Process music
Encyclopedia
Process music is music
that arises from a process
. It may make that process audible
to the listener
, or the process may be concealed. Primarily begun in the 1960s, diverse composers have employed divergent methods and styles of process. "A 'musical process' as Christensen defines it is a highly complex dynamic phenomenon involving audible structures that evolve in the course of the musical performance ... 2nd order audible developments
, i.e., audible developments within audible developments" (Seibt 2004, xiii). These processes may involve specific systems of choosing and arranging note
s through pitch
and time
, often involving a long term change with a limited amount of musical material, or transformations of musical events that are already relatively complex in themselves. Steve Reich
defines process music not as, "the process of composition but rather pieces of music that are, literally, processes. The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall form
simultaneously. (Think of a round
or infinite canon
.)" (Reich 2002, 34).
, for example, used the word "process" to describe the complex compositional shapes he began using around 1944 (Edwards 1971, 90–91; Brandt 1974, 27–28), with works like the Piano Sonata and First String Quartet, and continues to use down to the present time. Carter came to his conception of music as process from Alfred North Whitehead
's "principle of organism", and particularly from his 1929 book, Process and Reality
(Bernard 1995, 649–50).
Michael Nyman
has stated that "the origins of this minimal process music lie in serialism
" (Nyman 1974, 119). Kyle Gann
(1987) also sees many similarities between serialism and minimalism, and Herman Sabbe (1977, 68–73) has demonstrated how process music functions in the early serial works of the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts
, especially in his electronic compositions Nr. 4, met dode tonen [with dead tones] (1952) and Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen
[with pure tones] (1953). Elsewhere, Sabbe (1981, 18–21) makes a similar demonstration for Kreuzspiel
(1951) by Karlheinz Stockhausen
.
Beginning in the early 1960s, Stockhausen composed several instrumental works which he called "process compositions", in which symbols including plus, minus, and equal signs are used to indicate successive transformations of sounds which are unspecified or unforeseeable by the composer. In these compositions, "structure is a system of invariants; these invariants are not substances but relations.… Stockhausen's Process Planning is structural analysis in reversed time-direction. Composition as abstraction, as generalization. Analysis of reality before its entry into existence" (Fritsch 1979, 114–15). These works include Plus-Minus (1963), Prozession
(1967), Kurzwellen
, and Spiral
(both 1968), and led to the verbally described processes of the intuitive music
compositions in the cycles Aus den sieben Tagen
(1968) and Für kommende Zeiten (1968–71) (Kohl 1978 and 1981; Hopp 1998).
György Ligeti
's Poème symphonique (1962), in which a hundred metronomes are set to different tempo
s and allowed to run down, is another notable example.
The term Process Music (in the minimalist sense) was coined by composer Steve Reich in his 1968 manifesto entitled "Music as a Gradual Process" in which he very carefully yet briefly described the entire concept including such definitions as phasing
and the use of phrases
in composing or creating this music, as well as his ideas as to its purpose and a brief history of his discovery of it.
A number of Steve Reich's early works are examples of this form of process music, particularly a specific process called phasing
. In his 1968 work Pendulum Music
, a number of microphones are connected to a number of loudspeakers, and each is allowed to swing freely above the loudspeaker it is connected to until it is still—the feedback
that results from this process, as each microphone passes above its loudspeaker, makes up the music.
Process music can also be created using relatively traditional instrumental techniques—Reich's Piano Phase
is an example. James Tenney
is another composer who is concerned with process, such as in his tribute to Steve Reich, Chromatic Canon, in which a tone row
is eventually built up, one note at a time, from what started as a repeated open fifth
, before returning by the same path.
For Reich it was important that the processes be audible: "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.… What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing" (Reich 2002, 34). This has not necessarily been the case for other composers, however. Reich himself points to John Cage as an example of a composer who used compositional processes that could not be heard when the piece was performed (Reich 2002, 34). The postminimalist David Lang
is another composer who does not want people to hear the process he uses to build a piece of music (Brown 2010, 181).
