster in which the tones are placed very close
> together using small microtonal intervals. The effect is neither of a
> cluster nor a unison. But the sound is rich with a strange, singing
> choir-like quality. The clash of harmonics which occurs in a standard
> cluster does not occur here because the harmonic interaction that
> creates the harsh sound is so high that it’s outside the range of 
>hearing.
>
> In fact this quality is at work to a subtle degree in the sound of an
> orchestral string section that can never be perfectly in tune. Some
> conductors will even use the trick of having the string players tune
> slightly out to get a “richer” sound. It is also why an out of tune
> piano can have an oddly appealing sound. A piano doubles and triples
> unison strings in most of the range.
>
> Music is not pure. It cannot be pure. Sound is noise. In the 70s it was
> popular for studio engineers to try to get the “cleanest” possible
> sound, a vogue that lasted for years and was a complete failure. The
> only clean sound is silence.
>
> Schoenberg in his “Harmonielehre” refers to what he calls “tone colors.”
> This was his way of describing ambiguous pitch or sounds that cannot be
> analyzed in terms of pitch alone. In fact he went so far as to say that
> there could be no system or theory to define such music.
>
> Ironically this work led to the rejection of tonality by many 20th
> century 12-tonalists and serialists. Instead of opening the potential
> for tonal variety
> it became severely limited. They believed that an ambiguous or neutral
> tonal landscape could not be achieved using consonant chords. They also
> had a reliance on specific pitch that could be dealt with like numbers
> in a mathematical equation. There is a reason why art is not science. To
> “prove” the efficacy of a musical pattern in some rational system means
> nothing if it sounds bad. Strangely few had seemed to notice the success
> that Webern had had introducing consonance into atonality.
>
> MATERIALS FOR BUILDING LOST CHORDS
>
> It should be kept in mind that when building lost chords the sound of a
> chord is relative. A dissonant chord can sound almost consonant when
> preceded by a chord or cluster that is far more dissonant. As well, a
> series of consonant chords can sound saccharine without contrast.
> Following are a few hints on mechanics:
>
> TIMBRE: The use of untempered sound such as steel chicken wire instead
> of guitar or piano strings, copper plumbing pipes, bowed cymbals or a
> kazoo, homemade instruments, “ethnic” instruments such as a hurdy-gurdy,
> bagpipes or sarangi, synth effects and EQ that can be found on any
> sampler to alter a conventional instrument sound. Altering timbre
> entirely changes the harmonic content of a sound. With this type of
> sound the fundamental often no longer dominates. The harmonic
> interaction is unpredictable and can create unusual relationships.
>
> MICROTONALITY: Tones based on the intervals of the harmonic series or
> any division of the octave smaller than a half tone.
>
> WEIGHTING: Using dynamics or instrument doubling, the balance of the
> tones within a chord can be drastically altered. For example if one were
> to use a cluster and a major triad in the same chord, emphasizing the
> cluster would give a very different chord than emphasizing the triad. Of
> course this technique can be used in far more subtle ways.
>
> VOICING AND RANGE: Three notes spread out over the entire range is a
> very different chord than the same three notes voiced within a single
> octave. A chord in the high range is very different than the same chord
> in the low range. This is not trivial. Voicing change and note change
> are equally important. Think in terms of a full seven-octave range.
>
> AMBIGUITY: This technique includes unison clusters and ambiguous
> tonality discussed earlier. Introducing an unfamiliar sound into a
> familiar context or vice versa is an effective tool.
>
> CHANGE: Here is a trick of the trade. When making a change always change
> at least two elements. This is the concept of contrary motion but
> extrapolated across the entire field of possible change.
>
> Combining these various types will give the best results. In short,
> composing lost chords requires attention to detail and carefully
> constructed contrast.
>
>
> Anyone who is interested in finding out about recordings of music that
> transcend the predictable can go to Massimo Ricci’s
> www.touchingextremes.org.
>
>
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