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 Nyman’s 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 >

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 – Cardew’s GreatLearning – Portsmouth Sinfonia • 3. Contextual processes – actions dependent on unpredictable outcomes • 3. Repetition processes – Riley’s in C • 4. Electronic processes -

4. Happenings • Cage’s 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 • Cage’s 4’33’’ 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 • Reich’s PendulumMusic – 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. • Cardew’s 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.