=== === ============= ==== === === == == == == == ==== == == = == ==== === == == == == == == == = == == == == == == == == == ==== M U S I C T H E O R Y O N L I N E A Publication of the Society for Music Theory Copyright (c) 1994 Society for Music Theory +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Volume 0, Number 11 November, 1994 ISSN: 1067-3040 | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ General Editor Lee Rothfarb Co-Editors Dave Headlam Justin London Ann McNamee Reviews Editor Claire Boge Consulting Editors Bo Alphonce Thomas Mathiesen Jonathan Bernard Ann McNamee John Clough Benito Rivera Nicholas Cook John Rothgeb Allen Forte Arvid Vollsnes Marianne Kielian-Gilbert Robert Wason Stephen Hinton Gary Wittlich Editorial Assistant Cynthia Gonzales All queries to: mto-editor@husc.harvard.edu +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 1. Target Articles a. John Covach, Destructuring Cartesian Dualism in Musical Analysis b. Adam Krims, Bloom, Post-Structuralism(s), and Music Theory ------------------------------------------------------------ AUTHOR: Covach, John, R. TITLE: Destructuring Cartesian Dualism in Musical Analysis KEYWORDS: Heidegger, Husserl, phenomenology, fundamental ontology, hermeneutics John R. Covach University of North Texas College of Music Denton, TX 76203-6887 jcovach@music.unt.edu ABSTRACT: The following study represents work-in-progress. In this preliminary study I will explore the topic of subject-object dualism as it arises in musical analysis. My work is strongly influenced by Martin Heidegger's "fundamental ontology," which he presents in his important philosophical work, *Being and Time* [1927].(1) I will argue that Heidegger's critique of Rene Descartes' systematic reduction of intellectual certainty to a fundamental "first fact of knowledge"--the famous *cogito, ergo sum*--offers us a useful guide in the consideration of dualism as it occurs in musical analysis. Heidegger's notion of destructuring (*Destruktion*) will prove to be especially valuable in investigating this problem. The exploration of subject-object dualism will then lead to consideration of musical understanding and musical meaning, and concepts derived from the writings of Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer will be employed as I suggest a number of preliminary solutions to problems that will arise in the discussion of these issues. ================================================== 1. Martin Heidegger, *Being and Time*, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962). ================================================== PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND [1] By the term "subject-object dualism," I mean the separation that occurs--however tacitly--whenever we approach a piece of music as an object in some world "out there," an object distinct from ourselves as perceiving and conceiving subjects. It is probably safe to say that in our analysis of works we tend to assume this subject-object distinction; while we are mostly not at all clear on what the specific nature of the musical object is, we nevertheless proceed as if that problem can be "bracketed" in analytical discussion.(2) As the Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden has shown, however, the ontological status of the musical work is a rather complicated philosophical question; our tacit acceptance of a musical work as an object may be disrupted, for example, when we engage questions of variant performances of a single work (Is the work its performance?) or various editions of the score (Is the work its score?).(3) ================================================== 2. Cartesian dualism is sometimes discussed in terms of a mind-body, or mind-world split. For discussions of subject-object dualism as it arises in the consideration of music, see F. Joseph Smith's chapter, "Cartesian Theory and Musical Science," in his *The Experiencing of Musical Sound: Prelude to a Phenomenology of Music* (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1979), 119-42; as well as his "Music Theory and the History of Ideas," in F. Joseph Smith, ed. *In Search of Musical Method* (London: Gordon and Breach, 1976), 125-49. See also Thomas Clifton, "Music as Constituted Object," in *In Search of Musical Method*, 73-98 and Lawrence Ferrara, "Phenomenology as a Tool for Musical Analysis," *The Musical Quarterly* 70/3 (1984): 355-73. 3. Roman Ingarden, *The Work of Music and the Problem of its Identity*, trans. A. Czerniawski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). A helpful summary of Ingarden's essay is provided in Edward Lippman, *A History of Western Musical Aesthetics* (Linclon: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 441-43. Ingarden's arguments certainly merit far more careful consideration than the scope of this paper allows; I hope here merely to offer a sense of what some of the questions are that surround the discussion of the musical object. ================================================== [2] Ingarden thinks of the musical work as an "intentional object," by which he means that it is an object for me and towards which my consciousness is directed. Phenomenologists tend to hold that the notion of intentionality, first proposed by Franz Brentano but most often associated with the work of Edmund Husserl, transforms the Cartesian subject-object split in an important way.(4) For Husserl, consciousness is always consciousness of something; there is no subject without an object. Likewise, there are no objects independent of subjects. Thus, intentionality places the subject and object in a richly interdependent relationship. ================================================== 4. For a clear account of Husserl's position and on the historical and intellectual context in which it arose, see David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre, *Husserl and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning, and Language* (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1982). For a general introduction to Husserl's philosophy and the phenomenological tradition, see Joseph J. Kockelmans, ed., *Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and its Interpretation* (New York: Anchor Books, 1967). Don Ihde offers a summary of intentionality in his *Listening and Voice: A Phenomenology of Sound* (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976), Chapter 3 especially. While Ihde addresses the topic of sound generally--and consequently music constitutes only one aspect of his study--his book provides a valuable introduction to phenomenological thought and method. ================================================== [3] Husserl also distinguishes between the usual ways we have of thinking about things in the world, which he calls the "natural attitude," and the "phenomenological attitude." The phenomenological attitude entails "bracketing"--that is, setting aside in full consciousness of doing so--our usual theories and ways of accounting for things in the act of perception; focus is placed on the phenomenon of our conscious experience itself. Husserl conceived of phenomenology as a method that was applicable to many disciplines, and indeed, in the years following the publication of Husserl's central texts (*Logical Investigations* [1900, 1901], *Ideas I* [1913], and *Cartesian Meditations* [1931]), a number of scholars have adopted a phenomenological approach in a wide variety of fields. In their application of the phenomenological method, music theorists have tended to bracket our usual theories and analytical methods, coaxing the reader to hear the music in a fresh manner; and understandably the emphasis in these studies often seems to fall on the perceptual experience of the music itself, and especially on the temporal dimension of that experience.(5) But despite the central notion of intentionality, phenomenologists tend to preserve the conception of the musical work as an object, even if the phenomenological method reveals it to be a richer object than we might have previously imagined. ================================================== 5. See, for example, Thomas Clifton, *Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); David Lewin, "Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception," *Music Perception* 3/4 (1986): 327-92; and Judy Lochhead, "Temporal Structure in Recent Music," in F. Joseph Smith, ed., *Understanding the Musical Experience* (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1989), 121-65. ================================================== [4] Heidegger was assistant to Husserl in Freiburg during the 1920- 23 period, and his writing in the mid to late 1920s is sometimes thought to constitute an extension of the Husserlian project; in fact, Heidegger himself describes one aspect of his work during this period as "hermeneutic phenomenology." Many philosophers, however, hold that Heidegger's work breaks with Husserl's project in important ways.(6) One way in which Heidegger breaks with Husserl's work is by subjecting the phenomenological attitude itself-- and, consequently, the Cartesian subject/object split--to phenomenological scrutiny. But in order to understand Heidegger's critique of Descartes--and by extention, Husserl--it is important first to survey the broader concerns Heidegger addresses in Being and Time. ================================================== 6. Hubert L. Dreyfus, in his *Being-in-the-World: A Commentary of Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I* (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), explores this issue in detail (see especially pp. 46-54). Dreyfus's position is that "Heidegger succeeds in taking over Husserl's definition of phenomenology and totally transforming it for his own ends, making 'phenomenology' mean exactly the opposite of Husserl's proposed method for spelling out the intentional contents of his own belief system and thereby arriving at indubitable evidence" (30). ================================================== [5] One of the central arguments Heidegger makes in *Being and Time* is that the Western philosophical tradition has "forgotten" the question of being.(7) Philosophers have tended to think of being as if it were a substance; we ask the question in the form "What is being?" But Heidegger sees the question as something more like "How is being?" This way of formulating the question seems strange to us, and Heidegger argues that this is because in many ways our language itself participates in this "forgetfulness of being." Heidegger would like to retrieve what he views as the all-important question of being, but in order to accomplish this he has to overcome what he takes to be fundamental biases that he sees as embedded within the philosophical tradition, within the language that that tradition, and within Western culture generally. ================================================== 7. In the following paragraphs I offer a much simplied overview of some of the important issues in *Being and Time*. Far more detailed expositions of Heidegger's work can be found in Dreyfus, *Being-in-the-World*; Michael Gelven, *A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time* (New York: Harper and Row, 1970); and John Richardson, *Existential Epistemology: A Heideggerian Critique of the Cartesian Project* (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). For the purposes of this study, I am avoiding the use of the standard Heideggerian terms (*Dasein*, *Zuhandenheit*, *Vorhandenheit*, *sein bei*, *Mitsein*, and so on); the use of this specialized vocabulary would only unnecessarily complicate the brief consideration of Heidegger's ideas that the scope of this study allows. ================================================== [6] In order to get to the question of being, then, Heidegger "destructures" the tradition; that is, he attempts to bring to light the underlying assumptions that generally go unexamined in the philosophical discourse. These assumptions, according to Heidegger, are so commonly held and so fundamental to our way of thinking about things that they are almost completely transparent to us; we are generally unaware of their presence in our thinking. But if we can tease out these assumptions, we can begin to see how our thinking is over-determined by these assumptions, and how this over- determination closes off other kinds of solutions to certain central philosophical problems than those commonly held within the Western tradition. Heidegger pursues three basic strategies for disrupting our assumptions: he offers detailed critiques of the tradition; he pursues his infamous word etymologies; and he focusses attention on our everyday ways of coping in the world (this last aspect, and especially Heidegger's discussions of *Angst* and *Sorge*, has often been interpreted as existentialist). [7] It is, then, in the context of retrieving the question of being that Heidegger focusses attention of the subject-object split, especially as it is asserted by Descartes in his *Discourse on Method* [1637] and *Meditations on First Philosophy* [1641]. Descartes sought the basis of absolute intellectual certainty; he employed a method of doubting everything in order to come down to the foundation for all certain knowledge. In Part Four of his *Discourse on Method*, Descartes comes to the conclusion that while he could doubt all knowledge gained both by the senses and by rational means, the one thing he could not doubt was the very fact that he was doubting. This reduction leads to the famous *cogito, ergo sum*--I think, therefore I am.