# James Tenney



## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

Tenney is arguably one of the most important music theorists and composers of the late 20th century - he cared very deeply about what we hear and how we hear it. I would recommend everyone interested in theory to read _a history of consonance and dissonance_ and _from scratch_, both incredibly fascinating works. He influenced a lot of composers.

His compositional style is fascinating - they're often works that exposits upon a simple musical idea. They appear both as very enjoyable pieces of music but also fascinating studies into how we listen. His play with musical ideas into full works reminds a lot of the american serialists in this sense, although he's not generally associated with them.

Some interesting works to get a taste:

His harmonium works are simple and fascinating at the same time: Harmonium #5 




His electronic collages and algorithmic music are dense and interesting.

I find his spectrum pieces fascinating too: Spectrum 1: 




He also has 64 studies for 6 harps, which all use the instrument to create fascinating harmonies.

Some might be interested in his tribute to Satie, Quiet Fan: 




Others might be interested in his ode to Nancarrow, Spectral Canon.. There is unfortunately no good score video available, so I'll show the score here so you can see what's going on:


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## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

For the people here interested in electronic music composition, both Tenney and Oliveros wrote using Hierarchical Music Specification Language or HMSL, which seems like an absolutely fascinating music programming langauge quite different in use and purpose than the languages we have today. There is a project to revive HMSL but unfortunately it's proprietary (and I am a FOSS believer). HMSL itself is open source but doesn't run anymore on today's computers. I was thinking about starting a project myself to port it but I just don't have the time to do that at the moment.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Has anyone here ever listened carefully to the harp studies? I can sense that there’s something interesting happening in the music but there’s so much of it, it sort of turns into a background for me, I find it hard to pay attention after 15 minutes of them. Which of the studies are the high points? Is there a structure to the whole or is the arrangement random?

Concerning the rest, some of the immersive music is nice - I’m listening to Harmonium 2 as I type this - but I’ve kind of heard enough of that sort of stuff - Tenney and Radigue and Lucier and Cage and probably many others all blend into a much of a muchness for me. And the process pieces aren’t really my thing, too repetitive. 

But I do very much like the complex contrapuntal side of Tenney and so the Diaphonic Trio and the Spectrum pieces are for me the high point - while, as I suggested, I’d like to get to know the harp studies better.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's Meta Hodos

https://monoskop.org/images/1/13/Tenney_James_Meta-Hodos_and_Meta_Meta-Hodos.pdf

And here's the notes from the booklet to the CD of harp studies

https://nwr-site-liner-notes.s3.amazonaws.com/80810.pdf

I haven't really been able to make much sense of this stuff myself, so I'm looking forward to getting some guidance and inspiration.


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## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

I can't provide a general guidance on the harp studies but I really like study #51 and study #53 for what that's worth?


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

The form pieces are also interesting. At the school where I did my undergrad, I was in the new music ensemble for some time, and we performed a few of the Form pieces. Really interesting, both in terms of listening to a chord gradually unfold and morph, but also really interesting as a listening exercise from the perspective of a performer!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Opisthokont said:


> I can't provide a general guidance on the harp studies but I really like study #51 and study #53 for what that's worth?


Yes, he's clearly up to some bold things harmonically in 53 and contrapuntally in 51. Or is it the result of his programme - I don't know to what extent this stuff is composed by a human. Maybe we need a 64 harp studies listening group - half a dozen a day.


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## pxyl (Dec 29, 2021)

*Recent books by and about Tenney*

I note that there are some new/recent books by or about Tenney on the University of Illinois Press. The press is having a 50% off sale until 12/31/2021 with promo code HOLIDAY50.

From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory
https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p084379

The Music of James Tenney, Volume 1: Contexts and Paradigms
https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=c043673

The Music of James Tenney, Volume 2: A Handbook to the Pieces
https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=c043680


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