# Untitled Piece



## oogabooha

Hello, this is a piece that I wrote recently for solo performer. Recently I've been less interested in the notion of traditional instruments and instead using the body as the music-making center of the piece (not to be confused with vocal music, as this is using every other aspect of the body as well, along with found objects).

Attached is a score and a recording to a piece that I haven't titled yet. It is a complete piece, but the title just hasn't been decided yet. I'd be interested in hearing your feedback, whether positive or negative.

Before you comment, I want to clarify that this is still music, and not performance art. Just because it does not use traditional notation, that does _not_ mean it is amusical. A lot of my recent pieces revolve around the body's impulses surrounding interpreting visual art, and I genuinely feel that this type of notation is more effective than a more traditional notation.

What you are listening to is a recording of a performance I gave last week, along with 5 other pieces. It is the raw audio, meaning that I haven't added any sort of post-production yet.

thanks

View attachment Untitled Piece.mp3


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## Aramis

> Just because it does not use traditional notation, that does not mean it is amusical.


It is amusical not because it doesn't use traditional notation but because you can't sing and some of the sounds you make are obviously produced on "whatever will come from my untrained vocal chords" approach. Even sprechgesang in modern music is done with some skill, you have none and you're just moaning like slaughtered cat. Have some mercy on your listeners and if you have to use words, satisfy yourself with recitation.


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## BurningDesire

Its not amusical at all because that isn't a real word.

Also, its art made of sounds. Therefore its music. Don't even need to listen to know that Aram.

Anywho, I think its pretty interesting Ooga, though its really a really vague score, one could argue the performer deserves a co-composition credit since they will bring so much to how it sounds, purely out of the necessity of the piece. 

Still, I've been interested in creating some music like this, with graphic notations, and other things. ^^ I think its cool


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## hreichgott

I would go further than BD and say this isn't really a musical composition. It's a drawing and poem with instructions for the performer to compose or improvise a piece of music based on the drawing and poem.


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## PetrB

To me it borders on Cabaret genre, i.e. a lot of words or vocal / theatrical vocal sounds at the fore, whatever music there might be far in the more than incidental and forgettable background.

This is such a generic turn off for me that I may have lasted three seconds. Sorry, clearly, I am not anyone's audience for anything with more verbiage than it has other organized sounds.

I'm afraid I took the other piece, which is very club / lounge piano with a lot of words, similarly. I'm just not interested in what all those words are about, especially with the musical wallpaper as backdrop which prolongs the running-time agony of something anyone could quietly read on their own in a just few seconds.


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## oogabooha

hreichgott said:


> I would go further than BD and say this isn't really a musical composition. It's a drawing and poem with instructions for the performer to compose or improvise a piece of music based on the drawing and poem.


I appreciate your input, Heather. However, I would say this is a musical composition, seeing as the instrumentation is made up of found objects and percussive sounds made with the body (ranging from slapping to stabbing). The voice is only a part of the body--the purpose of using this instrumentation is to reject the notion that music has to be created in relation to monetary value (such as paying for instruments, education, etc.). This is music for the concert hall, warehouse, and home, and it can be performed by anyone. I would argue that the interesting music results in the "counterpoint" between the sounds, such as when I slap myself at the end, fall down, and hit a guitar amplifier. This is complimented by the instrumentation being made of found objects that are unique to me: a carton of cigarettes, an empty glass bottle, coat hangers, forks, the list goes on...

If people would notice the sounds around them, they would see the music surrounding the human condition for what it is.

(all of these sounds are also incredibly pleasing to my ears, if i didn't truly enjoy it I wouldn't have written it)

The drawing is simply a way to notate sounds--would you say that some of Brown's _Folio_ (December 1952, for example) isn't music then, because it only uses a graphic as its notation? The whole notion that music requires traditional notation is something that most people assume to be implied, but it doesn't have to be taken so literally. What if music weren't something that had to be rehearsed in the same way each time, but was felt in many different ways in an aleatoric manner? The fact that I say this is musical notation makes it notation, as opposed to just a drawing.


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## PetrB

hreichgott said:


> I would go further than BD and say this isn't really a musical composition. It's a drawing and poem with instructions for the performer to compose or improvise a piece of music based on the drawing and poem.


Right! Graphic notation as a very general and associative map for the performer -- which often means the piece is near completely only as good as the performer, who brings almost everything actually sounding to the performance.