(8) From this first principle of certain knowledge, Descartes rebuilds his understanding of the world through a rational methodological procedure. ================================================== 8. Rene Descartes, *Discourse on Method and Meditations of First Philosophy*, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1980), 17. ================================================== [8] Heidegger finds in Descartes' first principle a strong statement of something he takes to be an assumption in all Western philosophy since Plato: we tend to privilege rational procedures in acquiring knowledge over other possible ones. But in Descartes especially, the subject, certain of its own consciousness, is to be distinguished from the world that this subject places before itself as an object. This subject-object distinction is taken as self-evident--becoming thus, transparent--and forms the foundation for all knowledge. In our daily lives, we can readily detect the presence of notions like "scientific method" and "objectivity" in our assumptions about knowledge and its acquisition. In dealing with a situation "objectively," we set our rational selves over against whatever we mean to investigate. In terms of Heidegger's larger concern with the question of being, the result of the subject-object split is that we tend to place being before us as if it too were an object--some kind of entity or state that we could explore objectively. But Heidegger's argument is precisely that being is not such an entity at all, and the reason why such a statement seems so peculiar is because the notion that it should be an object is so deeply engrained in our usual ways of thinking that we find it difficult to imagine things any other way. [9] Heidegger's "fundamental ontology" is an attempt not so much to answer, but rather to raise the question of being in a way that avoids the assumptions that the tradition imposes on us. In pursuing this goal, Heidegger turns to our everyday coping in the world around us. Heidegger argues that in our daily lives we interact with the things around us not so much as objects in the Cartesian sense, but rather as things that are situated within a vast network of contexts. When I type this paper (or as you read it), the computer is not so much an object in front of me as much as it is a tool within the larger context of what I am trying accomplish by writing the paper. It resides in a context with the printer, the coffee pot, and a large number of things in my office that are typically viewed in the context of some task at hand. It is only when something happens that interrupts my work in some way--the screen locks or the power goes out, say--that I look at the computer as an object. If I am qualified to do so (and I am not), I might open the computer up and have a look at the circuit boards. But whatever I do, the disruption of my work transforms my conception of the computer; and if I attend to this shift, I will find not only that the computer becomes an object for me, but also that it was not really an object in the same sense before the disruption. The argument that Heidegger wants to make is not that philosophy should abandon the subject-object split; this, of course is impossible. Rather, Heidegger wants to show that this kind of Cartesian dualism is not the foundational fact of understanding; the subject-object split is instead derivative of another aspect he wants to uncover: being-in- the-world. MUSICAL OBJECTS [10] As was mentioned above, music theorists and analysts tend to assume that the musical work is an object, even if it is a richly faceted one.(9) We have a tendency to "measure" works according to objective standards: on the most fundamental level we speak of intervals, rhythms, or timbres--all aspects of the physical make-up of sounds that can be measured empirically. Other aspects of music that are less physically tangible--aspects such as form, harmony, counterpoint, voice leading, and motive--are sometimes thought of as if they were physical properties that operate according to certain kinds of laws. While the notion that the major triad is the "chord of nature" or Schoenberg's notion that dissonances are merely remote consonances are mostly viewed with suspicion by today's theorist, the scholarly literature is replete with unsubstantiated assumptions that, for example, tonality acts like a musical force that creates a hierarchical relationship among tones. ================================================== 9. David Lewin ("Music Theory") makes a similar point, though he casts it as "distinguishing X from Y" (375). Lewin goes on to argue that while such dualism "in thinking about perception does not in itself pose a danger for music theory," the "X/Y paradigm" is less useful in describing the relationship to music in which composers or performers participate. This latter type of experience is discussed very much in terms of what Heideggerians might call "involvement," though Lewin himself does not use this term. ================================================== [11] Now it is not so much that I would want to challenge such fundamental notions in the current discourse as form or tonality. To have such shared assumptions is part of what constitutes participating in a culture. These shared assumptions, it seems, are necessary and unavoidable. But to the extent that they are shared, they also become transparent to us.(10) In his *Truth and Method* [1962], Heidegger student Hans-Georg Gadamer calls such shared assumptions "prejudices," arguing for the retrieving of an understanding of the positive role such prejudices play against an Enlightenment conception that all prejudices need to be erased.(11) Prejudices cannot ever be eliminated--there is no way to retrieve, in historical writing for example, the past "as it really was"--but prejudices can be understood and accounted for in interpretation.(12) ================================================== 10. This principle underlies Thomas Kuhn's writing on the history of science; see his influential *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, 2nd rev. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). Heidegger's perspective has had an enormous influence on French philosophy since the Second World War; one can hardly imagine the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault without *Being and Time*. 11. Hans-Georg Gadamer, *Truth and Method*, 2nd rev. ed., trans Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1991), 271-85 esp. 12. For a detailed discussion of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics in the context of musical scholarship, see Thomas Christensen, "Music Theory and its Histories," in Christopher Hatch and David Bernstein, eds., *Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 9-39. ================================================== [12] If we are to follow Heidegger's model, we need to destructure certain aspects of our discourse to tease out the prejudices. As a very simple example, let us take a focal concern of many music theorists: tonality. At the undergraduate level, we teach tonality as if there were a wide consensus among us on what we mean by the term, and I think in a very general sense there is. Disagreements do arise, however, and the famous Schenker-Schoenberg polemic is one of many that could be cited, both historically and in the current literature. But when we discuss tonality, we tend to speak in theoretical terms; that is, we speak of tonal movement as abstract and not as the exclusive property of any particular work. One says "dominant tends to resolve to tonic," or "a tonic chord may be embellished by a subdomiant chord over a tonic pedal in the bass." Many of us teaching from a Schenkerian orientation teach the students a four-stage "phrase model," according to which the sequence tonic-predominant-dominant-tonic becomes the basic paradigm for harmonic progression and tonal prolongation. [13] At least once each term, however, a student writes a progression such as I - ii - iii - IV, plays it at the keyboard, and wonders what is "wrong" with the progression. To this student it sounds fine, and if the course were devoted to writing music in the style of Lionel Ritchie it would be fine; but that is not the kind of music that is a central concern in such a course, and this cuts right to the heart of the problem. Theories of tonality do not describe properties that a particular musical object has in isolation; they describe how that piece relates to other pieces. If you have a theory of tonality, it has to arise from actual or potential pieces of music. When we teach tonality in music from the common-practice period, each example is viewed--often tacitly--against the practice of composers in that particular tradition. I do not mean that we refer to specific musical examples (which we may or may not do), but rather that we tacitly refer to a body of music with which we are to some degree--often to a great degree--familiar. Thus, understanding and meaning arise in tonal analysis only when one "situates" a particular example within a not-always-consciously circumscribed literature. To the student who writes the Lionel Ritchie progression, the answer is not "this is a bad progression," but rather "good progression, wrong style." [14] It is useful--and sometimes essential--to discuss tonality as if it could be "disembodied" from real pieces that reside with myriad other works within cultural traditions. This kind of thinking, though, has a tendency to reinforce the notion that a musical work is a kind of self-contained object, and analyses according to this idea can tend to reinforce the idea that such an object has certain properties that can be duly noted and interpreted. Such "objectification" of the musical experience is not restricted to the harmonic analysis of tonal music, however, and could be uncovered in music-theoretical writing addressing any of the aspects of music mentioned above. I would argue, however, that this is not really the way we understand music in the most fundamental sense, and thus, it is not ultimately in these terms that music becomes meaningful for us. Following Heidegger, I want to argue that "objective" theoretical thinking is derivitive of a more fundamental kind of musical experience. MUSICAL WORLDS [15] If there is a mode of experiencing music that is more fundamental than the usual rational one to which we most often attend--that is, if there is a mode of musical experience that corresponds to being-in-the-world--What is it? or perhaps better, How is it? I argued above that when we think of a particular piece in terms of its tonality, for example, we are really situating that piece within a literature; and when we situate a piece in this way, we are not necessarily conscious of doing so. Thus, what I am proposing is not simply a modified Heideggerian style theory in which one would consciously situate works within specified literatures. I am also not arguing, that in hearing a piece of music, say a Beethoven string quartet, we consciously say to ourselves: "Ahah! This bit is just like a passage from Haydn, and that other bit is very like a Mozart passage I know." This is, of course, something we all do to some extent; but this kind of intertextuality is also not what I am getting at. I am instead arguing that we never hear the Beethoven string quartet in isolation from other works; or perhaps it would be better to say, we never *prefer* an interpretation of the Beethoven in isolation from other works (we can, after all, imagine a culture that prefers to hear works in isolation from all others, but Western culture is not that way). The question now arises: If these other works are present in our understanding a particular work, and if those other works are not present for the most part through quotation or allusion, how are they present? [16] Particular pieces of music are situated within what I shall term "musical worlds." The musical world of a piece is a number of other works that form a kind of background--a body of other pieces that create a purely musical context for some particular piece. The musical world of a piece is usually not something of which we are conscious when we listen, but is the product of our cumulative experience in music. The exact pieces that make up a musical world could never be exhaustively listed; in a certain sense they are what is closest to us in our musical experience, but by virtue of this they are also what is most difficult to articulate in a conscious manner: musical worlds are transparent. [17] The ways in which we typically go about training ourselves and others in music, however, betray the underlying presence of musical worlds. It is fairly clear that we operate in most instances according to the assumption that in order to understand music, one needs to know a lot of music. This assumption is typically tacit until some circumstance disrupts it and brings it to our attention. For example, if I am teaching a class in harmony--to return to the example used earlier--and am faced with a few students in the class who know very little Western art music from the common-practice period, it becomes very difficult to play a particularly unlikely harmonic progression and say: "Now use your ears; does this sound like something you might hear in Mozart?" Not knowing the literature to which I am referring, the only honest answer the student can give is: "How should I know?" On the other hand, those students who have more experience with that literature can immediately answer "No" to this question, though they may have to pause to figure out why the progression does not work according to the theoretical principles discussed in class. In the first instance the musical world in which I am asking the student to situate the progression is unavailable to him/her; in the second instance the student cannot satisfactorily situate the progression within the musical world that I specify. Similar instances abound in teaching performance and composition. In teaching jazz or rock improvisation on the guitar, for instance, it is almost impossible for the student to make any progress if s/he is unwilling to dedicate his/herself to listening to hours of music in the style; the student must build an appropriate musical world in which to maneuver when improvising. [18] In many ways much of this is self-evident; but when differences arise between theories or analyses, the difference can often be traced to a lack of clarity with regard to the musical worlds that form the background of each opposing point of view. To use a brief example, many of the differences between the harmonic theories of Schenker and Schoenberg can be traced to the fact that the two theorists were generalizing across two different bodies of music. As is well known, Schenker restricted his analyses for the most part to pieces he considered to be masterworks. Schoenberg, too, considered those pieces; but Schoenberg included the music of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and many others (including himself). It might even be said that Schoenberg extended his generalizations to pieces that had not yet been composed (or pieces that might have been composed). It is, thus, inevitable that differences should arise in their respective theories. The problems enter when we suppose that there must exist one single unifying theory of tonality. Tonality is not something akin to a physical property; unlike Earth's gravity, tonality is not the same for all terrestrial places and times. Tonality is a way of situating pieces within a--perhaps extremely large--group of pieces. This being the case, the question is not "How does tonality work?" but rather "How does tonality work with regard to these pieces?" [19] Returning, then, to the subject/object split: I am arguing that at the most fundamental level we do not experience a piece of music as a self-contained object. A piece is rather more like a location within a rich network of other pieces in our musical experience. *Musical understanding arises when we are able to situate a particular piece within a musical world, and musical meaning arises as we appreciate the particular way in which the work is situated.