Aaron's _Groundbass in F_

Hello, Aaron, and all.

Please let me congratulate you on your _Groundbass in F_, a
wide-ranging piece that almost reminds me of your namesake Aaron
Copeland, and at the same time has your special qualities of
amiability, if I may use that word (which I would also apply to some
of the pieces of Bill Sethares on _Xentonality_), and sophisticated
structure.

The title and meantone intonation might lead me to anticipate some
kind of "Baroque" piece, and indeed your ground in the bass and the
layered polyphony do fulfill some of these initial expectations -- but
in a very unique way! The bass theme itself as well as some of the
motives in the upper parts seem to create a kind of 21st-century
genre, with traditional or "folk" subtexts maybe at least as much
inferred by me as implied by the music to anyone else (an interesting
point on which to compare notes). Possibly the pentatonic flavor of
some of the material made me recall Copeland, and also some popular
and film music from my childhood; at the same time, these "familiar"
elements are entwined in a polyphonic web rather like the popular
chorale tunes of Bach's time, say.

I enjoyed the portions in quartal/quintal harmony, which your setting
shows can be very pleasing in meantone as well as a tuning such as
12n-EDO with fifths closer to a pure 3:2, or for that matter one such
as 22-EDO where a stack of three fourths, for example, approach a 7:3
minor tenth.

This is a quite different mode than your "Juggler," more relaxed and
discoursive, one might say, but the artful juggling or interweaving of
styles is much in evidence.

I'd call it a delightful 21st-century ground bass piece, and a fine
example of how to look at a traditional form from a new angle.

Of course, I'd love to invite any comments you might have as the
composer, for example how your approached the form, but I'd call the
result both "organistic" and engaging.

Peace and love,

Margo

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>
wrote:
>
> I'd call it a delightful 21st-century ground bass piece, and a fine
> example of how to look at a traditional form from a new angle.
>
> Of course, I'd love to invite any comments you might have as the
> composer, for example how your approached the form, but I'd call the
> result both "organistic" and engaging.

Thanks Margo...I don't remember much of my moment by moment thinking
as I wrote this--I wrote in in 1997...but I can remember that I
thought of the melodic fragments as sort of 'blocks' that I could move
in space...it was a very contructivist appraoch for lack of a better
word. Might have had something to do with using a sequencer and
cut/paste functions in a very interactive improvisation way...think of
a musical version of 'playing with blocks'.

This piece is a good example of an obsession of mine--hybrid
algorithmic and human composition. Purely algorithmic music tends to
eventually become dull to me, yet sometimes, an unpredictible
transcendence of one's own stylistic habits is nice, and algorithms
fit the bill nicely. Algorithms, whether using formulas, chaotic
feedback, randomness, etc., can be suggestive of shapes that might not
exist if it were left to humans alone to dream up. I think of it as a
synergetic alloy when you can take a random melody and hack at it
until you like it...coming from a given starting place that one
doesn't decide leads to discoveries one doesn't expect, and hopefully
the listener experiences that sense of discovery as well.

I think I read somewhere that Japanese Zen ink artists sometimes
worked with random ink blots as a starting point, and then would a la
'Rorschach test' find their subject in this way. The idea is very
similar, and when I read this I found it to be a very exciting and
liberating idea. It sort of allows a sense of play to come back into
the game which might otherwise have too much formalism. Or one can
look at it as a kind of formalism in itself, but one I find more
playful, I guess.

-A.