Within the field of popular music, process music made its strongest early appearance in the ambient
works of Brian Eno
, notably his first foray into the genre, Discreet Music
. On several of the tracks of this album, musicians were instructed to play a small section of Johann Pachelbel
's Canon in D major in different ways. On one piece, for instance, musicians played the section at different speeds, the speed determined purely by the pitch of the instrument used. Thus the bass instruments played the section at a slower rate than the treble instruments, and the new piece created was shaped by these melodic lines drifting in and out of phase with each other.
The first type is not necessarily confined to what are normally recognised as "chance" compositions, however. For example, in Karel Goeyvaerts’s Sonata for Two Pianos
, "registral process created a form that depended neither on conventional models nor … on the composer’s taste and judgment. Given a few simple rules, the music did not need to be 'composed' at all: the notes would be at play of themselves” (Griffiths 2011, 38).
Galen H. Brown acknowledges Nyman's five categories and proposes adding a sixth: mathematical process, which includes the manipulation of materials by means of permutation, addition, subtraction, multiplication, changes of rate, and so on (Brown 2010, 186).
Erik Christensen identifies six process categories (Christensen 2004, 97):
He describes Reich's Piano Phase (1966) as rule-determined transformation process, Cage's Variations II
(1961) as an indeterminate generative process, Ligeti's In zart fliessender Bewegung (1976) as a goal-directed transformation process containing a number of evolution processes (Christensen 2004, 116), and Per Nørgård
's Second Symphony (1970) as containing a rule-determined generative
process of a fractal nature (Christensen 2004, 107).
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
that arises from a process
Process (philosophy)
In philosophy and systems theory, basic processes, or logical homologies as they were termed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, are unifying principles which operate in many different systemic contexts. For example, feedback is a principle that figures prominently in the science of cybernetics...
. It may make that process audible
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
to the listener
Hearing (sense)
Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through an organ such as the ear. It is one of the traditional five senses...
, or the process may be concealed. Primarily begun in the 1960s, diverse composers have employed divergent methods and styles of process. "A 'musical process' as Christensen defines it is a highly complex dynamic phenomenon involving audible structures that evolve in the course of the musical performance ... 2nd order audible developments
Musical development
In European classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, and is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same...
, i.e., audible developments within audible developments" (Seibt 2004, xiii). These processes may involve specific systems of choosing and arranging note
Note
In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....
s through pitch
Pitch
Pitch may refer to:* Pitch , a viscous substance produced by plants or formed from petroleum* Pitch * sales pitch** elevator pitch, a very short sales pitch such as that made during an elevator ride* Pitch accent-Music and acoustics:...
and time
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
, often involving a long term change with a limited amount of musical material, or transformations of musical events that are already relatively complex in themselves. Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
defines process music not as, "the process of composition but rather pieces of music that are, literally, processes. The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall form
Musical form
The term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...
simultaneously. (Think of a round
Round (music)
A round is a musical composition in which two or more voices sing exactly the same melody , but with each voice beginning at different times so that different parts of the melody coincide in the different voices, but nevertheless fit harmoniously together...
or infinite canon
Canon (music)
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...
.)" (Reich 2002, 34).
History
Although today often used synonymously with minimalism, the term predates the appearance of this style by at least twenty years. Elliott CarterElliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
, for example, used the word "process" to describe the complex compositional shapes he began using around 1944 (Edwards 1971, 90–91; Brandt 1974, 27–28), with works like the Piano Sonata and First String Quartet, and continues to use down to the present time. Carter came to his conception of music as process from Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...
's "principle of organism", and particularly from his 1929 book, Process and Reality
Process and Reality
In philosophy, especially metaphysics, the book Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead sets out its author's philosophy of organism, also called process philosophy...
(Bernard 1995, 649–50).
Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
has stated that "the origins of this minimal process music lie in serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
" (Nyman 1974, 119). Kyle Gann
Kyle Gann
Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...
(1987) also sees many similarities between serialism and minimalism, and Herman Sabbe (1977, 68–73) has demonstrated how process music functions in the early serial works of the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts
Karel Goeyvaerts
Karel Goeyvaerts was a Belgian composer.-Life:After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, Goeyvaerts studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen...
, especially in his electronic compositions Nr. 4, met dode tonen [with dead tones] (1952) and Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen
Nummer 5
Nummer 5 met zuivere tonen is a musical work by the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts, realized in 1953 and one of the earliest pieces of electronic music.-History:...
