A Semiotic Approach to Open Notations

A Semiotic Approach to Open Notations

Author: Tristan McKay

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-04-29

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 1108865119

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Along with twentieth-century developments in playing techniques, technologies, and concepts of musical sound, the notations employed by composers have also changed. Composers of what Umberto Eco calls 'open works' often employ intentionally ambiguous music notations. These open notations ask the performer to play a radical and active role in co-creating the musical work. Scores that feature open notations have been part of the Western classical music landscape since the mid-twentieth century, and continue to have a vibrant community of practitioners today. In this Element, Tristan McKay considers intersections of ambiguity, authority, and identity in works with open notations. He develops a semiotic approach to open notation analysis and puts it into practice with in-depth analyses of openly notated works by Earle Brown, Will Redman, and Leah Asher.


Book Synopsis A Semiotic Approach to Open Notations by : Tristan McKay

Download or read book A Semiotic Approach to Open Notations written by Tristan McKay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Along with twentieth-century developments in playing techniques, technologies, and concepts of musical sound, the notations employed by composers have also changed. Composers of what Umberto Eco calls 'open works' often employ intentionally ambiguous music notations. These open notations ask the performer to play a radical and active role in co-creating the musical work. Scores that feature open notations have been part of the Western classical music landscape since the mid-twentieth century, and continue to have a vibrant community of practitioners today. In this Element, Tristan McKay considers intersections of ambiguity, authority, and identity in works with open notations. He develops a semiotic approach to open notation analysis and puts it into practice with in-depth analyses of openly notated works by Earle Brown, Will Redman, and Leah Asher.


The Cambridge Companion to Composition

The Cambridge Companion to Composition

Author: Toby Young

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2024-05-30

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1108923739

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There are as many ways of creating music as there are composers in the world, with a vast array of possible methods and practices. This book provides essential critical and practical tools for composers as they try to navigate this complex landscape, whilst also offering provocations for practitioners discovering their own voices and solidifying their place in their musical communities. Designed to be a companion in the truest sense, the book offers practical support throughout the creative process and thought-provoking insights on technical questions for a range of compositional approaches.


Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Composition by : Toby Young

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Composition written by Toby Young and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are as many ways of creating music as there are composers in the world, with a vast array of possible methods and practices. This book provides essential critical and practical tools for composers as they try to navigate this complex landscape, whilst also offering provocations for practitioners discovering their own voices and solidifying their place in their musical communities. Designed to be a companion in the truest sense, the book offers practical support throughout the creative process and thought-provoking insights on technical questions for a range of compositional approaches.


The Time of the Sign

The Time of the Sign

Author: Dean MacCannell

Publisher:

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis The Time of the Sign by : Dean MacCannell

Download or read book The Time of the Sign written by Dean MacCannell and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:


John Zorn’s File Card Works

John Zorn’s File Card Works

Author: Maurice Windleburn

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-03-13

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 1003853595

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This book is the first study of John Zorn’s ‘file card’ works, with special focus made on the pieces Godard (1985), Spillane (1986), Interzone (2010), and Liber Novus (2010). It explains the unique creative process behind these compositions, contextualizing them in relation to the history of file cards, the ‘open work’ concept, cinematic listening, and uncreative aesthetics. Semiotic, hermeneutic, and ekphrastic analyses draw hypertextual links between the four file card compositions and the worlds of their respective dedicatees: author Mickey Spillane, filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, novelist William S. Burroughs and painter Brion Gysin, and psychiatrist C. G. Jung. This book will appeal not only to those interested in Zorn’s music, but also to scholars of music semiotics and hermeneutics, intermedia studies, and avant-garde music.


Book Synopsis John Zorn’s File Card Works by : Maurice Windleburn

Download or read book John Zorn’s File Card Works written by Maurice Windleburn and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-03-13 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first study of John Zorn’s ‘file card’ works, with special focus made on the pieces Godard (1985), Spillane (1986), Interzone (2010), and Liber Novus (2010). It explains the unique creative process behind these compositions, contextualizing them in relation to the history of file cards, the ‘open work’ concept, cinematic listening, and uncreative aesthetics. Semiotic, hermeneutic, and ekphrastic analyses draw hypertextual links between the four file card compositions and the worlds of their respective dedicatees: author Mickey Spillane, filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, novelist William S. Burroughs and painter Brion Gysin, and psychiatrist C. G. Jung. This book will appeal not only to those interested in Zorn’s music, but also to scholars of music semiotics and hermeneutics, intermedia studies, and avant-garde music.


