PhD Music Composition LSU School of Music
Doctoral Composition Recital Spring 2022
I am very excited to present my Doctoral Composition Recital. “Exploration of Time, Sound and Space” an Event Score in Collaboration with the LSU museum of Art. Experience art and music in new ways as you roam the galleries during this program. Aleatoric, improvised music will create a listening experience similar to viewing art in a gallery space.
ABSTRACT
This dissertation consists of two parts. The first part consists of a synthesis of contemporary music composition pedagogy practices for the undergraduate and graduate level sequences. A conversation of the study of music composition pedagogy is used to investigate current pedagogical practices in music composition and present those findings as a resource guide for new and future teachers. The second part presents An Exploration of Time, Sound, and Space, an Aleatoric Event Score Collaboration with the LSU Museum of Art. This event score is a product of the development of this dissertation commenced with a straightforward question; can we experience/consume live music in the same manner that we experience/consume visual art? This dissertation will be an event score in collaboration with the LSU Museum of Art in downtown Baton Rouge Louisiana in the Shaw Center for the Arts. My goal for this dissertation was to blur the lines of the musical art’s temporal strictness and experiment with music that allowed the audience to experience music like art on a wall of the gallery. To achieve this goal, I pulled inspiration from the Fluxus Movement, an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances that emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. This event score was segmented into five movements that will explored different pitch and sound dualities.
Dissertation Recital Walk Through
INTRODUCTION
The development of this dissertation began with a straightforward question, can we experience/consume live music in the same manner that we experience/consume visual art within an art gallery? For example, we can walk around the space when attending an art gallery. We can observe a piece of art on the wall. We can view the piece of art next to it. We can walk away and return, even at a later date, and the piece will still be there. Visual art can allow the audience to observe multiple pieces together simultaneously; however, this is not the case for music. When attending a recital, the audience arrives early and selects a place to sit and remain until the program has concluded. The preforms proceed on stage and perform the music. We are giving the audience one possibility to process the art while being performed. Once the piece has reached its conclusion, the audience cannot review the piece of music again; the concert must go on. Only with recording devices are the audiences allowed to experience the music again. One limitation within the musical arts is that most music exists within a forward temporal state. For most musical works, the timing and ordering of musical elements are precise to each piece of music; adding or subtracting any element would change the piece of music. If we remove the element of time to experience the piece of music in reverse, the piece will not give the same experience as it did moving forward in time. My goal is to blur the lines of temporal strictness of musical arts through experimenting with this piece of music that allows the audience to experience music like art on a wall within a gallery.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
My initial plan was to use inspiration from the Fluxus movement. A brief overview of the Fluxus movement includes that this was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. This group of artists had become dissatisfied with the "elitist attitude," and they looked to Futurists and Dadaists for inspiration, focusing primarily on performance aspects of the movements. The Dadaist use of humor in art was also definitive in forming the Fluxus ethos. The two prominent figures amongst the Fluxus artists were Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, who supported the use of everyday objects and the element of chance in art. This idea became the fundamental attitude and practice of all Fluxus artists. The early phase of Fluxus, often called Proto-Fluxus, began in 1959 when a group of artists who had met in Cage's class at The New School in New York banded together to form the New York Audio Visual Group. This group provided venues for experimental and performance art. This dissertation will be an event score in collaboration with the Louisiana State University Museum of Art in downtown Baton Rouge Louisiana within the Shaw center for the Performing Arts. Event scores fall within the subgenera of performance art which includes a script that is usually only a few lines long and consists of descriptions of actions to be performed
COLLABORATION
For this dissertation to work I needed to find a location that would allow for the development of a piece like this to occur. Before any precompositional plans were made I reached out The LSU Museum of Art to see if this was project was even an option. The LSU Museum of Art seeks to enrich and inspire through collections, exhibitions, conservation, and education, serving as a cultural and intellectual resource for the university, Baton Rouge, and beyond.26 Founded in 1959, the museum opened its doors to the public in 1962 as a small period room museum in the Memorial Tower. In 2005, it moved to the Shaw Center for the Arts, where it has more than 13,000 square feet of immense exhibition space. This large space is exactly what I was looking for, shown below is sample map of the Art Gallery. The museum presents world-class touring exhibitions of regional, American, and European painting, sculpture, decorative arts, works on paper, and photography. The LSU Museum of Art serves as a vital cultural and educational resource for the greater Baton Rouge community. As part of its mission, the museum supports ambitious art outreach initiatives ranging from collaborative projects with local artists and LSU faculty and students to thriving primary and secondary school art programs. This dissertation will bring different perspective to The LSU Museum of Art, and through this exhibition and programming, the museum will be able to showcase and support the work of local Louisiana artist as well as open the door for future projects and collaborations for art and artists of Louisiana.
