|
If you're seriously interested in adventurous music,
you probably already know about
CDeMusic,
who publishes new music CDs and books.
They have a
download
page full of interesting mp3 excerpts.
From slashdot we hear about
Dialtones,
a composition played by dialing the audience's mobile phones.
According to the technical diagram,
they installed a microcell site at the concert hall and
programmed things so that the conductor could dial selected
patterns of phones at will.
Yoko Ono's book Grapefruit, a collection of Fluxus-style instructions for music and art, has been reissued after 30 years out of print.
Revolution 9 remains one of my favorite pieces of music.
Here's
an analysis from Chile,
Alan W. Pollack's Notes,
a description of an
Alternate Take,
more notes at beathoven,
and
at Steve's Beatles Page.
Here's another
analysis
Rokkaku
is the piece I'm working on right now
for the Cornelius
Cardew Choir. I wrote it because
the choir, while improvising, often makes sounds
that make me think I wish we could do
that on purpose. So I wrote down descriptions
of some of my favorites, and made up a structure
to tie them all together.
The piece is organized as a parable about corporate
management. The choir is divided up into a three level
structure. In line with American management tradition,
the names of the levels are extremely important, suggest
authority way out of proportion to duties, and only
peripherally relate to what the people actually do.
Upper management (the Superconductor) does strategic
planning and tries to direct a corps of middle managers
(the Semiconductors) to carry out the plan. The middle
managers try to turn the directions they get from
upper management into specific instructions for the
workers (Nonconductors, i.e. the singers.)
But the managers are not really in control. They can
communicate their instructions only by waving flags.
The singers are given only the vaguest of instructions
on how to interpret the flag waving, and in any case, the
workers get to pick and choose whether to work (sing) or
not at any instant, and which manager to follow.
|
