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