* The work is not so much an isolated point as much as it is a location of gathering together. We may explain aspects of this gathering together in terms of tonality, form, row structure, or motivic development, but such descriptions will always be derivative objectifications of a more basic kind of musical experience. By making such a claim I am not coming out against dualism in analysis; I am instead arguing that dualism is already once removed from what is most fundamental in musical experience. Musical analysis always presumes a musical world, even if the analyst rarely articulates this transparent background. [20] A number of questions remain to be addressed with regard to the position outlined above. For example, Lydia Goehr has recented dealt at some length with the notion of the musical work in Western art music.(13) She traces the origins to this way of thinking about music back to the beginnings of the nineteenth century. There are a number of other kinds of music, both non-Western and Western, for which the idea of a musical "work" does not apply. In rock music, for example, it is difficult to think in the traditional terms of "pivotal works." In a tradition that does not privilege the notion of the work, how does this difference impact the musical world of the listener as sketched above? Hermeneutic positions such as the one I am forwarding are also often subject to charges of relativism, subjectivism, and solipsism. Critics might question whether, for instance, we each carry around our own musical worlds, or whether we carry around one or many musical worlds. How do our musical worlds change as our experience grows? Such questions are the topic of my on-going work on this philosphical problem. I welcome suggestions and discussion from interested readers. ================================================== 13. Lydia Goehr, *The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music* (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). See also Patricia Carpenter, "The Musical Object," *Current Musicology* 5 (1967): 56-87. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ AUTHOR: Krims, Adam P. TITLE: Bloom, Post-Structuralism(s), and Music Theory KEYWORDS: Bloom, critical theory, post-structuralism, Straus Adam P. Krims University of Alberta Department of Music Fine Arts Building Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2C9 akrims@ucs.ualberta.ca ABSTRACT: A number of music scholars have adapted the work of literary theorist Harold Bloom for their own use. This article examens Bloom's relation to post-structuralist critical theory in general, and then considers how music-theoretical adaption may slant that relation. It concludes by asserting that music scholarship tends to emphasize the more traditional aspects of Bloom's work. This, in turn, may allow music theorists to believe we are engaging the challenges of recent critical theory, when in fact we are reinforcing mainstream music-theoretical ideologies. [0] INTRODUCTION [0.1] In recent years, a number of articles in the music-theoretical and musicological literature have taken the work of literary theorist Harold Bloom as part of their point of departure.(1) (Three examples are Straus (1990), Korsyn (1991), and Yudkin (1992).) These, along with a vitriolic review by Richard Taruskin (1993) of Joseph Straus' *Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition* (1990), have foregrounded Bloom's theories as a potential source of work in music scholarship. The adoption of Bloom by music theorists and musicologists concerns not only these particular publications, but also some fundamental issues facing us as music theorists. ================================================= 1. I am grateful to David Gramit, Henry Klumpenhouwer, and Richard Littlefield for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. ================================================ [0.2] One aspect of music theory in North America that separates it from most other fields of the humanities is its relative failure to engage post-structuralist critical theories.(2) Post- structuralist practices nevertheless do form a substantial part of the scholarship in most other humanities disciplines (even if they efface the notions of "humanities" and "discipline"). By remaining relatively isolated from such a vast and influential group of practices, music theory continues to run the risk of increasing its isolation. That isolation may not bother many music theorists; indeed, it may serve to reinforce desired ideological beliefs, concerning for example, the special status of music as an art. (Norris (1989) traces an interesting philosophical history of this idea, 31-34.) But it may also limit not only points of contact with scholars in other fields, but also opportunities for us to face important challenges that post- structuralism(s) may hold for our premises and methodologies. (I say this with some discomfort that I may be hypostatizing the extremely diverse post-structuralisms into a problematic singular.) ================================================ 2. There are some exceptions, among them Kramer (1984) and (1990), Krims (1994), Littlefield and Neumeyer (1992), Littlefield (1994), Street (1989) and numerous projects borrowing from feminist theory. ================================================ [0.3] In some respects, then, the interest in Bloom could be seen as salutary for our field, offering challenges we too often avoid. Therefore, it is vital that we take stock of Bloom's theories and the use that has been, and that could be, made of them in our field. Although Korsyn's work would provide in some ways an equally useful occasion for this, Straus' book has captured more attention, in part because of its having won an award from the Society for Music Theory, and in part because of the particularly harsh rebuke it received from Taruskin. Taruskin accuses Straus of misunderstanding (not to be confused with misreading) Bloom and misapplying the latter's ideas. Although one may flinch at the tone of Taruskin's review, his criticisms of miscomprehension are, in my view, correct on many counts, albeit incomplete and profoundly shaped by Taruskin's own ideological goals. Also, it is difficult to sanction Taruskin's insinuations of disingenuousness. But this is not a principal concern, here; misunderstandings of Straus' variety, after all, are easily enough corrected. Further, with the introduction of professional training in critical theory to music-theory curricula, mistakes of Straus' variety could become more scarce. [0.4] A more central issue for most of us would be: why choose Bloom in the first place? Why has Bloom come to penetrate what otherwise seems to be a nearly impermeable barrier music theory has erected against "recent" critical theory? (I put "recent" in quotations because, after all, post- structuralist work dates back some twenty-five years.) And what could Straus' encounter with Bloom teach us about music theory and critical theory generally? A partial answer to this may lie in the work of Bloom himself, who has always held an ambiguous relation to other literary theorists. [0.5] Bloom is certainly a post-structuralist, if by post-structuralist one means simply that his publications (at least on the "anxiety of influence" and related topics) post-date the heyday of structuralism: *The Anxiety of Influence* was first published in 1973. His work, though, bears a problematic relationship to many post-structuralist practices (as diverse as the latter are). In some respects, Bloom's work complements and even overlaps the work of other literary theorists since the 1970's; in other respects, though, his theories of influence trace a reaction (increasingly explicit, over the years) *against* what, for better or worse, has come to be regarded as the `mainstream' of post- structuralism. Bloom himself recognizes this dual situation of his work when he observes ironically that "my own views are regarded as traditionalist by Deconstructors, and as deconstructive by traditionalists..." (Bloom (1982b), 39). We will observe later what happens to these opposing aspects of Bloom's work in music-theoretical adaptation; before we do that, thought, it will be useful briefly to articulate Bloom's dual relationship with post-structuralism(s) generally. [1] BLOOM THE PROGRESSIVE, BLOOM THE REGRESSIVE [1.1] Bloom intersects with other post- structuralist thinkers by foregrounding revisionism and rhetoric. Like many of his literary-theoretical contemporaries (de Man, J. Hillis Miller, and Geoffrey Hartman among them), Bloom takes a great deal from Nietzsche, including a radically skeptical view of truth and language and a (largely concomitant) focus on revisionism.(3) This aspect of Bloom's work is central to the famous notion of "misreading" as a constructive artistic force. While the "misreading" of the poet is certainly a central aspect of his thought, the necessary "misreading" of the *critic*, by Bloom's account, is equally central, and provides a link to much other post- structuralist work. Two of his formulations of this will suffice: "This influence-relation governs reading just as it governs writing, and reading is therefore a miswriting just as writing is misreading" (Bloom 1975a, 3). Or, more elaborately, "Reading...is very nearly impossible, for every reader's relation to every poem is governed by a figuration of belatedness" (Bloom 1975a, 69). The critic replicates and magnifies the poet's misreading; this, in turn, suggests an indeterminacy of meaning that others of a more `centrally' post-structuralist bent, like de Man (1983) and de Bolla (1988), find attractive in Bloom's thought. ================================================= 3. O'Hara (1983) relates Bloom to a Nietzschean tradition. ================================================ [1.2] Another important intersection between Bloom and other post-structuralist theorists is his concern with rhetoric and figuration (in principle, inseparable from the emphasis on revisionism). (De Bolla (1988) focuses principally on these aspects of Bloom.) Not only the revisionary ratios, but the entire structure of Bloom's intertexuality depends on the notion of the poems as positioned rhetorically toward their predecessors. By stressing the necessity to read poems as tropes on other poems, Bloom effectively counters traditional notions such as the organic coherence of texts, creating another overlap with some of his contemporaries. In general, by centering tropes and rhetoric, Bloom indicates a focus not altogether discontinuous from those of, for instance, de Man, Derrida, Hartman, and so on. Indeed, de Man's famous review (1983) of *The Anxiety of Influence*, while severely reproaching Bloom on some counts, attempts to rehabilitate that book by singling out its focus on rhetoric (not surprisingly, recommending a shift to the linguistic realm). [1.3] Despite the overlaps just discussed, some aspects of Bloom's principal theoretical work remain radically apart from many post- structuralist practices. In many respects, Bloom's work restores a rather traditional notion of the subject, and several related concepts, "spirituality", "meaning", and "originality": in de Bolla's words, Bloom promotes a certain "nostalgia for the subject" (1988, 77). In *A Map of Misreading*, Bloom states this bluntly: [1.4] "(A) return to Vico and Emerson should demonstrate that *belatedness* or the fear of time's revenges is the true dungeon for the imagination, rather than the prison-house of language as posited by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and their heirs [which, for Bloom, means primarily "deconstructionists"]... (R)hetoric and psychology are a virtual identity." (Bloom 1975a, 68-69; emphasis Bloom's) [1.5] By positing this subjectivity, Bloom lays the ground for "originality" (for example in Bloom (1982a), 82). "Originality" here retains the positive evaluation it has in common parlance, closely related to the equally evaluative Bloomian terms, "strong" and "weak" poets. Similarly, Bloom fears that, with the subject being effaced by language in post- structuralism, "Criticism is in danger... of being excessively despiritualized by the followers of the school of Deconstruction" (Bloom 1975a, 79). Thus, Bloom's protection of traditional subjectivity against a (largely fictional) "school of Deconstruction" is not merely an attempt at psychological foundationalism: it is also a means of protecting traditional literary-discursive values such as "originality" and "spirituality." Not surprisingly, Bloom's championing of the subject as constituted anterior to (if not outside of) language was one of the principal points of contention with de Man (and to a lesser extent, Derrida) over the years. (De Bolla (1988) summarizes these contentions, especially 61-81.) [1.6] Bloom battled "deconstructionists" not only on originality and the subject, but also on the status of meaning: "...I favor a kind of interpretation that seeks to restore and redress meaning, rather than primarily to deconstruct meaning" (Bloom 1975a, 175). (Ultimately, this point is inseparable from Bloom's championing of the subject.) Bloom's re-grounding of meaning is complex, drawing on the Kabbalistic concept of "a Primal Instruction preceding all traces of speech... Kabbalah stops the movement of Derrida's `trace,' since it has a *point* of the primordial, where presence and absence co-exist by continuous interplay" (Bloom 1975b, 52-3; emphasis Bloom's). Particularly notable here is that the Primal Instruction *precedes* speech: visible here are the linkages among Kabbalah, pre-linguistic subjectivity, and a stable site of meaning. The Kabbalah's nexus function may explain why Bloom repeatedly cited it, not Freud, as an ultimate source for his work. [1.7] In an equally significant sense, Bloom restores a rather traditional concept of meaning simply by positing the poem as site of the poet's psychological strife. Despite Bloom's insistence that the poem itself, and not the poet, is the location of struggle, the psychological state of the poet -- his (not her, for Bloom!) "interiority," to quote Foucault (1979) -- remains very much in the foreground. This, in turn, re-centers the author as source of meaning, establishing an interpretive stance typical of not even structuralism or New Criticism, but rather of nineteenth-century literary criticism. In this way, Bloom again sets himself apart from most post-structuralist practices, which tend to focus on language rather than the author as the site of meaning (however indeterminate and infinite "language" and "meaning" may be).