I do object to the comment it is amusical, or not a piece... clearly, in whatever performer's hands, it is of the nature and in the medium of sound, and there is a score of sorts.

As Oogaboha points out, this sort of scoring and the pieces it generates have been around since the mid 20th century at least, with the rather infamous _Ursonate_ (1922 - 1932) by Kurt Schwitters being an earlier antecedent.
http://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2013/02/kurt-schwitters-ursonate-1922-1932.html

And to whomever said there is no real word "amusical," ...

"English
Etymology

a- +‎ musical
Adjective

amusical (comparative more amusical, superlative most amusical)

Not musical
(neuroscience) Exhibiting amusia"


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## Pennypacker

BurningDesire said:


> Also, its art made of sounds. Therefore its music. Don't even need to listen to know that Aram.


Sure, every sound is music, everything is beautiful, every opinion should be heard and every child is special. But these are just words, and I don't think Aramis's point is a linguistic one. So, what makes this recording more interesting than the sound of me typing this comment, with a thrilling suspense of taking a sip of water? I find some of the sounds produced in the bathroom quite musical (some can even be notated!), but I've never considered recording it.

I will say that it's more creative than a Coldplay song. Not sure what I'd rather listen to in a bar.


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## BurningDesire

Pennypacker said:


> Sure, every sound is music, everything is beautiful, every opinion should be heard and every child is special. But these are just words, and I don't think Aramis's point is a linguistic one. So, what makes this recording more interesting than the sound of me typing this comment, with a thrilling suspense of taking a sip of water? I find some of the sounds produced in the bathroom quite musical (some can even be notated!), but I've never considered recording it.
> 
> I will say that it's more creative than a Coldplay song. Not sure what I'd rather listen to in a bar.


I never said "Its sounds therefore its music." I said "It is art where the medium is sound, therefore its music". And I never made a qualitative judgement about the music. Saying something is music isn't the same as saying its good music or bad music. I don't understand why thats so hard for some people.


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## hreichgott

I am familiar with graphic notation. I haven't played from it much. The scores I've seen tend to have elements that relate strongly to music in some way, such as lines that change in height and intensity, and they don't look much like other things besides music.

I didn't say the performance wasn't music, but I do think it's in the same category as someone pulling a book of poetry off the shelf and saying, "here, make some music based on this poem." Neither the poet nor the book-puller could be called the composer of whatever music resulted.

Edit: That Ursonate piece is the sort of thing that looks random at first - one might glance and conclude "well that means anything can be music notation" - but it has a very musical structure that becomes apparent once past the first 20 lines or so. Any performer performing it would communicate that structure, no matter what they did.


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## oogabooha

hreichgott said:


> I am familiar with graphic notation. I haven't played from it much. The scores I've seen tend to have elements that relate strongly to music in some way, such as lines that change in height and intensity, and they don't look much like other things besides music.


what is the difference between my piece and these pieces of music?
















how are these pieces notated more musically than mine (both are made by known composers, Cathy Berberian and Earle Brown, respectfully)? That the latter looks more like musical notation because it uses lines and cluster-like images? But they're placed completely abstractly. Would you consider this music? Berberian's music looks like a cartoon more than traditional music, and my piece certainly uses lines--very jagged, inconsistent lines in a similar way that Brown does. I implore you to think about that. I'm making the argument that there's more to music than just the lines and notes. If the music that I've drawn is something that could be obtained by learning pitches and rhythms, why not skip the learning part and just go straight to the music? Of course, if you don't think those pieces I posted are music either, then that's fine.

i should clarify that this is not an argument. I genuinely enjoy having this conversation because it's incredibly stimulating and i think it's also incredibly relevant


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## juergen

I have a basic principle to which I adhere strictly: Whenever I listen to a new piece, I'll never stop it under a minute. I always give it a chance of at least one minute. But this time it was really hard. In the first minute I did not hear any music. Not even with the most generous understanding of what music is. But I can't say anything about the rest.