Theory of Prominence

Theory of Prominence

Author: Bryan Hayslett

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-11-03

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 1108865127

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Many twentieth and twenty-first century composers have written music with rhythmic structures that must be understood through a framework distinct from even, periodic meter, which has been a salient musical feature of Western classical music for centuries. This Element's analytical system outlines structure and phrasing in sections of music without even perceptible meter. Instead of entrainment to meter, Bryan Hayslett theorizes that listeners perceive rhythm in similar ways to how they perceive the rhythm of language. With gesture as the smallest organizational grouping unit, his analytical system combines Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff's generative theory of tonal music with Bruce Hayes's metrical stress theory from linguistics. The listener perceives the shape of a gesture according to the structure of its constituents, and larger-level phrasing is perceived through the hierarchical relationship of gestures. After developing a set of rules, the author provides analyses that outline temporal structure according to perceptual prominence.


Book Synopsis Theory of Prominence by : Bryan Hayslett

Download or read book Theory of Prominence written by Bryan Hayslett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many twentieth and twenty-first century composers have written music with rhythmic structures that must be understood through a framework distinct from even, periodic meter, which has been a salient musical feature of Western classical music for centuries. This Element's analytical system outlines structure and phrasing in sections of music without even perceptible meter. Instead of entrainment to meter, Bryan Hayslett theorizes that listeners perceive rhythm in similar ways to how they perceive the rhythm of language. With gesture as the smallest organizational grouping unit, his analytical system combines Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff's generative theory of tonal music with Bruce Hayes's metrical stress theory from linguistics. The listener perceives the shape of a gesture according to the structure of its constituents, and larger-level phrasing is perceived through the hierarchical relationship of gestures. After developing a set of rules, the author provides analyses that outline temporal structure according to perceptual prominence.


The Queerness of Video Game Music

The Queerness of Video Game Music

Author: Tim Summers

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-08-03

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 100937138X

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Video game music is a significant site of queerness where normative demands are questioned, suspended or loosened. Games resist hegemonic musical logics, challenge musical value systems and use music to complicate essentialist notions of identity. This Element proposes three areas of queerness, each representing different relationships between 'queer design' and 'queer engagement', ranging fromunintentionally resistive to explicit engagement with identity. First, this Element examines musical structures that provide queer temporal alternatives to normative linear development, and interactive systems that reframe the power relationship between musical material and listener. Second, it considers 'retro' or 'chiptune' timbres that queer notions of technological progress to be improvements, rejecting chrononormativity. Finally, the Element discusses music that queers the self/other binary of identity. Games present ways of listening to, engaging with and understanding music that provide opportunities to challenge inherited assumptions and reductive or monolithic values, practices and identities.


Book Synopsis The Queerness of Video Game Music by : Tim Summers

Download or read book The Queerness of Video Game Music written by Tim Summers and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video game music is a significant site of queerness where normative demands are questioned, suspended or loosened. Games resist hegemonic musical logics, challenge musical value systems and use music to complicate essentialist notions of identity. This Element proposes three areas of queerness, each representing different relationships between 'queer design' and 'queer engagement', ranging fromunintentionally resistive to explicit engagement with identity. First, this Element examines musical structures that provide queer temporal alternatives to normative linear development, and interactive systems that reframe the power relationship between musical material and listener. Second, it considers 'retro' or 'chiptune' timbres that queer notions of technological progress to be improvements, rejecting chrononormativity. Finally, the Element discusses music that queers the self/other binary of identity. Games present ways of listening to, engaging with and understanding music that provide opportunities to challenge inherited assumptions and reductive or monolithic values, practices and identities.


Heiner Goebbels and Curatorial Composing after Cage

Heiner Goebbels and Curatorial Composing after Cage

Author: Ed McKeon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-11-24

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1009337580

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This Element introduces the notion of curatorial composing to account for certain musical practices that emerged from the 1960s as the founding concepts of music as an art – instituted in the modern era – were systematically dismantled. It raises the key question of how musical value and authority might be produced without recourse to an external principle, origin, transcendental framework, or other foundation. It argues that these practices do not dismiss the issue of value or simply relativise it but shift the paradigm to a curatorial concern for composing public encounters and staging events. The Element shows that Lydia Goehr's elaboration of the work-concept provides a framework that was transformed by John Cage in his work from 0'00” (1962) onwards. The Element then introduces Heiner Goebbels' practice and focus on his role as Artistic Director of the Ruhrtriennale (2012–14), which it argues was an extension of his curatorial composing.


Book Synopsis Heiner Goebbels and Curatorial Composing after Cage by : Ed McKeon

Download or read book Heiner Goebbels and Curatorial Composing after Cage written by Ed McKeon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-24 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element introduces the notion of curatorial composing to account for certain musical practices that emerged from the 1960s as the founding concepts of music as an art – instituted in the modern era – were systematically dismantled. It raises the key question of how musical value and authority might be produced without recourse to an external principle, origin, transcendental framework, or other foundation. It argues that these practices do not dismiss the issue of value or simply relativise it but shift the paradigm to a curatorial concern for composing public encounters and staging events. The Element shows that Lydia Goehr's elaboration of the work-concept provides a framework that was transformed by John Cage in his work from 0'00” (1962) onwards. The Element then introduces Heiner Goebbels' practice and focus on his role as Artistic Director of the Ruhrtriennale (2012–14), which it argues was an extension of his curatorial composing.


