On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:39:37 -0700, Kevin Wampler wrote:

>> came off an EKG machine rather than musical notation.  I remember one
>> that had three graphs - one for pitch, one for amplitude, and one for
>> rate (IIRC).
> 
> Nonstandard notation of this sort is not uncommon in a lot of
> contemporary music and cage is certainly not the only person to use it.
>   It is pretty strange to look at coming from traditional western notion
> though.  Once you start getting into Aleatoric music (as Cage did) you
> get even more bizarre notations.

That doesn't surprise me.  At the time it did, but I was in my mid-teens 
at the time and had only seen western style music notation.

>> LOL - so how does the story go?
> 
> About like it sounds.  I was giving a sort presentation on some computer
> music topics and I played an example of Xenakis' Myceane Alpha.  The
> professor then related how Xenakis had given a concert  at some music
> conference and played this or a similar piece at about 120dB. Apparently
> the audience did not last long and by the end only his students were
> left.  I'll need to remember to ask him next time I see him if this was
> Xenakis' intent from the beginning (and if Xenakis thought it was
> humorous).

Interesting.  That is certainly loud - did the students have any sort of 
ear protection?

>> I'm going to have to look that one up - I don't think I've ever heard
>> of it before.
> 
> Unfortunately none of the recordings do it justice.  The piece was
> initially composed for seven tracks each playing from a speaker in a
> different part of the concert hall (actually, it was composed for a
> particular concert space which Xenakis himself designed).  This allowed
> Xenakis to make heavy use of the three-dimensional placement of the
> sound, and this is more or less totally lost in the available
> recordings.  This was one of the reasons why it was so cool to hear a
> proper reproduction in a concert hall.

That does sound cool.  I have always liked sound reproduction that 
involves the space as part of the performance, but it's so rare because 
it requires a lot of planning and setup work.

> My girlfriend was amused that he was able to create an entirely new form
> of musical suspense when she realized that a really loud sound somewhat
> like a rocket taking off was slowly moving over to our side of the
> theater.
> 
> Side note: This piece was written to celebrate the opening of Pompidou.
> Another side note: It's not easy listening.

Cool. :-)

Jim

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