new 25' piece in 19-tet and JI

http://music.columbia.edu/~chris/dissert.html

Hello everyone,

This is a new piece I wrote over a period of about a year.

On the page you'll find the following:

mp3's of "improvisations" or "explorations" of small sections of
the piece done with a computer-music "interface" I constructed so that the
piece itself becomes more like a painting, or a work of architecture---you
can listen to the whole thing, or "zoom in" on parts of the whole.
Another way of putting it is that I was interested in "erasing" the
boundary between so-called "minimalism" and "maximalism"---this piece is,
or can be, both.

You can also go to the bottom of the page and hear the piece as a
whole---or in 5 parts of 5-9' each.

Finally, if you want to learn more about the "aesthetic issues"
raised by the work, you can read the "essay" linked from the main page.
These include a section on "flatmusic" and the interface; a section on
the piece's construction, and the *why* of that construction--apropos for
this list considering recent discussions----and finally some aspects of
the sounds, and computer-music techniques.

(yes, these writings were part of a dissertation---I suppose that
probably makes me a fraud and a charlatan--as a musician--for which I
apologize. I hope you might still enjoy some of the music.)
(Incidentally, I might mention that this may be the first
dissertation paper ever to footnote a message from the tuning list.
Yay.))

Christopher Bailey

Hi Chris,

I've been slowly chipping away at your piece Sand by letting it wash
over me and then trying to give it some time to digest. This is
pretty much a necessity considering that a first listen is likely to
flood most listeners in a thicket of cerebral hypertension that sits
somewhere between the post-Webern composers and the quick-cut school.
Though to be fair, even this prevailing texture gives way to
instantly recognizable contrasts--44, 65 and especially the zany old-
timey squall that unexpectedly blooms out of 56 would be obvious
examples.

I've also gone back to give your dissertation another look, and after
hearing the piece I'm finding this quite rewarding.

I tend to think seeking out and even creating apprehensible
hierarchies is a reflexive part of the mind's congenital disposition.
The face on Mars... hell, I had whole races of morphing beings
embedded into the paneling on my wall when I was growing up! Now
depending on the endeavor, this `gift' could rightfully be considered
a curse or a blessing--take your pick or maybe you're born with it.
But to my way of working and dealing with it, oblique and densely
static information like that in the Pollock example you cite, is
routinely parsed into attainable gestures; melodies and rhythms, a
veritable musical DNA if you will.

This kind of abstraction seems to me to be the easy part. It also
seems to be exactly the point where composers were impelled to reduce
the freewheeling allegoric whirl of abstract impressionism into a
more manageable formalism--hence serialism and all its near cousins.

This is a tradeoff that obviously paid large dividends when it came
to macro organization, because composers have to work in a much
different time frame from painters. Generally speaking, even the most
difficult of paintings is immediately apprehensible in its totality,
whereas you have to allow a piece of music to run its course before
you can even begin to ponder its totality. I believe this is where
some of the analogies between painting and composing begin to break
down a bit as regards "flatness".

Simply put, I think it's much more difficult to sustain and
effectively present a sense of abstractionism, or "flatness", in long-
form presentations like novels or substantial musical compositions.
It seems to me that the things that make an abstract expressionist
painting (like those of Jackson Pollock) special are almost fatally
enervated when their immediacy is spread across these types of long-
form mediums.

Clearly you understand this through and through, and you offer useful
strategies for curbing this sort of a dissipation and fatigue.
However, I think it's worth noting that I've always gotten a strong
sense of "obvious or dimensionally conjunct large-scale goals, points
of arrival, `climaxes,' sectional boundaries and the like" in many of
the other pieces of yours that I've heard. In many of these pieces
unpredictability and artistic stewardship were in a perfectly
rewarding synchronization--in fact I'd consider this to be a CB
trademark.

So far Sand seems to be asking me more enticing questions than it's
answering. And while I believe this is rooted at least in part to the
fact that Sand is comprised of less scintillating and
multidimensional textures than some of your earlier works, I also
feel as though I'm still only pecking away at the surface of many of
these questions.

As far as the use of alternative tuning in Sand... I think it's only
relevant in that the tuning isn't the same old same old, and while
it's obvious enough that more is not necessarily more interesting,
more interesting is more interesting (especially in the hands of a
talented composer such as yourself). Unfortunately this sort of
thinking is antithetical to so much of what's posted on these lists,
and is therefore (understandably) given little press and often held
in deep suspicion... did anyone respond to your original posting?