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## hreichgott

No worries, I am enjoying the conversation and find it valuable as well. I confess to being maybe slightly cranky about this particular piece for three reasons that might be somewhat unrelated to the particular piece -- but I think they're valid reasons
1.) I happen to know that you are quite talented at musical composition, you know, the old-fashioned kind where you have specific musical ideas with pitch, rhythm, intellectual and emotional content, and then put them in a form that other people can understand and perform. 
2.) The set of questions about "what is music/musical notation and where are the boundaries between music and non-music" is as far as I know a historical set of questions belonging to the avant-garde of the 1950s-1970s. Even when I was at school in the late 90s it was taught more as "this is your history and you should know it," not as "here's a set of important questions for music-making today." I hasten to emphasize the "as far as I know" in that statement, however.
3.) As a musician I really appreciate a thought-through, well-structured, musically developed composition, whether written down or played by ear, whether there are improvisatory elements or not. I like to be given a very interesting text so that my work can begin with interpretation of the text. I don't view specific composition as "being told what to do" in an authoritarian way -- I see it as a finely crafted piece of artwork that is a gift to musicians and listeners everywhere.

On to your specific examples. Both those pieces are within that purview of historical avant-garde questions about the boundaries of what is and isn't music. I find them more important as experiments than as enduring pieces of art. That said, when I look at both of those scores I immediately see pitch, rhythm, line, dynamic variation. I have some idea of where to start in progressing across the page -- the passage of time is apparent by looking. In the Brown piece there are some choices to make about how to progress, but you can tell what the options are (repetition is a clue). Your drawing, to me, is more like a poster. There's a central visual focus and then the poem off to the side. Because of the layout it's also rather effective as a poster in a way that the Berberian and Brown scores aren't.... they are not successful as a visual experience with a single main focus, because they are instead guides to a musical experience.

Some examples that I hope explain my reaction further. Your drawing contains a pair of scales. In order to interpret those musically I have to go through all the conceptual elements of scales, balance, justice, etc. I could make a joke and play some scales, or I could be frighteningly serious and play a lengthy set of repeated chords in the extremes of the piano for a long period of time to try to represent an inexorable sort of blind justice. My task here is essentially composing program music: starting from an extra-musical idea, working through the concepts, then trying to create musical ideas that relate well to the concepts, all the while with an ear out for how this moment in the piece balances against all the other moments in the piece. It would be an interesting compositional exercise, but the person doing the composing is the performer.

The Berberian score also contains images. But the composer has already done the work of going through the images to create musical ideas. The Tarzan figure at the top has to have a bold, energetic, rapid, probably loud quality. The zigzags underneath him would support that. Also it really needs to be first, as the opening to the piece, followed by two very different simultaneous themes in a very different register. At this point we're already having a conversation with classical pieces that start with a big bold swinging opening and then make a sudden change to new ideas coming in in a different register.

All this is certainly just my reaction as a musician, an informed musician, but not someone who has done detailed research into the avant-garde. However, I don't think your intent is to write only for those who have done detailed research.


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## oogabooha

hreichgott said:


> No worries, I am enjoying the conversation and find it valuable as well. I confess to being maybe slightly cranky about this particular piece for three reasons that might be somewhat unrelated to the particular piece -- but I think they're valid reasons
> 1.) I happen to know that you are quite talented at musical composition, you know, the old-fashioned kind where you have specific musical ideas with pitch, rhythm, intellectual and emotional content, and then put them in a form that other people can understand and perform.
> 2.) The set of questions about "what is music/musical notation and where are the boundaries between music and non-music" is as far as I know a historical set of questions belonging to the avant-garde of the 1950s-1970s. Even when I was at school in the late 90s it was taught more as "this is your history and you should know it," not as "here's a set of important questions for music-making today." I hasten to emphasize the "as far as I know" in that statement, however.
> 3.) As a musician I really appreciate a thought-through, well-structured, musically developed composition, whether written down or played by ear, whether there are improvisatory elements or not. I like to be given a very interesting text so that my work can begin with interpretation of the text. I don't view specific composition as "being told what to do" in an authoritarian way -- I see it as a finely crafted piece of artwork that is a gift to musicians and listeners everywhere.
> 
> On to your specific examples. Both those pieces are within that purview of historical avant-garde questions about the boundaries of what is and isn't music. I find them more important as experiments than as enduring pieces of art. That said, when I look at both of those scores I immediately see pitch, rhythm, line, dynamic variation. I have some idea of where to start in progressing across the page -- the passage of time is apparent by looking. In the Brown piece there are some choices to make about how to progress, but you can tell what the options are (repetition is a clue). Your drawing, to me, is more like a poster. There's a central visual focus and then the poem off to the side. Because of the layout it's also rather effective as a poster in a way that the Berberian and Brown scores aren't.... they are not successful as a visual experience with a single main focus, because they are instead guides to a musical experience.
> 
> Some examples that I hope explain my reaction further. Your drawing contains a pair of scales. In order to interpret those musically I have to go through all the conceptual elements of scales, balance, justice, etc. I could make a joke and play some scales, or I could be frighteningly serious and play a lengthy set of repeated chords in the extremes of the piano for a long period of time to try to represent an inexorable sort of blind justice. My task here is essentially composing program music: starting from an extra-musical idea, working through the concepts, then trying to create musical ideas that relate well to the concepts, all the while with an ear out for how this moment in the piece balances against all the other moments in the piece. It would be an interesting compositional exercise, but the person doing the composing is the performer.
> 
> The Berberian score also contains images. But the composer has already done the work of going through the images to create musical ideas. The Tarzan figure at the top has to have a bold, energetic, rapid, probably loud quality. The zigzags underneath him would support that. Also it really needs to be first, as the opening to the piece, followed by two very different simultaneous themes in a very different register. At this point we're already having a conversation with classical pieces that start with a big bold swinging opening and then make a sudden change to new ideas coming in in a different register.
> 
> All this is certainly just my reaction as a musician, an informed musician, but not someone who has done detailed research into the avant-garde. However, I don't think your intent is to write only for those who have done detailed research.