(4) ================================================ 4. Barthes (1977) and Foucault (1979) provide classic formulations of early post-structuralist rejection of the "author function." ================================================ [1.8] In later work, such as Bloom (1982b), Bloom calls upon nationalist notions such as the "American Sublime" to ground interpretation and limit meaning, even going so far as to ridicule the idea of approaching American poetry with "Gallic Post-Structuralism" (30). Other, more notoriously conservative aspects of Bloom's writing -- his stubborn reinforcement of the traditional poetic canon, his acerbic dismissals of feminism -- are far from surprising, given his stances on the more abstract, but still (let's not forget) highly political issues just discussed. None of this is to belittle Bloom's contributions to the field of literary theory and criticism; it is rather to highlight aspects of his work that set it apart from the work of many of his contemporaries. [2] LESSONS WE CAN LEARN [2.1] The foregoing greatly simplifies Bloom's relations to post-structuralist work; for example, his relationship with so-called "deconstructionist" literary theorists is also a productive one. (*A Map of Misreading* is dedicated to Paul de Man.) The books already cited provide a good deal more background. What has been said, though, already indicates that to adopt Bloom's work (to whatever extent, in whatever form) is already to skew oneself in relation to the bulk of post-structuralist theories. (Young (1981) provides a good introduction to a variety of post-structuralist work.) In particular, Bloom's resurrection of the subject, and of values such as originality and meaning, presents a ready-made opportunity to reinforce mainstream aesthetic ideologies. On the other hand, the more novel aspects of Bloom's work also offer opportunities for music theorists to confront true methodological and ideological challenges. The question is: what happens, and what can happen, when Bloom is co-opted for music-theoretical work? [2.2] In this sense, Straus is a signal lesson, and perhaps a warning. What Straus retains of Bloom, and what he leaves out, may themselves be symptomatic of possible encounters between music theory and this particular literary theory. *Remaking the Past* is explicitly a book of music history, examining aspects of musical "modernism"; the historical assertions are, in turn, supported by extended musical analyses. A remarkable aspect of the latter is their close resemblance to traditional analyses. In the first chapter, Straus announces Bloom's theory as a remedy for "what has become a virtual dogma in music theory: organic coherence" (16); and yet, Straus' own musical analyses reflect this "virtual dogma" through and through. He consistently discusses and analyzes pieces according to principles of their internal structural coherence; the Bloomian aspect, to the extent there is one, lies in the commentary that Straus then adds to the essentially structuralist analyses. [2.3] Chapter 4 ("Triads") provides as good an example as any. There, Straus shows how superficially triadic sonorities in some post- tonal music may be interpreted as arising from non-triadic post-tonal processes. (Straus' own claims are more essentialist than my wording "may be interpreted" indicates, but let us leave that issue aside, at least for the moment.) In doing so, he employs analytic methods steeped in the same tradition of "organic coherence" for which he, in the first chapter, had cited Bloom as a potential remedy: pitch-class-set analysis, a method designed to maximalize the coherence of an interpretation; and inversional symmetry, an analytical premise that creates a coherence of pitch-class (or, sometimes, pitch) space. If the pieces he discusses are relational structures (as he argues in the first chapter), then they are relational structures only by being self- contained structures in the first place -- the reverse of Bloom's view. [2.4] This is not to say that Straus' analytical methods are "bad" or "naive" in some sense (whatever those words could mean in this context). Rather, it is to point out that the Bloomian anti-organicism does not penetrate very deeply, here. The Bloomian aspect of this chapter is left implicit: the composers discussed must misread tonal sonorities in order to become "strong" composers. Fair enough. But it is only the extremely traditional -- in other words, highly structuralist and organicist -- analytic work of the chapter that supports that thesis. (Compare this to Bloom's discussions of poems, discussions which, for all their frequent vagueness and hyperbole, never, to my knowledge, resort to organicist, structuralist methods.) [2.5] We should add that this ideological tension could hardly be laid at the feet of Straus. Here is where Straus' encounter with literary theory may reflect on all of us as music theorists: to a great degree, the problems of *Remaking the Past* are the problems that all of us may experience when we try to integrate any post-structuralist theory to our work. The very premises of our field -- inventing models of musical structure and analyzing pieces as exemplars of structure -- dissonate with that which recent critical theory has to teach us. (Tomlinson 1993 and Kramer 1993 rehearse this conflict instructively.) Creating, then, a work (a book, an article, a course) of music theory that draws on post-structuralist theory always creates a conflict of which that work will be a trace. In the case of Straus, organicist premises must return in order for music-theoretical discourse to take place. This is not Straus' fault, if one wants to consider it a fault at all: it is an uneasy confrontation between ideological systems that offer their own resistances to each other. [2.6] Equally instructive for music theorists are the elements of Bloom's work that simply do not appear in the book. We saw earlier that Bloom regarded misreading as an activity not only of poets (in Straus: composers) but also of critics (in Straus: music theorists and/or historians). In fact, critics, for Bloom, are even more subject to misreading, since their predecessors include both poets and other critics. As mentioned before, the critic's misreading creates the gap between reader and text that makes reading "very nearly impossible." And yet, this gap, so characteristic of post-structuralist views of reading, does not exist in Straus' version of Bloom. The analyses are glimpsed and discussed as if in `full view'; the analytic statements that are made are not presented as problematic -- Straus is not a misreader of the pieces he discusses. Again, the ideological grounds of music theory and critical theory are in conflict. As music theorists, we are still accustomed to attributing a certain ontological status to our analyses and theories -- this IS the structure of atonal music, this IS a five- piece, and so on. This status is incompatible with the critic as misreader -- we must, as music theorists, be capable of divining the essences of music in a more traditional subject/object relationship. Bloom's stance, though, despite the many traditional aspects of his work, comes more by way of Nietzsche, positing the reader as a revisionist fully as much as the composer. This more typically post-structuralist aspect of Bloom disappears, almost by necessity, in its confrontation with music theoretical work. [2.7] We have seen, so far, two of Bloom's more post-structuralist stances -- the figurative intertextuality and the critic as misreader -- either compromised or eliminated in Straus' reading. In that sense, the more traditional methodologies of music theory win out. But what about the more conservative, traditional aspects of Bloom's work? Specifically, what about the restoration of the subject, originality, and the composer as the site of meaning? Perhaps not surprisingly, these survive very well not only in Straus' work, but more generally in the work of other music scholars who, in one way or another, have adapted Bloom for their own purposes, such as Korsyn (1991) and Yudkin (1992). In each of these, a canonically `great' composer's struggle against the past becomes the site of meaning for the piece(s) in question; the originality (and, similarly, the `strength') of the composer(s) is commended because of his successfully negotiating the various (and varying) revisionary ratios; and documents from the composer's life are marshalled to back up the claims and concretize the posited subjectivity. In other words, values from traditional music theory and musicology are reinforced by the versions of Bloom being used here, not challenged. In this sense, Taruskin's polemics get out of hand when he claims that "Bloom is simply irrelevant to Straus' methods and purposes" (126); Straus' version of Bloom, although certainly a selective one (as he himself seems to acknowledge in Straus 1994), is by no means entirely removed from the ideological strains of the original theory. (What stock one should put in the value of "fidelity to the original theory" is itself another, and much bigger, question.) [3] WHAT WE CAN DO [3.0] A lesson we can take from Straus, then, is the surprisingly high degree to which Bloom may be fitted to mainstream music-theoretical ideology. This in itself may also account for the proliferation of scholarship based on his work: certain aspects of his influence theory can be embraced wholeheartedly, without a great deal of discomfort, while others (the more characteristically post-structuralist) can be effectively side-lined. Otherwise put, Bloom allows us mainly to continue what we are doing, changing the slant of our discussion a bit, but not questioning (or transforming) the very premises of our activity. This is not to impugn the motives of those who use Bloom's theories. Straus, for example, has never claimed that his work is post-structuralist; so the basic conservatism of *his* Harold Bloom is not necessarily a reproach to him. [3.1] At the same time, critical theories, especially the post-structuralist ones, have often carried with them a aura of prestige (or vogue). Bloom is in the field of literature -- which we all know to have provided much impetus for critical theory. And his influence theory, invoking Nietzsche and Freud and being published post-1970 (by a Yale professor, no less), may carry with it the implication of more `progressive' work. [3.2] Because of this, it is possible for us to convince ourselves that by adopting his ideas, we are coming to terms with post-structuralist literary theory generally. This would be a mistake, and a potentially costly one. The more semiotic-informed post-structuralist work (including but not limited to the various "deconstructions") may provide some of the greatest challenges to us as music theorists, as unsettling as those challenges may often be. [3.3] This is not to say we have an innate obligation, as music theorists, to adopt uncritically some of the central tenets of post- structuralism(s). We may, if we wish, choose to prefer the more comfortable and traditional stances of Bloom; or we may choose to ignore critical theories altogether, in the belief that we are embarked on a project (or projects) to which they bear no relevance. We should simply be careful *not* to believe that by adopting (and adapting) Bloom's influence theory we are necessarily coming to terms with the bulk of the challenges that post-structuralist theories hold for us. We may, instead, be producing work-as- usual, with the belief that we are doing otherwise. [3.4] On the other hand, as long as we are aware of what we are doing -- as long as we do not convince ourselves that using Bloom will bring us face to face with the vast bodies of post- structuralism -- then why not incorporate his work? Certainly, if we are to talk about influence, notions of rhetorical evasion and misreading will be invaluable to our work. And, indeed, if we wish to rest securely with mainstream music-theoretical ideologies, Bloom can easily be adopted to our use. There is room for applying Bloom's ideas, so long as we do not allow ourselves to believe that thereby we have grappled with most of the critiques that recent critical theory holds for us. To begin the latter, more daunting project, we will have to consider not only Bloom, but also those whose names may far more disquiet us. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barthes, Roland. 1977. "From Work to Text," from *Image - Music - Text* (London: Fontana), trans. Stephen Heath. Bloom, Harold. 1973. *The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry* (New York: Oxford University Press). Bloom, Harold. 1975a. *A Map of Misreading* (New York: Oxford University Press). Bloom, Harold. 1975b. *Kabbalah and Criticism* (New York: Continuum). Bloom, Harold. 1982a. *The Breaking of the Vessels* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Bloom, Harold. 1982b. *Agon: Towards a Theory of Revisionism* (New York: Oxford University Press). De Bolla, Peter. 1988. *Harold Bloom: Towards Historical Rhetorics* (London: Routledge). De Man, Paul. 1983. "Review of Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence," from *Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism* (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 267-276. Foucault, Michel. 1979. "What is an Author," from *Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post- Structuralist Criticism* (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 141-160, trans. Josue V. Harari. Korsyn, Kevin. 1991. "Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence," Music Analysis 10, 3-73. Kramer, Lawrence. 1984. *Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After* (Berkeley: University of California Press). Kramer, Lawrence. 1990. *Music as Cultural Practice, 1800-1900* (Berkeley: University of California Press). Kramer, Lawrence. 1993. "Music Criticism and the Postmodernist Turn: In Contrary Motion with Gary Tomlinson," Current Musicology 53, 25-35, Krims, Adam. 1994. "A Sketch for Post- Structuralist Music Theory," paper delivered to the Fifth Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Berkeley, California, July 1994. Littlefield, Richard and Neumeyer, David. 1992. "Rewriting Schenker: Narrative - History - Ideology," Music Theory Spectrum 14.1, 38-65. Littlefield, Richard. 1994. "Listening, Narrative, and Signification," paper delivered to the Fifth Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Berkeley, California, July 1994. Norris, Christopher. 1989. *Deconstruction and the Interests of Theory* (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press). O'Hara, Daniel. 