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Tuning in Opposition
TUNING IN OPPOSITION: THE THEATER OF ETERNAL MUSIC AND ALTERNATE TUNING SYSTEMS AS AVANT-GARDE PRACTICE IN THE 1960’S Charles Johnson Introduction: The practice of microtonality and just intonation has been a core practice among many of the avant-garde in American 20th century music. Just intonation, or any system of tuning in which intervals are derived from the harmonic series and can be represented by integer ratios, is thought to have been in use as early as 5000 years ago and fell out of favor during the common practice era. A conscious departure from the commonly accepted 12-tone per octave, equal temperament system of Western music, contemporary music created with alternate tunings is often regarded as dissonant or “out-of-tune,” and can be read as an act of opposition. More than a simple rejection of the dominant tradition, the practice of designing scales and tuning systems using the myriad options offered by the harmonic series suggests that there are self-deterministic alternatives to the harmonic foundations of Western art music. And in the communally practiced and improvised performance context of the 1960’s, the use of alternate tunings offers a Johnson 2 utopian path out of the aesthetic dead end modernism had reached by mid-century. By extension, the notion that the avant-garde artist can create his or her own universe of tonality and harmony implies a similar autonomy in defining political and social relationships. In the early1960’s a New York experimental music performance group that came to be known as the Dream Syndicate or the Theater of Eternal Music (TEM) began experimenting with just intonation in their sustained drone performances. -
Newslist Drone Records 31. January 2009
DR-90: NOISE DREAMS MACHINA - IN / OUT (Spain; great electro- acoustic drones of high complexity ) DR-91: MOLJEBKA PVLSE - lvde dings (Sweden; mesmerizing magneto-drones from Swedens drone-star, so dense and impervious) DR-92: XABEC - Feuerstern (Germany; long planned, finally out: two wonderful new tracks by the prolific german artist, comes in cardboard-box with golden print / lettering!) DR-93: OVRO - Horizontal / Vertical (Finland; intense subconscious landscapes & surrealistic schizophrenia-drones by this female Finnish artist, the "wondergirl" of Finnish exp. music) DR-94: ARTEFACTUM - Sub Rosa (Poland; alchemistic beauty- drones, a record fill with sonic magic) DR-95: INFANT CYCLE - Secret Hidden Message (Canada; long-time active Canadian project with intelligently made hypnotic drone-circles) MUSIC for the INNER SECOND EDITIONS (price € 6.00) EXPANSION, EC-STASIS, ELEVATION ! DR-10: TAM QUAM TABULA RASA - Cotidie morimur (Italy; outerworlds brain-wave-music, monotonous and hypnotizing loops & Dear Droners! rhythms) This NEWSLIST offers you a SELECTION of our mailorder programme, DR-29: AMON – Aura (Italy; haunting & shimmering magique as with a clear focus on droney, atmospheric, ambient music. With this list coming from an ancient culture) you have the chance to know more about the highlights & interesting DR-34: TARKATAK - Skärva / Oroa (Germany; atmospheric drones newcomers. It's our wish to support this special kind of electronic and with a special touch from this newcomer from North-Germany) experimental music, as we think its much more than "just music", the DR-39: DUAL – Klanik / 4 tH (U.K.; mighty guitar drones & massive "Drone"-genre is a way to work with your own mind, perception, and sub bass undertones that evoke feelings of total transcendence and (un)-consciousness-processes. -
WORLD from a SINGLE STRING Terry De Castro, Los Angeles, 2010
WORLD FROM A SINGLE STRING Terry de Castro, Los Angeles, 2010 “…He’s forged his own way and came up with systems that no one formally trained in foundation would have come up with; he breaks the rules from the ground up.” --Rhys Chatham “…The entire history of my work in music has been derived from a single, subjective experience with sound.” --Arnold Dreyblatt Arnold Dreyblatt can’t recall exactly where he read it, but anthropologists seem to suggest that the first primary string instrument preceded the first weapon. The implication here, appealingly idealistic, is that music is more primal than even violence, and that the first stringed bow generated a musical vibration long before it ever launched an arrow. Few composers exemplify the basic, fundamental, original aspects of music making as exquisitely as Arnold Dreyblatt. He strips everything down and builds it back up again from its auspicious beginnings, from a time when the first human being created a sound not for utility, but for the sake of art. With slight formal training in composition or traditional theory, his initial desire to make music came from an “amateur” interest in the physics of vibration and the raw materials of sound. From this starting point arose the fundamental question: what happens when I excite this string? The rest of his music grew from that premise, and his experiments in acoustics and instrument construction led him into an increasingly complex and subtle world. He discovered that what does happen is that a fragile system of existing, archetypical tones and rhythms reveals itself, a world he has been exploring ever since. -