Understanding Stockhausen

Understanding Stockhausen

Author: Robin Maconie

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-12-31

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 100929427X

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This collection of essays addresses technical developments in telecommunications and sound recording that have guided the direction of musical aesthetics in the post-1950 era. Such information is readily available online but may appear counterintuitive to many who find its priorities difficult to grasp from a musical perspective. The author hopes to draw attention to the place of ideas of communication and flight in western tradition. This Element begins with Varèse and his 'noble noise', traverses the arrival of Information Theory and its influence, examples of early computer music, and ends with a defence of the sublime logic of Stockhausen's singing helicopters and tornados.


Book Synopsis Understanding Stockhausen by : Robin Maconie

Download or read book Understanding Stockhausen written by Robin Maconie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays addresses technical developments in telecommunications and sound recording that have guided the direction of musical aesthetics in the post-1950 era. Such information is readily available online but may appear counterintuitive to many who find its priorities difficult to grasp from a musical perspective. The author hopes to draw attention to the place of ideas of communication and flight in western tradition. This Element begins with Varèse and his 'noble noise', traverses the arrival of Information Theory and its influence, examples of early computer music, and ends with a defence of the sublime logic of Stockhausen's singing helicopters and tornados.


Chinese Émigré Composers and Divergent Modernisms

Chinese Émigré Composers and Divergent Modernisms

Author: Mia Chung

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2024-05-30

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1009184083

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This Element examines the factors that drove the stylistic heterogeneity of Chen Yi and Zhou Long after the Cultural Revolution. Known as 'New Wave' composers, they entered the Central Conservatory of Music once the Cultural Revolution ended and attained international recognition for their modernisms after their early careers in America. Scholars have often treated their early music as contingent outcomes of that cultural and political moment. This Element proposes instead that unique personal factors shaped their modernisms despite their shared experiences of the Cultural Revolution and educations at the Central Conservatory and Columbia University. Through interviews on six stages of their development, the Element examines and explains the reasons for their stylistic divergence.


Book Synopsis Chinese Émigré Composers and Divergent Modernisms by : Mia Chung

Download or read book Chinese Émigré Composers and Divergent Modernisms written by Mia Chung and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element examines the factors that drove the stylistic heterogeneity of Chen Yi and Zhou Long after the Cultural Revolution. Known as 'New Wave' composers, they entered the Central Conservatory of Music once the Cultural Revolution ended and attained international recognition for their modernisms after their early careers in America. Scholars have often treated their early music as contingent outcomes of that cultural and political moment. This Element proposes instead that unique personal factors shaped their modernisms despite their shared experiences of the Cultural Revolution and educations at the Central Conservatory and Columbia University. Through interviews on six stages of their development, the Element examines and explains the reasons for their stylistic divergence.


Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie

Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie

Author: Andrew Shenton

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-04-30

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1009204939

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As one of only a few pieces not primarily inspired by Messiaen's Catholic faith, but by human love as described in the romance of Tristan and Isolde and elsewhere, the Turangalîla-symphonie is contextualized in Messiaen's oeuvre and as a genre piece. Using previously untranslated information from Messiaen's own description of the work in his Traité, close analysis of the music seeks to demystify some of the complex innovations he made to his musical language, especially in the areas of rhythm and orchestration. This Element pays special attention to the fragmentary and elusive program which is explained with reference to Messiaen's fascination with surrealism at this time. Information is included on the commission and composition of the piece, its premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein, its revision by Messiaen in 1990, and its reception history in both live and recorded performances.


Book Synopsis Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie by : Andrew Shenton

Download or read book Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie written by Andrew Shenton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-30 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of only a few pieces not primarily inspired by Messiaen's Catholic faith, but by human love as described in the romance of Tristan and Isolde and elsewhere, the Turangalîla-symphonie is contextualized in Messiaen's oeuvre and as a genre piece. Using previously untranslated information from Messiaen's own description of the work in his Traité, close analysis of the music seeks to demystify some of the complex innovations he made to his musical language, especially in the areas of rhythm and orchestration. This Element pays special attention to the fragmentary and elusive program which is explained with reference to Messiaen's fascination with surrealism at this time. Information is included on the commission and composition of the piece, its premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein, its revision by Messiaen in 1990, and its reception history in both live and recorded performances.