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1 A University o Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: htt://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is rotected by coyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reroduced or quoted extensively rom without irst obtaining ermission in writing rom the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any ormat or medium without the ormal ermission o the Author When reerring to this work, ull bibliograhic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date o the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online or more inormation and urther details

2 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX Ian Morgan-Williams D.Phil. in Musical Comosition Portolio o Musical Comosition: My Aroach to Comosing: the Develoment, Selection and Alication o Techniques and Systems December 2011

3 1 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX Ian Morgan-Williams D.Phil. in Musical Comosition Portolio o Musical Comosition: My Aroach to Comosing: the Develoment, Selection and Alication o Techniques and Systems in My Music ABSTRACT I use a range o techniques to ut together my musical ideas, techniques that are rooted in the incidental and intentional listening that identiies who I am, as a erson as well as a comoser. Relecting on the intentional is relatively easy. Relecting on the incidental requires objective analysis o one s own music. Inevitably, such analysis identiies reoccuations and reerences, as well as technical weaknesses and obsessions, all o which may or may not be unhealthy. Like many comosers, I develo various systems to hel me generate the sketch material which eventually becomes the comleted iece. These are imortant to me and can occuy the mind long ater the job o selecting and thereore discarding and organising has been started. This is the work that in essence roduces the version o the music to be heard the only version that matters. While others may be interested, even intrigued, by the rocess o comosing, it is diicult to accet the imortance o the rocess to the listener. Once systems have served their urose, they hold little relevance or me; they may be comromised, altered, even ignored to serve the needs o the music as it develos in its own right. The reoccuations that occuy me resently are: Homohonic heterohony Non octave-reeating modes and derivative chord grous Rhythmic devices in melodic construction Temoral ambiguity The alication o sets o rules or systems This commentary describes my methods and some o the intentional and incidental inluences on my music, and relects on my thoughts about how my music might be erceived by others. It also relects on others and my thoughts on the relationshi between comoser and listener. This is something I have come to areciate the greater signiicance o during the ost-comositional analytical rocess my starting oint or the commentary and something which seems increasingly more comlex than I had once imagined.

4 2 Statement I hereby declare that this ortolio o comositions and commentary have not been and will not be submitted in whole or in art to any other university or awarding body or the award o any other degree. Signature Name Ian Morgan-Williams Note The Harvard reerencing style has been adoted throughout.

5 CONTENTS List o ortolio works 4 Introduction 5 Chater 1 My aroach to linear develoment and melodic 10 layering Chater 2 My aroach to develoing, selecting and emloying 27 systems and other sketch material Chater My aroach to rhythm 44 Chater 4 My aroach to the listener 54 Conclusion 58 Bibliograhy 6 Aendix 1 Further reading 66 Aendix 2 Piobaireachd movements a selection o ages 69 Aendix My comositions since the start o my D. Phil. 72 course (Aril 2006) Aendix 4 A summary o the Greenland oera synosis 75

6 4 List o ortolio works THREE LOVE SONGS or 2 soranos and 2 violins (2008) She Walks in Beauty (George Gordon, Lord Byron) A Song o a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover (John Wilmot, Earl o Rochester) Love is Love (Sir Edward Dyer) DANCIN...! or solo clarinet (2009) FIVE PIECES FOR THE SOLO PIANO (2007, Revised 2011) 1 (The Dream, methinks) 2 (The Frolic) (The Hymn) 4 (The Aria, or erhas just a song) 5 (The Dance, mostly) LINES FROM BRYN WGAN PRELUDE, SONGS AND POSTLUDE or Sorano, Mezzo-sorano, Tenor, Bass-baritone solos and large orchestra (2011), texts by Bob Wallbank PRELUDE SONG 1 GREAT BLASKET SONG 2 WILD MAN OF THE WOODS SONG ONE STEP AT A TIME SONG 4 SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED JUST SOUTH OF SOLITUDE SONG 5 THE JETTY POSTLUDE

7 5 Introduction I know how I make my music. I know why I use my systems, my techniques. I know where I come rom as a musician-comoser, and that this is imortant to me. It might be imortant to someone wanting to understand my music. I have come to accet that I have little or no control over the way others erceive my music, whether others make the connections I think are there to be made. What my music sounds like is imortant. What my listeners bring to their understanding o it is not my resonsibility; what it means to each o them is ersonal individual. In the body o work starting with Two Pieces or Violins and Horn (2006), I have consolidated my belie in the imortance o rhythmic recision articularly in melody while becoming increasingly aware o the signiicance o the systems I devise or generating itch associations. (Was this ever merely intuitive?) I have urther develoed my techniques or linear develoment and have ocused on their eect on the temoral layering o quasi-heterohonic textures, roviding me with more tools with which to shae my avourite comositional laything synchronicity (or, rather, the lack o it). My comositional ocus or the better art o two decades was youth and community theatre and musical ensembles. My theatre collaborations with Bob Wallbank 1 (whose texts I set in Lines rom Bryn Wgan) taught me a great deal about the relationshi between drama and music articularly lot develoment and about comosing or the needs o non-roessional erormers. This exerience has brought much to the 1 Robert W. Wallbank ( ): engineer, humanist, laywright, oet, scholar & riend

8 6 music I write today. Structurally, I always have an eye on the dramatic imact. I create textures rincially by layering linear ideas, many o which have an essential vocal, olk-like quality. I hear my music dancing. 2 Almost all o the ieces I have written since 2006 have started out with a seciic technical-develoment agenda. My initial technical concerns emanated rom my theatre music exerience: I struggled to write anything articularly long; I thought I needed reeing rom the arameters imosed by working with young eole and amateurs (something I no longer identiy as a weakness). Five Pieces or the Solo Piano (2007, revised 2011) was my irst attemt in many years to comose a long iece. The total duration is ca. 45 minutes. Also, I set mysel the task o re-comosing the same sketch material or each movement. This was something I had done ater the act in... or erhas my End, the second o Two Pieces or Violins and Horn (2007). Having inished the irst,... another s Golden Horizon, almost a year earlier, I returned to my original sketches and comosed another iece, trying to imagine that the irst did not exist. The main dierence with Five Pieces was that I knew my intention beore I started. I was determined not to reserve or later sketch material, and to maintain the music s integrity by develoing ideas as i they were or one iece only. Three Love Songs (2008) was essentially an exercise in linear develoment, in lacing my vocal writing urther away rom its olk music origins (which I had also attemted in Songs or Olden Children (2007)), and in maintaining and varying structural associations within the ensemble. Dancin...! (2009) establishes and 2 Hans Keller (1957) concludes that essentially all music aligns itsel to our individual history and culture o dance. This second iece ended u, at ca. 16 minutes, twice the duration o the irst.

