# Contemporary/Modern Classical Music Composition Techniques Space



## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

Another attempt at a thread about contemporary classical music.

*This thread is not one of those threads about whether or not contemporary classical music is better/inferior than prior works, as I'm not interested in discussions about that topic. Rather I created this thread in hopes to generate discussions about composition techniques in contemporary classical music and to gain insight from more knowledge members.*

Please remain on topic and don't hijack this thread. Critique and debates over the techniques are permitted but please be respectful. Thank you.
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After listening to contemporary works such as George Crumb's Black Angels, John Cage's Prepared Piano works, William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, I became intrigued with the techniques that the composer used in their work. After researching, I found the techniques that seem most interesting to me, so the following *are not an exhaustive list of distinctive composition techniques in contemporary classical music*.

To avoid the trouble of unclear terminology, I tried to find definitions that can act as a launchpad for constructive discussion: 

*Contemporary classical music*: may be employed to refer to all post-1945 musical forms (Source)
*Music composition techniques*: the act of conceiving a piece of music, the art of creating music, or the finished product (Source)
*Extended technique*: Performance techniques used in music to describe unconventional or unorthodox techniques of singing or of playing musical instruments (Source)
*Musique concrète*: experimental technique of musical composition using recorded sounds as raw material (Source)
*Minimalism*: a general reduction of materials with an emphasis on repetition and stasis as well as gradual change (Source)
*Aleatoric*: chance or indeterminate elements are left for the performer to realize (Source)
*Ambient Music*: emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm (Source)

Here is an example of Extended technique: 




Here is an example of a Musique concrète in classical music:




Here is an example of Minimalism:




Here is an example of Aleatoric:




Here is an example of ambient CM:





*Be free to add or discus music composition techniques* that is *found in contemporary classical music that I didn't list above*. All I ask, is that you *provide a source that define the term* and *an example of it*.

*Brief discussion on the composition techniques I list out:*

*For extended techniques*, in an article, the writer examines how earlier works, composers experimented with pitch and non-instrumental sound in their works. In addition, "traditional instruments were being played in unusual ways to embrace the world of noise". In the premodern period, composers such as Stravinsky in The Rite of Spring, expanded the range of instrument sound. In the contemporary era, composters continued this experiment, for example John Cage's prepared piano via amplifying the piano through adding small objects that when the piano key is hit, it produced a unique sound. Another example, is "Extended Bowing:, where composers experiment with bowing style or method of stringed instrument such as in Crumb's Black Angel. In Extended Blowing, the composer would disassembling winds and brass and play them independently to create different sounds. Composers also experiment with vocals through audible expressions such as "hissing, sucking, laughing, clucking, barking". These experimentation allows the instrument to be personalized resulting in "drawing out its unique qualities" while being extremely subjective to the performer ability and practice.

*For Musique concrète*, in an interview of Pierre Schaeffer, who was considered as a pioneer in that technique, perceive that "that traditional music has experienced a kind of exhaustion in the 20th century" which resulted in the rise of atonally composition and he saw that "technology itself seems to come to the rescue of art" by improvising new uses of machine in music. He also asserted that noises has "symmetry" with musical values where it have a connotative meaning behind it. Yet, he also argued that new music creation is impossible as there is no progress in morality and young musician fixation on "ludicrous technologies and systems and 'new' musical languages" hinders development.

*For Minimalism*, I read a Stanford blog, which asserted that the movement was "a reaction against the extraordinary complexity, density, and difficulty of the modernist music of composers like Pierre Boulez, Milton Babbitt, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Elliott Carter" and the minimalist composers tried to "rebuild classical music from its simplest foundations, to reduce its materials to the barest essentials and slow down the pace of change so that listeners could follow the musical process". The blog identified three composers which it claims to be important, which are Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams.

*For Aleatoric*, I read on a university course website, that John Cage develop the technique in his Music of Changes, where he used the Chinese I Ching to make music that "is formless, without structure … to put some distance between the composer … and work … to write music which is not based on causal, deterministic relationships … to liberate the sounds and let them be themselves … to get away from the traditional role of the composer as an obnoxious person". This method was influenced by Zen Buddhism, which impermanence forms a tenant of the philosophy which states that beauty is found in imperfection and chance.

*For Ambient Music*, I read Brain Eno's Music for Airports (widely considered to popularize the ambient genre) Linear Notes to gain a better understanding. According to the note, Brain developed the technique as he was interested in ambience in music and wanted "to produce original pieces … for particular times and situations with a view to building up a small but versatile catalogue of environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres". He also distinct his term from others which he describes as "stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty (and thus all genuine interest) from the music", as ambient music "induce calm and a space to think … [and also] accomodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting".