[with pure tones] (1953). Elsewhere, Sabbe (1981, 18–21) makes a similar demonstration for Kreuzspiel
Kreuzspiel
Kreuzspiel is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen written for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and four percussionists in 1951 ....
(1951) by Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
.
Beginning in the early 1960s, Stockhausen composed several instrumental works which he called "process compositions", in which symbols including plus, minus, and equal signs are used to indicate successive transformations of sounds which are unspecified or unforeseeable by the composer. In these compositions, "structure is a system of invariants; these invariants are not substances but relations.… Stockhausen's Process Planning is structural analysis in reversed time-direction. Composition as abstraction, as generalization. Analysis of reality before its entry into existence" (Fritsch 1979, 114–15). These works include Plus-Minus (1963), Prozession
Prozession
Prozession , for tamtam, viola, electronium, piano, microphones, filters, and potentiometers , is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1967. It is Number 23 in the catalogue of the composer’s works.-Conception:...
(1967), Kurzwellen
Kurzwellen
Kurzwellen , for six players with shortwave receivers and live electronics, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968. It is Number 25 in the catalog of the composer’s works.-Conception:...
, and Spiral
Spiral (Stockhausen)
Spiral , for a soloist with a shortwave receiver, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968. It is Number 27 in the catalogue of the composer’s works.-Conception:...
(both 1968), and led to the verbally described processes of the intuitive music
Intuitive music
Intuitive music is a form of musical improvisation based on instant creation in which fixed principles or rules may or may not have been given. It is a type of process music where instead of a traditional music score, verbal or graphic instructions and ideas are provided to the performers...
compositions in the cycles Aus den sieben Tagen
Aus den Sieben Tagen
Aus den sieben Tagen is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer...
(1968) and Für kommende Zeiten (1968–71) (Kohl 1978 and 1981; Hopp 1998).
György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
's Poème symphonique (1962), in which a hundred metronomes are set to different tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
s and allowed to run down, is another notable example.
The term Process Music (in the minimalist sense) was coined by composer Steve Reich in his 1968 manifesto entitled "Music as a Gradual Process" in which he very carefully yet briefly described the entire concept including such definitions as phasing
Phasing
In the compositional technique phasing, the same part is played on two musical instruments, in steady but not identical tempo...
and the use of phrases
Phrase (music)
In music and music theory, phrase and phrasing are concepts and practices related to grouping consecutive melodic notes, both in their composition and performance...
in composing or creating this music, as well as his ideas as to its purpose and a brief history of his discovery of it.
A number of Steve Reich's early works are examples of this form of process music, particularly a specific process called phasing
Phasing
In the compositional technique phasing, the same part is played on two musical instruments, in steady but not identical tempo...
. In his 1968 work Pendulum Music
Pendulum Music
"Pendulum Music " is the name of a work by Steve Reich, involving suspended microphones and speakers, creating phasing feedback tones. The piece was composed in August 1968 and revised in May 1973....
, a number of microphones are connected to a number of loudspeakers, and each is allowed to swing freely above the loudspeaker it is connected to until it is still—the feedback
Feedback
Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
that results from this process, as each microphone passes above its loudspeaker, makes up the music.
Process music can also be created using relatively traditional instrumental techniques—Reich's Piano Phase
Piano Phase
Piano Phase is a piece of music written in 1967 by the minimalist composer Steve Reich for two pianos. It is his first attempt at applying his "phasing" technique, which he had previously used in the tape pieces It's Gonna Rain and Come Out , to live performance.Reich's phasing works generally...
is an example. James Tenney
James Tenney
James Tenney was an American composer and influential music theorist.-Biography:Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College and the University of Illinois...
is another composer who is concerned with process, such as in his tribute to Steve Reich, Chromatic Canon, in which a tone row
Tone row
In music, a tone row or note row , also series and set, refers to a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometimes found.-History and usage:Tone rows are the basis of...
is eventually built up, one note at a time, from what started as a repeated open fifth
Fifth
Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five.Fifth may refer to:* Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "Pleading the Fifth"* Fifth column - a political term...
, before returning by the same path.
