[silence] silence Digest, Vol 81, Issue 6

[David Badagnani]

Thanks, Glenn.  One question:  I had assumed the pitch selection for the number pieces was generated by chance operations.  Are you implying, in referring to a "harmonic language," that the pitches for the number pieces (particularly those for orchestra) were selected intuitively rather than by chance operations (as, for example, in Feldman's later orchestral works)?

Interestingly, "Sixty-Eight" utilizes 15 pitches, which is similar to the 15 speaking pipes of the shō (two of the 17 being mute); is there a direct influence there?  It would seem to make sense.

--
David Badagnani
Kent, Ohio
USA

--- On Sat, 2/7/09, Glenn Freeman <glenn@ogreogress.com> wrote:
From: Glenn Freeman <glenn@ogreogress.com>
Subject: Re: [silence] silence Digest, Vol 81, Issue 6
To: silence@list.mail.virginia.edu
Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 2:33 PM

yes david, and there are several fine examples of this in Hovhaness's  
concerto for sitar and violin, Shambala of 1969. also, when one  
understands the sound of the sho itself we come to realize  
similarities with cage's harmonic language in the number pieces.  
cage's longest number piece, one9/two3, can be described as a sort of  
well-tempered klavier for the sho ... and a type of catalog of  
possible harmonies.

David wrote:

> Interestingly, Alan Hovhaness studied and learned to play the gagaku  
> instruments you mention, as well as the sho, in Hawaii and Japan in  
> the early 1960s, and was particularly taken by the 3-part netori  
> (introductory canonic entrances of the wind instruments in free  
> rhythm), which he lamented, in lectures he gave on the subject, were  
> performed increasingly rarely.? Many of his works from the 1960s  
> onwards contain more or less literal (not "cheap") imitations of
 
> this traditional Japanese technique.
>
> Of course Cowell initiated the course "Music of the World's  
> Peoples," and Lou Harrison inherited this course and continued to  
> teach it at San Jose State.? I think Richard Dee (who played zheng  
> in Harrison's Chinese ensemble) may still carry on this tradition at  
> the same university.
>
> The term "Japanese canon" (where exactly, did Cowell use this
term,  
> by the way?) recalls the "Korean unison" Cage specifies in the  
> orchestral version of "Ryoanji"; as discussed earlier on this
list  
> it's not entirely clear what Cage meant by this, but it may refer to  
> the not-always-together entrances heard in the ultra-slow Korean  
> Confucian ritual musics such as a-ak, Jongmyo Jeryeak, and Munmyo  
> Jeryeak.? Cage may have also picked up this term from Cowell, who  
> may have coined it.? I think as we continue to study the music of  
> Cage and his colleagues (and as musicologists become more and more  
> familiar with traditional Asian musics), the influence of Asian  
> musical and philosophical concepts will become more apparent in many  
> of these composers' works--particularly those Californians (and  
> Washingtonians) whose names come up so often on this list.

Glenn Freeman
OgreOgress productions
http://ogreogress.com


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