*This thread's premise*: 
My purpose for creating this thread is to create a space for people to discuss, debate, or learn about the contemporary classical music's composition technique. I want to learn more about these techniques as I find them to be both fascinating in both the idea and skill attributes, so I read books, and research about them online. However, in my view, the best way to learn, is to hold a place where congenial and sometimes spirited conversations can be have. Through this, the fountain of knowledge can trickled down from more experienced members to members like me who just got started. My hope is that other members can expanded my and maybe other's horizon on classical music and make classical music even more appreciated.

To be clear, I don't enjoyed all modern work, or eschewed premodern work (I enjoy "Classical Music Period" composers such as Bach, Haydn, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.). *Just for this thread, I'm focusing on the Contemporary period*. I find contemporary classical music fascinating as I think of it as a melting pot, where there is a diversity of music for a listener to choose from. Thank you for reading my thread (and in advance for contributing to the discussion), and I'm looking forward to reading the discussion.

With that out of the way, Here some potential questions that can hopefully spark a discussion regarding musical composition techniques in contemporary classical music.

*Starting questions examples for your consideration*: 
1) How does these techniques affect the listener's experience and interpretation of the composer's works?
2) How does these techniques distinguish contemporary classical music from premodern works? 
3) How does contemporary classical music modify established composition techniques?
4) How did premodern works influenced contemporary composer's composition techniques?
5) How does the composer choice of subgenre (example: electronical instruments in CM) affects his composition techniques and the listener experience? 
6) What are some future composition techniques that we can expect? 
7) What is your reaction to listening to some of these techniques in a work? 
8) What is the impact of these techniques on classical music? 
9) How does the techniques impact other genres? 
10) What other composition techniques are inspired by these techniques?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: I'm just a beginner in classical music, so some of my terminologies, examples, or my wording may be off.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Where does Cornelius Cardew's _Great Learning_ fit into your scheme of things?


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Where does Cornelius Cardew's _Great Learning_ fit into your scheme of things?


Conrad says he's ''just a beginner in classical music'', so perhaps you might offer an answer. I'd be pleased to read it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

HenryPenfold said:


> Conrad says he's ''just a beginner in classical music'', so perhaps you might offer an answer. I'd be pleased to read it.


I think it would be a much better learning experience for him, and you, if you explored it and then said what you think. I've already done my whack by pointing out that this may be an interesting avenue to investigate.

Another one which may or may not fit into Conrad's scheme is Alvin Lucier's _Vespers_


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Here is a pretty hair-raising piece. The sounds from a solo clarinet generated sound like something made from electronics. I find it fascinating for the first 2 minutes. The music is geared towards bringing out those timbres, and sounds, not really for its harmonic and structural content, which is nothing really new.

I can only speak for myself, but this Saunders piece sticks out in my mind since it's the first work for the clarinet I've heard with extended techniques. If others jump on board doing the same stuff for the clarinet, I won't be interested. Even later on in the 19 minute work I've already lost interest, and wasn't able to get through without skipping parts. I would personally preferred it being compressed to say a 4 minute work.

That's the thing with free forms, there is less holding it together structurally. For me the trade off isn't really worth it, as in I listen to something like this once, and don't feel the need to listen again. Just getting through a 19 minute work becomes a chore, and is less enjoyable. Take the sequence with the outbursts from 8:24 to 8:50. It's kind of predictable over time, and I've heard similar gestures in electronics pieces many times (also reminds me of a part in Miles Davis' Bitches Brew except with trumpet), that I didn't need to hear it again in a different setting.

Something like George Crumb's Black Angels, though, has a lot more relistening value. It has more momentum and form.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Talking about music cannot hold a candle to listening to it.


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## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Where does Cornelius Cardew's _Great Learning_ fit into your scheme of things?





Mandryka said:


> I think it would be a much better learning experience for him, and you, if you explored it and then said what you think. I've already done my whack by pointing out that this may be an interesting avenue to investigate.
> 
> Another one which may or may not fit into Conrad's scheme is Alvin Lucier's _Vespers_


I'm not familiar with the works that you listed out so I went on YouTube and listened to it. I wouldn't have known these works without you pointing out to them. Note that I'm just a beginner in CM so my interpretation and insight in these works might not be up to the same caliber as yours, but neverless it could be a learning experience as you stated. Note, "my scheme of things" as you called it, is not meant as authoritative text, I just try to process what I have listened to using what I have learn and to delve deeper in the work using what I've read and applied it to the work I've listened. Perhaps a better term from my view is "scaffolding" as I'm trying to break the works into different categories so I can understand it better. For me, personally, my immediate reaction of whether I like it or not is more important than the preceding. Also, there are seemly some stuff that cannot be classified as music is mostly an interpretive work, whose experience will differ for every listener.