INSPIRATION
The first piece to the puzzle begins with my master’s program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette; in the fall of 2017, our composition studio, under the teaching of Dr. Quincy Hillard, collaborated with the Hillard Art Museum. We were tasked to go and find a piece of art within the gallery, then write music inspired by the art. The process results were performed next to the art one evening at the end of the semester. My eyes were open, and I felt the spark of an idea beginning to grow. The second piece of the puzzle focuses on my time at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. I also participated in the experimental music recital developed by the music theory faculty and composition studio. This recital consisted of pieces that included the experimental composition of techniques, including chance, aleatoric, and post- tonal musical elements. For this recital, I developed a piece for three flutes and a fish tank that utilized elements of improvisation and chance to realize the music in real-time. I use a video of a fish swimming in a fish tank with a nine-by-nine grid for this piece. On the score, the flutes also had a nine-by-nine grid. I had a small musical gesture; if the fish swam within the corresponding section, the flutist would be allowed to improvise on the motive provided. This guided improvisation driven by the elements of chance provided an exceptional musical moment. A link to the audio of the recital can be found below. The third piece of the puzzle deals with a piece written by James Syler for wind ensemble which I had the opportunity to perform with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette wind ensemble under the direction of Dr. William Hochkeppel. Storyville: A one movement "third stream" type symphonic poem. Includes Early jazz styles and contemporary devices are used in a modern setting to intensify the realities of Storyville - the infamous New Orleans prostitution district. Preforming this piece broke the mold I had envisioned of what my expectations were when designing a piece of music. This piece involves a lot of special elements that re-design the stage for the wind ensemble. The percussion section sits at the very front of the stage, the clarinet section is on risers all the way to the far back of the stage, the rest of the ensemble is grouped in trios that are scattered across the stage in unique instrument pairings. Offstage is a solo vocalist and soprano saxophone. Also, within this piece there are several aleatoric moments written in for improvisatory chaos as well as very strict jazz motives that evolve into a huge Ragtime Jazz feel before dissipating into an atmospheric texture. These three moments of my past have provide the necessary ingredients for me to synthesize and develop into my final dissertation project. I will be pulling elements from performing in the art gallery, the use of guided improvisation, experimental notation, and spatial elements to create an event score to be performed in collaborated with The LSU Museum of Art.
MOVEMENTS
• Movement 1 (10’) Sustained vs. Pointillistic
• Movement 2 (10’) Tonal vs. Non-Tonal
• Movement 3 (10’) Pitch vs. Noise
• Movement 4 (10’) 12-Tone Aggregate vs. Unison
• Movement 5 (10’) Commentary on Surrounding Art
PROGRAM NOTES
The development of this dissertation commenced with a straightforward question; can we experience/consume live music in the same manner that we experience/consume visual art? For example, when attending an art gallery, we can walk around the space and observe the art on the wall. We can view several pieces of art at the same time. We can walk away and return, even later, and the art pieces will still be there. Visual art can allow the audience to observe multiple pieces together simultaneously; however, this is not the case for music. When attending a recital, the audience arrives early and selects a place to sit and remain until the program has concluded. The musicians proceed on stage and perform their music. They are giving the audience one opportunity to process the music while being performed. Once the piece has reached its conclusion, the audience cannot review the piece of music again, and the concert must go on. The audiences are allowed to process/consume the music again by using recording devices. This dissertation will be an event score in collaboration with the LSU Museum of Art in downtown Baton Rouge Louisiana in the Shaw Center for the Performing Arts. This event score will be segmented into five movements that will explore different musical dualities—each movement features 10 minutes of guided improvisatory music. Movement 1 will feature musical motives of Sustained vs. Pointillistic elements. Movement 2 will feature musical motives of Tonal vs. non-tonal elements; Movement 3 will feature musical motives of Pitch vs. Noise elements. Movement 4 will feature musical motives of 12-tone aggregate vs. unison elements. Movement 5 will feature musical motives of commentary on the surrounding art. For each movement, I have organized the instrumentation into four groupings, and each group has been 108 plotted on the art gallery map. Each movement will provide a different listening environment for the audience to explore. One limitation within the musical arts is that most music exists within a forward projecting temporal state. For most musical works, the trimming and ordering of musical elements are precise, and this organization affects the outcome of every piece. My goal for this dissertation is to blur the lines of temporal strictness in the musical arts and experiment with music that allows the audience to experience music like art on a wall within a gallery. I used inspiration from the Fluxus Movement, an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances that emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. The two prominent figures amongst the Fluxus artists were Marcel Duchamp and John Cage; the early phase of Fluxus, often called Proto-Fluxus, began in 1959 when a group of "artists who had met in Cage's class at The New School in New York banded together to form the New York Audio Visual Group. This group provided venues for experimental and performance art. This group of artists had become dissatisfied with the "elitist attitude," and they looked to Futurists and Dadaists for inspiration, focusing primarily on performance aspects of the movements.
