An Outline of The History of Western Music Grout ... - The Reel Score

) by mid 20th century, distinct pitches and intervals (including the octave itself) could
be supplemented by a continuum
1: an unbroken range of sound from the lowest to the highest audible frequencies
2: without distinguishing separate tones of fixed pitch
c) related to this is the use of complex or unpitched non-musical sounds - from
whatever source - in musical compositions
d) Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (Krzysztof Penderecki b. 1933)
1: players may choose pitches relative to the instruments range (highest or lowest)
rather than specific notes
2: when particular pitches are called for they may progress by quarter tones or
multiples of these
3: string instruments may bow behind the tail piece or arpeggiate the four strings
at that location
4: strings can bow on the tailpiece or strike the sounding board
5: different groups of instruments can be assigned narrow or wide pitchbands
which can vary over time
6: the interval of time is measure not by note value but clock time
6. Indeterminacy (John Cage's term)
a) covers a wide range of options that allows the composer to leave certain aspects
of the music unspecified - from improvisation within a fixed framework to situations
where the composer gives only the minimum of directions to the performer
1: did not originate as had in the past by conventional choice such as to sing or
play a melodic line or the impreciseness of notation
2: rather the degree of control - or determinacy - and freedom - or indeterminacy
may be programmed for each compostion
i- may be indeterminate sections within a composition fixed by the score
ii- or a distinct series of musical events leaving their succession partly or
wholly unspecified
iii- choice can be guided by reactions to others in the group, members of the
audience, devices to produce an apparently chance or random order
b) the consequence of this is that no two performances are identical - not a matter of
just differing interpretations but substantial differences in content and order of
presentation
1: a recording of such a work would only capture one particular performance
2: in effect, a composition does not exist as such, but only as a performance or the
sum of possible performances
c) not to be confused with "chance" or "aleatory" music in which the composer (in
some cases the performer) uses chance operations - rolling a dice, flipping coins,
random instruction cards, etc. - to determine certain aspects of the music
1: becomes determined by chance
2: since "determined" it is not indeterminacy
d) Karlheinz Stockhausen (b. 1928)
1: worked most consistently with indeterminacy
2: Quotation Music
i- in corporated fragments of other works to provide reactions to create
indeterminacy in performance