When I listened to Alvin Lucier's _Vespers_ it seems like that performer is trying to create an audio map of something as its pulses reminded me of echosound that a bat uses. There is pitch in the sense that the pulse intensity differs, rhythm as there are grouping of pulse's intensity . I notice that the pulse differ in sound, as the fast one sound like hitting something while the slow one sounds electric. If my interpretation of it as an audio map is correct then I would think of it as an ambient work as it emphasizes space. If not then extended techniques, as I haven't heard these sounds in a classical music work until now. So it seems that the composer is experimenting with techniques. I can say that this work is different from the work I usually listen to.





For Cornelius Cardew's Great Learning, the dissonance struck out to me. The choir, forgive my lack of a better word, seems to be "droning". I notice that the choir sound is everchanging that is it doesn't have a form, since each individual singer is different from the other. Yet, in some odd way, the individual singer seems to be linked with each other in a collective way. Also, the title might be a reference to Confucianism, as the Great Learning is a chapter in The Book of Rites, which is the tenet for the Confucianism philosophy. That's all. I cannot make up anything else. Feeling a bit bewildered, I read on a website, that "Each singer chooses a pitch to begin" and say it softly for 8 times before stoping. The singer would repeat the line until "hearing a new pitch of her choice". This result in the audience moving through space so that the "piece is a locomotive and auditory kaleidoscope". I'm sad to say this, but this work fall flat on me. I didn't really enjoy it or "get it" when listening to it. The author of the website stated that it's best performed live so the listener can interact with the performer. Perhaps in that setting, I have a better understanding of the work. Given that the performer have a degree of control I think this would be an Aleatoric work.

Hopefully, my exploration and interpretation of the two works is satisfactory to you. It was a interesting "learning experience". Please let me know what was your experience of the two works as I like HenryPenfold, would be interested in reading how you interpreted the two pieces. Also, how did the composer techniques affect your experience? Is there anything did I missed?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's some pages from the score of The Great Learning

https://markharrisstudio.com/cornelius-cardew-the-great-learning/

The images are of course impossible to read like, for example, a score by Ferneyhough or Boulez. It's up to the performers to use their imaginations to translate them into some form of sound. I've been to a performance of some of it in fact in London, with audience participation.

Cardew was a communist. He wanted to make music less exclusive and he believed that graphic scores would do that. People can make music using them without needing a formal music education or an expensive instrument.

Just this morning I've been listening to another piece by Cardew, called The Tiger's Mind. Here's the score of the section I was hearing



> Nightpiece. The tiger burns and sniffs the wind for news. He storms at the circle; if inside to get out, if outside to get in. Amy sleeps while the tiger hunts. She dreams of the wind, which then comes and wakes her. The tree trips Amy in the dark and in her fall she recognizes her mind. The mind, rocked by the wind tittering in the leaves of the tree, and strangled by the circle, goes on the nod. The circle is trying to teach its secrets to the tree. The tree laughs at the mind and at the tiger fighting it.


It was designed to be a sextet, each instrument taking a different part in the narrative. The one I was listening to, by John Tilbury, uses overdubbing. It's here on youtube


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## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

Phil loves classical said:


> Here is a pretty hair-raising piece. The sounds from a solo clarinet generated sound like something made from electronics. I find it fascinating for the first 2 minutes. The music is geared towards bringing out those timbres, and sounds, not really for its harmonic and structural content, which is nothing really new.
> 
> I can only speak for myself, but this Saunders piece sticks out in my mind since it's the first work for the clarinet I've heard with extended techniques. If others jump on board doing the same stuff for the clarinet, I won't be interested. Even later on in the 19 minute work I've already lost interest, and wasn't able to get through without skipping parts. I would personally preferred it being compressed to say a 4 minute work.
> 
> ...


After reading your post and listening to the work, the clarinet's extended techniques was very interesting to hear. The clarinet sound is fragile, yet aggressive. Yet, like you, I lose interest in it as it becomes predictable.

