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Indeterminacy In Music
Indeterminacy is a composing approach in which some aspects of a musical work are left open to chance or to the interpreter's free choice. John Cage, a pioneer of indeterminacy, defined it as "the ability of a piece to be performed in substantially different ways". The earliest significant use of music indeterminacy features is found in many of the compositions of American composer Charles Ives in the early 20th century. Henry Cowell adopted Ives's ideas during the 1930s, in works allowing players to arrange the fragments of music in a number of different possible sequences. Beginning in the early 1950s, the term came to refer to the (mostly American) movement which grew up around Cage. This group included the other members of the New York School. In Europe, following the introduction of the expression " aleatory music" by Werner Meyer-Eppler, the French composer Pierre Boulez was largely responsible for popularizing the term. Definition Describing indeterminacy, composer John C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage's teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various Eastern world, East and South Asia, South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of Aleatoric music, aleatoric or Indeterminism#Philosophy, chance-controlled music, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pithoprakta
''Pithoprakta'' (1955–56) is a piece by Iannis Xenakis for string orchestra (with 46 separate solo parts), two trombones, xylophone, and wood block, premièred by conductor Hermann Scherchen in Munich in March 1957. A typical performance of the piece lasts about 10 minutes. The word ''Pithoprakta'' translates to "actions through probability". This relates to Jacob Bernoulli's law of large numbers which states that as the number of occurrences of a chance event increases, the average outcome approaches a determinate end. The piece is based on the statistical mechanics of gases, Gauss's law,Xenakis, Iannis (1992). ''Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition'', p.15. . or Brownian motion.Emmerson, Simon (2007). ''Living Electronic Music'', p.48. . Each instrument is conceived as a molecule obeying the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution law,Randel, Don Michael (1996). ''The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music'', p.999. . with Gaussian distribution of temperatu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treatise (music)
''Treatise'' is a musical composition by British composer Cornelius Cardew (1936–81). Summary Written between 1963 and 1967, ''Treatise'' is a graphic musical score comprising 193 pages of lines, symbols, and various geometric or abstract shapes that largely eschew conventional musical notation. Implicit in the title is a reference to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, which was of particular inspiration to Cardew in composing the work. The score is not accompanied by any explicit instructions to the performers in how to perform the work, or what sound-producing means are to be used. Although the bottom of each page has two five-line musical staves, this is apparently not meant to suggest piano or other keyboard instrument(s), only to indicate that the graphic elements are musical and not purely artistic in character. Although the score allows for absolute interpretive freedom (no one interpretation will sound like another), the work is not normally played spontaneously, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, explaining why he had "discontinued composing in an avantgarde idiom" in his own programme notes to his Piano Album 1973. Biography Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. He was the second of three sons whose parents were both artists—his father was the potter Michael Cardew. The family moved to Wenford Bridge Pottery in Cornwall a few years after his birth where he was first nurtured as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, and later at The King's School, Canterbury which had evacuated to the Carlyon Bay Hotel for the war. His musical career thus began as a chorister. From 1953 to 1957, Cardew studied piano, cello, and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Career Having won a scholarship to study at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphic Notation (music)
Graphic notation (or graphic score) is the representation of music through the use of visual symbols outside the realm of traditional music notation. Graphic notation became popular in the 1950s, and can be used either in combination with or instead of traditional music notation.Pryer, Anthony. "Graphic Notation." ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', edited by Alison Latham. ''Oxford Music Online''. 12 April 2011 Graphic notation was influenced by contemporary visual art trends in its conception, bringing stylistic components from modern art into music. Composers often rely on graphic notation in experimental music, where standard musical notation can be ineffective. Other uses include pieces where an Aleatoric music, aleatoric or Indeterminacy (music), undetermined effect is desired. One of the earliest pioneers of this technique was Earle Brown, who, along with John Cage, sought to liberate performers from the constraints of notation and make them active participants in the creation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In C