9 7 maintains the dramatic ocus o an imaginary dance, while ocusing on linear develoment in a virtuoso medium. The interesting side issue o working with rhythmic hasing in a iece with only a solo line arose during the rocess. Lines rom Bryn Wgan 4 (2011) attemts to develo urther all o these techniques. Thinking o each work as a technical exercise risks hearing them as so. That is not my intention. They are all dramatically-driven, existing only when heard. I hoe they reveal more to the listener about me than my comositional technique. Lines is rincially lot-driven; although Bob Wallbank s texts have their own clear structures, I have shaed them to work essentially as one continuous iece o music (there are no breaks between the seven sections). The our soloists aear together or only one rolonged section and they align themselves to various timbral associations (as do the many orchestral solos) the most signiicant being the chamber orchestra and smaller ensembles within the large orchestra. Lines rom Bryn Wgan, started lie as a chamber oera. Bob and I had always wanted to collaborate on an oera roject, but we had long ailed to ind the oortunity. In 2008 we started work on a iece about a remarkable examle o the sudden disintegration o a social and olitical structure: that o the larger o two Norse communities in Greenland towards the end o the eleventh century (as described by Diamond (2006)). The scenario and libretto were to have been entirely ictional 5 (Aendix 4 is a summary o Bob s unublished scenario and my initial resonses). 4 Bryn Wgan is the Wallbank s amily home. 5 Nansen s journal o his 1888 trans-navigation o Greenland rovided additional reerence material (Nansen, F. (1890) The First Crossing o Greenland. London: Longmans, Green and Co.)

10 8 The oera s sketch material and systems underlie substantial sections o Lines : Modes based on non-octave-reeating scales or dierent dramatic asects and or each o ive characters and methods by which these could be merged or transormed one to another Primary chord grous Rhythmic systems and extended melodic strands as exemlars or each character s likely various conditions and circumstances I set to comose and indeed comleted several o the orchestral interludes. 6 The oera remains uncomleted, but with the hel o Bob s amily, I realised what was to become Lines rom Bryn Wgan. The central ive movements are settings o oems and excerts o lays o Bob s or which I had not reviously comosed music. Song One Ste at a Time was comleted only a ew weeks beore he died. The exerience o re-working material intended or one iece has been similar to my methodological exeriments comosing Two Pieces or Violins and Horn and Five Pieces or the Solo Piano. Also, it has rovided a valuable oortunity to examine the techniques and systems which are the basis or much o Lines and to comare my original intentions with the end roduct. 6 Later that year, Bob was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died in March 2010 having comleted little more than his scenario. His rustratingly (aarently) disorganised working methods meant that he struggled to decide (or remember!) which was to be the inal version o much that he wrote, even when a work had already been erormed. Great Blasket, or instance, exists as oetic interludes or a lay and in at least two dierent versions as a oem. I remember his endless acing u and down during his decision making, which was oten ollowed u a ew hours later by hone call conirming a dierent decision altogether. I am certain that the texts as they aear in Lines would have satisied him (or at least hal day).

11 9 I comose because I enjoy organising sound. This enjoyment has encouraged me to address organisational rocesses, including: Homohonic heterohony Modes that do not reeat at the octave and chord grous derived rom these Primary imortance o rhythmic devices in melody construction Temoral ambiguity An all-encomassing reoccuation is meddling with sets o rules (systems), the devices that hel me to generate musical material. Recently, I have become aware o ignoring whichever rules and systems ail to serve the music s needs during the comositional rocess. They are not unessential; rather they are alied inconsistently, as would be revealed by an in-deth analysis o the resultant ieces. Succeeding chaters examine my aroaches to these rocesses and to how they have been alied and develoed through the our works discussed. My close examination o my music has revealed other issues, the imortance to my music o some o which I had not reviously realised. The most signiicant o these is my relationshi with the listener articularly, to what degree, i any, I manage the listener s ercetion o my music.

12 10 Chater 1 My aroach to linear develoment and melodic layering I was introduced to Gaelic Psalmody by the comoser John Hearne in He sent me a cassette o local radio religious broadcasts. His Lætatus Sum had intrigued me with its extension o heterohonic melodic techniques (Examle 1.1 shows the oening bars). He created textures that, at least on a irst hearing, sounded more olyhonic than heterohonic, claiming they were merely re-workings o erormance techniques widely known in his locality. An unlikely claim, I thought, until I listened to the tae.

13 11 Examle 1.1 Hearne, J. (1992) Lætatus Sum or 12 voices (Anthem on Psalm 122). Inverurie: Longshi Music. (joint winner o the Gregynog Comosers' Award o Wales) bb.1-12, with kind ermission

14 12 The Precentor- led congregational singing o salm melodies seemed at odds with what to me was a more amiliar Welsh non-conormist hymn-singing tradition, in which almost everyone sings an individual, erectly blending, homohonic art. 7 I think o my technique as homohonic heterohony : the alication o acceted heterohonic melodic techniques 8 to dierent layers o a undamentally homohonic texture. This allows me to create textures in which the anticiated metrical stability o homohony is disturbed by subtle hasing. Although I always ensure it is ossible to hear the oints at which moving arts might coincide with harmonic imact, they rarely do. Through this instability I create a momentum at oints o relative harmonic stasis, essential with textures constructed rom linear material. More authentically, I give dierent layers o monodic and genuinely olyhonic melody quasi-heterohonic treatments. The layers may move in dierent metres and temos (although notated within the same metrical system) in an Ives-ian manner, but mostly I construct melodies to give them an illusion o homohonic or heterohonic treatment, with gradual and occasionally strikingly sudden metrical shits. 7 Scholes (1970,.502, 1105 & 1065), cites Girladus Cambrensis (1188) descrition o Wales: they do not sing in unison but in many dierent arts, so that in a comany o singers you will hear as many dierent arts and voices as there are erormers, as well as a contrasting early reort o American Negro congregational singing (W.E. Allen (1867)): There is no singing in arts, as we understand it, and yet no two aear to be singing the same thing [they] seem to ollow their own whims, beginning when they lease and leaving o when they lease hitting some other note so as to roduce the eects o a marvellous comlication and variety and yet with the most erect time rarely with any discord. Scholes own descrition o mid sixteenth century Scottish salm and hymn singing: A eculiarity o Highland musical lie has been the extraordinary way the old salm tunes have been lengthened out with roulades and grace notes until they have become unrecognisable save by the exert, would adequately describe today s Gaelic Psalmody. 8 Grout (197,.4, 77 & 12) describes heterohony in Greek music rom second century B.C., in thirteenth century Euroean organum, and in ourteenth and early iteenth century instrumental cantilena style music.