For Reich it was important that the processes be audible: "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.… What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing" (Reich 2002, 34). This has not necessarily been the case for other composers, however. Reich himself points to John Cage as an example of a composer who used compositional processes that could not be heard when the piece was performed (Reich 2002, 34). The postminimalist David Lang
David Lang (composer)
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion.-Biography:...
is another composer who does not want people to hear the process he uses to build a piece of music (Brown 2010, 181).
Within the field of popular music, process music made its strongest early appearance in the ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
works of Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, notably his first foray into the genre, Discreet Music
Discreet Music
Discreet Music is an album by the British ambient musician Brian Eno. While No Pussyfooting may be his first ambient album and Another Green World features many ambient pieces, this is Brian Eno’s first purely ambient solo album...
. On several of the tracks of this album, musicians were instructed to play a small section of Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...
's Canon in D major in different ways. On one piece, for instance, musicians played the section at different speeds, the speed determined purely by the pitch of the instrument used. Thus the bass instruments played the section at a slower rate than the treble instruments, and the new piece created was shaped by these melodic lines drifting in and out of phase with each other.
Theory
Michael Nyman has identified five types of processes (Nyman 1974, 5–8):- Chance determination processes, in which the material is not determined by the composer directly, but through a system he or she creates
- People processes, in which performers are allowed to move through given or suggested material, each as his or her own speed
- Contextual processes, in which actions depend on unpredictable conditions and on variables arising from the musical continuity
- RepetitionRepetition (music)Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. One often stated idea is that repetition should be in balance with the initial statements and variations in a piece. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme...
processes, in which movement is generated solely by extended repetition - ElectronicElectronic musicElectronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
processes, in which some or all aspects of the music are determined by the use of electronics. These processes take many forms.
The first type is not necessarily confined to what are normally recognised as "chance" compositions, however. For example, in Karel Goeyvaerts’s Sonata for Two Pianos
Sonata for Two Pianos (Goeyvaerts)
Sonata for Two Pianos , also called simply Opus 1 or Nummer 1, is a chamber-music work by Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts, and a seminal work in the early history of European serialism.-History:...
, "registral process created a form that depended neither on conventional models nor … on the composer’s taste and judgment. Given a few simple rules, the music did not need to be 'composed' at all: the notes would be at play of themselves” (Griffiths 2011, 38).
Galen H. Brown acknowledges Nyman's five categories and proposes adding a sixth: mathematical process, which includes the manipulation of materials by means of permutation, addition, subtraction, multiplication, changes of rate, and so on (Brown 2010, 186).
Erik Christensen identifies six process categories (Christensen 2004, 97):
- Rule-determined transformation processes
- goal-directed transformation processes
- indeterminate transformation processes
- Rule-determined generative processes
- goal-directed, and generative processes
- indeterminate generative processes
He describes Reich's Piano Phase (1966) as rule-determined transformation process, Cage's Variations II
Variations (Cage)
Variations is a series of works by American avant-garde composer John Cage. Some of the pieces in the series are seminal examples of indeterminate music, others are happenings: performance pieces executed according to the score....
(1961) as an indeterminate generative process, Ligeti's In zart fliessender Bewegung (1976) as a goal-directed transformation process containing a number of evolution processes (Christensen 2004, 116), and Per Nørgård
Per Nørgård
Per Nørgård is a Danish composer.-Biography:Nørgård studied with Vagn Holmboe at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and subsequently with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. To begin with, he was strongly influenced by the Nordic styles of Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen and Vagn Holmboe...
's Second Symphony (1970) as containing a rule-determined generative
Generative music
Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system.- Theory :There are four primary perspectives on "Generative Music" Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different...
process of a fractal nature (Christensen 2004, 107).
Notable works
- William BasinskiWilliam BasinskiWilliam Basinski is a United States avant-garde composer of ambient music via tape music and process music. Basinski is also a clarinetist, saxophonist, sound artist, and video artist...
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- The Disintegration LoopsThe Disintegration LoopsThe Disintegration Loops is an album by William Basinski and was released in 2002. It is the first of the Disintegration Loops series, followed by II, III and IV.-Content:...
I-IV (2003) - The River
- The Disintegration Loops
- Elliott CarterElliott CarterElliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
-
- Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948) (Brandt 1971, 28)
- String Quartet No. 1String Quartet No. 1 (Carter)The First String Quartet by American composer Elliott Carter was written during a year spent in the Arizona desert from 1950-51. To some extent, it can be said that this was his first major breakthrough work as a composer....
