Re: monzes webern and serialism

Monz, (not that I won't go and listen to your 'rendering' but)
did you do any sort of 'justification' or other tuning related
stuff to the Webern and if so, any comments?

I think serial techniques could be an inspiring mix with JI, not
that I have combined them (yet). If the JI pitch set is invariant,
then the traditional serial transformations could produce some
nifty materials since transposition has more "meaning" in a non-
tempered environment. Another approach is, for a 'free JI' work
to make the row from the set of ratios rather fthan set of pitches
and now apply the serial techniques to the ratios. There will be
a LOT of drift...

Matt Fields web site has the 'composition gems' series, one of
which is about serial composition. In it he quotes Shoenberg,
something to the effect of "First you come up with a Row, then
you write out the R, I and RI forms, then you just write music".

I think all these games (including those we spend the majority of
our time discussing) are ways of getting from wanting to write
a composition, to writing (or finishing!) a composition. Anything
that helps make it happen is fair.

Bob Valentine

>
> Matt Fields web site has the 'composition gems' series, one of
> which is about serial composition. In it he quotes Shoenberg,
> something to the effect of "First you come up with a Row, then
> you write out the R, I and RI forms, then you just write music".
>

Actually, if I remember correctly, I think he uses that statement (I'm
betting that it's not attributed to Schoenberg) as an example of the common
misconception of serialism. His point is (as illustrated by the rest of
the "gem") that the row is born out of an initial motive or idea which is
then saturated into the subsequent row.

Cheers,

Jon Southwood
noj@cedar-rapids.net