15 1 I use this technique in each o the Three Love Songs and in many sections o Five Pieces or the Solo Piano and Lines rom Bryn Wgan, as well as in earlier vocal and instrumental works. Usually, but not exclusively, it is emloyed in two-art textures; it aears between dierent voices, dierent instruments and between voices and instruments. Occasionally, it aears as monohonic heterohony, the only aroriate comarative label, alying as it does to the true heterohony o, say, Gaelic olk and religious music, and Chinese olk music. 9 I have a long-held interest in the music o the great highland ie (bagies). Whether heterohonically treated or not, my melodic embellishments are oten derivations o Piobaireachd. Varying atterns o multile grace notes 10, the essential urose o which is to hel deine the rhythm and hrasing o melodies roduced by a continuous low o air through the chanter, rovides much melodic material. I irst encountered notations o these in Logan s Comlete Tutor or the Highland Bagie in the late 1970s. 11 Sometimes I notate these as acciaccaturas and sometimes with seciic, oten signiicantly augmented, rhythms imosed on the grace note grous. Taking this grace note analogy urther: the urely chordal emloyment o homohonic heterohony in Examles 1.2a & b rom Five Pieces or the Solo Piano could be described as acciaccato.) Examle 1.2a shows how I disrut the clear homohony o bb.72-76, 9 As recently as the mid 1960s, Chinese olk music was assumed to aly similar characteristic homohonic techniques as the ancient ritual or classical music, Ya Yüeh. For urther inormation on heterohonic techniques in the erormance o Chinese music, see Mok (1966) and Witzleben (1995). 10 In Piobaireachd (or Ceòl mór) these aear at their most comlex in the leumluath, taorluath, and crùnluath variations; but they are ound also in Ceòl beag and Ceòl meadhonach (Scholes (1970,.67)). 11 Having lost my coy o Logan s Comlete Tutor or the Highland Bagie, I can t remember the edition. It was robably Ross (195). Many examles o these oten very long and elaborate grace note embellishments can be ound online (htt:// iinganddrumming/iobaireachd-movts, 2007). Some have been reroduced as Aendix 2.

16 14 Examle 1.2a Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: 1 (The Dream, methinks), bb.72-8 where three chords are layed in the order a b a c a b, in their alindromic reetitions (bb.76-8, ivoting on the 6 th chord) to the extent where notes belonging to one chord eventually coincide with notes rom a dierent chord. The subtly dierent note lengths o each o the three voices in Examle 1.2b are unsettling, but do not overly disturb the homohony. Examle 1.2b Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: 1 (The Dream, methinks), bb This technique might aear most useul or instrumental melodies. I tend to aly increasingly augmented rhythmic treatments, so that material derived rom the extended grace note grous o, say, Piobaireachd might sometimes be transormed in to signiicantly more elongated embellishments within a slow-moving melody.

17 15 Examles 1.a & b show melodic ragments with short length grace note style embellishments rom Five Pieces or the Solo Piano and Dancin...! which are more Piobaireachd-like. The miniature staves show how the melodies are conceived rom very ew dierent rincial notes (only three in Examle 1.a). Examle 1.a Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: (The Hymn), bb Examle 1.b Dancin...!, bb.1-4

18 16 Dancin...! also makes requent use o reverse grace note grous, where the grace note derived igures tail away rom the rincial notes, as in Examle 1.4. Examle 1.4 Dancin...!, bb.19-2 Examle 1.5 shows clearly the simultaneous alication o both acciaccatura-like grace note grous and augmented igures derived rom them. The slower-moving, augmented alication more readily and more aroriately lends itsel to vocal melodies, as well as instrumental. Certainly, I have achieved a greater vocal quality in this extract.

19 17 Examle 1.5 Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: (The Hymn), bb In the irst o Three Love Songs, I derive much o both vocal lines rom grace note grous ocusing on seciic rincial itches (the slow temo might make this diicult to erceive aurally). In contrast, the violin igurations are more acciaccatura-like. In

20 18 Examle 1.6, the brie violin interlude oreshadows the augmented treatment o the non-rincial notes in the subsequent vocal entry. I may question why I regard my Examle 1.6 Three Love Songs: 1 She Walks in Beauty, bb melodic material as being treated other than as counteroint. A skilled contrauntalist working with the same musical material might have roduced many similar textures. I doubt the listener need be aware o rom what this music is derived or how it is constructed, to identiy its dramatic tensions and resolutions. My ercetion o my methods o melodic invention and the derived textures is aramount.

21 19 Early work on these grace-note-derived techniques led me to investigate various methods o dealing with the dislacement o conventionally-accented rincial notes that ollow grace note grous. I an acceted erormance technique emloyed with, say, ive acciaccatura notes rior to one rincial note is to lay the acciaccaturas as quickly as ossible beore the rincial note (sounding on the beat on which it was written), I needed to consider where coincidental notes (chords) should be laced when the acciaccaturas were extensively augmented? The harmonic momentum might stall to the oint o stasis were the harmonic rhythm tied redominantly to the movement o the rincial notes; and increasingly unmanageable textures would accumulate were grace note grous to extend beyond the oint at which any next chord might sound. One solution was to exeriment with staggering the melodic lines rom which the harmony derives, oten making the ulse ambiguous and the essential homohony o a assage decreasingly cohesive. Examle 1.7a demonstrates that even the assage reviously reerred to in Examle 1.2b is derived rom signiicantly augmented, but simle, grace note grous. Examle 1.7a Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: 1 (The Dream, methinks), bb

22 20 Examle 1.7b shows the homohonic clarity o the three arts. Examle 1.7b Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: 1 (The Dream, methinks), bb Examles 1.8a-c show the combined treatments o grace note grous in three ragments o an oening clarinet melody in the Prelude o Lines rom Bryn Wgan. I derive almost all melodic material in the irst two movements rom this, combining it with heterohonic versions o itsel mainly on guitar, har and celesta to create temorally slightly destabilised, multi-layered textures. Examle 1.8a Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb Examle 1.8b Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb.24-25

23 21 Examle 1.8c Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb.1-4 Above, I reer to melodic layers moving in an Ives-ian manner. Although Ives construction o multi-layered textures is clearly dierent consequent to collisions between dierent sets o musical material, 12 rather than the simultaneous ulling in dierent directions o single sets o musical ideas (or simle alications, see Examles 1.9a & b) the imact o temoral destabilisation is similar. Theses on temoral ercetion in music are well documented, and much has been written about 12 Kramer (1996,.48-61) resents an analysis o Ives use o densely-layered quotations in Putnam s Cam (Three Places in New England). Labelling this as multily-directed time, Kramer suggests there is little ossibility o hearing some o the temorally-indeendent lines and reers to seciic instrumental alignments as unlikely to be heard at all and not lasting long enough to ermit many such changes o attentional [sic] ocus.

