Contemporary Music Lecture 4

1
Contemporary Music Lecture 4

• To look at work of 60s generation of British
  composers that came out of the experimentalism
  and minimalism in the 60s and 70s.
• All were involved to some extent with Cardew, the
  Scratch Orchestra and the Portsmouth Sinfonia.
• Best read about in Michael Nymans Experimental
  Music, Cage and Beyond.
• To look at what they did in the 60s and 70s and
  since.

2
Who were they

• In America the group was lead by Cage but
  included Morton Feldman, La Monte Young, Earl
  Brown and Christian Wolff
• First Generation of American Minimalists Steve
  Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Ben Jonson.
• In Britain the experimentalists and minimalists
  were never clearly separated led by Cardew the
  generation included Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars,
  Michael Parsons, Chris Hobbs
• gt

3
Definitions of Experimental

• Cage quote evolving processes to bring about
  acts the outcome of which are unknown
• 1. Chance determination processes e.g. Music of
  Changes
• 2. People processes performers go through
  material at his own speed Cardews Great
  Learning Portsmouth Sinfonia
• 3. Contextual processes actions dependent on
  unpredictable outcomes
• 3. Repetition processes Rileys in C
• 4. Electronic processes -

4
Happenings

• Cages Harpsichord

5
Unique Moment

• All processes produce configurations that are
  impermanent and unique to that moment.
• No performance can be repeated the outcome will
  always be strikingly different.
• Recordings of such works are no more than
  postcards of the events.
• Fluidity of composer/performer/listener roles
  breaking away from the standard
  sender/carrier/receiver information structure of
  other forms of Western Music.

6
Fluxus Events

• Cages 433 the starting out.
• Focus on the theatrical event Happening at
  Black Mountain College.
• Development of a school of artists interested in
  the performance aspects of musical events.
  Marcel Duchamp an inspiration.
• George Brecht best known e.g.Comb music and
  Drip music. (others La Monte Young and T.
  Kosugi)
• Most Fluxus occurred in the early sixties on
  American Campuses.
• Most interest was in audience as a social
  situation.

7
Electron Music

• Reichs Pendulum Music also an electronic piece
  and an early minimalist piece. One of many
  pieces of the time that used feedback.
• Bryars interested in this from the first hidden
  systems in particular. E.g. 1-2-3-4- (1971).
• Many of such pieces developed into gradual music
  processes which developed slowly over time.
  Creating loops which may be lengthened little
  by little so that the reverberation time produced
  a complicated process that could be spun out over
  time.

8
Cardew in the UK New takes on Indeterminacy

• One direction of indeterminacy in the late
  sixties was towards accessibility by
  non-musicians this contrasts with the early
  sixties when it was dominated by an elite of
  mainly professional musicians.
• Notations gradually adapted from the specific to
  the generalised graphic scores.
• Cardews scores form 1961-70 show desire to
  nurture performers. Ideals and aspirations at
  the fore.

9
Scratch Orchestra

• A pool of performers and composers notation
  developed to engage the people. Notation to
  stimulate the performer.
• Treatise 1963-7. Totally graphic the sound
  should be a picture of the score not the other
  way round.
• The Great Learning 1968-71. Based on 4 books of
  Confucian religion.
• Example of paragraph 2 the available resources
  are divided up into a number of groups each has
  a drummer, lead singer and other singers. The
  drummer begins by playing any the 26 notated
  rhythms and he it over and over again like a tape
  loop for the duration of each of the vocal
  periods. This consist of 25 pentatonic phrases
  of 5 or 6 notes each, each note, together with a
  word or words of the text, being held for the
  length of the breath. The lead singer beings his
  new note after all the singers have finished the
  previous note, and it is picked up by the other
  singers. When the whole phrase is finished the
  drummer moves to another rhythm and the process
  is repeated.
• The function of the music is to clear the space
  for spontaneous music making.
• Leading on to free Jazz improvisation AMM and
  MEV.

10

• Example of paragraph 2 the available resources
  are divided up into a number of groups each has
  a drummer, lead singer and other singers. The
  drummer begins by playing any the 26 notated
  rhythms and he it over and over again like a tape
  loop for the duration of each of the vocal
  periods. This consist of 25 pentatonic phrases
  of 5 or 6 notes each, each note, together with a
  word or words of the text, being held for the
  length of the breath. The lead singer beings his
  new note after all the singers have finished the
  previous note, and it is picked up by the other
  singers. When the whole phrase is finished the
  drummer moves to another rhythm and the process
  is repeated.

11
Scratch Orchestra

• The need to bring a large number of
  non-specialist people together as doers rather
  than watchers for paragraph 2 of the great
  learning, led to The Scratch Orchestra.
• Co-founder by Cardew, Skempton and Parsons. Draft
  constitution.
• Embodiment of educational, musical, social and
  ethical ideas. It fosters communal activity, ti
  breaks down barrier between private and group
  activity, between professional and amateur it
  is a means to sharing experience. 1970.

12
More Scratching

• Each member in rotation starting with the
  youngest had the option of designing a concert
  location, duration, contents, etc- in which as
  many of as few as were able or interested took
  part.
• Main activity between 1969-1970. Hugely
  influential in ideas of community music making
  and improvisation.