Re: [microsound] arranging & the like

[Richard Zvonar <zvonar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:38 PM +0930 5/9/03, Tim Mortimer wrote:

>do you randomally process & manipulate audio indiscriminately, get a 
>whole pool of audio fragments, & then arbitralily start stringing/ 
>knitting them together? or do you have more of a feel for the whole 
>first & start colouring in between the lines as it were?

Both.

Macrostructure can evolve from microstructure and vice versa. When I 
was writing notated, pitched-based music I would analyze shorter 
phrases and sections I had composed by intuitive methods and would 
use what I discovered to construct larger structures and 
melodic/harmonic/rhythmic vocabulary. A similar thing can be done 
with any sort of material.

>creating tension & release & a sense of linear progression (or not) in time

Functional harmony still works fine if you're working with pitchy 
material, as do methods drawn from the visual arts. I find Klee and 
Kandinsky inspiring.

In my own development I found that everything I studied, observed, or 
practiced had some substantive value in my compositional practice. 
For me this meant a childhood spent drawing, sculpting, and building 
followed by an adolescence learning to write well-turned prose 
followed by a young adulthood writing songs and making films. Each 
discipline helped to foster a sense of form and proportion as well as 
an understanding of texture, color, syntax, etc. They all feed into 
each other.

>to what extent your processes or working methods are bound by a 
>pre-concieved map

It's sometimes instructive to approach a particular piece with a 
particular methodology. One piece might be "bottom up" and another 
"top down." Think of them as etudes or "study pieces."

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______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD
(818) 788-2202
http://www.zvonar.com
http://RZCybernetics.com

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