After listening to the work, I look for sources and I found this essays from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, which states that her work often "emotional states and temperaments such as anger or melancholy." If this hold true for her Cerulean's work than I interpreted that the occasional loud bust to mimic a rage outburst while the low hums reflect the persistent nature of simmering anger. In addition, the paper asserted that her works like Caerulean, "aimed to reveal and explore sounds specific to the performer and their playing, as well as to 'experience the raw physicality of sound production.'" This is interesting to note, as I felt some tension between the performer and the work. In her earlier works such as the Choler, she contrasted the "- the static, unmoving, reserved stagnancy pitted against the aggressive and the volatile". I can see something like this in the clarinet work as "quiet" periods are interrupted by short burst of the clarinet (3:56 to 5:35). This alternating is describing as an " unresolvable struggle". I think that what make the work repetitive as there is no resolution. She was also influenced by John Cage on the aspect of silence, where in our loud, urban environment, silence becomes an exception to us, a condition that allow us to "perceive sound as music or as art, for us to be able to sink into our acoustic sensations and enter a place different to that which we normally inhabit." On this aspect, I don't necessarily agree with her, but according to the essay, her interpretation make her work distinct. She later evolves this into a contradiction, where "there is a certain instability that emanates from silence - static, reduced, skeletal - while on the other hand, there are abrupt, explosive gestures that Saunders has associated with states of anger, with drive and aggression". I think that this contrast, is present in the clarinet work, as the hums of the clarinet and the clarinet bust of sounds create the contradiction that she describes.

I also look at the linear notes for this work, and I highlighted the excerpts I found interesting. 
"These essentially fleeting pianissimo sounds fascinate me because of their inherent fragility, their transience and beauty, and their ability to surface most gently out of, and disappear into, silence, as if the act of composing were that of unveiling the sounds, drawing them out from under the surface of sound"
"this solo can also be heard as a simple one to three-part melodic line. Circling within itself. Endless."

Thanks for posting this work. Although, it didn't enjoy it as much I hoped I did, it was a learning experience for me. Do you have any thoughts you like to share, or another work that you are interested in its composing techniques?


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## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Here's some pages from the score of The Great Learning
> 
> https://markharrisstudio.com/cornelius-cardew-the-great-learning/
> 
> ...


Thank you for posting the link to his linear notes. I tried looking for it but couldn't find it.

The score sheet looks different from a "typical" sheet music. I note that the sheet allows many different options up to the performer interpretation like you posted. This will make a different listening experience for different performances. What does the number after "sing ... hum ... speak" means? Does it refer to the pitch, loudness, or the order of the song?

Ah. I didn't know he was a communist, that interesting to know. It may have an impact on his music.

For the term "graphic score" are you referring to something like this:









From just looking at it, it's pleasing to the eye. Do the different colors represent different instruments, the strokes the notes, and the length the duration? How does one know the tempo? Is it a way that allow composers to illustrate new sounds that are out of the bounds of traditional music writing?

I read that that method falls under two methods, the 1st "strive to communicate specific compositional intentions, while others are meant to inspire the performer's imagination".





I listened to Cornelius's Treatise, which was written in graphic score. It was interesting and beautiful in some odd way. It seems to value space and atmosphere over "notes". It seemed electric in sound. From looking at the graphics in the video, how does the performers interpret it? I don't play instruments so perhaps, another member who play instruments can enlighten me on how they perceive the score. 
I tried to find his linear notes, but no luck. I read that he later rejected most of his works, including this work and the Great Learning. Do you know why? Are you familiar with this work, and willing to share your thoughts?

Given that he wanted to expanded music composition accessibility, I wonder what would be his opinion on apps such as "GarageBand" which allow you to create works from samples and virtual instruments?

I haven't listened to the Nightpiece work. I will bookmark it for a latter reference.


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## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

I listened to Michael Finnissy's Second & Third String Quartets. At the start, it sounds like a typical quartet. There was tension in the performers playing in the third string quartet movement, where judging from the album cover, of a ruined city where there are only birds left, I interpreted that the players are "the last humans" and they are playing music for the last time. It sounds almost like Bruckner music (which reading from the notes, was not a coincidence). The beginning was frantic, with the short aggressive burst of the violin. But when the birds appear, their playing change, becoming more somber. They tried to overpower the birds' sounds, but then they falter in the birds' chirps. Then they tried to mimic the bird's sounds to accommodate it, but still, they couldn't continue playing. Finally, they stop, and let the bird "sing". It was an interesting use of "Musique concrete" and field recording ("sound recordings made outside of a studio using portable equipment to capture the acoustical traces of landscapes, locations, and populations" Source). I noted the short interludes in the player playing and the stillness when both the player and the bird don't make any sound. The contrast between the instruments and the bird's sound was sublime.

