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One often reads about
the dichotomy between composing at the piano and
composing in one’s head. In the latter case, the
composer is assumed to be able to hear the melodic
interactions between various musical lines, the harmonies
between them, the special timbres of the instruments, and
the long-term connections between prominent pitches, all
in his mind. In the former case the composer, to the
extent he can perform everything that is going on in a
passage, hears an actual rendition of the music, but may
still misjudge the effect of timbre and be reluctant to
venture much beyond what he is
technically able to play. For me, the computer functions
as a radical extension of composing at the piano. It is
like having all the players who are to perform a piece
constantly on hand to rehearse, with infinite patience,
every musical idea from inception, through revisions, to
final form. Making a piece of music becomes similar to an
artist’s painting a large
canvas—working and reworking material that is
palpably present. I have been drawn towards what seems to
me to be idiomatic to the computer—a rhythmic
language which only the computer can perform, and
structured sounds that I have never imagined before.
My working procedure is as follows: A customized computer
orchestra consisting of various “instruments”
that produce particular ranges of timbres is assembled
for each piece. A separate score entry program compiles
lists of instructions for these instruments. The
orchestra program reads this score and typically spends
30 minutes to an hour creating a sound file one to two
minutes in duration. The resulting file corresponds to a
compositional sketch, a performance rehearsal, or a
portion of the final version of the piece.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the computation of
digital sound by computer algorithms was an advanced mode
of making music. In recent years, however, with the
advent of computer-controlled synthesizers, vast
libraries of pre-recorded sounds to sample, and real-time
systems that can be used in live performance, this type
of synthesis has become rather old-fashioned. I continue
to pursue the old way (albeit on a succession of faster
and faster personal computers), because I remain
fascinated by the task of creating music from scratch. It
is the same sort of quasi-religious stance as my
continuing to adhere to a rigorous, if heretical,
twelve-tone pitch system and to the geometric rhythmic
language first explored as my Ph.D. thesis. Since the
computer’s sounds are never as “good” as
those made by real instruments, there is an ongoing
challenge to do better, if only to provide alternatives
to the ubiquitous electronic sounds heard daily in
commercial music. As computers get more and more
powerful, it is possible to make progress in this area,
but a paradox remains—that the technology is
simultaneously new and antiquated, as if I were working
on a futuristic line of sackbuts and viols.
In order to describe various pitch and rhythmic
procedures where they first appeared, I will discuss the
pieces in chronological order.
In Points in Time (1974) the ratio
relationships that characterize the equal-tempered pitch
system (division of the octave into 12 equal semitones)
are applied to rhythm. These result in a series of attack
points that accelerate regularly (approximating the sound
pattern made by a freely bouncing Ping-Pong ball) or,
conversely, decelerate. The ear seems to be able to
follow several simultaneous series, and the computer
uniquely affords the opportunity to explore their
combinations and interactions. Series begin together but
unfold at different rates, converging at points of
arrival (attack points common to two or more series)
which in turn are members of longer-range rhythmic
accelerations (or decelerations) progressing to
higher-level points of arrival. The resulting directed
motion is loosely analogous to the resolution of harmonic
and melodic tendencies at cadence points in tonal music.
Pitches were chosen from a 12-tone set which has
considerable internal symmetry and transposed repetitions
of small interval collections. For example, the row form
that opens the piece, F F# C B ... A D# ... E G G# D C#
A#, has three segments in common with the retrograde
transposition that begins the final section — E G G#
D C# A# ...A D# ... F F# C B.
The instruments have such names as RCAMILT (an attempt to
imitate Milton Babbitt’s RCA Synthesizer sounds),
TVIBES (which sounds somewhat like a sustained
vibraphone), VOOBS and ALL (which use the oo and aw vowel
formants), PIANO, and GONG (which produces clusters of
tones, evenly or irregularly spaced). Formal sections are
defined by
changing instrumental combinations.
The title was taken from the lexicon of the United States
Senate Watergate hearings, which were in progress during
the time the piece was composed. The tape was originally
realized at the Princeton University Computer Center, but
was resynthesized in 1996 on my home computer.
Joint Resolution (1976) for piano and
tape uses a pitch system in which the 48 twelve-tone row
forms derived by
transposition, inversion, and retrogression of an initial
ordering are subjected to an operation I call
multiplication by 3, mod 11. The numbers 0 through 11
which normally represent positions in the chromatic scale
from C to B are interpreted instead as orderings of three
consecutive diminished-seventh chord cycles — 0, 3,
6, 9, 1, 4, 7, 10, 2, 5, 8, 11 (C, Eb, F#, A, C#, E, G,
Bb, D, F, Ab, B). For example, each D in the original row
forms is now an F#. The resulting row forms have segments
that are transpositions of one another, but no two forms
have the same overall succession of intervals. This is a
violation of the basic premise of twelve-tone music.
