These are the books I used:
Mikhail Semenovich Druskin (1983) Igor Stravinsky: his life, works and views; CUP Archive; Cambridge
Kurt Heinzelman (2003) Make it new: the rise of modernism; University of Texas Press; Texas
Reginald Smith Brindle (1987) The new music: the avant-garde since 1945 ; Oxford University Press ; Oxford
Illustations:
http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/jchiaromonte/John_Cage.jpg Accessed on 21 March 2010
I think thats all of them.
I have sent the presentation powerpoint to u guys, although is missing 1 slide by the end, it is pretty much that, also I will crack on with the illustration List and Bibliography.
So could anybody that have the links of the websites that has been looking to write a post with them, already in the havard form so I can copy paste onto the presentation pdf.
So could anybody that have the links of the websites that has been looking to write a post with them, already in the havard form so I can copy paste onto the presentation pdf.
Hi guys,
are you going to email the presentation out to us again like last time? I'd love to go over it and get prepared for tomorrow...
are you going to email the presentation out to us again like last time? I'd love to go over it and get prepared for tomorrow...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgVqJgf6H0M
leon theremin playing - 00:19 to 00:36
theremin in cinema - 01:25 to 01:48
leon theremin playing - 00:19 to 00:36
theremin in cinema - 01:25 to 01:48
Igor Stravinsky was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor and is considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Born in Russia, he officially became a US citizen in 1946.
Stravinsky was most well known because of his diversity. Perhaps Stravinsky’s most famous and controversial works is ‘The Rite of Spring’. ‘The Rite’ is a ballet piece where an entire performance can last about 33 minutes. ‘The rite’ was first conceived in 1910, but was first composed between 1912 and 1913.
‘The Rite of Spring marked a shift of interest to the world of Russian pre-history, and wit it an important turning-point not only in Stravinsky’s style but also in the evolution of the ideas and images behind his music’
Mikhail Semenovich Druskin (1983) Igor Stravinsky: his life, works and views; CUP Archive; Cambridge
Stravinsky used his own history and that of his country to create unique music that had its own feeling in it. This led him to compose ‘The Rite of Spring’.
When first premiered to the world in Paris it caused one of the most famous Classical Music Riots in history. The rhythmic score shocked the audience who were more accustomed to and the dancing was a lot stranger than the normal ballet. At first the violent dance steps excited the crowd but they soon started booing when they heard a slight discord in the background notes. Not understanding what was happening, opponents to this new music began to shout and cause commotion. Supporters of Stravinsky tried to calm them and explain the music, but this only worsened the situation. A full scale riot broke out in the aisles. The Police restored only limited order.
But it could be argued that Stravinsky’s music was only the catalyst.
‘It is now thought that ‘The Rite of Spring’ riot was a response less to Stravinsky’s music, which could scarcely be heard amid the uproar, then to Nijimky’s choreography, which inverted most of the conventions of ballet’
Kurt Heinzelman (2003) Make it new: the rise of modernism; University of Texas Press; Texas
This affected the modern scene by showing the world that change can evoke great emotion. Today, people in music are continually trying to shock and surprise people with their music, but Stravinsky accomplished to such a degree that it caused a riot. Stravinsky started the notion that when it comes to music, ‘no press is bad press’.
Stravinsky was most well known because of his diversity. Perhaps Stravinsky’s most famous and controversial works is ‘The Rite of Spring’. ‘The Rite’ is a ballet piece where an entire performance can last about 33 minutes. ‘The rite’ was first conceived in 1910, but was first composed between 1912 and 1913.
‘The Rite of Spring marked a shift of interest to the world of Russian pre-history, and wit it an important turning-point not only in Stravinsky’s style but also in the evolution of the ideas and images behind his music’
Mikhail Semenovich Druskin (1983) Igor Stravinsky: his life, works and views; CUP Archive; Cambridge
Stravinsky used his own history and that of his country to create unique music that had its own feeling in it. This led him to compose ‘The Rite of Spring’.
When first premiered to the world in Paris it caused one of the most famous Classical Music Riots in history. The rhythmic score shocked the audience who were more accustomed to and the dancing was a lot stranger than the normal ballet. At first the violent dance steps excited the crowd but they soon started booing when they heard a slight discord in the background notes. Not understanding what was happening, opponents to this new music began to shout and cause commotion. Supporters of Stravinsky tried to calm them and explain the music, but this only worsened the situation. A full scale riot broke out in the aisles. The Police restored only limited order.
