Process Music
In the Spring of 1969 I studied with Steve Reich at the New School in
New York City. I did this to get as far away from the music that I had
been studying at the Eastman School of Music and Yale University School
of Music. I found "Eastman Gothic" not to my liking, nor did the serial
technics I learned at Yale help me to produce a music that was
satisfying to me. I was looking for someone as exciting to me as
the jazz and new music composers I had been incontact with in Chicago.
In our lessons we spoke frequently about "process" as a compositional
tool and how it differed from modal, serial or more traditional
compositional practices. We also discussed "phasing" techniques which
figure prominently in Steve's early tape & acoustic works. Among
other topics we discussed was the psychoacoustic properties of
repetition and what effects repetition had on the perception of real
and imaginary sounds.
In all fairness, I must say that my prior training was invaluable and
no doubt contributed to my early appreciation of Steve Reich's music,
as different as it was to any music I had been exposed to at that time,
which included a host of musical "mavericks" in my Chicago youth (Cage,
Ives, Ruggles, Partch, Mingus, Monk, Dolphy, Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
Ornette Coleman, et al).
When I was asked to write works by various performers and conductors,
they all asked that I write something in the "Minimalist" style. I
never considered the music of Reich, Glass, Riley, etc, minimal in any
sense of the word. The sonic and musical worlds opened up by the close
listening required of this music was anything but minimal. While there
was an attraction to some persons to this music because of it's
hypnotic effect, especially when one had medicated themselves, to
serious listeners there was a whole cosmos of sound, interactions and
developments to discover and enjoy.
My own compositions in this technique I strove to bring a synthesis of
traditional performance techniques: articulation, dynamics,
expression; with techniques borrowed from tape music: phasing, delay,
echo and looping. In
Holograms
rhythmic and melodic cells are emphasized and enhanced, dissonances and
intervals are used to create multiple textures, difference and
summation tones, looping and phasing. In
Mozart Doesn't Phase Me Anymore for Five
Trombone Choirs, actual tape delays were used to build
textures from simple melodic cells based on the
Tuba Mirum of the
Mozart Requiem.
Sopwith Hemke
for Four Soprano Saxophones and Tape has the live performers
adding expression and articulation to a mobius-like loop of 2, 3 &
4 soprano saxophones.
Tempi Modulatus
for Solo Clarinet & Wind Ensemble combines traditional
conterpoint techniques with tape delay techniques to create metric and
tempo modulations that create changing textures and rhythmic vitality.
To see scores of these works click on the title page displayed below
and download a pdf of the score. Scores are free. The courtsey of a
program and/or an mp3 of any performances would be appreciated. To hear an short version of Holograms, enable the player.