Table of the Elements Southeastern Edition
NEW RELEASE ON A FIELD GUIDE TO TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS SOUTHEASTERN EDITION Happy 21st Century. Here, on these eight unique tracks, is a field guide to the essential Table of the Elements. This sampler is more than a summary of label highlights, and certainly nothing so casual as an assortment of odds’n’sods. The performances make a statement as bold as their visceral impact and as rich as the conceptual process that underpins their creation. It’s no coincidence that Jonathan Kane jump-starts the show with “Curl,” a low-down blues rumble powered by the drummer’s signature mule kick. The New York based musician has been the rhythmic motor behind so me of the singularly monolithic bands of the last 30 years. Here, he summons the ghosts of Slim Harpo and Junior Kimbrough to commune with the shimmering harmonic textures his band creates. This blessed-out boogaloo may be the perfect response to the rallying cry: F*ck dance, let’s art! In the right pair of hands, gripping the right set of drumsticks, there’s scarcely any difference. Dig in as North Mississippi meets downtown New York. It’s the new, new, new hip-shake thing. And it’s superbad. Like Kane, whose name is perfectly suited for a skin-slapping urban blues magus, Arnold Dreyblatt is a minimalist who never forgot that music is still the human mating call. Anyone who has experienced the composer’s recordings with his marvelously-dubbed Orchestra of Excited Strings knows how madly Dreyblatt’s pieces swing. They’ve flaunt time as precise as a Swiss watch. -
Review of GIULIANI, M.: Vocal and Guitar Music – Grande Ouverture / Variations on a Theme from Handel’S Harmonious Blacksmith / Cavatina (R
DAVIDE FICCO, NAXOS, REVIEW Outsiders:NeuGuitars #review of GIULIANI, M.: Vocal and Guitar Music – Grande Ouverture / Variations on a Theme from Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith / Cavatina (R. Bertini, Ficco), Naxos, 2018 on #neuguitars #blog Posted by ANDREA AGUZZI on 27 AUGUST 2018 Outsiders: review of GIULIANI, M.: Vocal and Guitar Music – Grande Ouverture / Variations on a Theme from Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith / Cavatina (R. Bertini, Ficco), Naxos, 2018 http://www.davideficco.com/ https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=TC780703 From contemporary music to romantic music. The Italian Maestro Davide Ficco returns to romantic music with this repertoire dedicated to solo works for voice and guitar by the great guitarist Mauro Giuliani. Even those who have a superficial knowledge of the world of classical guitar shall appreciate the work of this great virtuoso, a vast, heterogeneous work characterized by an idiomatic and easily recognizable writing. In this CD, produced by the Italian record company Tactus, we find, for voice and guitar, “6 Ariette, Op. 95”, “Romance, à Marie Louise d’Austrie, au Berceau de son Fils in Op. 27”, “6 Cavatine, Op. 39 “,” Cavatina, Op. 79: Theme and Variations: Alla bolero “and for solo guitar the” Grande Ouverture, Op. 61 “, “Variations on a Theme from Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith, Op. 107 “and “Grand Sonata Eroica in A Major, Op. 150”. All very interesting music and performed with considerable skill and expertise. To draw more my attention are the following thoughts, written by Maestro Ficco in the booklet accompanying the CD: “Following this path, the recordings in this disc contain some variants in the reprises; here they are particularly evident in the solo pieces. -
Monsieur Délire: 2013-11-25/26: Copernicus, the Claudia Quintet
Mer Nästa blogg» Skapa en blogg Logga in Portail du journalisme et de l'activisme musical de François Couture. INTRODUCTION | JOURNAL D'ÉCOUTE | DÉLIRE MUSICAL | DÉLIRE ACTUEL | FIMAV | MA PROPRE MUSIQUE Home of François Couture's music journalism and activism. INTRODUCTION | LISTENING DIARY | DÉLIRE MUSICAL | DÉLIRE ACTUEL | FIMAV | MY OWN MUSIC 2 0 1 3 - 1 1 - 2 7 CE François Couture 2013-11-25/26: Copernicus, The Claudia Quintet, Nouvel album solo / New solo Chrome Hoof, 21, Metal-o-Phone, Brigitte release Fontaine Libellés : 21, Brigitte Fontaine, Chrome Hoof, Claudia Quintet, Coax Records, Copernicus, Cuneiform, Journal d'écoute / Listening diary, Metal-o-Phone, Collaboration avec ®o©HLo / New Nevermore, Superior Viaduct collaboration with ®o©HLo Journal d'écoute / Listening Diary 2013-11-25/26 D'autres musiques sur / More music COPERNICUS / L’Éternité immédiate (Nervermore – merci à/thanks on: bandcamp soundcloud to Moonjune) J’aime bien Copernicus – son personnage, ses musiques, son propos. Les choix de Monsieur Délire / Or, avec L’Éternité immédiate, c’est la débandade. Je m’explique: en Monsieur Délire's current favs 2001, Copernicus enregistre Immediate Eternity en Équateur, avec des - Anthony Braxton: Quartet (FRM) musiciens équatoriens, en espagnol et en anglais. Il considère encore 2007 Vol. 4 aujourd’hui qu’il s’agit de son meilleur album en carrière. Au cours des - The Wrong Object: After the deux années suivantes, il a réenregistré des paroles en fançais et en Exhibition allemand. En 2013, à l’occasion d’une longue entrevue dans un - Dieuf-Dieul de Thiès: Aw Sa Yone, magazine français, son étiquette Nervermore a réédité L’Éternité Vol. -