1983. "The Genius of Irony: Nietzsche in Bloom," from *The Yale Critics: Deconstruction in America* (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Straus, Joseph N. 1990. *Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition* (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Street, Alan. 1989. "Superior Myths, Dogmatic Allegories: The Resistance to Musical Unity," Music Analysis 8.1, 77-123. Taruskin, Richard. 1993. "Review of Joseph Straus' Remaking the Past," Journal of the American Musicological Society 46.1, 114-138. Tomlinson, Gary. 1993. "Musical Pasts and Postmodern Musicologies: A Response to Lawrence Kramer," and "Tomlinson Responds," Current Musicology 53, 18-24 and 36-40. Young, Robert. 1981. "Post-Structuralism: An Introduction," from *Untying the Text* (London: Routledge), 1-28. Yudkin, Jeremy. 1992. "Beethoven's `Mozart' Quartet," Journal of the American Musicological Society 45.1, 30-74. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 2. Commentaries None this issue +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 3. Announcements a. College Music Society: Call For Papers The College Music Society Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting 9-12 November 1995 Portland Hilton Portland, Oregon Call for Program Participation The College Music Society will hold its Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting 9-12 November 1995 in conjunction with the 1995 National Conference on Technology and Music Instruction of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI). General Program Content The 1995 Program Committee welcomes proposals for papers, panels, discussions, performances, lecture/recitals, clinics, demonstrations, workshops, and other types of presentations that relate to all aspects of college music teaching, learning, research, outreach, communication, and other areas of concern to the college music professional. The Program Committee also requests proposals for presentations that will illuminate musical influences, cultural and sociological contexts, and cross-cultural teaching and learning as exemplified through the peoples and musics of the Pacific Northwest. As in the past, the Program Committee solicits the broadest representation of our profession and its interests. Therefore, proposals that deal with all aspects of college music teaching will be given consideration. Proposals that concern extramusical contextual issues (e.g., political, economic) that impact college music teaching and proposals concerning cultural, generational, and gender diversity are also encouraged. Papers are generally limited to twenty minutes, lecture/recitals and performances to 45 minutes. Panels and demonstrations may take up to one hour. Proposals must be postmarked by 16 January 1995. Special Areas of Focus In addition to the broad interests described above, proposals for the specific areas listed below are welcome: ************************************************************************** * Theory: Proposals concerning theory pedagogy, curricular issues, * * theory and its relationships with other disciplines (theory and * * composition, analysis and performance, aural training and cognition, * * etc.), and career issues (such as practices and trends in hiring * * theorists, departmental structure and politics, mentoring, and * * professional development). * ************************************************************************** Composition: Proposals concerning recent developments in contemporary music, including the influence of global musics on Western art music, developments in computer applications and mixed media, perspectives on the American symphony orchestra and its relationship to music by living American composers, music and healing, regionalism and contemporary American music, the impact of arts and academic institutions on twentieth-century American music, and latest developments in the recording industry and their potential impact on composers. Ethnomusicology/World Music: Proposals in all areas of research pertaining to music in diverse cultural settings, especially as they relate to college teaching. Particular topics of interest for the 1995 Annual Meeting are: "Teaching Ethnomusicology !s Distinct from Teaching about World Music Cultures"; "World Musics: The Meeting of Traditional and Popular Genres in the Lecture Hall"; and "World Music Performance Ensembles, Budgetary Constraints, and Authenticity." Other topics are welcome. Music in General Studies: Proposals concerned with the philosophy and pedagogy of integrated performing arts courses and the topic of music in general studies beyond the walls of the academy are encouraged. Other issues of special interest are innovative teaching models with demonstrations (live or video-taped), canonical issues, and the question of integration versus separation of music in multidisciplinary courses in the humanities and/or arts for the general student. Music Education: Proposals dealing with presentations on the implications of the National Standards for Arts in Education for music teacher education, models and/or principal issues involving collaborative networks between K 12 schools and music units within the university, and historical and cross-cultural perspectives of music teaching and learning as they inform contemporary K 12 curriculum and instruction. Musicology: Proposals dealing with music of the Northwest viewed from a cross-cultural perspective; the teaching of music history, such as: "New Technologies and the Teaching of Music History," or "Writing-Across-the-Curriculum: The Music History Course as Writing Workshop"; and the music of Bart"k, Hindemith, Orff, Purcell, Still, and Webern, in celebration of an anniversary year. Performance: Proposals for lecture/recitals should focus on performance analysis, especially analytical processes for interpretive decision-making, or on the performer/musicologist relationship how is performance changed, altered, or enhanced by research? Proposals dealing with performance of music of the Northwest, including music of Native Americans, will also be especially welcome. Cultural Diversity (of all kinds: ethnic, religious, class, disabilities, sexual preference): Proposals concerned with professional development of members of diversity groups, ethics and propriety in teaching the music of others, and class struggle and empowerment through music. Women's Studies and Gender Issues: Proposals focusing on contributions of women musicians, innovative teaching models that incorporate music by women into courses and performances, and research on gender issues, both historical and contemporary, in the study of music and musicians. Also encouraged are proposals that approach other areas of specialization (e.g., composition, ethnomusicology, etc.) with a strong concern for the roles of women and the influence of gender in music. Guidelines for Submitting Proposals (only hard copy proposals will be accepted) Four copies of each proposal must be submitted. A single copy includes: Page 1 the original or a copy of the Proposal Cover Sheet found below. Page 2 a one-page, double-spaced, type-written abstract of approximately 250 words. Complete texts of proposed presentations should not be submitted. Goals, methodology, and conclusion(s) should be clearly stated. Page 3 a list of equipment needed for the presentation. Page 4 a list of all persons involved in the presentation, even if the list contains only a single presenter's name. Supporting materials should be included: vitae of presenters and panel members, a cassette tape, and other relevant materials. Each of the four copies of a proposal for a lecture/recital or performance must be accompanied by a cassette tape. Four copies of the complete proposal, including all supporting materials and four cassette tapes (where appropriate), must be submitted. Incomplete proposals (including single copies), faxed proposals, proposals that do not adhere to the above guidelines, and proposals postmarked after the deadline are unlikely to be reviewed by the Program Committee. All proposals must be postmarked by 16 January 1995. Do not fax proposals. No electronic submissions will be accepted. Please send proposals to: 1995 Call for Program Participation, The College Music Society, 202 West Spruce Street, Missoula, MT 59802 Proposal Cover Sheet Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting 9-12 November 1995 Portland Hilton Portland, Oregon Name: Institutional Affiliation (if applicable): Institutional Address: City/State/Zip: Telephone: Home Address: City/State/Zip: Telephone: Title of Proposal: Place a one ("1") by the primary area and a two ("2") by the secondary area into which the proposal falls. _____ Composition _____ Ethnomusicology/World Music _____ Music Education _____ Music in General Studies _____ Musicology _____ Performance _____ Theory _____ Women's Studies and Gender Issues _____ Cultural Diversity Please check the format of your proposed presentation: _____ Paper _____ Performance _____ Lecture/Recital _____ Panel _____ Demonstration _____ Clinic _____ Workshop Return as part of four complete proposal copies, postmarked by 16 January 1995 to: 1995 Call for Program Participation, The College Music Society, 202 West Spruce Street, Missoula, MT 59802 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (end call for papers) Thanks for reading such a long message. I hope to see you in Portland in 1995. --Gary S. Karpinski, Board Member for Music Theory The College Music Society Gary S. Karpinski garykarp@music.umass.edu Department of Music & Dance University of Massachusetts voice: (413) 545-4229 Amherst, MA 01003 USA fax: (413) 545-2092 --------------------------------------------------------------- b. Midwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology: Annual Meeting The Midwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology will hold its annual meeting April 21-23, 1995, at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign as part of the year-long centennial celebration of the School of Music. Activities will begin on the evening of Friday, April 21, with a concert by the University of Illinois Gamelan at eight o'clock. Two simultaneous paper sessions will be held on Saturday morning and on Sunday morning. There will be a keynote lecture on Saturday afternoon followed by a reception and a party in the evening. Also scheduled are workshops on a variety of instrumental traditions including Chinese erhu, Andean panpipes, and Shona instruments from Zimbabwe. A formal call for papers will be issued in late November. Papers on all topics relevant to ethnomusicology will be considered. Abstracts should be sent to the program chair no later than February 1, 1995. Accommodations are available at the Illini Union on the university campus (reservations should be made directly, 217/333-3030) as well as other local hotels. Crash space will be available for students; requests should be sent to Steve Hill, c/o the program chair, by March 1, 1995. For more information, contact Thomas Turino, Program Chair, School of Music, University of Illinois, 1114 West Nevada Street, Urbana, IL 61801 (217) 244-2681). Judy McCulloh University of Illinois Press jmcc@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu -------------------------------------------------------- c. Music Theory Society of New York State: Call For Papers CALL FOR PAPERS Music Theory Society of New York State 1995 Meeting State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 22-23 April, 1995 The Program Committee especially invites submissions on the following topics: 1) theory and analysis of non-western music 2) theory and analysis of vernacular and popular music 3) teaching undergraduate theory in a changing musical world 4) the music of Franz Schmidt, Franz Schreker, Alexander von Zemlinsky, or other lesser known Viennese composers of that generation. Proposals on any topic are also welcome and will receive serious consideration. Paper length is generally 30-40 minutes. Papers given at national conferences or published previously will not be considered. Authors may submit more than one proposal, but will not be permitted to give more than one paper at the conference. Paper Submissions must include: 1) Five copies of a double-spaced proposal of 3-5 pages without the author's name. 2) An abstract of 250 words or less suitable for publication. 3) A cover letter listing the title of the paper and the name, address, and phone number of the author. Paper proposals should be submitted to: Dave Headlam, Chair Program Committee, MTSNYS Eastman School of Music 26 Gibbs St. Rochester, NY 14604 dhlm@uhura.cc.rochester.edu Postmark Deadline of 1 December 1994 Program Committee: David Clampitt, SUNY Buffalo; John Clough, SUNY Buffalo; George Fisher, SUNY Stony Brook; Dave Headlam, Eastman School of Music; Catherine Nolan, University of Western Ontario; Joseph N. Straus, Queens College, CUNY. ------------------------------------------------------------- d. West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis: Call for Papers The University of British Columbia School of Music announces the +---------------------------------+ ! West Coast Conference ! ! of Music Theory and Analysis ! +---------------------------------+ Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 7-9, 1995 Music Building, The University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C., Canada ****************************** * Call for Papers * ****************************** The Program Committee invites proposals for papers and presentations on any topic. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: * Rhythmic Theory and Analysis * Critical Looks at Standard Analytic Methods * Theory and Analysis of Non-standard Repertoires Those who wish to propose papers should send an abstract of no more than 500 words by January 16, 1995 to: John Roeder School of Music University of British Columbia 6361 Memorial Road Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2 CANADA Program Committee: William Benjamin (University of British Columbia), Harald Krebs (University of Victoria), Lee Rothfarb (University of California,Santa Barbara); John Roeder(University of British Columbia), Chair jroeder@unixg.ubc.ca; (604) 822-3715 ------------------------------------------------------- e. Feminist Theory and Music III: Call for Papers Feminist Theory and Music III: Negotiating the Faultlines June 15-18, 1995 University of California, Riverside Call for Papers and Presentations The two previous "Feminist Theory and Music" Conferences (Minneapolis, 1991 and Rochester, 1993) opened a dialogue about issues of gender and sexuality in music making and in critical discourse about music. In the interests of providing a supportive environment for new approaches and ideas, of continuing the dialogue within and among diverse scholarly interests and musical traditions, and of negotiating the faultlines that have created divisions in our disciplines, the Music Department of the University of California, Riverside, will host a third conference in 1995. The steering committee consists of Jann Pasler, Susan McClary, Philip Brett, Gretchen Horlacher and Jennifer Rycenga. A primary goal for the meeting continues to be "to develop a critical language, common to all the subdisciplines of music, that intersects with the insights of feminist theory." Contributions are welcomed from musicologists, ethnomusicologists, music theorists, performers, composers and music educators, as well as from scholars in feminist theory, cultural studies, queer theory, women's studies and other fields. While sessions may have various formats (formal papers, study sessions, workshops, lecture-recitals), individual presentations will be limited to 20 minutes in the interests of stimulating general discussion. One-page proposals are due by JANUARY 5th, 1995. Please mail SIX copies to: Philip Brett Feminist Theory and Music III Department of Music University of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0325 (include a stamped self-addressed card or envelope if you want the receipt of your proposal acknowledged). Proposals may also be faxed to (909) 787-4651. ---------------------------------------------------- f. 2nd International Conference on Acoustics and Musical Research 2nd International Conference on Acoustics and Musical Research II Conferenza Internazionale di Acustica e di Ricerca Musicale CIARM 95 Ferrara (Italy) - 3rd. week, May 1995 Topics z Auralization - Auralizzazione z Sound spatialization - Spazializzazione del suono z Acoustics of virtual environments - Acustica degli ambienti virtuali z Acoustics of virtual musical instruments (Synthesis of musical sound based on physical models) - Acustica degli strumenti musicali virtuali Hot Topics z Musical performance analysis - Analisi dell'esecuzione musicale z Hearing losses and musical and theatrical spaces: hearing aids, acoustics and special devices Spazi musicali e teatrali e perdita uditiva: aiuti uditivi, acustica e dispositivi speciali z Restoration - Restauro: a) of audio material - di materiali sonori b) of musical instruments - di strumenti musicali c) of spaces for music - di spazi per la musica Call for Papers and Conference Activities The 2nd International Conference on Acoustics and Musical Research will be held in Ferrara (Italy), during the 3rd Week of May 1995. CIARM95 follows the 1st Conference on "Acoustics and Recovery of Spaces for Music" held in Ferrara in October 1993. The main topics at CIARM95 will be auralization, sound spatialization and acoustics of virtual environments. Other topics concerning particular social and economic aspects such as hearing aids in musical and theatrical spaces and restoration of audio material, of musical instruments and of spaces for music, are classified as "hot topics" and will be treated in a round table discussion. Interdisciplinary aspects linking scientific and technical problems with final listening to music and/or musical compositions are of particular interest at CIARM95. Thus, contributions from Acoustics, Audiology, Architecture, Audio Engineering, Computer Science as well as from Music, Musicology and Psychology etc. will be expected and welcome. The Conference will be structured in traditional scientific sessions on main topics, which will consist in the presentation of specialized invited lectures and contributed papers. Hot topics, for which traditional conference sessions may not be suitable, will be treated as poster sessions including an introductory lecture and open debates. The Conference will be organized in the context of an International Exhibition of Classical Music where technical as well as commercial aspects related with production and organization of music, musical instruments and new musical technologies, will be shown. The CIARM95's official languages are Italian and English. Potential participants intending to present a contributed paper must send an abstract of no more than 200 words to the Conference Secretariat before 15 November 1994. Conference Publications and Registration Fee Invited papers, accepted contributed papers and written version of posters presented at CIARM95 will be published in the Conference Proceedings edited by the Scientific Committee. Participants to CIARM95, will receive a copy of the proceedings volume in Ferrara, during their final registration. The advance registration fee (before March 15th, 1995) will be 130.000 Lit. or 80 U.S.$ (before 15th March 1995). The registration fee will be 100 U.S.$ or 160.000 Lit. after 15th March 1995. Social Program The Conference is conjoint with the Spring Concert Season of The Municipal Theatre of the city of Ferrara organized by "Ferrara Musica" during which the performance of an Opera by Mozart conducted by J.E. Gardiner is foreseen. Participants to the Conference may have tickets for the Opera booked in advance. Preliminary Registration and deadlines For organizational reasons people interested in participating in CIARM95 should cut and mail the here attached coupon to the Conference Secretariat. Authors interested in submitting a paper must send abstracts before 15th November. The 2nd announcement containing the preliminary program and the preliminary registration form will be sent to interested persons by 31 December 1994 and by the same date, authors will also receive notice of acceptance of their papers. The deadline for receipt of contributed papers or written version of the posters (4 pages) in the definitive camera-ready format according to given instructions is 15th March 1995. Papers must be accompanied by the advance registration fee. CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT CIARM95 National Research Council of Italy, Cemoter Acoustics Department, Via Canal Bianco, 28 - 44044 Ferrara. Tel +39 532 731571 - Fax +39 532 732250 E-mail: CIARM95@CNRFE4.FE.CNR.IT ---------------------------------------------------------- g. REAL TIME COMPOSITION LIBRARY for MAX (Macintosh-Version) "REAL TIME COMPOSITION LIBRARY" for MAX (Macintosh-Version) version 2.0 (c) 1993-1994 I want to announce the availability my "Real Time Composition Library 2.0" for MAX, which is now in the public domain and available on IRCAM's ftp site: ftp.ircam.fr:/pub/IRCAM/programs/max/patches/essl-lib: or ftp.ircam.fr:/pub/music/programs/mac/max-patches: * essl.readme (1k) * essl.sea (280k) Due to the fact that IRCAM's ftp is always very busy during daytime there is also an ftp-site within the states existing: ftp.kahless.isca.uiowa.edu:/ftp/pub/max/RTC-lib_2.0.sea.hqx This library (a collection of MAX-patches) offers the possibility to experiment with a number of compositional techniques, such as serial procedures, permutations and controlled randomness. Most of these objects are geared towards straightforward processing of data. By using these specialized objects together in a patch, programming becomes much more clear and easy. Many functions that are often useful in algorithmic composition are provided with this library - therefore the composer could concentrate rather on the composition than the programming aspects. The "Real Time Composition Library" was developed in the past two years during my extensive work on the "Lexikon-Sonate" (1992-94), an interactive Real Time Composition for computer-controlled MIDI-piano. Regardless the fact that it was conceived for a concrete project it became more and more obvious that its functionalities are open and generic enough to be used by other composers in different compositional contexts. Although - from the theoretical point of view - based on paradigms which have been extracted from serial thinking - and its further developments until nowadays it does not force towards a certain aesthetic, but provides a programming environment for testing and developing musical strategies. Please note that "serial" has here another connotation than it normally has (especially in the US): "serial" here refers to a certain way of *musical thinking" rather then dodecaphonic techniques, which has been abandoned by the serial theory itself (cf. Gottfried Michael Koenig and Karlheinz Stockhausen). The library consists of "abstractions" (MAX-patches that appear as objects) and external objects. Most of them were written by myself, but there are also contributions from Gerhard Eckel and Serge Lemouton (both IRCAM, Paris), Orm Finnendahl and James McCartney (namely his generic list objects). Please note that the library objects are highly dependent on each other, so it is recommended not to take them apart. An example - "MeloChord.pat" - shows how a compositional project can be realized in MAX, and suggests a certain programming style, that tries to avoid the awkward "spaghetti manner". Version 2 of the "Real Time Composition Library" comes with a Hypertext-like on-line help which allows to have a perfect overview on the library objects and their multiple relationships. Furthermore a lot of new objects are added, some objects have been enhanced and some bugs have been fixed. In the following all library objects of the "Real Time Composition Library" are shown. Please note that the external objects were not written by myself - either they have been taken from public MAX-libraries or they have been programmed by others according to my indications. In every case, the author of the respective external object is stated. TOOLBOX @ add% anti-bis anti-bis&osc anti-osc contrario count-bang dB2lin divmod (by James McCartney) first-bang geom inc-dec integ lin2dB minus (by James McCartney) open-help pass pass-bang per2pass play round roundto scale trans-lin trans-log LISTS butfirst butlast collect first insert join (by James McCartney) last listlen (by James McCartney) listreg (by James McCartney) make-scale member (by Gary Lee Nelson) multiple nth (by Serge Lemouton/IRCAM) piece remove replace reverse scramble (by James McCartney) sect (by James McCartney) sgroup (by Orm Finnendahl) show slice (by James McCartney) sort (by James McCartney) sum union (by James McCartney) unique (by Gary Lee Nelson) CHANCE alea between between-lin between-log brownian group make-choice-list markov permutate prob (by David Zicarelli/IRCAM) random-norep ratio sel-princ sequence series sneak sneak-random xrandom HARMONY anti-octave anti-octave&prime brown-melody check-octaves choose-intervals frq2note intv2ratio markov-harmony neutral-harmony nname (by Orm Finnendahl) note2cents note2frq note2pitch note2st pitch-from-intervals pitch2note ratio2intv showchord shownote st2pitch Dodecaphonics: check-row matrix (by Charles Baker) normalize-row permutate-row pitch-from-row pitch-from-row-mod random-row row-modus transpose-row RHYTHM alea-rhythm brown-rhythm choice-rhythm dur-from-ED ED-trans grid-rhythm group-rhythm group-rhythm2 make-ED-scale markov-rhythm metro-dev% repchord-rhythm repeat-ED rit-acc serial-rhythm sneak-rhythm ENVELOPE cresc-decresc random-ramp schweller If you find any bugs or if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to send me a mail: Dr. Karlheinz Essl Tel: +43-2243-7971 Am Oelberg 26-30 Fax: +43-2243-79714 3400 Klosterneuburg - Austria/Europe email: essl@ping.at ------------------------------------------------------------ h. Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory: Call for Papers The College of Fine Arts and Communications and Department of Music, Brigham Young University, announce the Second Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, to be held at Brigham Young University on April 21 and 22, 1995. We are meeting together with the Rocky Mountain chapter of the American Musicological Society and the Southwest chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology. The program committee invites paper proposals on any topic. We are encouraging submissions on the visual arts and music analysis (for a session to be held at BYU's new Art Museum), on music theory pedagogy, and on popular music and its intersections with art music. Invited speakers: Bruce Benward, Jonathan Bernard, David Bernstein, Steven Johnson Those interested in participating should send an abstract of up to 500 words by January 15, 1995 to: Jack Boss, Program Chair, Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, Department of Music, C-550 HFAC, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602. Abstracts sent by e-mail to jfboss@ucs.byu.edu are also welcome. Jack Boss, Brigham Young University ----------------------------------------------------- i. Mid-West Music Theory Society: Call For Papers The sixth annual meeting of the Mid-West Music Theory Society (MTMW) will be held at the University of Iowa on April 7 and 8, 1995. This meeting will be held jointly with the 28th national conference of the Society of Composers (SCI). Theorists are invited to submit paper proposals on any topic, although papers related to contemporary music and music theory pedagogy are particularly encouraged. A number of joint sessions and round-table discussions with members of SCI are planned on contemporary compositional trends as well as the relationship of composer and theorist within the traditional undergraduate theory curriculum. In addition, a large number of events are planned for the duration of the MTMW/SCI conference, including over 20 separate concerts of contemporary music, workshops on electronic and computer music, and poster sessions on new software for ear training. The conference will culminate with a performance on Saturday night, April 8, of the Kronos Quartet, performing works of contemporary American composers (all of whom will be present at the conference). A gala reception hosted by the University of Iowa School of Music will follow. Reduced price tickets for the Kronos Quartet performance will be available to all conference participants. Please send FIVE copies of a 3-5 page proposal, along with one copy of a 100-150 word abstract, suitable for publication, and a list of any equipment needed, to: Dr. Severine Neff University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Cincinnati, OH 45221-0003 Proposals must be postmarked by December 1, 1994 For any further information, please contact: Thomas Christensen Local Arrangements Coordinator MTMW/SCI Conference 95 School of Music University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 (319-335-1620) ---------------------------------------------------- j. Music Theory Southeast: Call For Papers CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Music Theory Southeast 1995 Annual Meeting March 17-18, Catawba College Salisbury, NC Proposals are solicited for the 1995 Annual Meeting of Music Theory Southeast. Possible formats include 30-minute presentations on any topic of musical interest, proposals for panel discussions or special interest sessions, and suggestions for alternative presentation formats. ABOUT MUSIC THEORY SOUTHEAST Music Theory Southeast was founded in 1992 and draws its membership primarily from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. Proposals are welcomed from any geographic region. ABOUT CATAWBA COLLEGE Catawba College is a small, four-year liberal arts college situated in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. Salisbury is conveniently located on I-85 between Charlotte and Greensboro. SUBMISSIONS Send SEVEN copies of a 2- to 4- page proposal to: Jeffrey Perry, 1995 MTSE Program Chair School of Music Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803 Include a list of any audiovisual or technical requirements. POSTMARK DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1, 1995 Information: (504) 388-3556 jperry@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu -------------------------------------------------- k. Computer Music Journal: Contents of vol. 18.3 Computer Music Journal 18:3--Fall, 1994 Title: Composition and Performance in the 1990s--2 Front and back covers: "Filtered Landscape" by Guri Berg Contents About This Issue Editor's Notes: Why is Good Electroacoustic Music So Good? Why is Bad Electroacoustic Music So Bad?