source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 07:46:04 -0800 Subject: Psot from McLaren From: John Chalmers From: mclaren Subject: improvisation, xenharmonic & otherwise -- In Topic 2 of digest 804, Neil Haverstick mentioned that "it's obvious that [Bach] could improvise on a very high level, then go back and jot down a close facsimile..." There is considerable evidence on this point. Forkel reports that Bach himself had nothing but contempt for composers who worked *only* this way; he called them "knights of the keyboard." The manuscripts of his uncompleted compositions (notably the final contrapunctus in The Art of Fugue) show that Bach often composed by writing contrapuntal strands one after the other, changing them as they intertwined, moving forward a few notes at a time. This is typical of the way people compose when they hear the music in their heads and write it down as it works itself out. On the other hand, there is cirumstantial evidence to indicate that some of Bach's best-known works were originally improvisations. The Little Fugue in G minor appears to have been composed shortly after Bach visited Buxtehude; during the visit, he improvised on a subject given him by Buxtehude. It seems likely that the Little Fugue was that improvisation, written down (this theory is Burney's but it sounds probable). The "Wedge Fugue" has much of the character of an improvisation to me and appears to date from the period when Bach was trying out new organs. Because Bach was considered a trivial composer but was widely respected as a virtuoso organist, he was much in demand as the "acid test" for a newly-built organ. If Bach said it passed muster, the organ-builder could be sure that the new instrument would stand up to anything a lesser organist could throw at it. A wedge-like theme on the pedals is exactly what I'd use to "try out the lungs" of a new organ, so the "wedge" fugue is almost certainly an improvisation Bach performed during one of his "tryouts" at this period. We also know from Forkel that Bach loved nothing better than to yank out all the stops and shake the church with a massive blast of block chords, and the F Major prelude sounds to these ears like the ultimate in bone-shaking mind-blowing block chord dissonance, so the F major prelude & fugue was probably also an improvisations he cranked out during a particularly challenging organ tryout. What does this have to do with xenharmonics? Well, as it happens Partch was also an inveterate improviser. I'm very surprised that no one seems to realize this. Improvisation was an integral element of Partch's small- ensemble composition process. (By small ensemble, I mean the compositions which did *NOT* demand staging and libretti; in short *NOT* the late large theater works.) We know for a fact (as has been reported on this forum) that Partch improvised the vocal lines in the Li Po songs and then wrote them down to give performers something to go by. We know for a fact (because Partch tells us so) that "And On the Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma..." was improvised using two tape recorders. First Partch performed an improv he had polished and recorded it on one tape recorder, then Partch listened and performed an accompanying improvised part along with the recorded part, the result being recorded on the second Ampex recorder. Afterwards he wrote out the score, making changes after the fact and re-recording them so that overlaid duets would work as quartets. Clearly Partch's score for "Petals" represents the usual backtracking and transcription of performance so beloved of 20th century composers. Stockhausen did this all the time; his scores are pure scams produced in retrospect, and Giacinto Scelsi hired a guy to write out transcriptions of his improvisations for him(!) Scelsi couldn't even read music, apparently. Partch used the same technique with more layers (re-re-recording) for "Daphne of the Dunes" and "WindSong." It surprises me that no one realizes how integral both magnetic tape and improvisation were to Partch's compositional process. In fact, this process is essentially identical to some of our work in the Southern California MIcrotonal Group. We often perform an improv, practice it and practice it and practice it until we've got it cold, then record it and overlay it digitally with another performance produced by listening to the recording & performing with it over and over and over again. (Some of our pieces are process compositions, but some use the method described above.) The main difference is that we don't bother to write out scores of our performances, because how the devil do you notate bowing tines welded to a huge triangle of space alloy that sits atop a balloon? How do you notate bowing the tine close to the weld, as opposed to far from the weld? And what good would it do, since who else has a triangle of space alloy sitting atop a balloon to play the score on, eh, boychik? Neil Haverstick mentions jazz and the blues; he makes a typically brilliant point when he says that blues demand immense intonational sophistication. Just listen to Billie Holiday singing "Lady Sings the Blues" in the 6 June 1956 recording. When she hits the note for "bad" in "Lady sings the blues/ she's so sad/ she's got them bad" even a zipperhead can hear that this pitch is a just chromatic semitone above the pitch for "sad" which is in turn a diatonic semitone above the pitch for "blues," and that this is *intentional.* This is no accident. Lady Day wants us to *hear* the difference between those tow semitones, she wants it to reach out and grab us by the throats. Anyone who thinks this does not require intonational sophistication may want to see an audiologist. The improvisation that takes place on the earlier 1937 recordings of Lady Day's standard songs is of a piece with the way Partch composed, it's exactly in line with Bach's improvsations. These blues musicians are not doing anything exotic, it goes wayyyyyyyy back to Bach and Buxtehude. So, yes, Partch was an old blues player comping with a tape of himself playing xenharmonic improvs. Is that any surprise? Is that any break in the great chain of master improvisers who became master composer? So much for the "sacred unalterable scores" of Partch's music! Incidentally, various folks have mentioned some kind of dark vibe they get from Partch's music. Huh???? Say *what*???? Partch's early music is luminous and radiant-- "Two Studies" shines like a gem, and "Petals" is so cheerful and buoyant it sets a smile on my face no matter how often I hear it. The only Partch composition with a "dark vibe" that comes to mind is the 1955 "Oedipus"... But you have to understand where that composition comes from. Oedipus is about a man who seeks the truth relentlessly and is destroyed by it, cast out to wander homeless and alone. Harry Partch sought truth in musical intonation relentlessly and for his crime he was cast out by the Carnegie Foundation in the midst of the Great Depression to wander homeless and alone. (As a public service, someone should disinter the remains of the members of the Carnegie Foundation who committed this crime against humanity, and defile their corpses in public.) Partch spent the next 8 years in CCC camps and convict camps--he was arrested many times for vagrancy (the high crime of being dirt poor). In fact, Partch wrote "Barstow" in 1941 in the Los Angeles Men's Convict Camp. This experience scarred him for life. Partch went within a period of 6 months from hobnobbing with William Butler Yeats and studying just intonation instruments at the British Museum to cleaning out sewers with his hands in a men's convict camp. No wonder "Oedipus" has a "dark vibe." The wonder is that "Oedipus" manages nonetheless to maintain a dark radiance despite the suffering to which Partch gives vent-- yes, he opens a vein in his wrist and bleeds into the score of that composition, but that blood waters a singularly magnificent tree. --mclaren Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 29 Nov 1996 17:50 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA12017; Fri, 29 Nov 1996 17:52:32 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA11972 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA12884; Fri, 29 Nov 1996 08:52:28 -0800 Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 08:52:28 -0800 Message-Id: <199611291152_MC1-C83-F68D@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu