It is perfectly natural for people at
any moment in time to view current events from their own perspectives. So,
it should be of no surprise that many view today’s art music as being the
most right or appropriate of any in history. That is, the music of today is
seen as being of a preferred stature. This view includes the supposition
that the diversity of today’s styles is a given. The many trends seem
naturally separate. However, such is really not the case. In fact, two
seemingly opposed cultures within the field of experimental art music have
been brought into interrelationship in an unusual and unexpected way. But
this effect has gone largely unnoticed, until now. A brief survey of certain
recent trends will bring this surprising conclusion to light.
The first trend involves John Cage’s
revolution and its consequent outcomes. The second revolves around the
radical theories of Iannis Xenakis. Gerard Pape (b. 1955), a courageous
young composer whose work straddles both extremes, brought the fusing
influence.
To begin, let’s examine some history
involving the unfolding of John Cage’s experiments of the 1940s. These
experiments attracted a number of adherents whose efforts were long
overshadowed by Cage’s. The work of Earle Brown, Morton Feldman and
Christian Wolff emerged from Cage’s shadow only in the late 1950s. These
composers’ works are slowly gaining recognition and support. Later, the
pianist/composer companion of Cage, David Tudor, added his most radical
flourish to these trends.
A related, yet even more radical
branch, emerged in the early 1960s. This group seemed so close to the very
edge of music, it became marginalized, and attention has only recently (in
the 1980s and 1990s) been accorded to the group’s work. The work of the
ONCE composers; the related group, the Sonic Arts Union; and the final
group, The Twice Festival, have proven to be ultimately related to the
research work of the great iconoclast, Iannis Xenakis. This unforeseen turn
of events will be understood best by examining a brief history of
experimental music. For that, let’s begin with Cage’s concept of
experimental music. In his articles, "Experimental Music" and
"Experimental: Doctrine" (reprinted in his seminal book Silence,
Wesleyan University Press. Middletown, Connecticut, 1961), Cage considers an
experiment to be an act "the outcome of which is unknown." For
him, "experimental music" arrived on the scene in his work in the
1940s. Cage’s work involved sounds not yet known, unfolding during the act
of composition. Until then, composers performed their experiments on sounds
(obtaining new and interesting sounds) prior to composing new pieces.
The resultant works were composed within boundaries, if, albeit newly
defined and established. Cage’s work thereafter established his practice
of unfolding a soundscape from inside unknown territory – experiment in
process.
This approach was the genesis of the
radical sound discipline employed by the ONCE group of composers. The
representatives of this group included Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley, Roger
Reynolds, George Cacioppo, Donald Scavarda and Robert Sheff (a.k.a.
"Blue" Gene Tyranny). Gordon Mumma also happened to be one of
three composers-in-residence for the Merce Cunningham ballet and dance
company (the other two being John Cage and David Tudor). All these
personalities figured prominently in a revolution that left an indelible
mark on music history. What Cage had initiated in instrumental and vocal
sound, these pioneers brought to fruition in the field of ‘live’
electronic music. (‘Live’ electronics are distinguished from the
standard stuff – concrète and ‘pure’ -- by their interactive nature
of responding to the performance environment in real time.) A characteristic
of this group was the design of electronic instruments and apparatus that
created sonic environments creating sound in unpredictable flux. Not only
were individual sounds elicited, those sounds themselves begat new ones
by changing the environmental sound-space in unforeseen ways!
These composers performed mainly in
and around Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the campus of the University of
Michigan. That campus was then a hotbed of student activism, so the
experimental act had become a way of living, and this music was emerging
from a natural setting.
The ONCE festival involved the
performance of multi-media works by composers from throughout the nation. It
was a collaborative festival associated in unique ways with the Space
Theater activities of Milton Cohen. Architects, dancers, filmmakers and
musicians were involved in a loosely related set of activities, somewhat
akin to those "happenings" fostered by Cage at Black Mountain
College in the early 1950s. During the 1964 ONCE festival, the composers,
Alvin Lucier and David Behrman, began their collaboration with Mumma and
Ashley that led to the formation of the Sonic Arts Union. This group
extended the development of live electronics instruments and devices. An
in-depth history of this musical activity can be found in the article
"Live Electronic Music", Gordon Mumma, printed in The
Development and Practice of Electronic Music (Appleton and Perera,
Editors. Prentice Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1975.pp.
287-335).
By examining briefly the sort of
output generated by some of this equipment we may discover the startling
relationship between the work of the above heroes, the work of Xenakis, and
the work of Gerard Pape; then the binding thread provided by Pape’s theory
of chaos in musical composition becomes clear.
Live electronics instruments are
designed so as to emit sounds that interact with one another and with the
sound space as it changes to accommodate previous sounds. It is obvious that
most of these sounds are not predictable by the composer. In fact, many
pieces created in these environments are not notated at all. Equipment and
electronics schematics become the ‘score’. But it is not just resulting
sound that emerges that is of interest here. Some sounds create interference
patterns that can be understood as chaotic. By this is meant chaos in
the scientific context, not the pejorative sense of the term some lay people
might apply to characterize an event without meaning for them. For an
interesting scientific survey of chaos the reader’s attention may be
directed to Chaos: Making A New Science by James Gleick(Viking, New
York, New York, 1987).
To elaborate on this concept, and upon
how it relates to music making, take as example Gerard Pape’s work. He is
composer-in-residence and director of studio Les Ateliers UPIC,
(recently renamed CCMIX). He considers a sound event chaotic when confusion
is created by conflicting perceptions of order at one level, and disorder at
another. This is a description of chaotic events in a formalistic context.