After listening to Finnissy's Third String Quartets, I became interested in the incorporation of bird recording into the music. With some googling, I found the shelves notes to the recording. The composer was influenced by Bruckner, where he combined snippets of Bruckner work with atonal material. This method similar to Schoenberg's Second Quartet lets the "a dense adagio juxtaposing many different melodic lines, each following its own chromatically-inflected path through a different key." He then looked for a way to "explored the idea of the 'air from another planet'" to "contrast it with the abstract design, the proportional structural scheme he had imposed on the music." He settles on bird song as it would take the listener beyond music through its connection to life. This make the effect of making "the recordings [first] seem like an intrusion, interrupting the flow of Finnissy's invention, but as the piece moves towards its conclusion it is the instruments of the quartet which come to seem intrusive, even though what those instruments are playing is based on transcriptions of birdsong". This technique should make the listener to "muse on the elaborate artifice of what we humans do and its comparison with the unknowable, but obviously essential, purpose of this other 'song'".

For me, this string quarter works for me, as the contrast between human and animal left me to ponder on humanity relationship to animals and our similarity. Perhaps, animals can make music. 
This question led me to a different work, The Lyrebird by Halafoff and Pruce. I was struck by how the bird singing resembles an orchestra and seems to create its own music. There is brief narration that does a better job of explaining the sound than I could write.






After listening to it, I found the linear notes of the work. The note gives information about the bird and describes how it create "music". Here's some excerpts that seems interesting to me:

"When listening to the Lyrebird's song is the fact that all its imitated items are tonally closely related to the key of the Lyrebird's "stanza" melody, and consequently the tonalities of adjoining episodes never clash. In other words, having geared each imitated musical episode to the general tonality of the original song, the Lyrebird has at its disposal several dozen musical phrases whose order it can change at will, being certain that each time they will fit perfectly together wherever they are placed. The cleverness of that scheme is indeed remarkable and in practice it works very smoothly, as no wrong modulation can ever occur."
"The melodious impression of the song is further enhanced by the Lyrebird's preference for those intervals which sound most harmonious to us - octave and perfect fifth. Glissandos stretched over one or two octaves are frequent in the song, and the interval of the tremolos concluding the "stanza" melody is a perfect fifth. Other consonant intervals like the third and the sixth are also frequently used in the "leaps" of the melody."

The note also advice that you compared the bird's song with Stravinsky's "Symphonies for Wind Instruments" and see how different/similar the birds are to our music composition. 
Here's what it had to say on that comparison.
"The fact that the Lyrebird's composition, though deliberate, is always improvised (there is no set pattern of episodes as in a Blackbird's song) makes it an even greater achievement. Few composers were capable of producing successful improvisations at any time. That the greater part of the musical material of the song consists of mimicked items does not detract from the Lyrebird's status as a composer. Many famous musicians - Bach, Debussy, Stravinsky, to name just a few - used borrowed melodies, sometimes to the extent of literal quotations."

The incorporation of animal sounds into CM fascinates me as it expanded the scope of music and explore our relationship with other animals.

What are your thoughts about this technique in the two works I listened to? Is there other contemporary classical works that feature this or other techniques that you would like to share your thoughts on?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I started a thread on animals in music here

https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,30587.0.html

There's a lot of music based on field recordings which I haven't really explored. Francisco Lopez is a composer worth investigating for this I think, and I think there are things by Luc Ferrari too.

The latest thing with birds I've been listening to is an improvisation by John Tilbury, called Music for Piano and Birds, for Emmylou and Edgar. (His other improvisation on that site, Barcelona, is outstanding.)

http://www.jtilbury.com/john-tilbury-2/


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

There is one technique that is used that I do not think was mentioned (sorry if I missed it).

The technique is antiphonal music. This is were performers are scattered in the auditorium as well as on the stage.

As a band junkie one of the best band works that employs antiphonal effects is the John Corigliano's _Symphony Number Three "Circus Maximus"_. This work also employs aleatoric sections.

Good You Tube performance:





]

Dig the small band marching through the audience.

I attended a live performance Slatkin conducting the United States Marine Band.