But it could be argued that Stravinsky’s music was only the catalyst.
‘It is now thought that ‘The Rite of Spring’ riot was a response less to Stravinsky’s music, which could scarcely be heard amid the uproar, then to Nijimky’s choreography, which inverted most of the conventions of ballet’
Kurt Heinzelman (2003) Make it new: the rise of modernism; University of Texas Press; Texas
This affected the modern scene by showing the world that change can evoke great emotion. Today, people in music are continually trying to shock and surprise people with their music, but Stravinsky accomplished to such a degree that it caused a riot. Stravinsky started the notion that when it comes to music, ‘no press is bad press’.
I know you already have John cage, but these are the info i found over the last weekend, i had some net problems, landlord didn't pay the bill and left for holidays lol so couldn't upload all the stuff, so uploading everything now.
John Cage was famous for the prepared piano. A prepared piano is a piano that has had foreign objects (preparations) placed in between or on the strings. He typically used nuts, bolts, screws, nails, various pieces of hardware and pieces of rubber for his preparations. Depending on the preparation used, some make duller percussive sounds; pings, plunks and thuds, whilst other objects create more of a bell tone (see attached file prepared piano pic 1 & 2). Another type of prepared piano is the tack piano. A tack piano has small nails secured into the hammers to create a more percussive sound. Other materials can be used i.e. covering the hammers with metal or leather to create different timbres. (Sadie, S. (1980). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Fifth Ed. p598). (Rich, A. (1995). American Pioneers: Ives to Cage and Beyond (1st ed.). pp149 – 152).
Chance music was an invention that Cage used in all of his compositions from 1951. Chance music scores take on a different role to traditional music scores. The traditional score is based on pattern and structure and consists of various levels and dimensions such as; melody, harmony and rhythm. These patterns and structures enable the musical ideas of the composer to be clearly heard and analysed. However, in chance composition, chance must rely on a mechanism within for it to operate. The composer must first design an operating system; i.e. a part/act for chance to play. This system directly provides certain collections of musical elements to be manipulated by chance; i.e. the system must have a collection of rules and procedures that must be followed in order to produce the final score. These rules/procedures gather information from the given material and structures to make decisions that rely on a random event (the roll of a dice/toss of a coin). It is the completion of these events that finally produce the musical score we see, a score equally dependent on the design decision of the composer and pure random events. (Duckworth, W., & Fleming, R. (1989). John Cage at Seventy-Five (1st ed.). Cranbury, pp.249 – 261).
Cage’s most remembered chance piece is 4’33” (pronounced four minutes thirty three seconds). Often mistakenly referred to as Cage’s “silent piece”, it is quite the opposite. 4’33” technically has three ‘silent’ movements, but really it is full of sound. Cage redefined silence as “simply the absence of intended sounds, or the turning off of our awareness”. "Silence is not acoustic," he said, "It is a change of mind. A turning around." (Solomon L, J. (2002) The Sounds of Silence. John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). Using chance was literally an imitation of nature's manner of operation, meaning that the sounds that are not made intentionally, but are already there around us are free to be heard, and free to penetrate the art. Thus, nature and life literally become the art. Cage was asked why it was necessary to create such music when it is already there around us. He replied; "Many people taking a walk would have their heads so full of preconceptions that it would be a long time before they were capable of hearing or seeing. Most people are blinded by themselves." (Solomon L, J. (2002) The Sounds of Silence. John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). 4’33” is music that is completely free of intentional sounds and the composers view. It is natures’ music, it requires a serious, reverent, focused, and open mind that is willing to put aside preconceptions and embrace the universe of sound as music. However, there is also an artistic and personal reason for writing music of this aesthetic, which is revealed in Cage's astonishing confession; “Not having, as most musicians do, an ear for music, I don't hear music when I write it. I hear it only when it is played. If I heard it when I was writing it, I would write what I've already heard; whereas since I can't hear it while I'm writing it, I'm able to write something that I've never heard before. . . . . And if I did hear something before it was audible, I would have had to take solfege, which would have trained me to accept certain pitches and not others. I would then have found the environmental sounds off tune, lacking tonality. Therefore, I pay no attention to solfege”. (Solomon L, J. (2002) The Sounds of Silence. John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). (Solomon, L.J, (2002). The Sounds of Silence, John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). Retrieved on 18/09/03 from; http://music.research.home.att.net/4min33se.htm#1.%20Brief%20Description%20and%20the%20Premiere).