--Stephen Travis Pope Letters Announcements News ------------ An Interview with Barry Truax--Toru Iwatake ------------ Topic: Composition and Performance in the 1990s ------------ Technology, Commodity, Power--Roger Johnson Music and Computers: Composers Panel Discussion from the 1992 NEMO Festival--Edited by Stephen Travis Pope To Paint on Water--John Whitney ------------ Automatic Indexing of a Sound Data Base using Self-Organizing Neural Nets--B. Feiten and S. Guenzel ------------ Reviews Events Musica Elettronica Viva: Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, and George Lewis-Mills College, Oakland, California USA, 12 February, 1994--Tim Perkis Diamanda Galas: Judgement Day-Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire USA, 23 November, 1993--Donna McCabe Two Reports on the Fourth International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA '93)-Minneapolis, Minnesota USA, 3-7 November, 1993--Craig Harris and Greg Garvey Publications David Lewin: Musical Form and Transformation: 4 Analytic Essays-Stephen W. Smoliar Jean-Baptiste Barriere, Editor: Le Timbre--Metaphore pour la Composition--James Harley Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead, Editors: Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde--Alicyn Warren Joseph Rothstein: Digital Musical Instruments and the World of MIDI--Esther Hargs Recordings G. M. Koenig, Luc Ferrari, and Konrad Boehmer: Acousmatrix 1, 2, 3, and 5--B. Vestern Kirk Corey: Music from the Ivory Tower and Elsewhere--Michael Hamman Tod Machover: Flora--Jason Vantomme Products Passport Producer for Apple Macinotsh Computers--E. G. Graal ------------ Products of Interest Instructions to Contributors ------------ About This Issue This is the second in our series of topical issues on "composition and performance in the 1990s." The first article, however, is an interview with composer and researcher Barry Truax, whose work was presented in an article in the last issue, and on the sound sheet of issue 18:1. Mr. Truax will also be familiar to many as the host of the 1985 International Computer Music Conference, developer of the PODX series of programs, and as a composer of some renown. In this interview with Toru Iwatake, he discusses topics ranging from his own personal background to his use of granular synthesis techniques on a programmable real-time digital signal processor. The articles on the central topic come in several flavors. Roger Johnson opens the issue's topical focus with his controversially-titled piece Technology, Commodity, Power, which is a further development of several of the ideas he introduced in his earlier Machine Song article in Computer Music Journal 14:1. Mr. Johnson presents a description that is sure to be controversial of the role that the issues of power and commodity play in contemporary art music. The second article on the topic is an edited transcription of a composers panel discussion that took place at the 1992 Nordic Electroacoustic Music Organization (NEMO) conference. In this informal and wide-ranging discussion, several well-known members of our community (and frequent contributors to the Journal) present their thoughts on contemporary musical aesthetics, performance practice, and composition. John Whitney is well-known as a pioneer of experimental film and computer graphics. In "To Paint on Water," he has written about his exploration of the "complementarity" of visual and musical arts, something he has over 20 years of experience using in his own works. His ideas should provide a generous amount of "food for thought" for Journal readers. The final article presents a system developed Berhard Feiten and S. Guenzel at the Technical University of Berlin neural network-based system that can learn to classify the timbres of musical instruments. They strive to build a system that can "allows the intuitive mapping from sound idea to sound generating method in a musically satisfactory way." This issue has a "bumper crop" of reviews, with a large number of events (concerts and conferences), publications (in English and French), recordings (old and new), and a major product being evaluated. Cover Description Text Front and back covers: The stylistic landscape paintings Filtered Landscape on the front and back covers of this issue of Computer Music Journal are by the Norwegian sculptor and painter Guri Berg. On the cover of the Computer Music Journal 17:1 we used a graphic series based on her impressions of spectra and filter functions. While this previous graphic series was based on similar mathematical filter functions and shared almost the same shape as the paintings shown on this cover, there are some peculiar differences; the graphic line on the paintings is created from the contrast of the colors rather by a painted dividing line. An other major difference is the very large size of the oil paintings shown here-7 x 6 feet. The base form was drawn with the aid of a computer. Guri studied sculpture and painting for twelve years, including five years at Norway's prestigious National Academy of Fine Arts. She is currently working in Palo Alto, California, USA with the prize-winning architect, Tony Carrasco on decorating a new building complex with sculptures in stainless steel. Characteristic of her work is an emphasis on unusual approaches to both form and material and by combining art with high technology. We hope to see more of her work here in Computer Music Journal in the future. She is also still running for the President of the United States and hopes to give all artists lifetime salaries if she is elected. For subscription information, please contact: MIT Press Journals Subscriptions 55 Hayward St. Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 USA Tel: (617) 253-2889 Electronic mail: journals-orders@mit.edu Computer Music Journal subscriptions can also be ordered through various on-line services such as CompuServe's CompuBooks, or the MIT Press on-line book-store. Stephen Travis Pope Editor, Computer Music Journal cmj@CNMAT.Berkeley.edu __Stephen Travis Pope __Editor, Computer Music Journal __Research Associate, Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) __Department of Music, U. C.Berkeley __stp@CNMAT.Berkeley.edu, (510) 644-3881 ---------------------------------------------- l. Contemporary Music Documentation Center (CDMC) in Paris From mto-list@husc.harvard.edu Mon Nov 7 11:13:58 1994 Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 11:05:11 -0500 From: mto-list@husc.harvard.edu To: fingerhu@nadia.ircam.fr Cc: rothfarb@humanitas.ucsb.edu Subject: Error Condition Re: The Contemporary Music Documentation Center - info on WWW (and address!) fingerhu@nadia.ircam.fr: You are not subscribed to mto-list@husc.harvard.edu. Your message is returned to you unprocessed. If you want to subscribe, send mail to listproc@husc.harvard.edu with the following request: subscribe MTO-LIST Your Name ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Sorry, URL was missing). "Ostinato", the informational newsletter of the Documentation Center of Contemporary Music (located in the "Cite de la Musique" in Paris, France), is now available on IRCAM's WWW server (http://www.ircam.fr, with link to English text). It comprises, among many other things, detailed lists of concerts and festivals in France (and some abroad), informations for composers and interpreters, etc. Information on the CDMC itself (hours, activities, documentations, etc) is also available there. --Michael Fingerhut fingerhu@nadia.ircam.fr +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 4. Employment a. Conservatory of Music, Oberlin College: Electronic and Computer Music b. Arizona State University, School of Music: Music Computer Specialist c. Michigan State University, School of Music: Asst. Prof., Music Theory d. Ohio State University, School of Music: Asst. Prof., Music Theory e. University of Texas at Austin: Asst. Prof., Music Theory f. Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts: Asst. Prof. of Theory g. Loyola University of New Orelans: Tenure track, rank open ----------------------------------------------------------- a. Conservatory of Music, Oberlin College: Electronic and Computer Music NOTICE OF FACULTY VACANCY IN ELECTRONIC AND COMPUTER MUSIC The Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College invites applications for a continuing, full-time, tenure-track, position in the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) Department beginning in the 1995-96 academic year. The Conservatory of Music is America's oldest school dedicated to the training of professional musicians. Founded in 1865, it was the first college-affiliated conservatory in the United States. Its students are enrolled in undergraduate programs leading to the Bachelor of Music in performance, composition, music education, music history, historical performance, electronic and computer music, and jazz studies; graduate programs leading to a master of music in conducting, historical performance, or opera theater; master of music education; or master of music in teaching. Performance and artist diplomas are also offered. The Conservatory and College have earned national reputations of excellence based upon the quality of the student body (drawn from every state in the union and abroad), fine faculty, and excellent facilities. The TIMARA Department offers a four-year curriculum leading to a Bachelor of Music degree in electronic and computer music. There are two full time teaching faculty, a full time music engineer, and a part time teacher of studio recording. There are 25-30 majors. The individual appointed will have general responsibility for and will perform the following specific duties: 1. Teach courses in analog and digital sound synthesis, computer music software, multi-track recording technique, and other areas related to multimedia. 2. Teach composition focusing on technological media. 3. Participate in committees, meetings and activities of the TIMARA Department and the Conservatory of Music. 4. Advise students on artistic, academic, and career matters. Qualifications include: 1. A doctorate in composition or computer music with a body of compositions and research that represents a substantial engagement in the creation of new works. 2. Demonstrated experience and achievement in digital and analog signal processing, sound synthesis, and computer programming. 3. Experience with interactive computer music systems and digital instruments in composition and performance. 4. Experience with computer graphics, animation, and video techniques. 5. Teaching experience in electronic and computer music. 6. A commitment to electronic and computer music as the principal focus of a professional career in musical composition. Interested persons should submit credentials to Karen L. Wolff, Dean, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. All credentials should be received by November 15, 1994 to ensure consideration. Those received after that date will be considered until the position is filled. The appointment will be made at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor. Salary will be commensurate with experience and qualifications. ----------------------------------------------------------- b. Arizona State University, School of Music: Music Computer Specialist Music Computer Specialist We are currently accepting applications for the position Music Computer Specialist in the Arizona State University School of Music. The Music Computer Specialist will supervise the School of Music Electronic Classroom, an exclusive music student computer site with Macintosh Quadras each with complete MIDI setups. The EC is open approximately 60 hours per week. Additional duties include the overseeing of operation of School of Music LANs, training and supervision of student EC workers, resolution of software/hardware malfunctions in the EC, and assisting the ca. 100 music faculty and staff members with computer operations. All ASU music faculty and staff have personal computers on their desks (nearly 90% Macintoshes) with either EtherTalk or AppleTalk connections to the internet. Each year nearly 100 students take the basic Macintosh literacy class offered for music students, and the majority of the 700 students in the department are computer literate. Applicants for the Music Computer Specialist position -- a staff position, not a faculty position -- should possess a thorough knowledge of the Macintosh operating system, AppleShare servers, general Macintosh applications (word processing, spreadsheets, drawing, painting, databases, email and internet applications) as well as music specific applications (scripting, sequencing, ear training and other CAI programs). Some programming and A/UX experience would be helpful. A bachelor degree in music with basic knowledge of music theory, history, composition, and performance techniques will help the computer specialist to integrate such activities into the operation of the Electronic Classroom. Additional technical knowledge (replacement of logic/power boards, insertion of memory, etc.) and some UNIX and IBM operating system experience would be helpful. Salary range: $20,000-21,0000. Application deadline 15 Novemeber 1994. Persons interested in applying for this position should contact: J. Richard Haefer School of Music Arizona State University Box 870405 Tempe, AZ 85287-0405 r.haefer@asu.edu The Arizona State University is an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action Employer. J. Richard Haefer Mariachi Diablos del Sol School of Music, Arizona State University Box 870405 Tempe, Arizona 