''In C'' is a composition by Terry Riley from 1964. It is one of the most successful works by an American composer and a seminal example of minimal music, minimalism. The score directs any number of musicians to repeat a series of 53 melodic fragments in a guided improvisation. Terry Riley's 1968 recording of ''In C'' was added to the National Recording Registry in 2022. The piece inspired countless other composers, including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams (composer), John Adams, and Julius Eastman. Composition Alongside fellow students Loren Rush and Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley had been involved with group improvisation since 1957–8. The immediate forerunner for the piece was the incidental music Riley wrote for Ken Dewey's play ''The Gift''. It was being performed in Paris in 1963 when Riley was asked to provide music for it. He ran into Chet Baker and recorded his quartet performing songs that included Miles Davis' "So What (Miles Davis composition), So What". Ril ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist music, minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notable for its innovative use of Repetition (music), repetition, tape music techniques, musical improvisation, improvisation, and delay (audio effect), delay systems. His best known works are the 1964 composition ''In C'' and the 1969 album ''A Rainbow in Curved Air'', both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music, rock music, rock, and contemporary electronic music. Subsequent works such as ''Shri Camel'' (1980) explored just intonation. Raised in Redding, California, Riley began studying music composition, composition and performing solo piano in the 1950s. He befriended and collaborated with composer La Monte Young, and later became involved with both the San Francisco Tape Music Center and Young's N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zyklus
''Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger'' (English: Cycle for a Percussionist) is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, assigned Number 9 in the composer's catalog of works. It was composed in 1959 at the request of Wolfgang Steinecke as a test piece for a percussion competition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, where it was premièred on 25 August 1959 by Christoph Caskel. It quickly became the most frequently played solo percussion work, and "inspired a wave of writing for percussion". Instrumentation The work is written for one percussionist playing a marimba, vibraphone (motor off), 4 tom-toms, snare drum, güiro (one or several, if necessary), 2 African log drums (each producing 2 pitches), 2 suspended cymbals of differing sizes, hi-hat, 4 almglocken (suspended, clappers removed), a suspended "bunch of bells" (preferably Indian bells or tambourine mounted on a stand), at least 2 high pitched triangles, gong (with raised boss in center) and tam-tam. Form The title of ''Zyklu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) 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. He is known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, having been called the "father of electronic music", for introducing controlled chance ( aleatory techniques) into serial composition, and for musical spatialization. Stockhausen was educated at the Hochschule für Musik Köln and the University of Cologne, later studying with Olivier Messiaen in Paris and with Werner Meyer-Eppler at the University of Bonn. As one of the leading figures of the Darmstadt School, his compositions and theories were and remain widely influential, not only on composers of art music, but also on jazz and popular music. His works, composed over a period of nearly sixty years, eschew traditional forms. In addition to electronic musicboth with and without live performersthe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Haubenstock-Ramati
Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, born Roman Haubenstock (; 27 February 1919 – 3 March 1994) was a composer and music editor who worked in Kraków, Tel Aviv and Vienna. Life Haubenstock-Ramati was born in Tonie (a village near Krakow, to which it was incorporated only in 1941) as a son of Samuel (a farmer) and Regina née Gronner.''Sprawozdanie Dyrekcji II. Państwowego Gimnazjum im. św. Jacka w Krakowie za rok szkolny 1934/5, 1935/6 i 1936/7'', s. 48, Kraków, 1937 He obtained his secondary school-leaving certificate at the Cracow 2nd State St. Jack Gymnasium in 1937. After that he studied composition, music theory, violin and philosophy there from 1934 to 1938, and in Lemberg from 1939 to 1941. Among his teachers were Artur Malawski and Józef Koffler. In 1939, his family fled from the Germans to Lviv, which was incorporated into the Soviet Union as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Due to his multilingualism, he was arrested shortly before the German invasion of the Soviet Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeux Vénitiens
''Jeux vénitiens'' (French for ''Venetian Games'') is a 1961 composition by Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, under commission from the Krakow Philharmonic. It premiered April 24, 1961 in Venice. Another performance occurred at Warsaw Autumn in 1961. Inspired by John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ..., ''Jeux vénitiens'' is notable for its use of limited aleatory techniques. In the piece, Lutosławski determined the overall form and harmonic boundaries, yet he left the realization of the exact contrapuntal and harmonic details up to chance in performance. The indeterminate character produces aleatoric counterpoint'','' which is a type of sound mass. The score of the first movement contains eight boxed musical events labeled A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H. Sections A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witold Lutosławski
Witold Roman Lutosławski (; 25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Among the major composers of 20th-century classical music, he is "generally regarded as the most significant Polish composer since Szymanowski, and possibly the greatest Polish composer since Chopin". His compositions—of which he was a notable conductor—include representatives of most traditional genres, aside from opera: symphonies, concertos, orchestral song cycles, other orchestral works, and chamber works. Among his best known works are his four symphonies, the Variations on a Theme by Paganini (1941), the Concerto for Orchestra (1954), and his cello concerto (1970). During his youth, Lutosławski studied piano and composition in Warsaw. His early works were influenced by Polish folk music and demonstrated a wide range of rich atmospheric textures. His folk-inspired music includes the Concerto for Orchestra (1954)—which first brought him international renow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