On a pure sonic level, by contrast, Pape describes certain unbidden sounds
as erupting from the collisions of two other proximate sounds. A good
example of this can be found his String Quartet Nr. Two ‘Vortex’
(1988). Another example is the emergence of non-periodic wave-patterns from
special excitements of strings (e.g., the effect produced when a violin
string is bowed with a tremendous excess of pressure). Pape explores these
effects, as well, in his works for string quartet.
There exists more here than an
accidental family resemblance either to Xenakis’ work or to that of the
ONCE group of composers. Pape’s encounter with chaos is no accident. He
studied under one of the most musical and original members of the famous
ONCE group of composers, George Cacioppo (1927-1984). Cacioppo’s major
works are Time On Time In Miracles, Two World, Dream
Concert and Cassiopeia. These are miracles in
experimental impressionism. Delicacy within unpredictability beckons to
forbidden corners of our souls. (For that matter, the works of the other ‘unsung’
hero of this band of mavericks, Donald Scavarda, scream for attention –
notably Landscape Journey and Matrix for Clarinetist.)
Pape’s work with Cacioppo was crucial to Pape’s germination as an
explorer of the less familiar regions of the mind.
It happens that Pape was trained in
psychology, and is a practicing Lacanian psychologist. He has, therefore, an
intimate understanding of the mind and of perception, especially as it
relates to music. His sound journey led him to work with George Balch Wilson
and the electronic music studio at the University of Michigan, and with
William Albright, past composer-in-residence at U of M.
Having established a firm footing in
the workings of sound, and having obtained a thorough spiritual kinship with
the ONCE group, Pape set up his own musical studio at his residence, then
(1984) in Ann Arbor Michigan. This budding operation was dubbed Sine Wave
Studios. Under its auspices Pape composed several early, formative
compositions. He considers some of the best of his early works to be Three
Faces of Death, Catachresis and Exorcism.
These works generate a special power and presence, but none of them reveal
the pronounced bent towards sound-based construction that is redolent in his
later work. Indeed, they are somewhat derivative, revealing the influences
of Varèse and early Xenakis. The work at Sine Wave Studios soon transformed
into the Ann Arbor based TWICE Festival concert series that featured works
of one or two major guest composers and several locals each year. The
fruition years were 1988-91. Guests included Xenakis, Crumb, Ashley and
Ligeti. Local composers Gerald Brennan and Curt Carpenter provided
additional major input. But Pape’s work was the driving force. By the
early 1990s, Pape had acquired a UPIC graphic composition module from its
inventor, the great Greek iconoclastic composer, Iannis Xenakis. Pape also
had developed a close working relationship with Xenakis.
The UPIC console is a direct-input
graphics device that allows for one to escape the messy complexities of
musical notation in the scoring of complex electronic sounds. ("UPIC"
is an acronym for Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu – Polyagogique
comes from the Greek term for training – agogie.) CEMAMu was a team
of philosophers, musicians, engineers, etc. formed by Xenakis (CEMAMu is an
acronym for Centre d’Etudes de Mathematique et Automatique Musicales).
Pape’s studio was organized around this and other electronics equipment
shortly thereafter.
By the early 1990s, the directorship
at the studio Les Ateliers UPIC, founded by Xenakis, opened. Pape applied
for, and won, the appointment to this position. He moved to Paris, where he
has maintained a productive relationship with Xenakis.
Pape’s work in composition took on a
radical cast while in Paris. It is here that Pape was able to invite major
composers to compose seminal works for the UPIC console. One such composer
was the great theoretician and musicologist/aesthetician, Julio Estrada.
Estrada’s work on the Continuum proved a formative stimulus for
Pape in his own work. Through intensely concentrated work in the 90s Pape
has evolved a personal working theory of chaos in musical composition. For
this work he has marshaled a formidable array of technical equipment at the
studio, thus giving a ONCE-flavored setting to a backdrop developed by
Xenakis, a one-time detractor of (then-deficient) electronic music! (One
should note that Xenakis’ objections concerned the inadequacy of sine wave
generators to create interesting raw sounds. Xenakis supports noise-rich
sound spectra that can be marshaled with much more recently designed
equipment.)
Pape’s major work in this field is a
work-in-progress, Weaveworld, an opera based on a novel
bearing the same title by Clive Barker. The opera is not yet finished, but
the battle scene is completed. It amply reveals Pape’s concept of chaotic
sound organization on different levels of order. Pape is experimenting with
new sound excitation methods as examples of his concept of working with
sound-based composition.
We have left unsaid what the concept
of sound-based composition is. It is this concept, I believe, that binds the
threads of seemingly disparate and divergent trends. "Sound-based"
merely means that the driving force of composition is the nature of sound
and the way we perceive it. An understanding of psychoacoustics is
invaluable for the deepest understandings of what is required for this
disciple. Algorithms, while important, became only tools to serve ultimate
needs: notations of sounds to obtain a rich sonic environment. Courses and
seminars in psychoacoustics, sound theory and perception are held annually
at CCMIX (formerly, Les Ateliers UPIC). Disciplined composers are armed to
meet the challenge of creating a music married to research focused upon
opening the mind to fruitful new possibilities!
This was exactly the unstated goal of
the ONCE group. It has been the very aim of Xenakis himself, as well. I
believe further work is possible through these avenues. We need to return to
the roots -- Xenakis’ early work in order and disorder, and the live
electronics environments of the now neglected ONCE composers -- to
understand this unforeseen confluence of sound theories. Through these
special understandings may we appreciate the crucial work being done in
studios like CCMIX.
My forthcoming book, The Future of
Modern Music to be published by Iconic Press,
examines and explores the history of sound-based composition from the
nationalist music of early 20th century through the 1990s and Xenakis’,
Estrada’s, and Pape’s work in this promising new field.