(1950–51) (Brandt 1971, 28; Griffiths 2011, 62–63) - String Quartet No. 2String Quartet No. 2 (Carter)The Second String Quartet by American composer Elliott Carter was completed in 1959. It was commissioned by the Stanley String Quartet, and received its first performance in 1960 by the Juilliard String Quartet....
(1959) (Schiff 1998, 73) - Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord and 2 chamber orchestras (1959–61) (Bernard 1995, 668)
- Piano Concerto (1964–65) (Brandt 1971, 28)
- Duo for Violin and Piano (1974) (Schiff 1998, 117–19)
- A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975)
- Night Fantasies (1980)
- Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993–1996)
- Brian EnoBrian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
-
- Discreet MusicDiscreet MusicDiscreet Music is an album by the British ambient musician Brian Eno. While No Pussyfooting may be his first ambient album and Another Green World features many ambient pieces, this is Brian Eno’s first purely ambient solo album...
(1975) - NeroliNeroli (album)Neroli is an instrumental album by British musician Brian Eno, released in 1993.Conceived as a single piece, Eno describes it in the liner notes as "to reward attention, but not so strict as to demand it". Single notes resonate throughout the piece in a seemingly random but harmonic pattern that...
(1993)
- Discreet Music
- Morton FeldmanMorton FeldmanMorton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
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- Piece for Four Pianos (1957) (Nyman 1974, 5)
- Karel GoeyvaertsKarel GoeyvaertsKarel Goeyvaerts was a Belgian composer.-Life:After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, Goeyvaerts studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen...
-
- Nr. 1, Sonata for Two PianosSonata for Two Pianos (Goeyvaerts)Sonata for Two Pianos , also called simply Opus 1 or Nummer 1, is a chamber-music work by Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts, and a seminal work in the early history of European serialism.-History:...
(1950–51) (Griffiths 2011, 38) - Nr. 4, met dode tonen (1952) (Sabbe 1977, 68–70)
- Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen (1953) (Sabbe 1977, 70–73)
- Nr. 1, Sonata for Two Pianos
- György LigetiGyörgy LigetiGyörgy Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
(1923–2006)
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- Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomesPoème Symphonique for 100 metronomesThe Hungarian composer György Ligeti composed Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes in 1962, during his brief acquaintance with the Fluxus movement....
- Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes
- Annea LockwoodAnnea LockwoodAnnea Lockwood is a New Zealand born American composer. She taught electronic music at Vassar College. Her work often involves recordings of natural found sounds...
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- Piano Transplant No. 1. Burning Piano (Oteri 2004)
- Alvin LucierAlvin LucierAlvin Lucier is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and...
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- I Am Sitting in a RoomI Am Sitting in a RoomI am sitting in a room is one of composer Alvin Lucier's best known works, featuring Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Since all rooms...
(Nyman 1974, 92) - Music on a Long Thin WireMusic On A Long Thin WireMusic On A Long Thin Wire is a musical piece by Alvin Lucier conceived in 1977.In his own words : "Music on a Long Thin Wire is constructed as follows: the wire is extended across a large room, clamped to tables at both ends. The ends of the wire are connected to the loudspeaker terminals of a...
- I Am Sitting in a Room
- Steve Reich
-
- It's Gonna RainIt's Gonna RainIt's Gonna Rain is a minimalist musical composition for magnetic tape written by Steve Reich in 1965. It lasts approximately 17 minutes and 50 seconds. It was Reich's first major work and a landmark in minimalism and process music.-Analysis:...
(1965) (Nyman 1974, 134) - Come OutCome Out (Reich)Come Out is a 1966 piece by American composer Steve Reich. He was asked to write this piece to be performed at a benefit for the retrial of the Harlem Six, six black youths arrested for committing a murder during the Harlem Riot of 1964 for which only one of the six was responsible...
(1966) (Nyman 1974, 134) - Piano PhasePiano PhasePiano Phase is a piece of music written in 1967 by the minimalist composer Steve Reich for two pianos. It is his first attempt at applying his "phasing" technique, which he had previously used in the tape pieces It's Gonna Rain and Come Out , to live performance.Reich's phasing works generally...
