Identity III: Defining Process +
Creative Presentations

Creative presentations: Darcy, Blaise, Talia, Josh, Matt G, Keith, Connor

MARTIN ARNOLD – ALONE. LIFE WASTES ANDY HARDY (1998)

Re-prime.  Process composition: a working definition:

A COMPOSITIONAL APPROACH WHERE A SINGLE IDEA OR PROCESS DETERMINES THE GENERATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE ENTIRETY OF THE WORK’S CONTENT AND FORM TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL CHOICE AND INTUITION 

AUTECHRE - FLUTTER (1994)

Categorical distinctions:

            - Generative / Transformational

            - Goal-directed / Rule-directed

            - Indeterminate / Determinate

            - Material-based / Interaction-based

Rates of change:

Linear, Non-Reversible – Segmented/Non-Segmented

Linear, Reversible – Regular gradient/Irregular gradient

Non-Linear, Non-Reversible – Consistent change/Inconsistent change

Non-Linear, Reversible – Consistent change/Inconsistent change

Instantaneous, Non-Reversible – Segmented/Non-Segmented

Instantaneous, Reversible – Segmented/Non-Segmented

Combination/Motivic – Repeated/Developing

Combination (Free) – Restricted/Unrestricted 

Wishart... “Ferneyhough noted that a particular passage in one of his works sounded pretty well aleatoric and that this was interesting because it was the result of a multi-layered process of complex compositional decisions. He seemed to be saying that the methodology of composition was the principle object, not the effect on the listener. The composition is more like a document which evidences the composer’s methodology, and it is evident in the particular case under discussion that the methodology will only become apparent through detached analytical study of the document, not directly through the effect of the music.” 

Reich:  What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing. James Tenney said in conversation, "then the composer isn't privy to anything". I don't know any secrets of structure that you can't hear. We all listen to the process together since it's quite audible, and one of the reasons it's quite audible is, because it's happening extremely gradually. The use of hidden structural devices in music never appealed to me. Even when all the cards are on the table and everyone hears what is gradually happening in a musical process, there are still enough mysteries to satisfy all.   ---- The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note details and the over all form simultaneously. One can't improvise in a musical process-- the concepts are mutually exclusive. While performing and listening to gradual musical processes one can participate in a particular liberating and impersonal kind of ritual. Focusing in on the musical process makes possible that shift of attention away from he and she and you and me outwards towards it.

Tenney:  Another thing is that I think the real world’s textures – or textures that have this character – are beautiful: the starts in the sky, the leaves on the trees, the noise of the traffic on the street corner, the birds in the forest etc. These are beautiful textures to me. I think of Jackson Pollock, for example. It’s not just interesting and radical and non-figurative, and all the rest. It’s gorgeous. It’s beautiful stuff. Not everything that arises in those situations is “beautiful” in the same sense, you can have ugliness too. But when it feels like it’s part of reality, and relates to the actual formal properties of the world, we can understand it through our senses. So, in a way it’s a paradigm for a larger reality. What’s important here is the immediate sensual response to textures of that kind. It also has to be understood that I don’t just set up a random process and accept everything; and I don’t select from it either. I set up a constrained random process – constrained one way or another, that sometimes includes no constraints at all, but that’s a special case of constraints. And I listen to it, or check it out one way or another. And if something happens that I don’t think is right , I go back to the programme, go back to the constraints, and say, “Now, I haven’t defined the constraints that I want carefully enough.” Cage wanted to remove himself, I think, for other reasons – a kind of Zen philosophical attitude. I want to remove myself because I’m irrelevant to it [laughs], except as the finder of it, or the maker of it: it’s not going to happen unless I do it, but It’d not about me.

Why process:

1. Strong teleological foundation of work with regard to form

LIGETI – POÈME SYMPHONIQUE (1961)

2. Extension of Aural imagination

CHRISTOPHE CHARLES – MOBILE OPINIONS (2000) 

3. Embodiment of teleology of the work

Compare reduction of metaphor in:

KLAUS LANG – MISSA BEATI PAUPERES SPIRITU (KYRIE, GLORIA, AGNUS DEI) (2006)

WILLIAM BASINSKI – THE DISINTEGRATION LOOPS 2.2 (2002-3)

DEREK BAILEY – CARPAL TUNNEL (2005)