85287-0405 ICRJH AT ASUACVAX.BITNET r.haefer@asu.edu FAX 602/965-2659 Voice 602/965-7568 Phone Message: 602/965-3371 ------------------------------------------------------------ c. Michigan State University, School of Music: Asst. Prof., Music Theory Announcement of Position in Music Theory For Fall, 1995 POSITION: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MUSIC THEORY RESPONSIBILITIES: Undergraduate and graduate instruction Active participation in all phases of the music theory program, including: --thesis and dissertation advising, --orientation, placement, and doctoral comprehensive testing Continuing research activity in music theory QUALIFICATIONS: Teaching experience at the university level preferred Scholarly activity in music theory Expertise in pedagogy of theory, technology, and computer-assisted instruction is desirable Classroom keyboard skills Ability to work effectively with students and colleagues Doctorate in Music Theory or Music Theory and Composition required (must be completed prior to appointment date) APPOINTMENT: Tenure-stream position, as an Assistant Professor Effective August 16, 1995 APPLICATION: Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate degrees, and at least three current letters of recommendation to: Chair, Music Theory Search Committee School of Music Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1043 Applications must be received by November 15, 1994 Late submissions may be considered if a suitable candidate pool is not identified by deadline. Applications from women and minorities are especially encouraged. Handicappers have the right to request and receive reasonable accommodations. ------------------------------------------------------------- d. Ohio State University, School of Music: Asst. Prof., Music Theory COLLEGE OF THE ARTS, THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY POSITION: Music Theory RANK AND SALARY: Assistant Professor; nine-month tenure-track appointment beginning Autumn Quarter 1995. $33,000. QUALIFICATIONS: Ph.D. in Music Theory; outstanding research potential; evidence of scholarly activity and effective teaching at the college level; research interest in music perception/cognition desirable. RESPONSIBILITIES: Teach undergraduate and graduate courses; advise undergraduate and graduate students and serve on graduate committees. Responsibilities may include coordination of core undergraduate theory and aural training courses. Other assignments to be determined by the needs of the School and the qualifications of the successful candidate. Maintain creative/scholarly and service contributions appropriate for a faculty member at a major research university. INFORMATION: The Ohio State University is located in Columbus, Ohio, a metropolitan area of over 1,385,000. The School of Music, a unit of the College of the Arts, has over 60 faculty members and enrolls approximately 350 undergraduate and 200 graduate students. The school offers a comprehensive selection of degrees from the baccalaureate to the doctoral level. The Music Theory and Composition Area has nine full-time faculty members and offers degrees at the baccalaureate, masters and doctoral levels. APPLICATION: Send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and complete dossier including current letters of recommendation to: Dr. David Butler, Chair Music Theory Search Committee The Ohio State University School of Music 1866 College Road Columbus, Ohio 43210-1170 DEADLINE: December 15, 1994 or until position is filled "The Ohio State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Qualified women, minorities, Vietnam-era veterans, disabled veterans, and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply." David Butler, School of Music The Ohio State University 1866 North College Road Columbus, OH 43210 USA 614.292.7321 (O) 614.488.2420 (H) 614.292.1102 (fax) ------------------------------------------------------- e. University of Texas at Austin: Asst. Prof., Music Theory POSITION/RANK: Assistant Professor INSTITUTION: University of Texas at Austin QUALIFICATIONS: Ph.D. in music theory and college teaching experience DUTIES: Teach selected core undergraduate and graduate courses as necessary; interest in research and publication. SEND: CV, three current letters of recommendation, selected supporting material. Include prepaid postage/packaging for any materials to be returned. Send to Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher, Director School of Music (Music Theory Position) The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712-1208 DEADLINE: January 15, 1995 CONTACT: Roger Graybill, Search Committee Chair Tel. nos.: 512-471-5489 512-471-7764 ---------------------------------------------------- f. Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts: Asst. Prof. of Theory POSITION/RANK: Music Theory/Assistant Professor INSTITUTION: Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts QUALIFICATION: Ph.D. required, preferably in Music Theory; demonstrated excellence in teaching and research; demonstrated competence in one or more areas outside the principal area of specialization. DUTIES: Teach graduate and undergraduate courses in music theory, including aural skills; advise theses and dissertations; participate in a second area of instruction according to individual strengths and departmental needs. SEND: Letter of application; CV; letters of recommendation; other supporting documents DEADLINE: January 31, 1995 CONTACT: Gerald Chenoweth, Chair, Theory Search Committee, Department of Music, P.O. Box 270, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ 08903-0270 e-mail: chenowet@gandalf.rutgers.edu telephone: 908-932-8813 fax: 908-932-1517 -------------------------------------------- g. Loyala University of New Orleans: Tenure track, rank open Loyola University of New Orleans announces: Tenure-track Position in Music Theory beginning August 1995 Duties: Teach undergraduate and MM music theory courses; advise students; participate in College and University activities Qualifications: Ph.D. in music theory (completed by 9/1/95); college teaching experience is desirable Rank/Salary: tenure-track; rank and salary open To apply: Initial applications must include resume, transcript of graduate work, and three confidential letters of reference. Send to: Professor William Horne, Chair; Theory Search Committee; College of Music, Box 104; Loyola University; 6363 St. Charles Avenue; New Orleans LA 70118 Considerations of applications will begin on January 10, 1995 and will continue until the position is filled. Loyola University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Mary Sue Morrow (morrow@music.loyno.edu) Loyola University of New Orleans +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 5. New Dissertations a. Coenen, Alcedo, E., "Meta-Plus: Stockhausen's Plus-Minus computerized and analyzed," University of Amsterdam, 1995. b. Vantomme, Jason D., "Score Following by Computer: An Approach by Temporal Pattern," MA Thesis, McGill University, 1994. ----------------------------------------------------------- a. Coenen, Alcedo, E., "Meta-Plus: Stockhausen's Plus-Minus computerized and analyzed," University of Amsterdam, 1995. AUTHOR: Coenen, Alcedo, E. TITLE: "Meta-Plus: Stockhausen's Plus-Minus computerized and analyzed" INSTITUTION: University of Amsterdam Dept. of Computational Linguistics Spuistraat 134 NL-1012-VB Amsterdam The Netherlands BEGUN: September, 1993 COMPLETION: November, 1995 ABSTRACT: Stockhausen's piece "Plus-Minus", composed in 1963, is analyzed and implemented into a computer program, called "Meta-Plus". Stockhausen's piece is an example of abstract composition, which has to be worked out first by the musician before she can play it. The hypothesis is twofold: (1) that formalisation and implementation is an appropriate way of analysing "Plus-Minus" and comparable meta-musical pieces; (2) that Stockhausen's "Plus-Minus" is a piece which examplifies a specific method of composition which can be formalised. The purpose of the computer program is twofold: (1) to provide musicians, who want to make a version of Plus-Minus, with a user-friendly tool to manage this task; the program asks for the input of parameters, and calculates a structure according to the rules of Stockhausen; its output can be either a MIDI-file, a score or a sound-file; (2) to provide the musicologist, who wants to analyze Plus-Minus, with a tool with which she can study its formal description, as well as create as many versions as possible with different parameter settings. The research focusses on two questions: (1) - a musicological issue - what is the musical identity of Plus-Minus; (2) - an AI issue - what kind of composition is modelled in Plus-Minus, and what can be learned from this (Stockhausen's) method for more generalized composition models. KEYWORDS: Composition Theory, Music Representation, AI, Stockhausen, Serialism TOC: 1. Meta-Plus: Plus-Minus as a computer program 1.1 design - general considerations 1.2 design - data structures 1.3 design - rule structures 1.4 design - user interface 1.5 implementation 1.6 future features 2. Plus-Minus as a work of Stockhausen 2.1 Stockhausen's oeuvre 2.2 Stockhausen's process music 2.3 The computerability of Plus-Minus 2.4 Evaluation of outputs results from Meta-Plus 3. Plus-Minus as a method of composition 3.1 Formalisation as an analysis method for meta-music 3.2 Plus-Minus as a blue print for composition 3.3 Meta-Plus as an expert system for composition 4. Conclusions and future possibilities 4.1 About the formalisability of Plus-Minus 4.2 About the analysis of Plus-Minus 4.3 Towards a cognitive model of composition 4.4 Towards an aesthetic of meta-music CONTACT: Alcedo E. Coenen Argonautenstraat 59-1 NL-1076-KM Amsterdam The Netherlands Voice: +31 20 6731348 Fax: +31 20 6731348 E-mail: alcedo@mars.let.uva.nl -------------------------------------------------------- b. Vantomme, Jason D., "Score Following by Computer: An Approach by Temporal Pattern," MA Thesis, McGill University, 1994. AUTHOR: Vantomme, Jason D. TITLE: Score Following by Computer: An Approach by Temporal Pattern", MA Thesis INSTITUTION: McGill University, Faculty of Music 555 Sherbrooke St W Montreal, PQ H3A 1E3 COMPLETION: 09/94 ABSTRACT: Research efforts concerned with the implementation of reliable computer-based score followers were first presented at the 1984 International Computer Music Conference independently by Roger Dannenberg and Barry Vercoe. Over the past ten years, much has been done to advance the accuracy and reliability of such systems and yet, little of this development has integrated new or existing ideas concerning the tracking of a performer's rhythm. The research undertaken in this study has attempted to suggest one possibility for such an integration through the design and implementation of a prototype score follower that uses temporal patterns from a live performer as its primary information to determine score location. The simultaneous tracking of pitch information provides an alternate performer position when temporal pattern prediction fails. Testing of the system was performed on both monophonic and polyphonic works spanning four musical eras. KEYWORDS: computer applications, score following, interactive performance TOC: (Chpt 1) Introduction (Chpt 2) Score Following Research (Chpt 3) Computational Approaches to Rhythm Perception (Chpt 4) Software Design (Chpt 5) System Trials (Chpt 6) Conclusion (Appendix) User's Guide to the Artificial Musician CONTACT: Jason D. Vantomme The Institute for the Learning Sciences Northwestern University 1890 Maple Avenue Evanston, IL 60201 Ph: (708) 467-2129 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= 6. Communications a. Boethius Speaks! As announced in a previous MTO communication, the home site for SMT networking will be transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara, during the course of the current academic year. The name of the new host is "boethius," in recognition of the ancient philosopher whose sixth-century treatise, *De institutione musica*, was the foundation of music-theoretical knowledge during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Although boethius is already on the Network, "he" is not yet fully configured or equipped with software to host MTO or other SMT networking services. By spring we hope to have boethius ready to carry the services. Notices will be distributed to MTO subscribers periodically about the status of boethius, and revised documentation will be broadcast once the new host is fully operational. b. Official SMT Recognition Last year an ad hoc Networking Committee, appointed by SMT President Patrick McCreless, discussed and eventually drafted a proposal for formalizing the relationship between the existing networking services (MTO, Email Conference, Online Bibliographic Database) and the SMT administrative mechanisms. I am pleased to announce that, with some modifications, the proposal was adopted by the Executive Board at this year's annual SMT meeting, in Tallahassee, Florida. For MTO, this imprimatur means, among other things, that staffing will increase once President McCreless appoints various administrative, technical, and editorial personnel. I look forward to exploring the technological possibilities and broadening the scope of the journal with the future MTO team. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 7. Copyright Statement Copyright Statement [1] Music Theory Online (MTO) as a whole is Copyright (c) 1994, all rights reserved, by the Society for Music Theory, which is the owner of the journal. Copyrights for individual items published in MTO are held by their authors. Items appearing in MTO may be saved and stored in electronic or paper form, and may be shared among individuals for purposes of scholarly research or discussion, but may *not* be republished in any form, electronic or print, without prior, written permission from the author(s), and advance notification of the editors of MTO. [2] Any redistributed form of items published in MTO must include the following information in a form appropriate to the medium in which the items are to appear: This item appeared in Music Theory Online in [VOLUME #, ISSUE #] on [DAY/MONTH/YEAR]. It was authored by [FULL NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS], with whose written permission it is reprinted here. [3] Libraries may archive issues of MTO in electronic or paper form for public access so long as each issue is stored in its entirety, and no access fee is charged. Exceptions to these requirements must be approved in writing by the editors of MTO, who will act in accordance with the decisions of the Society for Music Theory. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ END OF MTO 0.11 (mto.pak.94.0.11)