Architect vs. Gardener Round 2

In the following video, John Corigliano states his case for "Composer as Architect" in a lecture at the University of Sydney (see my earlier post for Brian Eno's take on the 'composer' role).  In no way do I think it's important to take sides on the issue, and I don't even consider the two approaches mutually exclusive, but I love to watch people whose lives revolve around music talk about what they do:

Watch the full 70min lecture here

Corigliano's main point is that an architect doesn't create a building by thinking about individual bricks, as a composer can't begin a piece by writing single notes.  In both cases, a rough plan is mapped out based on an initial vision with the details filled in later, allowing for thoughtful critique and changes to be made before the main work of writing/creating begins.  He speaks in depth about the abstracted map he drew of his percussion concerto before writing a single note.  I think Eno's fault is assuming the Architect has every detail planned out in his/her head at once, when the reality of any creative process is much more plastic.

I've been using the map approach for years and love being able to plan density/dynamics/range/emotional material/etc without obsessing over specifics.  I like adding color to draw the eye to important parts and suggest more subtle emotional changes.  The maps can turn out to be little pieces in themselves!

Here's an excerpt from a simple map for a pop song I wrote a while back:

This Art is Your Art

‎The genius of “This Land Is Your Land,” perhaps, was that the Depression-inspired protest in the song’s central lyric (“This land is made for you and me”) was subtle, voiced not as a complaint or call to arms but as a positive (yet still socialistic) sentiment of equality and belonging."

–This Art is Your Art

Architect vs. Gardener

I think like many people, I had assumed that music was produced, or created in the way that you imagine symphony composers make music, which is by having a complete idea in their head in every detail and then somehow writing out ways by which other people could reproduce that. In the same way as one imagines an architect working...

A gardener doesn't really work like that...what one is doing is working in collaboration with the complex and unpredictable processes of nature. And trying to insert into that some inputs that will take advantage of those processes."

-Brian Eno

From a talk at Serpentine Gallery on October 16, 2011

Caverns of Gossimar

8-bit music for an imaginary RPG.
Download it here [mp3 192k]

Blok 9

More Sifteo music - this one's a multiplayer strategic puzzle game.

The Music of Harry Partch

1968 San Diego KPBS-TV documentary called The Music of Harry Partch. Partch shows off his instruments and gives a performance of Daphne of the Dunes conducted by Thomas Nee.

"Lack of respect for himself broadens the artist's field of vision..."

Lack of respect for himself broadens the artist's field of vision without completely demagnetizing his compass. It is an undeniable fact that if he questions all his own procedures, he becomes obsessed by the characteristics most foreign to himself, the most difficult to acquire - even the most atrophied."

-Pierre Boulez, Orientations

Moon Marble

Here's a peek at one of the Sifteo games I've been writing music and making sounds for!

Composer Nico Muhly on NES Music

For me, living in the country, playing a video game was sort of like music minus one: The actions of my hands informed, in a strange way, the things I heard. Collect a coin, and a delighted glockenspiel sounds. Move from navigating a level above ground to one below ground, and the eager French chromaticism of the score changes to a spare, beat-driven minimal texture. Hit a star, and suddenly the score does a metric modulation. All of these things come to bear in a later musical education; I'm positive I understand how augmented chords change an emotional texture because of Nintendo music."

-Nico Muhly, Read his full blog post