(1967) (Nyman 1974, 133) - Violin PhaseViolin PhaseViolin Phase, written by minimalist composer Steve Reich in October 1967, is an example of his phasing technique previously used in Piano Phase in which the music itself is created not by the instruments but by interactions of temporal variations on an original melody...
(1967) - Pendulum MusicPendulum Music"Pendulum Music " is the name of a work by Steve Reich, involving suspended microphones and speakers, creating phasing feedback tones. The piece was composed in August 1968 and revised in May 1973....
(1968) - Phase Patterns (1970) (Nyman 1974, 132–33)
- Drumming (1971) (Nyman 1974, 132–33)
- Clapping MusicClapping MusicClapping Music is a minimalist piece written by Steve Reich in 1972. It is written for two performers and is performed entirely by clapping....
(1972)
- It's Gonna Rain
- Terry RileyTerry RileyTerrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
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- In CIn CIn C is a semi-aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of people, although he suggests "a group of about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work"...
(1964) (Nyman 1974, 7) - Keyboard Studies (Nyman 1974, 7)
- In C
- Frederic RzewskiFrederic RzewskiFrederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
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- Les Moutons de Panurge (1969) (Nyman 1974, 5)
- Karlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
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- KreuzspielKreuzspielKreuzspiel is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen written for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and four percussionists in 1951 ....
(1951) (Griffiths 2011, 40–41; Sabbe 1981, 18–21) - KontakteKontakte (Stockhausen)Kontakte is a celebrated electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958–60 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig .-Work history:The title of the work “refers both to contacts between instrumental and...
(Griffiths 2011, 160–62) - Plus-Minus (1963) (Kohl 1981, 192)
- Mikrophonie IMikrophonie (Stockhausen)Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which “normally inaudible vibrations . ....
(1964) (Kohl 1981, 192) - Solo (1965–66) (Kohl 1981, 192)
- ProzessionProzessionProzession , for tamtam, viola, electronium, piano, microphones, filters, and potentiometers , is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1967. It is Number 23 in the catalogue of the composer’s works.-Conception:...
(1967) (Fritsch 1979; Kohl 1981, 192) - KurzwellenKurzwellenKurzwellen , for six players with shortwave receivers and live electronics, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968. It is Number 25 in the catalog of the composer’s works.-Conception:...
(1968) (Hopp 1998; Kohl 1981, 192–226; Kohl 2010, 137) - Aus den sieben TagenAus den Sieben TagenAus den sieben Tagen is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer...
(1968) (Kohl 1981, 227–52) - SpiralSpiral (Stockhausen)Spiral , for a soloist with a shortwave receiver, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968. It is Number 27 in the catalogue of the composer’s works.-Conception:...
(1968) (Kohl 1981, 192–93) - PolePole (Stockhausen)Pole , for two performers with shortwave receivers and a sound projectionist, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1970. It is Number 30 in the catalogue of the composer's works.-Conception:...
(1969–70) (Kohl 1981, 192–93; Kohl 2010, 138) - Expo (1969–70) (Kohl 1981, 192–93)
- Für kommende ZeitenAus den Sieben TagenAus den sieben Tagen is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer...
(1968–70) (Kohl 1981, 227–32) - Ylem (1972) (Kohl 1981, 232)
- Michaelion, scene 4 of Mittwoch aus LichtMittwoch aus LichtMittwoch aus Licht is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting, four scenes, and a farewell. It was the sixth of seven to be composed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche . It was written between 1995 and 1997.-History:Mittwoch has not yet been given its staged premiere...
(1997) (Kohl 2010, 139)
- Kreuzspiel
- James TenneyJames TenneyJames Tenney was an American composer and influential music theorist.-Biography:Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College and the University of Illinois...
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- For Ann (rising)For Ann (rising)For Ann is a piece of electronic music created by James Tenney in 1969.Tenney is the author of Meta Hodos, one of, if not the, earliest applications of gestalt theory and cognitive science to music, and later "Hierarchical temporal gestalt perception in music: a metric space model" with Larry...