24 22 Western music s re-occuation with time as rogressive. 1 Time is no more or less than one set o relationshis shaed by comosers, comarable to the shaing o more-obviously aural relationshis. 14 Examle 1.9a Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: 1 (The Dream, methinks), bb Examle 1.9b Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb Carenter (1967,.61-62) and Kramer (1981,.540) contrast this with Hoi time (time being getting later rather than rogressing) and Balinese time (evidenced in the nonlinear structure o Balinese music). Rowell (1996,.84) reers to Becker s noting o connections between time in Indonesian languages, history, and religious ideology and the temoral organization o the traditional gamelan music o Java the deendence o musical time on cultural ercetions o time (Becker, J. (1981) Hindu-Buddhist Time in Javanese Gamelan Music, in The Study o Time, 4, ). Rowell (1996,.86-87) recounts Fraser sconclusion: that time is not a single thing but many, that it is more idea and exerience than it is a roerty o hysical reality [and] that the roerties o time deend uon the Umwelt o the subject (Fraser, J.T. (1975) O Time, Passion and Knowledge. New York: Braziller). 14 Although Carenter (1965,.47) asks, even i music be shaed time, is it also shaed by time?

25 2 In the irst o Three Love Songs, I contrast the near erect homohony o the vocal lines with the less stable, but still clearly homohonically derived, violin arts there are only ive oints at which the rhythms o the two soranos drit momentarily aart (bb.7, 41, 55, 58 & 67). I maintain even the violins absolute homohony or most o the song, the only extended excetion being the assage rom bb.5-4. I establish a counteroint between the two airs o two-art homohony, which oten sets them moving against each other in a manner suggesting their derivation to be one our-art homohonic texture (Examle 1.10a). I clariy the searate identity o the air o Examle 1.10a Three Love Songs: 1 She Walks in Beauty, bb.5-10 soranos and the air o violins as the song rogresses, with a more-genuinely olyhonic texture being established between the two airings (Examle 1.10b).

26 24 Examle 1.10b Three Love Songs: 1 She Walks in Beauty, bb In the third song, the heterohonic treatment o all our arts is more consistently individual (Examle 1.11).

27 25 Examle 1.11 Three Love Songs: Love is Love, bb Previous examles clariy the way in which melodic lines in the ollowing extracts rom Dancin...! and Lines rom Bryn Wgan have been teased rom grace note igurations (Examles 1.12a & b). Examle 1.12a demonstrates a straightorward monodic heterohonic treatment: the grace note derivations aroaching the reeated D s and other rincial notes, articularly in the increasingly convoluted alications o bb and bb , are comarable with the extended acciaccatura-like reixes to the glockensiel s reeated A s in Examle 1.12b, in which the vocal lines are sarser and ramed by the vibrahone s condensed homohonic treatment. The textural relationshi here is homohonically heterohonic: a re-working o the same melodic material, ocused on dierent itches and in dierent tessitura.

28 26 Examle 1.12a Dancin...!, bb Examle 1.12b Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Song 1 Great Blasket, bb.65-68

29 27 Chater 2 My aroach to develoing, selecting and emloying systems and other sketch material Oten, I use scales constructed rom interval atterns that reeat at intervals greater or smaller than an octave. For examle, starting on C 4, the semitone sequence would roduce this scale: Examle 2.1a one cycle Examle 2.1b exanded to three cycles Because the range o one cycle o this scale is a Major 9th, each degree o the scale reeats at this interval, rather than at the octave (as in most conventional scales). Consequently, i each o the our tonics 15 rom Examle 2.1b were layed together, the ollowing our-art unison would be heard: Examle 2.1c 15 I use tonic as a widely recognised label or the irst degree o a scale, there being little common vocabulary between writers on non-octave reeating scales. This aucity might be because o crosscultural derivations and the diiculty o tonal / micro-tonal equivalence. Albersheim (1970, ) challenges the validity o non-octave scales: the tonal sace o all musical systems is structured in octave ranges and, to lace his assertions in ersective, challenges the validity o almost all non-tonal or non-modal scales: all dodecahonic intervals (excet the octave) are irrational, i.e. they can never become musical concets and roduce a musical hearing convention. Examles o non-octave scales aear to all into two categories: those comrising itches which can be at least imitated by welltemered Western instruments, e.g. the Shtayger modes o Ashkenazi synagogue singing, extending over more or less than an octave and which may be dierent in ascending and descending versions, and those that are microtonal, e.g. the Bohlen-Pierce scale with its thirteen equal subdivisions o the major 12 th. For urther inormation see htt://cnx.org/content/m1166/latest/; htt:// and htt://

30 28 This is clearly not a unison in the conventional sense; however I deend its deinition as such because it is a doubling o the irst notes (unctional tonics) o successive cycles o a scale. Examles 2.2a & b show a scale constructed rom the semitone sequence Here, the degrees o the scale reeat at the interval equivalent to an Augmented 8ve or Minor 9th. Examle 2.2a one cycle Examle 2.2b exanded to three cycles Examle 2.2c shows a chord comrising only 1 st (tonics) and 5 th degrees o the scale: Examle 2.2c Examles 2.a & b show a scale with a range smaller than an octave, constructed rom the semitone sequence Examle 2.a one cycle Examle 2.b- exanded to three cycles

31 29 Here, the six tonics over the given range are: Examle 2.c Examle 2.d Most commonly, my scales reeat at the interval o a 9 th or 10 th above the tonic. Aurally, these might dier only slightly rom conventional hetatonic modes, creating an illusion o subtle, but ersistent chromaticism (within, say, an assumed Aeolian, Dorian, Mixolydian or Ionian mode), esecially in melodic material. Harmonically, this illusion is less stable because notes within chords will not double unctionally at multiles o an octave (see Examles ). Also, an obvious textural diiculty arises when doubling the lowest itches o a scale (erhas to establish the harmonic alette), where suerimosing the lowest ive ossible tonics on the iano o the scale in Examles 2., creates a very dense texture: Examle 2.4 The rest o this chater deals with mainly the sketch material or my unwritten oera. This might seem strange when the oera is neither art o my olio nor likely to be comleted; but the modes, chords and characterisation ideas reared or it underin much o Lines rom Bryn Wgan. (O course, the latter also comrises large amounts o original material.) This material is resented in Examles 2.5 and 2.11, and is the most extensive and ormally laid out sketch ad I have retained (artly because I still think o it as work in rogress ). Comaring my intentions here with the working out

32 0 o this material in the alternative iece has been an interesting exercise similar to the rocesses o comosing the second o Two Pieces or Violins and Horn and the Five Pieces or the Solo Piano. A B C D A1 B1 C1 D T 4 2 T 2 T 2 4 T 4 T 2 4 T 2 T 2 T 2 4 (2) (4) (T) (4) (T) () (2) (T) (T) () (4) (2) (4) (2) () (4) Examle 2.5 sketch material or oera 1: Modes & Scales The bracketed notes may be omitted, thereby roducing either our- or six-note chords. Functionally, Chords A1-D1 are inversions o A-D.