The structure to Cage’s music in the 1950’s introduced vertical dimensions. Different to horizontal dimensions which include the rhythmic structures and tempo, vertical dimensions involve several simultaneous levels of activity, each followed independently by the other (Cage regularly referred to these as “Superimposed parts”). These levels can be related to polyphony, although in this case the ‘levels’/ ‘parts’ are not a series of single notes but contain chords and other structures. Depending on how many levels are given in a system, this has significant importance to how the system will turn out. For example, Music of Changes has eight levels, whilst the Two Pastorales has only two levels. This results in Music of Changes having a much denser texture than the Two Pastorales, which indirectly affects other aspects of the piece. For example, in the Two Pastorales, the lower density creates long empty sections between some sounds, to fill this, Cage chooses to hold the pedal down for the duration (using the pedal is wholly at Cage’s discretion, as it is outside the chance system). These lengthy pedals draw our attention to the decay of the sounds as they slowly disappear into silence. On the other hand, Music of Changes has noticeably higher density sounds, lacking these long drawn out sounds, they are replaced by sharp, abrupt attacks with pure flurries of activity.
The other area in Cage’s chance system is his choice of materials. In the Music of Changes for example, each of the eight levels of the vertical structure has its own unique collections of sounds, durations and dynamics. These materials were sorted into square charts. The sound of the charts can be divided based on their general structure into three broad categories: single notes, chords and what Cage refers to as “constellations”. In Music of Changes, the constellations include; arpeggios, trills, tremolos and some brief quasi-melodic fragments.
The choice of materials can have a great impact on the character of a system. For example, Music of Changes and the series of pieces titled Music for Piano (1952 – 56) will demonstrate this. Cage became sick of the chart technique used in Music of Changes because it required the composition of vast quantities of unique sounds, durations and dynamics. Additionally this system produced far too much repetition of events for his taste. He solved this problem when he composed Music for Piano, by reducing the amount of available sounds to the eighty-eight single pitches on the piano. The pitches are selected by drawing random imperfections on a piece of paper and then adding staves, clefs and accidentals to turn these points into specific pitches. These pieces took next to no time to compose as the method of selecting notes removed the need for a specific collection of sounds, thus removing the problem of repetition. (Duckworth, W., & Fleming, R. (1989). John Cage at Seventy-Five. pp.254 – 256).
John Cage was famous for the prepared piano. A prepared piano is a piano that has had foreign objects (preparations) placed in between or on the strings. He typically used nuts, bolts, screws, nails, various pieces of hardware and pieces of rubber for his preparations. Depending on the preparation used, some make duller percussive sounds; pings, plunks and thuds, whilst other objects create more of a bell tone (see attached file prepared piano pic 1 & 2). Another type of prepared piano is the tack piano. A tack piano has small nails secured into the hammers to create a more percussive sound. Other materials can be used i.e. covering the hammers with metal or leather to create different timbres. (Sadie, S. (1980). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Fifth Ed. p598). (Rich, A. (1995). American Pioneers: Ives to Cage and Beyond (1st ed.). pp149 – 152).
Chance music was an invention that Cage used in all of his compositions from 1951. Chance music scores take on a different role to traditional music scores. The traditional score is based on pattern and structure and consists of various levels and dimensions such as; melody, harmony and rhythm. These patterns and structures enable the musical ideas of the composer to be clearly heard and analysed. However, in chance composition, chance must rely on a mechanism within for it to operate. The composer must first design an operating system; i.e. a part/act for chance to play. This system directly provides certain collections of musical elements to be manipulated by chance; i.e. the system must have a collection of rules and procedures that must be followed in order to produce the final score. These rules/procedures gather information from the given material and structures to make decisions that rely on a random event (the roll of a dice/toss of a coin). It is the completion of these events that finally produce the musical score we see, a score equally dependent on the design decision of the composer and pure random events. (Duckworth, W., & Fleming, R. (1989). John Cage at Seventy-Five (1st ed.). Cranbury, pp.249 – 261).
