Morton Feldman, Lars Von Trier, and Frank Zappa Nathan John Michel
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CREATIVE CONTROL: Morton Feldman, Lars von Trier, and Frank Zappa Nathan John Michel A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC SEPTEMBER 2007 © Copyright by Nathan John Michel, 2007. All rights reserved. iii Abstract This dissertation explores the relationship between creativity and control. How can the creative process be controlled? When does too much control make the creative process confining and predictable? When does lack of control dissolve creative activity into meaningless noodling? We look at three artists—Morton Feldman, Lars von Trier, and Frank Zappa—who struggle with these questions in different ways. Their work reflects this struggle. Morton Feldman values intuition over calculation. In many of his compositions—as well as in essays, lectures, and interviews—he rejects music that follows any kind of pre-compositional design too closely. Yet his piece Why Patterns? is full of precisely such pre-compositional design: first, in the layout of the score itself; second, in structural parallels between Why Patterns? and the Jasper Johns painting Scent; and third, in stretches of systematic, interlocked patterning, which pervade the piece. Chapter 1 explores the contradiction between Feldman’s rhetoric and the reality of Why Patterns?. Danish director Lars von Trier works within the confines of strict, self-imposed rules; but his films push these rules to the breaking point—testing, along the way, the limits of both his characters and his audience. In his film, The Five Obstructions, von Trier tries testing the limits of his mentor, Jørgen Leth. Von Trier asks Leth to remake five times Leth’s short 1967 film, The Perfect Human, iv under increasingly restrictive rules, or “obstructions”, which von Trier himself devises. Chapter 2 examines the conflict between these two directors—a conflict rooted in opposing views of art and control. Chapter 3 examines Frank Zappa’s record Uncle Meat, which jumps at will between music that is highly controlled—through traditional notation and careful studio editing—and music more spontaneously created—through improvisation and live performance. We focus, in particular, on conflicting themes of the organic and mechanical, which, throughout Uncle Meat, serve as metaphors for Zappa’s own creative struggle between control and spontaneity. A concluding chapter considers Feldman, von Trier, and Zappa side-by-side. Two compositions of my own are also included with this dissertation: The Beast1 and The Beast Transcriptions. 1 Nathan Michel, The Beast. Sonig Records, 2005. v Table of Contents List of Tables vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 4 Composing Possibilities: Morton Feldman and the Question of Why Patterns? Chapter 2 44 Rules of the Game: Lars von Trier and The Five Obstructions Chapter 3 63 The Art of Distraction: Frank Zappa and Uncle Meat Conclusion: Three Characters 98 Appendix 105 Bibliography 121 vi List of Tables Figure 1 Why Patterns?, system 1, score layout Figure 2 Why Patterns?, system 1, time signatures Figure 3 Why Patterns?, flute part - page 1, system 1 Figure 4 Why Patterns?, piano part – page 1, system 1 Figure 5 Why Patterns?, glockenspiel part – page 1, system 1 Figure 6 Jasper Johns, Scent (1973-1974) Figure 7 Why Patterns?, page 1 - time signature patterns Figure 8 Why Patterns?, flute part – page 1, system 1 – Meandering Theme Figure 9 Why Patterns?, piano part – page 9, system 2 – Stuck Theme Figure 10 Why Patterns?, flute part – page 6, system 2 – Zoo Theme Figure 11 Why Patterns?, flute part – page 8, system 2 – “Music” Theme Figure 12 Why Patterns?, piano part – page 11, system 3 – “Music” Theme Figure 13 Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors (1533) Figure 14 Frank Zappa, Uncle Meat (1969) front cover Figure 15 Uncle Meat, Main Theme vii Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following: Paul Lansky, my advisor, and Steve Mackey, second reader, for giving me encouragement and insightful feedback throughout the writing of this dissertation; Greg Smith, for guiding me through the process of setting up my defense; and Tom Myernick at the Princeton Record Exchange, for his excellent musical recommendations. I’d also like to thank Marilyn Ham, Cindy Masterson, Kyle Subramaniam, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, and Barbara White. Special thanks go to my friends, parents, and Amber Papini. 