To my mind music is more allegory than psychoacoustic construct. And
if it's allegory's right and proper business to present the clear and
the obscure in a context that allows each something on the order of a
symbiotic equal-footing, lucid symbolism is only going to upset the
apple cart anyway.

These are hardly the perennial tuning-list minutia of lattice metrics
and calls to maximize consonances and overthrow the evil serialist's
evil 12-tet conspiracy. But then again, it's precisely in this regard
that Sand and its accompanying dissertation are one of the more
thought provoking and substantial contributions I've seen to these
forums in the years that I've been here... thanks.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Bailey <cb202@c...> wrote:
>
> http://music.columbia.edu/~chris/dissert.html
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> This is a new piece I wrote over a period of about a year.
>
> On the page you'll find the following:
>
> mp3's of "improvisations" or "explorations" of small sections
of
> the piece done with a computer-music "interface" I constructed so
that the
> piece itself becomes more like a painting, or a work of
architecture---you
> can listen to the whole thing, or "zoom in" on parts of the whole.
> Another way of putting it is that I was interested in "erasing" the
> boundary between so-called "minimalism" and "maximalism"---this
piece is,
> or can be, both.
>
> You can also go to the bottom of the page and hear the piece
as a
> whole---or in 5 parts of 5-9' each.
>
> Finally, if you want to learn more about the "aesthetic
issues"
> raised by the work, you can read the "essay" linked from the main
page.
> These include a section on "flatmusic" and the interface; a
section on
> the piece's construction, and the *why* of that construction--
apropos for
> this list considering recent discussions----and finally some
aspects of
> the sounds, and computer-music techniques.
>
> (yes, these writings were part of a dissertation---I suppose
that
> probably makes me a fraud and a charlatan--as a musician--for which
I
> apologize. I hope you might still enjoy some of the music.)
> (Incidentally, I might mention that this may be the first
> dissertation paper ever to footnote a message from the tuning list.
> Yay.))
>
> Christopher Bailey

hi Chris and Dan,

> From: "Christopher Bailey" <cb202@columbia.edu>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2002 9:40 PM
> Subject: [tuning] new 25' piece in 19-tet and JI
>
>
> http://music.columbia.edu/~chris/dissert.html
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> This is a new piece I wrote over a period of about a year.

this is a great piece! good work!

(i also really enjoyed Dan's response to this.)