(1969) - Chromatic Canon (1980/83)
- For Ann (rising)
- LaMonte Young
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- Poem (1960) (Nyman 1974, 5)
Sources
- Bernard, Jonathan. 1995. "Carter and the Modern Meaning of Time". Musical Quarterly 79, no. 4 (Winter): 644–82.
- Brandt, William E. 1974. "The Music of Elliott Carter: Simultaneity and Complexity". Music Educators Journal 60, no. 9 (May): 24–32.
- Brown, Galen H. 2010. "Process as Means and Ends in Minimalist and Postminimalist Music". Perspectives of New Music 48, no. 2 (Summer): 180–92.
- Christensen, Erik. 2004. "Overt and Hidden Processes in 20th Century Music", in Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories, edited by Johanna Seibt, 97–117. Dordrecht and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 1402017510.
- Edwards, Allen. 1971. Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds: A Conversation with Elliott Carter. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
- Fritsch, JohannesJohannes FritschJohannes G. Fritsch was a German composer.At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle's house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Knapp...
. 1979. "Prozeßplanung". In Improvisation und neue Musik, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung Darmstadt 20, edited by Reinhold Brinkmann, 108–17. Mainz: B. Schott's Söhne. - Gann, KyleKyle GannKyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...
. 1987. "Let X = X: Minimalism vs. Serialism". Village Voice (24 February): 76. - Griffiths, Paul. 2011. Modern Music and After, third edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199740505.
- Hopp, Winrich. 1998. Kurzwellen von Karlheinz Stockhausen: Konzeption und musikalische Poiesis. Kölner Schriften zur neuen Musik 6. Mainz ; New York: Schott.
- Kohl, Jerome. 1978. "Intuitive Music and Serial Determinism: An Analysis of Stockhausen’s Aus den sieben Tagen." In Theory Only 3, no. 2 (March): 7–19.
- Kohl, Jerome. 1981. "Serial and Non-Serial Techniques in the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1962–1968." Ph.D. diss., Seattle: University of Washington.
- Kohl, Jerome. 2010. "A Child of the Radio Age". In Cut & Splice: Transmission, edited by Daniela Cascella and Lucia Farinati, 135–39. London: Sound and Music. ISBN 978-1-907378-03-4
- Nyman, MichaelMichael NymanMichael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
. 1974. Experimental Music. Cage and Beyond. London: Studio Vista. ISBN 0289701821 (Second Edition, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0521652979 (cloth); ISBN 0521653835 (pbk)) - Oteri, Frank J. 2004. "Annea Lockwood Beside the Hudson River: Piano Transplants". New Music Box: The Web Magazine from the American Music Center (January 1).
- Quinn, Ian. 2006. "Minimal Challenges: Process Music and the Uses of Formalist Analysis". Contemporary Music Review 25, no. 3:283–94.
- Reich, Steve. 2002. "Music as a Gradual Process (1968)". In his Writings about Music, 1965–2000, edited with an introduction by Paul Hillier, 9–11. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195111712 (cloth); ISBN 9780195151152 (pbk).
- Sabbe, Herman. 1977. Het muzikale serialisme als techniek en als denkmethode: Een onderzoek naar de logische en historische samenhang van de onderscheiden toepassingen van het seriërend beginsel in de muziek van de periode 1950–1975. Ghent: Rijksuniversiteit te Gent.
- Sabbe, Herman. 1981. “Die Einheit der Stockhausen-Zeit ...: Neue Erkenntnismöglichkeiten der seriellen Entwicklung anhand des frühen Wirkens von Stockhausen und Goeyvaerts. Dargestellt aufgrund der Briefe Stockhausens an Goevaerts”. In Musik-Konzepte 19: Karlheinz Stockhausen: ... wie die Zeit verging ..., edited by Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, 5–96. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik.
- Schiff, David. 1998. The Music of Elliott Carter, 2nd edition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Seibt, Johanna (ed.). 2004. Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories. Dordrecht and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 9781402017513.
- Stockhausen, KarlheinzKarlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
. 1989. "Musik als Prozeß (Gespräch mit Rudolf Frisius am 25. August 1982 in Kürten)", in his Texte zur Musik 6, edited by Christoph von Blumröder, 399–426. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag. ISBN 3-7701-2249-6
External links
- Whitney Music Box by Jim Bumgardner