1 Introduction This dissertation explores the relationship between creativity and control. How can the creative process be controlled? When does too much control make the creative process confining and predictable? When does lack of control dissolve creative activity into meaningless noodling? We look at three artists—Morton Feldman, Lars von Trier, and Frank Zappa—who struggle with these questions in different ways. Their work reflects this struggle. Morton Feldman values intuition over calculation. In many of his compositions—as well as in essays, lectures, and interviews—he rejects music that follows any kind of pre-compositional design too closely. Yet his piece Why Patterns? is full of precisely such pre-compositional design: first, in the layout of the score itself; second, in structural parallels between Why Patterns? and the Jasper Johns painting Scent; and third, in stretches of systematic, interlocked patterning, which pervade the piece. Chapter 1 explores the contradiction between Feldman’s rhetoric and the reality of Why Patterns?. Danish director Lars von Trier works within the confines of strict, self-imposed rules; but his films push these rules to the breaking point—testing, along the way, the limits of both his characters and his audience. In his film, The Five Obstructions, von Trier tries testing the limits of his mentor, Jørgen Leth. Von Trier asks Leth to remake five times Leth’s short 1967 film, The Perfect Human, 2 under increasingly restrictive rules, or “obstructions”, which von Trier himself devises. Chapter 2 examines the conflict between these two directors—a conflict rooted in opposing views of art and control. Finally, Chapter 3 examines Frank Zappa’s record Uncle Meat, which jumps at will between music that is highly controlled—through traditional notation and careful studio editing—and music more spontaneously created—through improvisation and live performance. We focus, in particular, on conflicting themes of the organic and mechanical, which, throughout Uncle Meat, serve as metaphors for Zappa’s own creative struggle between control and spontaneity. My examination of these three wildly different artists is essentially a look into the process of making art—what me might call the “creative process.” The creative process is an “ongoing and circular process of exploration, selection, combination, refinement, and reflection” that often—but not always—yields a creative product, a finished artwork.2 I am interested in what the creative product tells us about the creative process, and vice-versa. I use the term “creativity” to encapsulate this intertwining of creative process and creative product. In this sense, creativity is like a feedback network between an ongoing process and the products it creates. 2 BC Education – Appendix F: Glossary.1999.<http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/dan11_12/apf.htm> (accessed February 22, 2007) 3 My interest in creativity is easy to explain: I grapple with issues everyday in my own attempt to make music; when I see evidence of other artists grappling with the same issues, I feel a certain kinship. This dissertation is, essentially, an exploration of this kinship. Because the most challenging issue I encounter in my own creative process is a struggle between control and spontaneity, this is what I focus on in works by Feldman, von Trier, and Zappa—three artists whose creative process is captured in the final creative product. 4 Chapter 1 Composing Possibilities: Morton Feldman and the Question of Why Patterns? When you are involved with a sound as a sound, as a limited yet infinite thought to borrow Einstein’s phrase, new ideas suggest themselves, need defining, exploring, need a mind that knows it is entering a living world not a dead one. When you set out for a living world you don’t know what to take with you because you don’t know where you’re going. You don’t know if the temperature will be warm or cold; you have to buy your clothes when you get there. Wasn’t there a renowned anthropologist who insisted one must go into the field alone, unobtrusive, in order to enter the environment without disturbing it and discover its true essence? That’s not quite the way the Princeton University Music Department embarks on its expeditions into the new sound world. There are such crowds of them, they take so much with them. All their equipment, all their machines. They come to hear; but all they hear are their own machines. Morton Feldman, “Conversations Without Stravinsky” (1967) As an artist, Morton Feldman travels light. He doesn’t want the burden of fancy compositional systems, a la Schoenberg, or historical references, a la Stravinsky. These things interfere with what matters most to him: the physical reality of sound—how it moves from instrument to ear. This theme provides a kind of mantra throughout Feldman’s writings and lectures. Yet in his 1978 piece Why Patterns?, there are clear instances of pre-compositional planning: first, in the layout of the score itself; second, in structural parallels between Why Patterns? and the Jasper Johns painting Scent; and third, in stretches of systematic, 5 interlocked patterning, which pervade the piece. Is there a contradiction between Feldman’s rhetoric and the reality of Why Patterns?? To address this question, we first look at Feldman’s mistrust of compositional systems—a mistrust also expressed in Abstract Expressionist painting, with which Feldman acknowledges a deep affinity. Both seek to avoid overtly referential gestures, and both try to construct meaning from the ground up, using the physicality of their respective mediums—paint and sound—as building blocks.