-monz

Jay here,
Well said, Dan. I too, found both the piece and accompanying dissert to be
some of the most cogent musical stuff I've seen and heard in a long time.
I've never found the "glatness" in flat music offputting in and of itself.
I simply treat it the way I would sitting outdoors and paying attention to
the stuff that hits my ears. The more attractive I find it, the more
attention I pay it. "Sand" keeps attracting my attention, so I just go
where it goes and ask nothing more. Thanks much.
At 07:19 PM 3/3/03 -0000, you wrote:
>Hi Chris,
>
>I've been slowly chipping away at your piece Sand by letting it wash
>over me and then trying to give it some time to digest. This is
>pretty much a necessity considering that a first listen is likely to
>flood most listeners in a thicket of cerebral hypertension that sits
>somewhere between the post-Webern composers and the quick-cut school.
>Though to be fair, even this prevailing texture gives way to
>instantly recognizable contrasts--44, 65 and especially the zany old-
>timey squall that unexpectedly blooms out of 56 would be obvious
>examples.
>
>I've also gone back to give your dissertation another look, and after
>hearing the piece I'm finding this quite rewarding.
>
>I tend to think seeking out and even creating apprehensible
>hierarchies is a reflexive part of the mind's congenital disposition.
>The face on Mars... hell, I had whole races of morphing beings
>embedded into the paneling on my wall when I was growing up! Now
>depending on the endeavor, this `gift' could rightfully be considered
>a curse or a blessing--take your pick or maybe you're born with it.
>But to my way of working and dealing with it, oblique and densely
>static information like that in the Pollock example you cite, is
>routinely parsed into attainable gestures; melodies and rhythms, a
>veritable musical DNA if you will.
>
>This kind of abstraction seems to me to be the easy part. It also
>seems to be exactly the point where composers were impelled to reduce
>the freewheeling allegoric whirl of abstract impressionism into a
>more manageable formalism--hence serialism and all its near cousins.
>
>This is a tradeoff that obviously paid large dividends when it came
>to macro organization, because composers have to work in a much
>different time frame from painters. Generally speaking, even the most
>difficult of paintings is immediately apprehensible in its totality,
>whereas you have to allow a piece of music to run its course before
>you can even begin to ponder its totality. I believe this is where
>some of the analogies between painting and composing begin to break
>down a bit as regards "flatness".
>
>Simply put, I think it's much more difficult to sustain and
>effectively present a sense of abstractionism, or "flatness", in long-
>form presentations like novels or substantial musical compositions.
>It seems to me that the things that make an abstract expressionist
>painting (like those of Jackson Pollock) special are almost fatally
>enervated when their immediacy is spread across these types of long-
>form mediums.
>
>Clearly you understand this through and through, and you offer useful
>strategies for curbing this sort of a dissipation and fatigue.
>However, I think it's worth noting that I've always gotten a strong
>sense of "obvious or dimensionally conjunct large-scale goals, points
>of arrival, `climaxes,' sectional boundaries and the like" in many of
>the other pieces of yours that I've heard. In many of these pieces
>unpredictability and artistic stewardship were in a perfectly
>rewarding synchronization--in fact I'd consider this to be a CB
>trademark.
>
>So far Sand seems to be asking me more enticing questions than it's
>answering. And while I believe this is rooted at least in part to the
>fact that Sand is comprised of less scintillating and
>multidimensional textures than some of your earlier works, I also
>feel as though I'm still only pecking away at the surface of many of
>these questions.
>
>As far as the use of alternative tuning in Sand... I think it's only
>relevant in that the tuning isn't the same old same old, and while
>it's obvious enough that more is not necessarily more interesting,
>more interesting is more interesting (especially in the hands of a
>talented composer such as yourself). Unfortunately this sort of
>thinking is antithetical to so much of what's posted on these lists,
>and is therefore (understandably) given little press and often held
>in deep suspicion... did anyone respond to your original posting?
>
>To my mind music is more allegory than psychoacoustic construct. And
>if it's allegory's right and proper business to present the clear and
>the obscure in a context that allows each something on the order of a
>symbiotic equal-footing, lucid symbolism is only going to upset the
>apple cart anyway.
>
>These are hardly the perennial tuning-list minutia of lattice metrics
>and calls to maximize consonances and overthrow the evil serialist's
>evil 12-tet conspiracy. But then again, it's precisely in this regard
>that Sand and its accompanying dissertation are one of the more
>thought provoking and substantial contributions I've seen to these
>forums in the years that I've been here... thanks.
>
>
>
>--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Bailey <cb202@c...> wrote:
>>
>> http://music.columbia.edu/~chris/dissert.html
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> This is a new piece I wrote over a period of about a year.
>>
>> On the page you'll find the following:
>>
>> mp3's of "improvisations" or "explorations" of small sections
>of
>> the piece done with a computer-music "interface" I constructed so
>that the
>> piece itself becomes more like a painting, or a work of
>architecture---you
>> can listen to the whole thing, or "zoom in" on parts of the whole.
>> Another way of putting it is that I was interested in "erasing" the
>> boundary between so-called "minimalism" and "maximalism"---this
>piece is,
>> or can be, both.
>>
>> You can also go to the bottom of the page and hear the piece
>as a
>> whole---or in 5 parts of 5-9' each.
>>
>> Finally, if you want to learn more about the "aesthetic
>issues"
>> raised by the work, you can read the "essay" linked from the main
>page.
>> These include a section on "flatmusic" and the interface; a
>section on
>> the piece's construction, and the *why* of that construction--
>apropos for
>> this list considering recent discussions----and finally some
>aspects of
>> the sounds, and computer-music techniques.
>>
>> (yes, these writings were part of a dissertation---I suppose
>that
>> probably makes me a fraud and a charlatan--as a musician--for which
>I
>> apologize. I hope you might still enjoy some of the music.)
>> (Incidentally, I might mention that this may be the first
>> dissertation paper ever to footnote a message from the tuning list.
>> Yay.))
>>
>> Christopher Bailey
>
>
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--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "daniel_anthony_stearns

/tuning/topicId_41700.html#42656

>
> As far as the use of alternative tuning in Sand... I think it's
only
> relevant in that the tuning isn't the same old same old, and while
> it's obvious enough that more is not necessarily more interesting,
> more interesting is more interesting (especially in the hands of a
> talented composer such as yourself). Unfortunately this sort of
> thinking is antithetical to so much of what's posted on these
lists,
> and is therefore (understandably) given little press and often held
> in deep suspicion... did anyone respond to your original posting?
>

***Hello Dan!

Actually, quite a bit of commentary on this piece, including my *own*
modest contrbutions can be found on Jon Szanto's MMM forum.

best,

Joe Pehrson