Just found his video of Corigliano explaining the work:


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## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

Here are some posts of mine explaining certain contemporary pieces. I'm by no means an expert, so these posts aren't exhaustive in their contents (a couple of them only post liner notes and timestamps; I'm also positive I got a couple things wrong in some of these, but I'm too lazy to point them out). But I did try to make them exhaustive as far as introductions go:

Pierre Boulez's sur Incises
Philippe Manoury's Pluton
Helmut Lachenmann's Gran Torso
Wolfgang Rihm's Jagden und Formen (part 1 and part 2)
Claude Vivier's Lonely Child
Tristan Murail's Disintegrations (part 1 and part 2)
Wolfgang Rihm's ET LUX (a few posts in this case, just scroll down)
A post on Enno Poppe's music
Kaija Saariaho's Nymphéa (Jardin secret III)
Peter Ablinger's Ohne Titel / 3 Klaviere
A post linking to other posts of mine on Simon Steen-Andersen's music.


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## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> I started a thread on animals in music here
> 
> https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,30587.0.html
> 
> ...


Thank you for linking your thread. Is there one similar to yours on TC? I tried searching for it, but nothing came up. Looks like we listened to the same string quartet (3rd string quartet by Finnissy). I agree with you that "the writing for strings is stunningly beautiful here" as it creates a struggle between humanity and animal, where the performers tries to overpower the bird's sounds and then even tried to accommodate it, but they failed. There are some interesting recordings posted there, that I have bookmarked. I will follow your thread.

Hmm. I never heard of Francisco Lopez, Luc Ferrari and John Tilbury. I will see if there are recordings available on Tidal or on YouTube and give them a listen, hopefully.

Are you familiar with the animal, Lyrebird? It's the bird that features on this recording:


Conrad2 said:


> The Lyrebird by Halafoff and Pruce


I did more research about the bird, and I'm fascinated with the range of sound it can produce. I never could imagine that there is an animal that could mimic so much of the natural and manmade world.

Here's a picture of it:








The bird tail is very beautiful and reminded of a peacock or turkey's tail.

Do you want to share your thoughts on field recording on this thread? I'll be interested if you decided to go more into detail about your listening experience, and how you approach works like these. (You don't have to if you don't want to)

Thank you for your contribution.


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## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

arpeggio said:


> There is one technique that is used that I do not think was mentioned (sorry if I missed it).
> 
> The technique is antiphonal music. This is were performers are scattered in the auditorium as well as on the stage.
> 
> ...


Thank you for post! I will listen to it when I've time and in the mood.

Forgive me, if my question seems amateurish, but what does "antiphonal" means?
Looking up online, reveals that it means "alternate singing by two choirs or singers ... antiphonal singing of psalms occurred both in ancient Hebrew and early Christian liturgies; alternating choirs would sing-e.g., half lines of psalm verses" (Source). 
I'm not that knowledge about the Christian faith, so what may seems a simple concept for others, is harder for me to untangle. I skim through the transcript of his explanation, and it seems like he didn't talk about the Christian faith, although he did mention the Circus Maximus, which was a large Roman theater, and his concept of surround sound (which I will explore more when I listened to the piece). If you want to, could you be so kind to shed light on this technique? How does it applied in this work and affect the listener experience/interpretation? Also, I notice the absence of the choir in the thumbnail (they may be "hiding" among the audience as you stated that the performers are scattered), so how would antiphonal technique function here?

if I gain a better understanding of the term "antiphonal", my listening experience will be enhanced and become more appreciative.

Thank you for your contribution.


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## Conrad2 (Jan 24, 2021)

calvinpv said:


> Here are some posts of mine explaining certain contemporary pieces. I'm by no means an expert, so these posts aren't exhaustive in their contents (a couple of them only post liner notes and timestamps; I'm also positive I got a couple things wrong in some of these, but I'm too lazy to point them out). But I did try to make them exhaustive as far as introductions go:
> 
> Pierre Boulez's sur Incises
> Philippe Manoury's Pluton
> ...


Thank you for your post. Most of the works that you mentioned in your listened I haven't listened to yet, and I would like to explore them. I haven't read all of your explanation posts, but the ones that I have read was very informative for a beginner like me, and give me insight despite some technical explanation. Thank you for taking the time for writing out your explanations and for linking to them. I do hope that you stick around for this thread, as you seem a more knowledgeable person than me in CM, despite having some minor errors in your posts.

If you agree, could you listen to one of the recording I posted and afterwards read my interpretation over it and add your own thoughts to it? It would be nice to read someone's listening experience to the same work I have listened to, who have more experience and exposure to CM. It may lead to something. (You don't have to, if you don't want to).

Thank you for your contribution.


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