33 1 There is clearly little dierence between my Norse and Norse Church modes. Although intervalically they both might be erceived as octatonic, the derived material is rom a reading o the Norse mode as tetratonic. (The interchangeableness o the two modes is imortant to the dramatic context and allows or some o the chords to be constructed using unctional numberings rom both grand scales.) The chord numbering system based on the Norse grand scale imlies no seciic range be ixed to each number, other than the notes being laced in the correct vertical osition related to one another; e.g. in Chord A (Examle 2.5) the to note could be any Note 4 roviding there remain available suicient lower itches to comlete the chord. An interesting eature o chords constructed numerically rom non-octave scales is that the dierent orms in which the same chord might exist may comrise dierent itches (see Examle 2.6). This can make the rocess o comaring what actually ends u in a iece with the chords origins quite challenging, esecially once the iece itsel has taken control over the systems. Examle 2.6 three dierent versions o the same chord constructed rom the NORSE mode The Prelude to Lines rom Bryn Wgan makes extensive use o Inuit material rom the oera, the oening clarinet melody using notes exclusively rom INUIT modes B and C.

34 2 Examle 2.7a Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb Examle 2.7b Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb Examle 2.7c Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb.1-4 In Song One Ste at a Time, the our-chord uer-strings link between the riotous introductory orchestral music and the irst vocal entry (Examle 2.8) is based on the Norse Church mode transosed down 1 semitone.

35 A B C D 4 (4) 6 (2) 5 (T) 8 (4) 8 (4) 6 (2) 7 () 4 (4) () 5 (T) 4 (4) 6 (2) 7 () 5 (T) 6 (2) () 5 (T) N.B. The bracketed numbers correlate to the tetratonic NORSE mode grand scale Examle 2.8 Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Song One Ste at a Time, bb.0-12 Incidentally, this assage recalls those moments o Ives-ian stillness where, desite his association with comlex collages o orchestral colour, ocus-distorting crossrhythms, and extreme dissonance, quietude suddenly aears as i rom nowhere, leaving the listener wondering whether it was resent in the background throughout. I enjoy these moments so much, their brevity being a distillation o the essence o Ives

36 4 music. 16 Unashamedly, I allow moments like these to elbow their way in to my music, sometimes recisely as Ives might have laced them. Examle 2.9a shows a assage rom Song 1: Great Blasket (Lines rom Bryn Wgan) eaturing three elements o oera sketch material: 1. the uer strings lay Chords A-C (see Examle 2.9) transosed u one tone;. 2. the vocal lines are entirely diatonic within this transosed mode (they are also the uer notes o the our chords constructed or the oera s husband and wie, Kristin and Thorstein (see Examle 2.9b));. the vocal lines are made u o slow-moving, overlaing hocket-like igurations, which is the characteristic singing style o Kristin and Thorstein when they aear together on stage (see also Examle 2.8c) (clichéd husband/wie bickering erhas but an eective comedic device all the same). Although assages like these are modally consistent, the actual chords are not those in my oera source material (see Examle 2.5). At this stage in the comositional rocess (i.e. the end o comosing a large-scale iece artially based on systems and material devised or a dierent iece) I cannot recall why this set o chords should have been avoured over the original. I am conident that it doesn t matter, and am hay to deend my decision behind Felseneld s (2004,.5) emotional comlexity. 16 Tiett (1969, ) identiied the essence o Ives music as the tiny moments o near silence that remain ater all the aarent chaos has subsided, these oten being brie, aarent oversights o orchestration a ew lingering notes rom a chord erhas which are most oten moments o absolute beauty and reose.

37 5 A B C 4 (4) 6 (2) 5 (T) 8 (4) 6 (2) 7 () () 5 (T) 4 (4) 7 () 5 (T) 6 (2) Examle 2.9a Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Song 1 Great Blasket, bb

38 6 A B C D 4 (4) 6 (2) 5 (T) 8 (4) 4 (4) 8 (4) 6 (2) 7 () 6 (2) () 5 (T) 4 (4) () 7 () 5 (T) 6 (2) 5 (T) 2 (2) 4 (4) () () T (T) 7 () 5 (T) 6 (2) 5 (T) 8 (4) T (T) () 4 (4) T (T) 8 (4) 2 (2) () Examle 2.9b sketch material or oera 2: Ideas or Kristin and Thorstein (our chords) Examle 2.9c Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Song 4 Something that haened just south o Solitude, bb Four-chord grouings eature throughout Lines rom Bryn Wgan. Sometimes these derive rom oera chords; sometimes they are original chord grous, as in Song 2 Wild Man o the Woods (see Examles 2.10a & b). The idea, however, is rooted irmly in the oera s sketch material.

39 7 Examle 2.10a Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Song 2 Wild Man o the Woods, bb

40 8 Examle 2.10b Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Song 2 Wild Man o the Woods, bb Lines rom Bryn Wgan has been an emotionally diicult iece to write. Discussing it here has brought home to me how close Bob and I worked together and how in tune we were with each other s creative thinking. Bob was a humanist. The contradictions o imosed organisation were anathema to him governmental, religious, community, etc., systems made him angry (he blamed them or most o the world s wrongs). He wrote about them in a beautiul, sincere, incisively ironic, comedic and angry way; I just grumble. He looked to nature, to natural systems and not just the retty bits

41 9 (naïve he certainly wasn t) to history and to the Arts or lessons. Why am I writing about Bob? because some asect o each o the characters in the oera would have made him angry. Eirik, the ersoniication o organised religion would have made Bob very angry indeed. The last writing Bob comleted beore his untimely death was his oem, One Ste at a Time the text o Song. Reviewing my characterisation sketches or the oera (Examle 2.11), it comes as no surrise that Eirik s material and the damned Bell chords should eature rominently in this song. (Most o this material aears in Lines rom Bryn Wgan, i not in its original orm.) It mattered a great deal to me when I sketched material or the iece. But I hadn t areciated how ar back in the mind it became buried once the iece itsel had taken over.

42 40 Examle 2.11 source material or oera : Characterisations With its augmented seconds and minor thirds, the transormed Norse mode is more useully interchangeable with the original Inuit mode and is the basis or much melodic material throughout Lines. The transormed Norse Church mode, with its otional

43 41 sharened Notes 4 and 8, is more adatable than in its original orm; again, this is used widely. Finally, Examles 2.12a-c show the emloyed notes rom the modes in Three Love Songs (the chromatic notes used are shown in brackets). In She Walks in Beauty, the ull range o the octatonic mode (the Norse Church mode one semitone higher) is used between all our arts. The only chromatic note is the highest Aª which aears in bb I cannot remember its signiicance: whether it was a momentary lase in concentration or whether the sudden clariication o a D major chord was the insightul word ainting o eyes. I tried changing it to maintain the modal consistency throughout; A s here simly did not work. Examle 2.12a mode rom Three Love Songs: 1 She Walks in Beauty Similar levels o modal consistency are maintained in the second and third songs. A Song o a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover uses only one chromatic note in each o the Sorano 1 and Violin 1 arts, which share the same mode, and, other than the highest three notes in Violin 2, only a small number o chromatic notes aear in the arts 2. Again, I cannot exlain this inconsistency. Changing these notes to what would be Notes, 4 and 2, does not sound as good. Sounding better has to be the best argument or disensing with rules set by any system, even simly a mode. Any music with such a itch system is likely to contain some chromaticism; it is the sarseness o it here that increases its signiicance.

44 42 Examle 2.12b modes rom Three Love Songs: 2 A Song o a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover The two modes are distributed dierently in Love is Love. The violins share one at the same itch, and the soranos share another, a semitone aart. Again, the occurrences o chromatic notes are very ew (none in the violin arts). Examle 2.12c modes rom Three Love Songs: Love is Love

45 4 In Three Love Songs, the harmonic imlications are entirely incidental to the linear material there are very ew harmonically conceived chords and the orces restrict the lowest itch to the G below middle C, avoiding the textural roblem o low-itch crowding.

46 44 Chater My aroach to rhythm Decisions about the durations o individual sounds, articularly but not exclusively melodic, take me longer than any other technical consideration in the comosing rocess. My exerimentation with the rhythmic treatment o grace note grous and its consequent disrution o overall ulse increasingly ocuses my attention on melodic rhythm. Mostly, I avoid rubato in my music and rarely use auses; I reer to dictate the recise relative duration o each sound. This can lead to comlex notations and having to choose between regular and irregular time signatures. Examle.1 shows one o the rhythmically more comlex assages rom the Prelude o Lines rom Bryn Wgan. The ive-art rhythmic texture and the relationshis between each o the arts were established as an imortant dramatic device in the oening section o the oera. In this version, the rhythms are less comlicated than in the original which, scored or chamber orchestra, might have lent greater clarity to the indeendence o the comlex temoral layers (originally including additional lines in setulet semiquavers) more eectively than the larger ensemble. An excert rom Ives Putnam s Cam (Three Places in New England) might aear rhythmically straightorward in comarison. In both, the temoral convolution enhances the clarity o the dense textures by allowing the listener access to the dierent linear strands Writing about the multile temoral layers in Putnam s Cam and the various themes quoted by Ives, Kramer (1996,.48-61) reers to the dierent associations that the quoted material evokes in each listener and the relations between the iece and numerous other ieces rom other historical eras, i the listener were able to deciher Ives American Revolutionary War narrative rogramme.

47 45 Examle.1 Lines rom Bryn Wgan: Prelude, bb Examle.2 shows the three temoral layers at the beginning o the ourth o Five Pieces or the Solo Piano. Examles.a & b show irregular time signatures and abstrusely recise note lengths, both emloyed careully or exressive eect: one in a text setting and the other urely instrumental. In the second, the directions rubato or molto esressivo might have resulted in similar rhythmic eects, but would have meant my abdicating resonsibility or the aective quality o the hrases. Many assages comrising similarly aarently arcane rhythmic devices occur in my music o the ast iteen-or-so years.

48 46 Examle.2 Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: 4 (The Aria, o erhas just a song), bb.1-16

49 47 Examle.a Three Love Songs: 1 She Walks in Beauty, bb.2- Examle.b Five Pieces or the Solo Piano: 4 (The Aria, or erhas just a song), bb.55-58

50 48 Keller (1957,.201) claims Rhythm is the ultimate source o music there is rhythm without melody, but there is no melody or harmony or counteroint without rhythm. 18 The dance against the dance is how he describes the anticiations and anticiatory susensions leading to the eventual release o simultaneity (as in Gershwin, and very many aboriginal dance orms) and contrasts this with the constant dislacement o downbeat (as in Stravinsky 19 but surely no more so, in context, than the accumulating hemiolas in the irst movement o Beethoven s Eroica symhony). Keller s imlied beating drum can be only an essential ingredient o his background o musical logic, and cannot be guaranteed ever-resent in the twenty-irst century. 20 The roblem or today s listener (and or today s comoser, Keller s thesis being rooted rincially in classical tonality) is that there can be no certainty o exectation and, by imlication, no certainty o the unredictability on which musical logic deends. I dwell on Keller (1957,.201) because o his described irritation at the nonsynchronicity o Belisha beacons and his resumtion that this be a shared emotional resonse; I mourn their loss rom our urban landscae and rejoice in their memory. I do not regard mysel to be rhythmically subversive. I resond with curiosity and creative interest to the conlict with the imlied drum beat. Indeed, this is oten a rincial motivator or my music. I the exected is an essential arameter deiner o 18 Keller (1957,.201), in contrasting and comaring syncoation techniques in the music o Gershwin and Stravinsky, reers to the ever-resent, i inaudible, beating drum. 19 In his essay on Schoenberg, Tiett (1965,.98-99) observes how Bartok and Stravinsky ursued individual, ersonal necessary ste[s] within the world-wide musical revolution in rogress, reerring seciically to Stravinsky s aroach to rhythm in Les Noces, with Stravinsky we have not only additive rhythm but the use o this material to build a tremendous additive structure where rhythm is the unctional orce not harmony at all. 20 Keller (1970,.12) describes background and oreground as the two dimensions along which musical meaning develos : background being exectations unulilled (dierent or each listener and deendent on varying (common) exeriences with the comoser and, thereore, with the otential to change during a iece) and oreground being what the comoser actually comosed (which cannot change); one cannot exist without the other.

51 49 the unexected, what haens to our arameters as comosers when each o our listeners exects the unexected (a oint I return to in Chater 4)? There are many Belisha beacon moments in my music. The clearest in this olio is the entire second o Three Love Songs. When I read Rochester s A Song o a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover, I could only erceive the music with two arallel temoral levels: one young, the other ancient. For much o this song, the rhythms and hrase structure o Sorano 1 are aligned to Violin 1, and Sorano 2 to Violin 2. This may be seen clearly in Examle.4a, i one ignores the sorano arts until they re-enter in bb.55 & 56. The underlying meters o both airings are irregular (the time signatures are largely a Examle.4a Three Love Songs: 2 A Song o a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover, bb convenience or the eye) and because o this I imagine that most o the connections or synchronicities, and the consequent syncoations, may not immediately be aarent to the listener. I know they are resent. It was one o my reoccuations. Most

52 50 imortantly, it gave me the stimulus to generate this music: Keller s oreground. The third song, Love is Love (see Examle.4b) also has dierent concurrent temoral Examle.4b Three Love Songs: Love is Love, bb structures, oten maintaining a crotchet ulse against a dotted crotchet ulse. Note that the dotted crotchet ulse o Sorano 2 is aligned with 2½ dotted crotchet (or 5 dotted quaver) hrases in Violin 1 or, as in Examle.4c, something more comlex, Examle.4c Three Love Songs: Love is Love, bb.9-11 such as 2 trilet crotchets against a dotted crotchet in the two sorano arts. The same relationshi is resent at the beginning o the coda to Love is Love (Examle.4d), where this time the dotted crotchets o Sorano 2 are more evenly aligned to the nine quaver hrases o Violin 2.

