“To be original, you must return to your origin.”
Narcis Bonet
1a. Separation
A study in musical mitosis. An open fifth is pulled apart; smooth pitch (glissandi) becomes striated (semitones); rhythmic streams struggle for independence; dynamics and articulation, initially mapped isomorphically to pitch, diverge. Then a phase change: pitches solidify into three harmonies (major chords separated by whole steps) which are themselves teased out one by one; those chords diverge, rotating independently through the circle of fifths; rhythmic unisons skew. V I cadence – another phase change: I begin to separate myself from the music by surrendering control of first the rhythms, finally the pitches.
1b. Sedimentation
The registral range of the quartet is treated as a space. The middle of this space, around middle C, is fertile and generative. Half and whole steps pour out. Spontaneous and relentless change in this region pressures the line it generates to adapt. Half and whole steps get pushed outward, with the smaller, lighter half steps drifting to the edges.
Sedimentation is a search process. When loose elements (here, scale steps) freely spread throughout a system and settle, their resulting shape is a description of the relevant constraints of that system. Recall how iron filings describe the shape of magnetic fields, or how trees at high altitudes hug a timberline. In the same way, this sedimentation of notes reveals the shape of my range-space: a single bulge to which volume, tone color and tempo conform.
2a. Cell
A single recurring melody is the basis for a series of episodes. Most of the music is simply a literal cycling through of subsets of that series, in the original order and with only octave transpositions; occasionally, a subset is treated as a motive and permitted transposition or variation.
2b. Cantus Firmus
Cantus firmus technique, in which added parts decorate a fixed melody, was used as early as the tenth century. It was the dominant polyphonic practice for the following five hundred years. I borrow two cantus fermi and treat each in rigorous three-voice counterpoint. The added lines observe strict rules governing linear motion and dissonance treatment, and only seven pitches are permitted – no sharps or flats. But the quartet does not play this. Instead, they present an analysis of it based on an observation about the composite nature of musical lines:
When a line leaps, it is heard as the abandonment of one line and the introduction of another. The abandoned line does not completely disappear. Its final pitch hangs, lingering in our ear and memory until it is resumed, or another voice merges with it. These hanging pitches subtly influence our sense of harmony, and must be controlled carefully. Bach, for example, fastidiously resolves dissonant hanging pitches before final cadences.
In this movement, one line of counterpoint at a time is systematically broken into its composite lines, which pass between the instruments. Hanging pitches are sustained until they are resolved by another voice.
One Trackback
[...] Elliot Cole (b. 1984) takes the omnivore’s approach: he has sung in pop groups and musical theater, written concert music, worked as a commercial and hip-hop producer, played bass and piano in jazz combos, and written music software. He has a B.A. in Cognitive Linguistics and a B.Mus. in Composition from Rice University, and his interests in strict counterpoint and 19th century pedagogy also led him to study at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris. Currently focusing on dramatic work, he has collaborated with Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company, the University of Houston Center for Creative Work, Divergence Vocal Theater, and his own chamber-pop ensemble. With bassoonist and rapper Brad Balliett he created the Rake’s Progress, a hip-hop reinvention of Stravinsky’s opera, which is being produced for live performance by the Metropolis Ensemble in 2011. I am following three paths in my work. First is a long-term project to define musical form in terms of procedures, rather than results. This thinking draws heavily on metaphors with the natural world, as well as the ideas of Deleuze, Serres, Manuel de Landa and Sanford Kwinter. Working on the procedural level has many advantages. Procedures are abstract, and as such extensible, scalable and consistent. Most important for me, however, is that by standing farther back, I have more leverage over the unknown. I write things I never would have imagined thinking note-to-note. And so my relationship to my work is not as a master imposing his masterpiece, but a gardener sprouting an unidentifiable plant. See Endgame Study, 0/1, Parable of the Sower, Ouroboros, Orgins Etudes. [...]