NEWSLETTER THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF UNIVERSITY COMPOSERS SUMMER 1969 /VOL. 2, NO. 2 NATIONAL CONFERENCE, A panel on "Recent Developments in Electronic Music" opened the Conference Friday morning. The Society's 4th Annual National Conference was Chaired by Hubert S. Howe, Jr. (Queens College, held April 11 -12-13 amid the lush greenery of Santa CUNY), the panel included papers by five composer­ Barbara, California. About 65 members from all over researchers. Howe, in introductory remarks noting the country attended, along with numerous v,isitors (as has Stravinsky in a recent New York Review of from the Santa Ba·rbara community. The combination Boohs inte~view) a decade of progress in the technique of excellent lodging and business facilities with a su­ of electromc sound production for music, commented perbly planned and managed program-all under the on the direction of this progress: toward a reduction influence of the startling beauty of a sub-tropical in the time-lag between compositional decision and Spring-made this Conference, according to all opin­ end-rr·esult sound production. Following the single­ ions the writer has heard, the most successful and track tapes and single-tone "instruments" of ten years enjoyable in the Society's history. ago came the multiple-track tapes and the sequencers of today. Howe predicted that the "third generation" As before, panels and lectures were arranged by the studies of tomorrow will be concerned with various Executive Committee, with considerable help from means of achieving some kind of "automatic" control the National Council and the two "co-managers" of over sound sources and sound manipulation-such the Conference: Chairman Peter Racine Fricker (Uni­ contrnl being, perhaps paradoxkally, one way in versity of California/Santa Barbara) in charge of which the electronic composer can beo-in to deal with 0 aPrangements, and Barney Childs (Deep Springs Col­ his medium in "real" time. Howe mentioned two lege). Childs and Fricker also put together the two extant approaches to the concept of an automated concerts, which displayed a variety of compositional lab-the synthesizer and the computer-and observed styles selected from the entire Society's membership that both of these lack immediacy and to some extent while focusing some emphasis upon the activity cur­ economic feasibility for most university-based com­ rently taking place in the host Region. posers. The panel then proceeded to describe some approaches to the automation of studios. ln addition to reporting the events of this Confer­ ence, I feel that it would be helpful to attempt to give John Clough (Oberlin), remarking on the necessity some indication of the nature, scope, and timeliness for developing a variety of languages with which to of the material presented. Accordingly, I will offer a achieve a more sensitive and "immediate" interface brief summary of each paper or event in the hope between composer and computer, reported on his that members may be aided in directing inquiries formulation of a sample of one such possible language toward persons whose remarks or activities they find in algebraic terms, using the mathematical theory of interesting. As abstracts prepared by the authors were groups. l_n rrelatively simple algebra, sets of data may unavailable, responsibility for error in these summa­ be described, transformations of such sets defined, ries rests with the undersigned. It might be noted, successions of such transformations outlined, and however, that prob;rbly not until the publication of hierarchies of transformational data sets arranged. the Proceedings of Conference IV will the bulk of the information presented at Santa Barbara be available David Cohen (Arizona State University) discussed a to others-a fact which prompts these notes. recently developed prngram for computer sound gen­ eration which attempts, in the interest of efficiency * * and (again) immediacy, to reduce the complexity of such a program to a minimum. Data cards carrying only four parameters-wave-form, envelope, duration, and frequency-a·re hand-sorted for order. Robert A. Moog (R. A. Moog Co.), elaborating on The first of two concerts took place Friday evening Howe's "third generation swdio," spoke of several in the excellent new Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall on kinds of existing or foreseeable studio setups which the campus of the University of California/Santa might employ a computer and/or manual control to Barbara. '!