The Jazz and Improvised Music Scene in Vienna After Ossiach (1971-2011)
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2013 Free from Jazz: The Jazz and Improvised Music Scene in Vienna after Ossiach (1971-2011) Thomas Albert Zlabinger Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1684 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] FREE FROM JAZZ: THE JAZZ AND IMPROVISED MUSIC SCENE IN VIENNA AFTER OSSIACH (1971-2011) by THOMAS ALBERT ZLABINGER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2013 ii 2013 THOMAS ALBERT ZLABINGER All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Music in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Prof. Jeffrey Taylor Date Chair of Examining Committee Prof. David Olan Date Executive Officer Prof. Peter Manuel Prof. Stephen Blum Prof. Reinhold Wagnleitner (Universität Salzburg) Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv ABSTRACT Free from Jazz: The Jazz and Improvised Music Scene in Vienna after Ossiach (1971-2011) by Thomas Albert Zlabinger Advisor: Prof. Peter Manuel Focusing on a diverse and eclectic scene that is under-documented, this dissertation investigates the historical, social, and cultural aspects of jazz and improvised music in Vienna over the last four decades. -
How Do You Make Music a Body Without Organs? Gilles Deleuze
How Do You Make Music a Body without Organs? Gilles Deleuze and Experimental Electronica Christoph Cox (This article appeared in German translation as “Wie wird Musik zu einem organlosen Körper? Gilles Deleuze und experimentale Elektronika” in Soundcultures: Über digitale und elektronische Musik, ed. Marcus S. Kleiner and Achim Szepanski [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag], 162–93. A version in Italian was published in Millesuoni: Deleuze, Guattari, e la Musica Elettronica, ed. Roberto Paci Dalo and Emanuele Quinz [Napoli: Edizioni Cronopio, 2006].) Gilles Deleuze wrote about music only in passing. Throughout his philosophical corpus, one finds a scattering of musical examples and references to the classical modernists (Berg, Messiaen, Varèse, Stockhausen, etc.) who were clearly his cultural heroes. Yet Deleuze never wrote about music with the same depth and dedication that he devoted to literature, cinema, and painting. It might seem odd, then, that, in the nine years since his suicide, Deleuze’s philosophy has come to be closely linked with music and, moreover, with a musical milieu very different from the one that he called his own. For Deleuze has become the intellectual hero of experimental “electronica”—electronic music with its roots in hip hop, house, and techno rather than in the tradition of classical modernism. This relationship was initially marked by the release, a year after Deleuze’s death, of two compilations of experimental electronica presented in his honor: Mille Plateaux’s In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze and Sub Rosa’s Folds and Rhizomes for Gilles Deleuze. Since then, the discourse around electronica has referenced Deleuze at every turn. What accounts for the curious connection between this philosophical ontologist and a music scene about which he knew little and wrote nothing? It is that Deleuze helps us to think how music might become a body without organs. -
Text of Light
TEXT OF LIGHT http://www.sonicyouth.com/symu/lee/category/text-of-light/ "[Text of Light] …explode with a formidable combination of free jazz skronk, seismic percussion, tonal drone and searing guitar noise." —The WIRE, March 2008 L to R: Lee Ranaldo, Ulrich Krieger, Alan Licht. Photo by Daša Barteková TEXT OF LIGHT The Text of Light group was formed in 1999 with the idea to perform improvised music to the films of Stan Brakhage and other members of the American Cinema avante garde of the 1950s-60s (Brakhageʼs film 'The Text of Light' was the premiere performance and namesake of the group). The original premise was to improvise (not 'illustrate') to films from the American Avante-Garde (50s-60s etc), an under- known period of American filmic poetics. Members of the group include Lee Ranaldo and Alan Licht (gtrs/devices), Christian Marclay and DJ Olive (turntables), William Hooker (drums/perc), Ulrich Krieger (sax/electronics), and most recently Tim Barnes (drums/perc). Various combinations of these players attend 'Text' gigs, depending on individual schedules, so the group takes on various permutations---sometimes all members participate, sometimes not. To date the group has performed with the following films: Brakhageʼs The Text of Light, Dog Star Man, Anticipation of the Night, Songs; Harry Smithʼs Mahagonny outtakes, Oz-The Approach to the Emerald City, and Late Superimpositions. The group has headlined the Victoriaville Music Festival, Canada (2002); Three Rivers Film Festival, Pittsburgh; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Whitney Museum, NYC; and have done several tours of Europe as well as performing in New York City and other USA club and cinema venues. -
Notes on the Theatre of Eternal Music & the Tortoise, His Dreams And