Cage’s most remembered chance piece is 4’33” (pronounced four minutes thirty three seconds). Often mistakenly referred to as Cage’s “silent piece”, it is quite the opposite. 4’33” technically has three ‘silent’ movements, but really it is full of sound. Cage redefined silence as “simply the absence of intended sounds, or the turning off of our awareness”. "Silence is not acoustic," he said, "It is a change of mind. A turning around." (Solomon L, J. (2002) The Sounds of Silence. John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). Using chance was literally an imitation of nature's manner of operation, meaning that the sounds that are not made intentionally, but are already there around us are free to be heard, and free to penetrate the art. Thus, nature and life literally become the art. Cage was asked why it was necessary to create such music when it is already there around us. He replied; "Many people taking a walk would have their heads so full of preconceptions that it would be a long time before they were capable of hearing or seeing. Most people are blinded by themselves." (Solomon L, J. (2002) The Sounds of Silence. John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). 4’33” is music that is completely free of intentional sounds and the composers view. It is natures’ music, it requires a serious, reverent, focused, and open mind that is willing to put aside preconceptions and embrace the universe of sound as music. However, there is also an artistic and personal reason for writing music of this aesthetic, which is revealed in Cage's astonishing confession; “Not having, as most musicians do, an ear for music, I don't hear music when I write it. I hear it only when it is played. If I heard it when I was writing it, I would write what I've already heard; whereas since I can't hear it while I'm writing it, I'm able to write something that I've never heard before. . . . . And if I did hear something before it was audible, I would have had to take solfege, which would have trained me to accept certain pitches and not others. I would then have found the environmental sounds off tune, lacking tonality. Therefore, I pay no attention to solfege”. (Solomon L, J. (2002) The Sounds of Silence. John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). (Solomon, L.J, (2002). The Sounds of Silence, John Cage and 4’33”. (1998). Retrieved on 18/09/03 from; http://music.research.home.att.net/4min33se.htm#1.%20Brief%20Description%20and%20the%20Premiere).
The structure to Cage’s music in the 1950’s introduced vertical dimensions. Different to horizontal dimensions which include the rhythmic structures and tempo, vertical dimensions involve several simultaneous levels of activity, each followed independently by the other (Cage regularly referred to these as “Superimposed parts”). These levels can be related to polyphony, although in this case the ‘levels’/ ‘parts’ are not a series of single notes but contain chords and other structures. Depending on how many levels are given in a system, this has significant importance to how the system will turn out. For example, Music of Changes has eight levels, whilst the Two Pastorales has only two levels. This results in Music of Changes having a much denser texture than the Two Pastorales, which indirectly affects other aspects of the piece. For example, in the Two Pastorales, the lower density creates long empty sections between some sounds, to fill this, Cage chooses to hold the pedal down for the duration (using the pedal is wholly at Cage’s discretion, as it is outside the chance system). These lengthy pedals draw our attention to the decay of the sounds as they slowly disappear into silence. On the other hand, Music of Changes has noticeably higher density sounds, lacking these long drawn out sounds, they are replaced by sharp, abrupt attacks with pure flurries of activity.
The other area in Cage’s chance system is his choice of materials. In the Music of Changes for example, each of the eight levels of the vertical structure has its own unique collections of sounds, durations and dynamics. These materials were sorted into square charts. The sound of the charts can be divided based on their general structure into three broad categories: single notes, chords and what Cage refers to as “constellations”. In Music of Changes, the constellations include; arpeggios, trills, tremolos and some brief quasi-melodic fragments.
The choice of materials can have a great impact on the character of a system. For example, Music of Changes and the series of pieces titled Music for Piano (1952 – 56) will demonstrate this. Cage became sick of the chart technique used in Music of Changes because it required the composition of vast quantities of unique sounds, durations and dynamics. Additionally this system produced far too much repetition of events for his taste. He solved this problem when he composed Music for Piano, by reducing the amount of available sounds to the eighty-eight single pitches on the piano. The pitches are selected by drawing random imperfections on a piece of paper and then adding staves, clefs and accidentals to turn these points into specific pitches. These pieces took next to no time to compose as the method of selecting notes removed the need for a specific collection of sounds, thus removing the problem of repetition. (Duckworth, W., & Fleming, R. (1989). John Cage at Seventy-Five. pp.254 – 256).
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