source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 08:09:58 -0700 Subject: From McLaren re notation From: John Chalmers From: mclaren Subject: Xenharmonic scores -- After hearing my music, most people ask: "Do you have scores?" The answer is always: "Yes--the scores are MIDI files." To which the inevitable reply is, "No, I mean do you have actual *scores*?" "Yes. Here are the MIDI files." "No, I mean SCORES. Real SCORES." "The MIDI files are the scores." "No, I mean *SCORES*..." And so on. Years and years ago, it became clear to me that [1] no one was going to perform my non-12 music, which didn't matter in the slightest because [2] it was *impossible* to perform my non-12 music even if anyone wanted to (care to gather together an orchestral ensemble capable of performing in the 21st root of 17? I'll wait while you hacksaw the clarinets and blowtorch the trombones... Oh, yes, we'll need a tempo track for every member of the orchestra too...) [3] Using a computer to store MIDI sequences allows compositional techniques essentially impossible to notate meaningfully in traditional western ways. Example: You've got a 46 tone equal tempered scale with a canon in which the follower uses notes 60% f the leader and in which the second voice uses notes 70% of the leader. This is not just measure-by- measure, mind you, but in fact tempos of 100% against 60% against 70%. This is 56 tone #1 from side 2, McLaren - Microtonal Music Vol. 2. There is no way to write this piece down using conventional western notation without so distorting the notation by tying notes across barlines and using bizarre accidentals that the structure of the piece would be completely and utterly obscured. Thus, the notation for my compositions is: the original MIDI files. This is a radical stance. It makes possible many compositional processes impossibly difficult in traditional performance situations--multiple simultaneous tempo streams which change from one tempo to another...multiple time signatures with enormous simultaneous accelerando or decelerando...a precise control over xenharmonic pitch unavilable with traditional human performers. This control comes at a price. The resulting score exists only as digital information on a computer disk: in almost all cases, the score cannot be usefully transcribed into standard notation. This is viewed as a severe disadvantage by a number of people who don't seem to realize that notation imposes hidden constraints on the composer. When you agree to work in standard notation, you automatically agree to a huge number of contraints on your composition--you agree that there are a lot of things you simply won't do. Having no interest in making any such agreement, it seems obvious to me that multiple simultaneous time signatures, tempo streams, accelerandi/ decelerandi, multiple simultaneous tunings and hocketing impossible in a real-world performance are the absolute minimum any imaginative composer would settle for. Thus, my radical stance remains unchanged--the score is the MIDI file. There is no "real" score other than the MIDI file. The digital information itself *IS* the score for the xenharmonic composition. With the advent of computers, traditional music notation is obsolete. That's life. Get over it. --mclaren Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 4 Sep 1996 18:53 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA19497; Wed, 4 Sep 1996 18:54:33 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA19505 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id JAA04788; Wed, 4 Sep 1996 09:54:31 -0700 Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 09:54:31 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu