source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 17:54:02 -0700 Subject: HP's Composition Techniques From: "Jonathan M. Szanto" Neil wondered recently... >Anyway, I think improvisation is a subject that has rarely been touched on >in this forum...so, it makes me wonder about Partch's compositional >style...how did he compose his works? ..and Adam wisely opined... >As far as tuning is concerned, Johnston recounted that he composed alone, >and not in his head--he would sit at the instruments and plunk around until >an idea came that was not only musically adequate, but idiomatic for the >instrument. [...] Also notable is that the kitharas and HCs, as time >progressed, were tuned less for ease of producing just-intervals and more >for expressionistic reasons. I have to say that I never spent any time with Harry while he actually was composing. I will try to get a more definite picture from Danlee, who certainly spent more time with him in this regard than anyone I can think of. My general knowledge of it coincides with Adam's basic thoughts. It is important to remember that for Harry, this was all one large multi-threaded, multi-tasking lifestyle. He created the instruments to flesh out his theories, which themselves were in the service of expressing thought and feeling through the medium of music and theater. The instruments *did* evolve, sometimes superseding the underlying rationality, but again in service of expression. So, knowing the instruments, Harry did most likely compose by working at them. I have said how Harry could play all his parts in at least *some* fashion, and that is recollecting a man at the end of his life. Take a look at him playing the parts to "Daphne of the Dunes" ("Windsong") in the 'Music Studio' film on Enclosures One. That puppy could play! And you also start to get a feeling of just how visceral a performer he could be (and we *should* be...). But I'm off track again. So Harry would develop new parts for new pieces. Unless he had decided to have a Bass Marimba 2 city blocks long, he couldn't use 2 octaves of all 43 tomes, so he had to settle for a few well chosen bass notes. The harmonic canons, however, were a blank page each time he started fresh. Remember, they are sounding boxes with 44 (I think) strings on them. To start, you have 44 individual bridges you can place anywhere under the string. This sets up 'scales' and 'melodies' and 'clusters' of microtones, depending on the bridge setup, that suggest many paths. But since the bridges can be placed *anywhere* between the two ends of the strings, it allows for the following interesting option. What a lot of people don't realize is that while a lot of Harry's 'melodies' sprang from the sequential plucking of the strings, one after another, he found great stuff on the OTHER side of the bridges too! It's hard to describe, but here goes. Let's say the individual bridges get closer to the, um, pegboard side. The pitch goes up the scale. But since the entire surface of the box is the sounding board, if you pluck the strings on the other side of the bridges you would get a descending series of notes. Fine adjust both the bridge location and string tension and you can get both sides to fall within your scale of choice! These are the kind of creative games he went through. I can tell you that having performed on all but a couple of the instruments, even when the licks were fiendishly difficult to execute, they *were* playable. All the better, because when you did master them it gave great satisfaction on stage. Everything he wrote *laid* well on the instruments, from the double-sticking for odd-rhythm groups (i.e.: RRLRL RRLRL RRLRLRL RRLRLRLRL RRLRL forms the 5-5-7-9-5 pattern for the 31/16 sections in "Daphne"). But I have gotten WAY off course. Harry had an underlying theoretical foundation upon which to build. He knew the instruments well enough that he could compose away from them, and did. He combined experimentation ('improvising', if you will) on the instruments (to suss out new melodies, harmonic motions and the like) with compositional 'imaging' in his head. I know that during composing "Dreamer" (his last work) he wasn't around the instruments all the time, so he did *some* stuff in his head. Certainly he would sing texts, intone phrases and dream up ways to accompany them. This has been a little laborious to answer -- sorry! If anyone might have a specific question I'll try to answer it, and I also will try to find out more from the Mitchell-man about this subject. Lastly, thanks to Adam for getting the ball rolling... Cheers, Jon *--------------------------------------------------* Jonathan M. Szanto | .....sound-magic..... Backbeats & Interrupts | ....visual beauty.... jszanto@adnc.com | ..experience-ritual.. *--------------------------------------------------* Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 13:04 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA14641; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 13:04:41 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA14666 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id EAA11069; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 04:04:37 -0700 Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 04:04:37 -0700 Message-Id: <960813105730_101610.3043_JHP78-1@CompuServe.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu