A Glimpse into a Composer's Workshop

1. A Glimpse into a Composer's Workshop Nigel Morgan www.nigel-morgan.co.uk

2. A Glimpse into a Composer’s Workshop Computer Assisted Composition The Composing Continuum A Glimpse into 3 Compositions Issues: Problems: Vision

3. Computer Aided Composition: A Definition • CAC systems focus on the formal structure of music. • We conceive a CAC environment as a programming language,enabling composers to constitute their personal universe. - Carlos Agon, IRCAM, Paris Index

4. Composers • The Monte Carlo Method • Illiac QuartetLajaren Hiller & Leonard IsaacsonExperimental Music (1959) McGraw-Hill • Stochastics • Pierre Barbaud BARBAUD P., Vademecum de l'ingénieur en musique, Springer, 1993, • Iannis Xenakis • MIDI: The Composer’s Assistant • Morton Subotnik • Fred Lerhahl (IRCAM) • Robert Rowe • David Rosenboom Index

5. Composers • The Spectral View • Tristran Murail & Gerard Grisey • Jonathan Harvey • Fractals • Magnus Lindberg • Rolf Wallin • Statistical Distribution • Richard Barratt • James Dillon • Generative Music without Computers • Franco Donatoni • Milton Babbitt Index

6. Software • Pre-MIDI • Use of AMPLE • MIDI • Logical (Boolean) editing: Cubase & Logic • M, Jam Factory, Real-Time • Programmable Variations Generator of Dr. T’s KCS • HMSL, Interactor, Cypher, MAX • LISP & Smalltalk Composition Environments • Common Music • Symbolic Composer • Cecilia, D-MIX • Bol Processor • Patchwork & Open Music • The use of Matlab • Matlab MIDI Toolkit Index

7. The Composing Continuum Follows this sequence: Pre-composition Audition and Simulation The Notated Score pq pq Index

8. Pre-Composition A blue-print of the composition containing the core materials required by the composer to 'make' the composition. From the semiotics of of Jean Molino poietic composing - the business and process of making a composition Index

9. The Hindemith Approach Eckhart Richter’s ‘A Glimpse into the Workshop of Paul Hindemith’ (Richter 1977:122) describes Hindemith’s working method as presented to a class at Yale in 1951. • The general determination of the character, medium and the basic purpose of the piece, as well as its expressive character, and even place of performance • A master plan of formal design, including the overall shape, the number and character of sections, changes in mode and tempo, rhythmic character, texture and the degree of activity . . • Then ‘came the tonal layout in which the basic tonalities of each section and their relative degrees of tonal stability and complexity, as well as the modulations, were mapped by means of a diagram’. • Specific thematic material. Index

10. Before the Notes Improvisation Verbal Descriptions Drawings and Diagrams Plans, graphs, flow-charts Sketches in graphic notations MIDI recordings Index

11. Conditions Surrounding Performance & Performers Instruments and instrumentation Duration Context Technical Ability Index

12. From the Sketch to the Score Traditional methods usually hide the techniques and the web of decisions that are engaged to produce a notated scoring of a complete musical section. Decisions are kept on hold as long as possible: Very little evidence of what-ifs (the contents of the waste-paper bin!) Index

13. Towards Programming for Music Parametric Thinking The Hierarchy of Action Traditional Practice The Experience of the Ear and Eye Internalisation Meta-composition Generative Techniques(and the art of good continuation) Index

14. Parametric Thinking Timbre Note-length is a virtual distance of a sounding pitch or chord Duration is associated with performance articulation of the Note-length Index

15. The Beat/Space Concept Concerto N0.4 M1 (Instrumentarium Novum) ; | | | || | | | | | w1 " - --- - - --- ------- -- -- ” w2 " -- -- - - --- --- - --- - ---- -- ” br " --- -- -- - -- -- ---- --- -- ---- - -- " s1 " ---- - - -- -- - -- -- - --- --- ” s2 "- -- -- - -- - ------- - - - - - ----- --- ” pc "- -- -- - - - - ------ -- --- - --” cn "------ - -- --- --------- - -- - --- - --- " Quatour des Timbres Giuoco delle Coppie (4 Diverse instruments) ; | | | | | | | | wd "--- --- - - - --- - - - ” br " - - - - - - - -” pc " ----- --- - -- - -----” st "- ---- - - -- - ----- --- ” template-based procedures(x = = x = = x x) > (a b c d) > (a = = b = = c d) example of binary rhythmics (x = = x) or (x = x x = x x x) Listen to Nigel Morgan’s Toccata for solo piano Index

16. The Hierarchy of Action A musical composition tends to display a hierarchy in the arrangement of parametric elements. Bach's Prelude in C from WTK could be said to have this hierarchy: Harmony Harmonic Rhythm Note-length Pitch Rhythm CAC needs to allow the composing process to start from any parametric element. Index

17. Traditional Practice The need for a composer to really understand the elements commonly used in his/her composing. "The problems of language, meaning, and form must remain central to the composer, and he has constantly to set himself up against the history of his own art." Alexander Goehr in Finding the Key (1998) This book contains some valuable descriptions of the composer’s own pre-composition processes and that of his teachers Richard Hall and Olivier Messiaen. Index

18. The Experience of the Ear and Eye • Experience based on studies of existing scores and practice. • What works well with performers - in slow/fast tempos? • How are changing metres presented? (with time-signatures or the use of accents) • The value of visual scanning to the process of building a musical structure of many parts and sections. Index

19. Internalisation How important is the ability to hear in one's imagination the detailed sound of the music as it develops? Is the intervention of computer-assisted playback of musical elements helpful or a hindrance? Are we only experiencing the outer layer of the musical message? Index

20. Meta-composition Can we think about composition as a play of symbolic elements? Can we work 'back to the notes' from speculative symbolic ideas? Hindemith favoured a process of thinking about composition in which 'the notes' assumed the lowest position in the hierarchy of planning a musical work. Index

21. Generative Techniques What are the basic / essential generative techniques composers use during the pre-composition stage? Can these techniques be defined as functions able to act on individual parametric elements? What other techniques do we need to have available to enable 'good continuation' ? How important is analysis in defining generative techniques? Are we talking about reverse engineering? Index

22. Audition and Simulation: During the Pre-composition process What is required, important, essential? Auditioning discrete parametric material The sonic sounding board (real instruments to sampled simulations) The baggage of musical detail (necessary or not?) Is MIDI the only protocol we can use here? Index

23. Audition and Simulation:During & After the Production of a Notated Score Value to performers. A means of checking. Index

24. The Notated Score & Summary What are the mechanisms that enable the rendering of pre-compositional material into a notated performance score? What are the expectations? What are the common difficulties and anomalies? Summary - The Composing Continuum • In the making of music for human performance a small, but significant number of composers use Computer Assisted Composition. • Very few of these composers a) have sustained a long-term association with a CAC or b) acknowledge how and to what degree compositions are made with computer assistance. • Informal and anecdotal evidence suggests that a) it is rare for a composer to even attempt the composing continuum (pre-composition to notated score), b) most use the CAC to generate unique material in one parametric element only - usually pitch. • There remain unresolved issues in the translation from midifile (the favoured output of most CACs) to staff notation: time-signatures and metre zones (bars), tuplets or irrationals rhythmics, metrical modulations, microtones, articulations. Index

25. A Glimpse into Three Compositions: Compass from Array, for solo violin (setq phrases (append (vector-to-symbol a l (gen-sin 0.1 0.1 60 180 (gen-ramp 10 0.1 60))) (vector-to-symbol a x (gen-sin 0.3 0.1 60 180 (gen-ramp 10 0.3 60))) (vector-to-symbol -l l (gen-sin 0.5 0.1 60 180 (gen-ramp 10 0.5 60))) (vector-to-symbol -o w (gen-sin 0.7 0.1 60 180 (gen-ramp 10 0.7 60)))) ) Index

26. A Glimpse into Three Compositions: Compass from Array, for solo violin Index

27. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:The Waterfall from Stone and Flower - for voice and keyboard The Fall It is the fall, the eternal fall of water, of rock, of wounded birds, and the wounded heart, the waterfall of freedom. Angels fall like lovers from the azure, separate, and die by that same death that ends us all. Falling ten million years, we fling ourselves again into the inviting arms of time; our nuptial flight must end again in death that serves for freedom time and time again while the hard labouring mystic holds his breath. The watching surface of the living sea ever intact, smiles with the face of love, where living blood drowns in its ecstasy, impelled by nature that can mountains move, feeling most freedom when it least is free. Shall we go down, shall we go down together? here on the mountain top, the wind and snow urge us to fall, and go the way they go. The way is clear, the end we shall not know, the sea will carry us where tides run and currents flow. Index

28. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:The Waterfall - Page 1 from Stone and Flower - for voice and keyboard Index

29. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:Concerto 1 • Process of Pitch Composition • Vector output from white noise fractal • Division into phrases • Phrases picked and randomised into new order • New order includes possibility of repeats • Orchestration • Stage 1 orchestration in 7 timbres • Wind 1&2, Brass, Strings 1&2, percussion, continuo • Array-base processing to define instrument activity • Production of timesheet Index

30. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:Concerto 1 - rough prototyping i Index

31. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:Concerto 1 - rough prototyping ii Index

32. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:Concerto 1 - rough prototyping iii Index

33. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:Concerto 1 - full-score Index

34. A Glimpse into Three Compositions:Concerto 1- SCOM Workspace Index

35. Issues: Problems: Vision Issues Education Artistic Perceptions Problems Gaps in the Composing Continuum The MIDI (file) Vision Enabling work in Open-Form Towards a more dynamic relationship between composer and performer MPEG AHG on Music Notation Index

36. Issues 1 The Effect of Digital Technology on Musical Creativity What has digital technology to offer the composer searching for the right note, the appropriate chord, the smooth transition from one idea to another? Are the current tools and systems, said to make us more creative and productive, delivering the goods? Or, are there intrinsic problems that may be already having a serious effect on the development of composers whose formative relationship with music composition has depended on interactions with technology? To this end, the paper considers a study of undergraduate students working with computer sequencers and describes research and development of new tools for music composition and its teaching and learning. It concludes with recommendations that suggest composers empower themselves to take control of digital technology, rather than being controlled by it; to move away from the emphasis on production and performance outcomes towards the development of personal environments responsive to creative and critical thinking. Abstract of paper delivered at Beyond Art? Digital Culture in the Twenty-first Century Colloquium The Oxford Union, 21st April, 1999 http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ctitext2/beyond/morgan.html Index

37. Issues 2 Teaching Cycles in the Creative Community of Inquiry Nigel Morgan and John Cook In this paper, five studies are described which investigated the way in which tutors (both human and computer-based) were used to support a ‘creative community of inquiry’ in undergraduate musical composition. Each study involved a cycle around some or all of the following four elements • dialogue analysis • learning support system design • implementation of a learning support system • evaluation of the system plus reflection on the implications for music composition teaching The paper concludes with a reflection on the impact that this cyclical research and development has had on the practice of a composer-teacher (the first author). Abstract of a paper delivered at the ALT-C Music Workshop 2000 and published in Musicus 6 by PALATINE on-line http://www.lancs.ac.uk/palatine/musicus6/morgancook.pdf Index

38. Composing: How and Why John Cook and Nigel Morgan are currently working on a book titled: Composing: How and Why Technology offers the promise of reinstating composing once more at the heart of musicianship. Just as visual arts practice and creative writing have been demystified by photography, the word processor and the internet, the complex skills and techniques surrounding music making are being redefined and made newly accessible by digital recording, interactive machine musicianship and synthesis. In the light of these new conditions revisiting and reinventing traditional forms of learning and thinking about music can offer us a lively way forward to developing the creative and critical tools to make and understand new music. The authors believe that interactive portals able to foster creative and critical thinking will soon be a part of new technologies that are responsive to an individual’s learning needs: to encourage self-explanation, speculation, and reflection about intention. We can even look forward to the machine becoming a kind of knowledge-mentor prompting us to explain our intentions, formulate our plans, recognise areas of weakness and review outcomes as part of the creative process. Index

39. Composing: How and Why Composing: How and Why examines the relationship of thinking to composing and how dialogue and self-explanation can mediate between listening and making one's own music. It examines how musical learning has traditionally employed modes of thinking and questioning and how these today might be remodeled and embedded within the technologies and media through which we will increasingly learn and gather information. Index

40. Problems 1 Gaps in the Composing Continuum * The interpretation of time signatures * The representation of irrational groupings (tuplets) - including compound or nested irrationals/tuplets * The interpretation of complex time-signatures (where tuplet values are represented as denominator) * Metrical Modulation * Musical Spelling * Metre Groupings * The simulation/audition of microtones Index

41. Problems 2 The MIDIfile UnfortunatelyMIDIiscurrentlystillthemostpracticalformat evenwithits shortcomingsandrestrictions TheresultisthatwestaywithMidiforthetimebeingbut researchhastobe doneforahigher levelrepresentation thatinserts itselfwellintothecomposer's andmusical assistant'swork. Requirements for Music Notation regarding Music-to-Score Following and Music Alignment Diemo Schwarz IRCAM (2003) Index

42. Vision 1 Touching the Distance - for solo piano (open-form version for Disklavier) Composition devised for an action research project with pianist Joan Dixon (York University) Getting your hands on the music - paper delivered at the Leaving The 20 Century conference at Bretton Hall College 1996 Available with interactive musical illustrations @ www.nigel-morgan.co.uk Self-Portrait (2002) - for seven musicians Open-form composition for members of BBCNOW Interactive web tool devised to enable performers to audition open-form possibilities Index

43. Vision 2 Many contemporary scores offer few clues to their pre-compositional activity and their ‘making’ process. Much new music requires in its execution a high degree of technical precision leaving very little interpretative space for a performer to bring his/her experience to bear on the music. An effective Pre-Composition- Audition/Simulation - Notation Continuum offers possibilities for musicians to gain access to the content and workings of musical compositions. Musicians able to render new and alternative versions of musical compositions suitable for particular and different performance contexts. Index

44. Vision 3 The MPEG Ad Hoc Group on Symbolic Music Representation Created by MPEG the basis of the request of members of the MUSICNETWORK which is a large network in which are present more than 850 participants and more than 400 institutions and companies. Maxwell and Ornstein’s groundbreaking Mockingbird music editor pioneered the approach of storing independently information about the logical, performance (also called gestural), and graphic aspects of music. NIFF, as well as Nightingale and other programs, adopted that approach; SMDL added a fourth “domain,” for analytic information. We strongly advocate this independent-domain model. http://www.interactivemusicnetwork.org/mpeg-ahg/ Index

45. Resources & References ICCMR University of Plymouth Research Seminars Wednesday 19 April You can download the slides used in this seminar here http://www.nigel-morgan.co.uk/files/futurelab.ppt Study-Scores and MP3s of the compositions discussed are available here http://www.nigel-morgan.co.uk Index

46. Resources & References Agon, C (2006). Mixing Visual Programs and Music Notation in Open Music in Mazzola/Noll/Lluis-Puebla (ed) Perspectives in Mathematical and Computational Music Theory. Epos Barbaud, P.(1993) Vademecum de l'ingénieur en musique, Springer, Cook, J. and Morgan, N. (1998). Coleridge: a computer tool for assisting musical reflection and self-explanation. Association for Learning Technology Journal, 6/1, 102–8. Cook, J. (1999). MetaMuse: A teaching agent for supporting musical problem-seeking and creative reflection. Proceedings of AISB’99 Symposium on Musical Creativity, pp. 89-95. The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour. Goehr, A (1998). Finding the Key. Faber Music. Hiller, L. and Issacson, L. (1952) Experimental Music.McGraw-Hill. Hindemith, P. (1973). Hindemith Jahrbuch/Annales-Hindemith 3. Mainz: Schott Lerdahl, F. (1988). Cognitive constraints on compositional systems. In Sloboda, J. (Ed.), Generative Processes in Music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lipman, M. (1991). Thinking in Education. New York: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, N. (1992). Transcript of tutorial sessions with undergraduate composers at Dartington College of Arts. Research Report, Dartington College of Arts Library, Dartington, Devon, UK. Morgan, N. (1993) Rhythmic Mnemonics in the Acquisition of Composition Skills. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Music Education: An Artificial Intelligence Approach. AI-ED 93 World Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Education. Morgan, N. and Dixon, J. (1995). Getting your hands on the music. Conference Proceedings: Leaving the 20C, Bretton College Univeristy of Leeds, UK. Papert, S. (1980) Mindstorms. Brighton: Harvester Press. Richter, E. (1977) A Glimpse into the Workshop of Paul Hindemith. Hindemith Jahrbuch/Annales-Hindemith 6. Mainz: Schott Schwarz, D. (2003) Requirements for music notation in music-to-score following and music alignment. Slonimsky, N. (1975). Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. London: Duckworth. Index