First off, I appreciate your compliments and comments

I would consider this type of creation musical composition. I've become less interested in traditional forms of expression. Lately I've started to realize how much I don't care for making that sort of art, because I want to write music that helps people in a more direct way. If you think of music as not something that is constrained within defined frequencies and rhythms, then you start to realize how abundant music is. The truth is, I think that a lot of things like [what you would consider formal/traditional] composing are just things I am not interested in. I feel that if I'm going to write music, it should be able to reach anybody (and should be performable by anybody), and I find the notion of paying for instruments and education counterproductive in the creation of art (maybe not for the education of art, but the creation of it). That is why I'm hellbent on using the body as an instrument, because since developing this viewpoint I feel that my life has been more musical than it's ever been. I don't believe that you can achieve these things by being alienating, whether consciously or subconsciously, whether hiding behind electronics, playing a solo clarinet piece, or even shelling out cash to pay for guitars for your band. The things I've been noticing about the body have shown me that things don't have to be represented in black/white notation, and I've been thinking about how the music that lies behind the notes (that you usually get with practice and emotion) doesn't have to hide behind exercise. That is why the drawing is a musical composition and not an experiment.

Even then, I would say it's a pretty organized picture. You made a comment about the Brown piece having consistency with repetition, but there are actually no lines in "December 1952" that are the same--they all vary slightly. My performance is pretty organized actually, as I have clear intentions about what I want to sound and the presentation. I performed this piece for a composition professor and he told me that he thought I had organized my interpretation well. Another performer may interpret the piece differently (with different objects and different everything), but I wouldn't consider that co-composing, because I have already written the music there with the drawing and the words. Now, this also brings into the question about how the body reacts to music and art, and how much of that is the music speaking externally or how much of it is internally, and how much that acts on a subconscious level.

I wouldn't consider these questions, I would consider them my way of a solution. Yes, there has been a history of questions being posed like this and art being created (you're partially right about the era, but I'd say that it dates back to the early 20th century with Dada), but just because they were remembered as questions does not mean we should shrug them off. I think that a lot of anti-art was never really transferred to composition in a way that is relevant (even with Cage you'll find him arguing that nature can't be contained in approximations, but then his pieces can be pretty specific about how "nature" works).

These pieces are not meant to be for just avant-garde musicians, the whole point is that they're supposed to be incredibly accessible. There is no real intellect associated with them--instead you have feeling, and what currently makes so many performers hesitant towards it isn't that it's over their heads, but that it requires too much regression. This is music that is supposed to be performed anywhere (that's why I'm not only having a concert at the conservatory I study--The Eastman School of Music--but I'm also having performances in warehouses, DIY venues, and opening for punk bands). I think it's relevant music and not an experiment.


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## hreichgott

I see we are likely to talk past each other on the question of how much compositional work is done by the performer and how much the composer. 

On the topic of performances: It will be interesting to see how different audiences respond. I look forward to hearing about it. It's great that you are taking this outside the academic world as well as in.


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