Notes on The Theatre of Eternal Music and The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys La Monte Young I. Regarding The Underlying Musical Composition of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys (1964-present). The specific rules that governed the performance of my music, including the sections of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys participated in by Tony Conrad and John Cale, create a sound characterized by the predominance of musical intervals whose numerators and denominators in just intonation are factorable by the primes 7, 3, and 2, and selected higher primes, especially 31, and by the exclusion of intervals whose numerators and denominators are factorable by the prime 5. If we represent intervals with numerators and denominators factorable by the primes 7, 3, and 2 in conventional music notation and terminology, we obtain intervals that include various sized major and minor sevenths (with emphasis on the septimally derived blues minor seventh in my compositions such as Bb Dorian Blues, Early Tuesday Morning Blues, Sunday Morning Blues, and The Tortoise), perfect fifths, octaves, unisons and their inversions, various sized major and minor seconds, and perfect fourths. The blues I was playing on the sopranino saxophone, directly preceding the period of The Tortoise, emphasized a technique I invented consisting of extremely fast combination- permutations of a limited set of tones to simulate a sustained chord. And the chord I increasingly emphasized consisted of the pitches Eb, Bb, Db, Eb, (the IV-chord from Bb Dorian Blues) extended over the full range of the saxophone. Translated back into just intonation, these pitches are all examples of octave transpositions of the primes 7, 3, and 2. -
It Is Obvious That the Time-Honored Medium of the String Quartet Will Never Become a Relic of the Past. the Evolution of The
It is obvious that the time-honored medium of the string quartet will never become a relic of the past. The evolution of the string quartet repertory has accelerated during the last half of the twentieth century and beyond as composers from both the mainstream and the avant-garde have mined its seemingly inexhaustible creative resources. This CD features the virtually unprecedented combination of string quartet and percussion. It contains three works by prominent American experimentalist composers from several generations exploring the ensemble’s unique sonic resources in diverse stylistic settings, each with its own original approach to musical form. * * * In a lecture entitled “Little Bangs: Towards a Nihilist Theory of Improvisation,” composer/pianist Frederic Rzewski tells the story of an encounter he had in 1968 with the legendary soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. Rzewski asked Lacy to describe the difference between composition and improvisation in only fifteen seconds, to which Lacy replied, “In fifteen seconds, the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to think about what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have only fifteen seconds.”1 Rzewski goes on to explain that improvisation is more than “real- time” composition, as Lacy’s description implies. The differences between the two modes of expression go beyond duration. Composition, he writes, “is the result of an editing process in which one’s impulses are passed through the critical filter of the conscious mind: Only the ‘good’ ideas are allowed to pass through,” while in improvisation “ideas are allowed to express themselves without having to pass this test, somehow avoiding the critical filter of the conscious mind.”2 That improvisation, in Rzewski’s view, avoids a “critical filter” does not mean that it is less rigorous than composed music. -
Tony Conrad by Nils Jendri
Tony Conrad by Nils Jendri. 2006. Index: 1. Biography 2. Theater of Eternal Music 3. The Flicker 4. Concept Art: Tony Conrad and the early minimalism 5. Tony Conrad and the authorship 6. Musicselection 7. Filmselection 8. Bibliography 9. Container 1. Biography Tony Conrad, a/k/a Anthony S. Conrad, (*1940). Since the early 60`s he started working as a Experimental filmmaker, the biggest attention he get is with his first film „The Flicker„ (1965). He also started working as a composer and sound-artist (he get into it through a lecture by Stockhausen in Harvard in 1958), currently he primary works as a teacher (University of Buffalo) and writer (for example in the current issue of the Millennium Film Journal (No.45). There he puplished the text Is This Penny Ante or a High Stakes Game? / An Interventionist Approach to Experimental Filmmaking). He graduate at Harvard University in 1962 (major Mathematics). After that Conrad relocated to New York, where he became interested in the underground music Scene. Here he met the Composer and Saxophonist LaMonte Young who at the time was leading an improvisational group „…a proto-minimalist jazz mutation. Soon, Billy Name left and Conrad joined, beginning by playing only an open fifth drone, and moving the small ensemble towards a "Dream Music" that would profoundly influence subsequent composers.“ (http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/intervs/conrad.html) Later Conrad had also begun channelling his energies into filmmaking, working as a sound engineer and technical advisor on the experimental features with the experimental film icon Jack Smith.