\Tith a few exceptions (noted below), it was achieve a closer and more continuous interaction produced by players from the University of Cali­ between the composer and his "instruments" (in this fornia/San Diego. Opening with the world premiere case, voltage-controlled sound sources). One such set­ of Proportions (1968) by Wendell Logan (Ball State up, on the analogy of the recent development of University), the program continued with the Flute multi-track tape, would be a multi-track studio. An­ Variations (1963) of Charles Wuorinen (Columbia) other, which for full effectiveness awaits the building and Noya (1966) by Harold Budd (California College of more stable generators, would involve using a small of Music and Art). The first half ended with Double digital computer to help control analog equipment. Basses at Twenty Paces (1969), written by Pauline The advantages of such a system would include the Oliveros (Univcrsity of California/San Diego) for col­ preservation of some manual control (and thus human league Bertram Turetzky, who performed it with "feedback" judgment, as whe1-e, for example, human bassist Ross Lund (University of California/Santa motion might control a voltage fluctuation) and the Barbara). The second half of the concert included a saving of both space and money-people being still a performance by trombonist Stuart Dempster (Univer­ relatively inexpensive and efficient type of servo-mech­ sity of Washington) of One Man (1967) by Ben anism. Moog commented that in this medium, as in Johnston (University of Illinois), followed by Armistice, all others, the cost of generation and manipulation is a truce for dancers and musicians (1966) by Sydney modest beside the cost of storage. A third, non-com­ Hodkinson (University of Michigan). The evening puter but entirely pre-programmed-piece-producing ended with Kenneth Gaburo (University of Cali­ studio would involve the use of many sequencer fornia/San Diego) conducting his Antiphony IV chains-perhaps to the limit of human physical capa­ (1966). bility for motion: a composer surrounded by, say, 2000 knobs. A piece by Joel Chadabe (SUNY/Albany), using a prototype of such a studio, was played. Emmanuel Ghent achieves programmatic control of Satu1-day began with a series of performance demon­ electronic sound sources by using his Coordinome strations by trombonist Stuart Dempster, clarinetist (a punched paper tape reader devised originally to Jeffrey Lerner (University of Houston), bassist Bert­ control multiple time-tracks among live performers) to •ram Turetzky, and bassoonist Les Weil (University of gate either sig·nals or voltages. California/Santa Barbara). Problems of "new" instru­ mental sounds and the notation thereof were dis­ Max V. Mathews described a recent program (called cussed, questions were answered, and each performer GROOVE, for Generated Real-time Operation Of played a recent work for his instrument. Works heard Voltage-control Equipment) which utilizes a DDP 224 were Luciano Berio's Sequenza V (1966) for trombone, computer with a memory capable of storing about a William 0. Smith's Variants (1967) for clarinet, Robert half hour of music and accepting both analog and Erickson's Ricercar a 3 (1968) for contrabass and two digital modifications. By means of a real-time key­ recorded contrabass tracks, and David Ward-Stein­ board and knob system, a typewriter for algebraic man's Child's Play (1969) for bassoon and piano, with instructions, a scope for visual (and freeze) analysis, the composer as pianist. and a sampling-rate-changing real tempo knob, the composer can make use of the memory and speed of a computer in the cont-rol of the usual voltage-con­ After lunch on Saturday, Conference pairtoic1pants trolled equipment. strolled across the campus to the Magic Lantern The­ atre to attend the two afternoon presentations. First Discussion after the panel included comments from came a panel discussion on "The Relation of Licens­ the audience concerning other programs now under ing Organizations to University Composers," with way. Among those speaking briefly was Barry Vercoe guest speakers Martin Bookspan (ASCAP) and Calfl (Princeton), who described an extension of the MUSIC Havelin (BMI) sharing the platform with moderator 4B program which attempts to solve problems of excessive notational and running time by means of a Peter Racine Fricker. An informative and active dis­ cussion took place between the two speakers and the "compiler" routine bypassing parts of the FORTRAN or ALGOL instructions. The new routine is usable on members of the Society who brought up questions on all IBM 360 series computers. A demonstration by this topic of importance to all composers. Rather than review the topic here, I refer the reader to Moog of some of his equipment ended the panel. H. Owen Reed's article which covers much of the mat­ * * ter ·in the ASUC Newsletter of January, 1969. - The second event of the afternoon made use of the plex: "How much system? What system? Teach a dis­ facilities of the Magic Lantern Theatre, as film com­ cipline, a subject, a body of skill, OR teach a student, poser Leonard Rosenman (Warner Brothers-Seven a potentially creative person, a growing human Arts) entertained and instructed the Conference mem­ being?" As always is the case with panels of this sort, bers with two versions of a film sequence from The no definitive answers emerged; the exchange of ideas Savage Eye. Rosenman had composed sha~-ply differ­ and attitudes, however, seemed unusually successful ing scores to the two versions, illustrating the two con­ this time-or perhaps it was the California sun.