SMT-V

Babbitt’s relatively early composition _Semi-Simple Variations_ (1956) presents intriguing surface patterns that are not determined by its pre-compositional plan, but rather result from subsequent “improvised” decisions that are strategic. This video (the third of a three-part video essay) considers Babbitt’s own conversational pronouncements (in radio interviews) together with some particulars of his life-long musical activities, that together suggest uncanny affiliations to jazz improvisation. As a result of Babbitt’s creative reconceptualizing of planning and spontaneity in music, his pre-compositional structures (partial orderings) fit in an unexpected way into (or reformulate) the ecosystem relating music composition to the physical means of its performance.

Babbitt’s pre-compositional structures (partial orderings) serve as a series of game-like rules affecting the composition of surface details we hear. Especially in Babbitt’s late works (post-1980) these partial ordering rules vary drastically in terms of how much freedom they allow. This variance can be modeled mathematically (a computational formula is explained and visualized). This video (the second of a three-part video essay) reveals, in an excerpt from Babbitt’s 1987 sax and piano work _Whirled Series_, an intricate web of referential details (serial and tonal) that are improvised from the trillions of possibilities enabled by its background structure (partial ordering). The advantages of this peculiar improvisatory compositional situation in which Babbitt places himself are compared to visual art, chord-based bebop jazz improvisation, and to current ethics-infused philosophies of improvisation.

Milton Babbitt has been a controversial and iconic figure, which has indirectly led to fallacious assumptions about how his music is made, and therefore to fundamental misconceptions about how it might be heard and appreciated. This video (the first of a three-part video essay) reconsiders his music in light of both his personal traits and a more precise examination of the constraints and freedoms entailed by his unusual and often misunderstood compositional practices, which are based inherently on partial ordering (as well as pitch repetition), which enables a surprising amount of freedom to compose the surface details we hear. The opening of Babbitt’s _Composition for Four Instruments_ (1948) and three recompositions (based on re-ordering of pitches) demonstrate the freedoms intrinsic to partial ordering.

Though ostensibly designed to explain a set of pedagogical games geared toward children, An Introduction to Music (1803)—a treatise by the Scottish music theorist Anne Young (1756-1827)—advances some intriguing ideas that touch on advanced music theoretic concepts. This video explores these concepts, along with impact of the author's gender on the nature and reception of her treatise. (Lan Li, filmography; Eva Schulze, harpsichord)

Between "diegetic" film music (heard by the characters) and "nondiegetic" film music (heard only by the audience) is a paradoxical space called the "fantastical gap." A film such as Inception (2010) makes traversal of this gap into an overt theme, obscuring our sense of place to such a degree that even the literal plot of the movie is open to interpretation, and thus also illustrating the extent to which filmmakers can manipulate an audience's understanding of the filmic world through the blurring of the diegetic/nondiegetic divide.

In this video I explore the way song composers respond not just to the meanings of words but also to their sounds. Using a song from Maria Schneider’s 2013 song cycle Winter Morning Walks as a case study, I consider how a particular performance of a song and a particular performance of a poem can heighten our awareness of the connections between music and the materiality of poetry.

In 1951, Schoenberg received a letter from composer Humphrey Searle asking Schoenberg to record a lecture for the BBC radio program “Music Magazine.” Schoenberg immediately proposed a subject, “Advice for Beginners in Composition with Twelve-Tones,” and requested to use television rather than radio because his musical examples “were perhaps less easily to realize by the ear than by the eye.” Although Schoenberg wrote a script, he died before he could record it. Only recently has this fascinating document been published, providing keen insights into Schoenberg’s compositional process, and posing interesting questions about the reception of twelve-tone composition after his death.

In a 1789 treatise, the Darmstadt musician J.G. Portmann presents what amounts to a multi-level harmonic analysis of Mozart’s Sonata for Piano in D, K. 284, I. Portmann’s interpretation of the movement's exposition is in line with concepts expressed by other eighteenth-century theorists, but suggestively differs from standard modern conceptions of the form, especially in its understanding of what nowadays is labeled as the secondary theme.

This two-video series explores how the scoring to the video game Portal 2, published by Valve Corporation, not only helps tell the game’s story, but also comments on the game developers’ philosophy of puzzle design. The first video explores how the game’s title theme 9999999, including its texture, voice leadings, and chord qualities, musically enacts dual aspects of the character of the game’s central antagonist GlaDOS: once human, her personality was uploaded into a computer mainframe where she has become a sociopathic, homicidal artificial intelligence who takes delight in subjecting humans to hazardous scientific experimentation. The second video demonstrates that 9999999 serves as the theme for a set of double variations in the game’s middle act. Since Valve’s philosophy of player training centers on iterative puzzle-design that systematically increase in complexity, and the musical accompaniments for these puzzles feature coordinated developments in musical complexity, the scoring here lets us parse the puzzle design into a kind of set of gameplay theme-and-variations.

This two-video series explores how the scoring to the video game Portal 2, published by Valve Corporation, not only helps tell the game’s story, but also comments on the game developers’ philosophy of puzzle design. The first video explores how the game’s title theme 9999999, including its texture, voice leadings, and chord qualities, musically enacts dual aspects of the character of the game’s central antagonist GlaDOS: once human, her personality was uploaded into a computer mainframe where she has become a sociopathic, homicidal artificial intelligence who takes delight in subjecting humans to hazardous scientific experimentation. The second video demonstrates that 9999999 serves as the theme for a set of double variations in the game’s middle act. Since Valve’s philosophy of player training centers on iterative puzzle-design that systematically increase in complexity, and the musical accompaniments for these puzzles feature coordinated developments in musical complexity, the scoring here lets us parse the puzzle design into a kind of set of gameplay theme-and-variations. Links: 9999999 transcription by Steven Reale: societymusictheory.org/files/smtv/9999999.pdf 9999999 audio: societymusictheory.org/files/smtv/999999.mp3 Vertigo audio: societymusictheory.org/files/smtv/vertigotheme.mp3