53 51 Examle.4d Three Love Songs: Love is Love, bb Writers and comosers have advanced thoughts on the signiicance o layered temoral structures, the imortance o rhythm to structural rogression, and arallel ercetions o time erceived by the listener. 21 Stravinsky (1942,.5) observes that All music is nothing more than a succession o imulses that converge towards a deinite oint o reose, (considering Kramer (1996,.21-62), we might revise this to consider multile deinite oints o reose) and, reerring to an obsession with regularity, asserts that the unexected is revealed through the contrast between actual or imlied isochronous beats and rhythmic invention. 22 My music avoids regularity. This may be seen in Examles.4a-d and in erhas all other excerts in 21 See Chater 1. Also, Kramer (1996,.21-62) develos his theory o multily directed time through analyses o Beethoven, Mahler and Ives: a multily directed iece [is] one "in which the direction o motion is so requently interruted by discontinuities, in which the music goes so oten to unexected laces, that the [sense o linear motion through time], though still a otent structural orce, seems reordered."' Carenter (1967, 59) argues: The basic act about a iece o music is that the object heard is never actually there; yet actually, in our mode o hearing music strikingly tends toward wholeness, toward Gestalt. For this reason the kind o hearing demanded by modern Western music has been called antilogical ercetion, or it requires the ability to gras the non simultaneous as simultaneous. 22 Stravinsky (1942,.29) cites Souvtchinsky s summary o two kinds o music: one evolving arallel to the rocess o ontological time, embracing and enetrating it, inducing in the mind o the listener a eeling o euhoria, the other running ahead o or counter to [ontological time, which] dislocates the centers [sic.] o attraction and gravity and sets itsel u in the unstable, making it articularly adatable to the translation o the comoser s emotive imulses.

54 52 this commentary. In Dancin...!, I understand how Kramer s analyses might aly. It comrises several contrasting dance-like ragments, some based on actual dance orms the waltz (Examle.5a) and the gavotte (Examle.5b) and others merely imressions. Each develos indeendently with interrutions and, through syncoation, irregular metres and metric modulations, they gradually merge, searate, and re-merge. By b.190, it is no longer obvious which ragment dominates (Examle.5c); the listener s ercetion o rogression and simultaneity eectively controls the way in which the music is heard. And the listener s ercetion is based on the listener s exerience. Examle.5a Dancin...!, bb.57-66

55 5 Examle.5b Dancin...!, bb Examle.5c Dancin...!, bb Rowell (1996,.88) asserts, Time cannot articulate itsel [we] gras it only by means o events and rocesses that ass through our exerience, and the ways in which we observe, store, maniulate, and retrieve these. How then, does musical memory inorm musical exerience? What is the relationshi between what is heard and what is memorised 2 the actual versus the internal? 2 Kramer (1981,.552) describes how his increasing amiliarity with a recording o Cage s Aria allowed him to be able to redict with absolute certainty what was to haen next, resulting in linearity by imlication.

56 54 Chater 4 My aroach to the listener Carenter (1967) imlies that cultural background must aect the listener s ercetion through listening, not merely o what a iece o music is about, but o what is the very nature o music. Asserting that rimarily music is something to be resonded to, (.66-67) she aears to overlook that this might not be universal. 24 Asserting that ways o ercetual organisation assume a common-sense manner o hearing or seeing, and that in order to erceive time, we must erceive change, she omits discussion o how this imacts on someone ailing to erceive connections (.77). Such ailure o ercetion could be regarded as a ailure o eort or o intellect, but (or today s audience) could be due to cultural diversity, a aucity o oortunities to gain exerience, or could be a societal omission. Carenter (.8-84) 25 observes that there are many and various hilosohies o how we hear and erceive, and arallels drawn between orm and sychological movement (tension and release). Is it ossible or comosers to be unaware o their and their listener s exectations? 26 Kennaway (2011) leads me to onder the otential number o ermutations o exerience o the 24 Carenter (1967,.71) may be in danger o assuming an imlicit cultural hierarchy ( to create a musical object, it is necessary to transorm sound rom vital sensation into one that has an objective character. Although reminding us that she is considering the Western tradition, she ails to check suiciently her theses against listener exectation rom other cultural exeriences. Other inconsistencies are noted by Treitler (1967). 25 Footnote 4, rom Meyer (1957,.414) deines latent exectation as being habitual (getting u in the morning; eeling sated ater a meal; execting rom the outset a tonal iece o music to end with a tonic chord) and active exectation as being consequent to a disrution in habit (over-sleeing, ollowed by awareness that the decision to get out o bed must be taken; arriving late at lunch to ind only salad available, ollowed by awareness o the need to eat much carbohydrate to get through the aternoon; listening to an imrovisation and losing track o how the key o the moment relates to the tonic, ollowed by awareness o working out how it might end).

57 55 listener when coming to his own Gestalt o a iece o music. 27 He imlies that the comoser-listener relationshi exists via a third arty (i.e. it is, at least, second-hand). Twenty-irst century access to exerience might make it more likely that the listener is enabled to adot Kramer s new listening strategies. 28 Perhas it also makes it less likely that the comoser is able to make accurate assumtions about the listener s exerience. Meyer (citing himsel 29 ) attributes signiicant value to the exerience the listener brings to (unamiliar) music: The dierentia between the aective resonse and the intellectual resonse to music lies in the disositions and belies which the listener brings to musical exeriences rather than in the musical rocesses which evoke the resonses. Cummings (1994,.1) cites Cliton: 0 The resonsive listener does not create the comosition, but he constitutes it as meaningul or him it is the listener s comosition which counts or him. In short, order is constituted a riori by the listener, not imosed by the comoser. Twenty-our years exerience as a school teacher makes me certain that I will never ully understand the communication or access-to-inormation cultures or young eole. Rowell (1996,.92) raises an on-going agenda, which I summarise: 1. Music s tendency to become more interactive (less comoser control) 27 Kennaway (2011,.70-7) analyses the ingering otions in the oening ten bars o the cello art o Beethoven s cello sonata in A, o.69. He calculates there to be 1,289,945,088,000, many o which are comletely imracticable o course, but many might lead to subtle nuances o ercetion. 28 Kramer, J.D. (1988) The Time o Music: New Meanings, New Temoralities, New Listening Strategies. New York: Schirmer Books. 29 Footnote 1 (.412): Meyer, L.B. (1956) Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University o Chicago Press,.9. 0 Cliton T. (197) Music and the A Priori, in Journal o Musical Theory. 17/1,.81.

