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Download Powerpoint Indeterminacy and The ‘Open Work’ Defining ‘classical’ music Composer Text (Musical Notation) (Reading) Performer (Passive) Audience Philip Guston, Painting (1954) Mark Rothko, Orange and Yellow (1956) Morton Feldman (1926-1987) Intersection #1 (1951) “My desire here was not to “compose,” but to project sounds into time, free from a compositional rhetoric that had no place here. In order not to involve the performer (i.e. myself) in memory… and because sounds no longer had an inherent symbolic shape, I allowed for indeterminacies in regard to pitch.” Indeterminacy: Deliberately leaving one or more elements of the composition to the discretion of the performer. Indeterminacy of pitch: “high, middle, and low” chosen by each instrumentalist in performance. Alexander Calder, Untitled (1976) Alexander Calder, Untitled (1976) Alexander Calder, Untitled (1976) Earle Brown (1926-2002) Four Systems (1952) “a conceptually ‘mobile’ approach to basically fixed graphic elements, subject to an infinite number of performance realizations through the involvement of the performer’s . response to the intentionally ambiguous graphic stimuli . .” • No indication for length, form, instrumentation, pitch content, dynamics, etc. • Graphics only: consists of patterns of lines of various thicknesses. John Cage Variations II (1961) • “for any number of players and any sound producing means.” • No fixed document; only moveable transparent sheets. • A means of generating a score, considered infinitely variable • Pianist David Tudor Early Electronic Music Early Sound Technology c. 1880: Wax Cylinder Early Sound Technology c. 1890 Gramophone Early Sound Technology 1935, Germany: Magnetic Tape 1951: Portable Field Recorder Musique Concrète Pierre Schaffer (1910-1995) Études aux chemins de fer (1948) • Composed entirely of recorded sound Elektronische Musik Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) Studie II (1954) • Composed entirely of sound produced by electronic devices. • Sine Tones (“Pure Tones”) Music… Without performers. Infinitely repeatable. Karlheinz Stockhausen Gesang der Jünglinge (1956) • Blends recorded and synthetic sound • Text from book of Daniel; “the Fiery Furnace” Karlheinz Stockhausen Mikrophonie (1961) • Live electronic music • Filters / Filtering .
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