Music Theory Online

Robert Morris*

Introduction to Panorama of Music Theory, 1987-97.

References

[2] I found I wanted to express in music the sense of wonder at the rich, deep, provocative, and often beautiful insights, thoughts, and conceptions that I had encountered in music- theory writings of the last ten years. So, after reviewing the literature, I selected 35 quotations, one per author, to be read over a specially designed musical fabric of slowly evolving harmony. The order of the quotations was chosen for aesthetic reasons and does not consciously reflect any bias or prominence of interest on my part. The limitation to culling relatively short quotations that suggest issues rather than documenting results or reviewing detailed and subtle reasoning eliminated more than many important contributions. But perhaps the other speakers will discuss such texts.

[3] With some trepidation, I have provided a handout to accompany your listening to my piece, if you so desire. Let me assure you the handout is not a necessary part of this presentation; nevertheless, let us look at it for a moment. The list under the heading in bold-face: "Order of Authors" lists the authors of the quotations in order of appearance in my piece; a series of asterisks indicates a short section of music without text. When listening to the piece, those of you who are immediately curious about who wrote a text you hear can find out by glancing at the list but without losing your concentration on the music of words and sounds. Of course, others of you may enjoy not knowing the identity of the authors until the piece is over. In any case, the reverse side of the handout provides a bibliography for the quotes.

[4] The composition is in 50 sections, 35 of which have texts. The numbers 35 and 50 might suggest to some of you something about the structure of the piece. In any case, there are connections between the music-sound and the texts, some of which are obvious and perhaps amusing. The sounds were generated in my own computer music set-up at home, then transported to one of the computer music studios at the Eastman School of Music, where they were mixed in stereo with the texts. I am very grateful to the five readers: Gavin Chuck, Ellen Koskoff, Elizabeth West Marvin, Thomas Paul, and Kala Pierson.

Order of Authors:
("* * * * *" indicates a section without text)

Robert Morris
Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
Departments of Composition and Music Theory
26 Gibbs Street
Rochester, NY 14604
rdm@wozzeck.esm.rochester.edu

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References

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The computer-generated sounds and voices were mixed in the Computer Music Studios of the Eastman School of Music, August 1-3, 1997.

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