58 56 2. Music s tendency to become more communal (blurred boundaries between individual and collective creativity). Digitalisation (reerence or discontinuity) 4. Return to the concet o eic time (tuning-in and tuning-out 1 ) 5. Waning imortance o ous and genre 6. Virtual disaearance o Absolute music 7. Increasing interest in musical issues involving longer sans o temoral hierarchy All o these imact, and have imacted, on listener exectation today largely through exerience with comuters, the internet and other interactive devices and not merely in music. 2 Rowell (1990,.57) himsel cites evidence rom his teaching (and that rom over two decades ago): many young eole today reer a dierent set o ercetion strategies and are more ready to adat articularly in their extraordinary ability to assemble a coherent ackage rom a series o disconnected events. He questions whether the rice or this newound ability is the shortening o attention san and the consequent loss o the ability to ollow and relish the linear intricacies o a sustained, ocused narrative. Increasingly, I onder the signiicance o how and why I make the decisions I do, as a comoser. Clearly, I cannot control comletely the listener s ercetion o my music. Consequently, it cannot be imortant or my listener to understand or even be aware 1 c. Carenter s (1967,.57) reerence to a Chinese ainting serving to cut out a iece o the extended visual world 2 1 & 2 relate to interactivity and on-line collaborative editorshi/creativity; & 4 relate to multitasking (Windows); 5 relates to oen access; 6 relates to shortening attention san.

59 57 o my comositional rocess? Meyer (1960,.50-51) osits that society and culture bear uon the receiver s ercetion o music monism versus monistic relativism and that comositional material requires not only knowledge o the stimulus, but also knowledge o the resonding individual whether comoser, erormer, or listener [including the] understanding o mental behavior (sic.) as it oerates within the context o culturally acquired habits and disositions. He continues: associations by contiguity are culture-bound Because contiguity creates associations which are contingent rather than necessary, they are subject to change and modiication. To identiy contiguous associations, the listener must learn meaning ; and these associations and meanings are not culturally interchangeable. And Rowell (1990,.56) (summarising Kramer) through reerences to Stockhausen s notion o moment orm leads me to doubt whether, today, either the comoser or the listener really controls the ercetion o time (and, thereore, o everything else) in music.

60 58 Conclusion Achenbach (1987, cited in Rowell 1996,.86) describes his boredom when listening to a iece o music by Glass resumably one that Kramer would categorise as being in vertical time : It didn t really start, and it didn t really end. No earlier or later. No ast or uture. It was beautiul. I was so bored I thought I had died. Kramer (cited in Rowell (1990,.49)) concludes that the meanings o our music are vast and varied. And, in resonse, our listening strategies are (or at least should be) lexible and creative. Post-comositional analyses o my own music, consequent relections on the relationshis between material sketched and material used, and other writers thoughts on how listeners exeriences aect their ercetion o music lead me to conclude that, as a comoser, I have ar less inluence over how my music is received than erhas I once imagined. The comoser-listener condition clearly is aected by the shaing o the listener s ercetion o time (either by the comoser or by other inluences), and the ercetion o time could be either one o several musical elements shaed by the comoser or it could be the consequence o the comoser s shaing o more-obviously aural elements, esecially rhythm and texture, but also harmony and thereore modes and scales (because an exectation o how harmonic syntax might unction in various contexts aects the ercetion o rhythm and texture in relation to the rogression o time). This reminds me o my ercetion o a radio broadcast, I think in the early 1980s, o Glass Einstein on the Beach.

61 59 My yearning or reminiscences o Celtic musics Piobaireachd, Gaelic Psalmody, simle olk-like melody and modal harmonies is a subconscious alette o elemental raw materials: a musical hiraeth, not merely o all things Welsh that stimulate the childhood memory, but o an undertow o a wider Celtic culture. Recently, I reconsidered what were to me the signiicant early events that had shaed my music: growing u in a Welsh non-conormist Christian environment accomanying a male voice choir laying bass in dance and olk bands visiting a bagie retailer in Edinburgh listening to Ives The Unanswered Question in an A-level lesson learning Tiett s second iano sonata being given a cassette tae o Gaelic salm singing by John Hearne Two things intrigue me about these: irstly, none o them seem to me as i they have had any seciic imact on other asects o my identity; and secondly, whether anyone hearing my music would be able to identiy them the inluences I most remember and which lie deely wraed in a blanket o other subliminal inluences. I cannot imagine living without Beethoven. I have to listen regularly to my recording o Bach s St Matthew Passion. I need to return requently to Ives Piano Trio, to June Tabor singing The Flowers o the Forest, and to Dick Gaughan singing anything. Where are the imortant modern comosers? Conclusions vary, not so much on the redictability or otherwise o music, but more on the listener s deendableness in redicting music as others might exect, or even desire. Some assume the natural sueriority or accordance with nature o a itch

62 60 system. Some assume the only aroriate ercetion o time as linear. Discussing tension and resolution in the music o Beethoven and the Viennese Serialists with Edward Said, Barenboim (200,.4) identiies a ersonal dilemma: I m not convinced that the tonal system is a ure and simle abrication o man, nor am I convinced that it is a law o nature. I vacillate rom one to the other. Webern (196,.1), oines on the scales o Western music, seciically the major scale, imlicitly dismissing other itch systems: as a material it accords comletely with nature the secial consistency and irm basis o our system seem roved by the act that our music has been assigned a secial ath. According to Kramer (1981,.59), In music, the quintessential exression o linearity is the tonal system. Tonality s golden age coincides with the height o linear thinking in Western culture. Johnson (1975,.16-17), exanding on Messiaen s own writings on the subject o his modes o limited transosition and added resonance (Examles 4.1a & b), describes Messiaen s modes o limited transosition as artiicial modes, having no connection with the modes o olk-music or lainchant, imlying thereore that other modes are without artiice, i.e. entirely natural. 4 Further, Messiaen s chord o resonance, described by Johnson, would be naturally resonant only i it comrised naturally occurring odd-numbered harmonics (this oint is ignored by Johnson); it is, thereore, as artiicial as any artiicial mode. How can a itch system based on the comromises o equal temerament accord comletely with nature? 4 Perhas this dislays the same arrogance as Bush s denial o the validity o serial dodecohony (Bush, A. (1971) Introduction, in Lendvai, E. Béla Bartók: An Analysis o his Music. Rerint, London: Kahn & Averill, 1979.)

63 61 Examle 4.1a Messiaen s Modes o limited transosition, as cited in Johnson (1975,.16) Examle 4.1b Messiaen s Chord o resonance, as cited in Johnson (1975,.17) Reminding us that music is not a natural system, Meyer (1957,.419) reers to the man-made and man-controlled condition o music. He alludes to the comositional rocess as combating the tendency toward the tedium o maximum certainty through the designed uncertainty introduced by the comoser [and] that as robability increases so does the aarent signiicance o minor deviations. I have never believed that my music means anything, i meaning imlies something additional, something extra-musical. Meyer (1957,.416) deines musical meaning as arising when an antecedent situation, requiring an estimate as to the robable modes