On the other hand, all the secondary interrelationships
between set forms pertain: each row form has an exact
inversion (sum 11), and every form uses each of the 12
pitches once. If normal twelve-tone rows are siblings,
these would be cousins.
The use of the number three as the multiplier brought on
an Eroica complex—everything would be controlled by
threes. The piece begins with twenty-three consecutive
three-note chords, and there are many more later on. The
construction of the underlying set with many intervals of
3 leads to three distinct harmonic regions that are the
M3 mod 11 transforms of the three diminished seventh
cycles: C-F-G-A, Eb-Ab-Bb-Db, and B-D-E-F#. The long
middle section of the piece beginning with plucked,
inside-the-piano notes uses sets of three row forms that
produce in different orderings the same twelve three-note
collections. This material continues for three minutes
until a return of the opening music rounds out an overall
three-part form.
The rhythmic coding for the computer score uses the same
ratio scheme as Points in Time, but the intent here is to
capture gestures composed at the piano rather than
explore abstract patterns of acceleration. The title
again has a political element (a congressional
resolution), but also refers to the dual performance by
computer and live performer, and to a certain illegal
substance which was popular during the era.
The three Cold Fusion pieces were completed in 1994,
1995, and 1996 respectively. They share pitch material
(again, M3 mod 11) and many of the same instruments, but
are intended to be heard separately rather than as three
movements of one piece. When I began working on Cold
Fusion III, I played the same score with two
sets of
instruments. The first performance was calm and serene;
but the second, featuring blaring brass sounds and
pulsating clusters that sound like throbbing engines and
ringing telephones, was terrifying. These became the
first and third sections of the piece. Other early
sections project anxiety and exhilaration before the
music settles into more abstract realms. The piece
consists of two large sections that begin and end with
the same materials, but take radically different paths
between them.
Cold Fusion I begins as a relentless set
of variations, first with various bells, gongs, and tone
clusters, then later with more melodic instruments. The
variations are interrupted by slower passages that tend
to repeat a phrase three or four times at different
tempos. Each time, the minimalist urge to play the
phrases over and over is rudely
interrupted by the next set of variations. About two
thirds through the piece an extended passage ends the
variations for good, and the music closes with the return
of one of the earlier static sections. One row form that
is used in all the variations and in several of the
intervening sections, usually in the same melodic
contour, subliminally ties the piece together.
Cold Fusion II is in quasi-sonata form
with an exposition, a development ending with a
dominant-pedal—like passage, and a recapitulation.
Several passages use a sequential technique in which a
phrase is played three or four times, each rendition
typically 25 percent faster than the previous one, and
“transposed” to a different set of row forms.
As the row forms are not true transpositions of one
another, the sequences are not literal. In another
example, the second section of the recapitulation is a
transposition of material from the exposition; but the
section has a major-mode quality the first time and a
minor-mode mood the second.
The title alludes to the notion of a fusion between
classical and jazz music. The instruments can be
understood to be a stage in a search to develop a set of
jazz melodic, rhythmic, and percussion sounds, with each
failure to achieve this goal an opportunity to explore
the sounds currently on hand. In particular, many of the
noise-cluster instruments including the telephone rings
and the distant radio-signal beeps are happy failures to
create a cymbal sound probably available on most
synthesizers. The title also is an ironic acknowledgment
that computer music is said to be distant and cold, as
well as an amused response to the claim of Utah
scientists to have developed an unlimited source of
renewable energy.
Meteor Showers (1997) is the most
playful piece in this collection. A three-part exposition
consists of: 1) rapid contrapuntal passages of
alternating percussive and melodic sounds; 2) an extended
peaceful passage with sustained pitches; and 3) a closing
section in which one rhythmic line is actually
articulated as two-note chords, a rarity for me. A long
development section ensues full of ominous sounds. One
instrument sounds like a rattlesnake, another like the
invading space ships in the 1953 film War of the Worlds.
Later, wind-chime-like sounds reminiscent of the film
Body Heat dominate the texture. There is an overall
character of the outdoors at night, suggestive of insect
choirs and the wind blowing through trees. Notes start
arriving in splatters. When the recapitulation begins,
the performance has a drunken quality. Three sets of
instruments play the opening music out of synch with one
another. It takes them thirty seconds to get back in
phase, at which point low bell sounds enter and muddy the
texture. The following section with the sustained tones
is altered by the addition of rapid twittering passages.
But a final quiet coda presents new material and changes
the mood to that of sitting outside in a peaceful place
on a starry night, watching for shooting stars.
JOEL GRESSEL
(b. Cleveland, 1943) received a B.A. from Brandeis
University and a Ph.D. in music composition from
Princeton University. He studied composition with Martin
Boykan and Milton Babbitt, and computer music with
Godfrey Winham and J.K. Randall. He currently lives in
New York with his wife and two daughters, working as a
computer programmer, maintaining and extending software
that models tax-exempt housing-bond cash flows.
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