Robert Ashley
NOTATION
The immediate question is why notate any music? To what end is the notation seeking? The purpose of preparing a score for a musical work has always been to provide a means of communicating specifically musical (in essence, no theatre or extra musical) ideas to a performer. It was then a performer's task to read the instructions and interpret them in performance. This approach worked to some extent when composers would write music notation that was commonly understood by performers. We as musicians know that a quarter note is twice as fast as a half note. We understand what is meant by middle C or the metronome marking of quarter note equals 60. Yet even with conventionally notated music, performers are not always sure exactly what a composer means. How much louder is pp than ppp? How much do I slow down in this ritard? If performing on piano, shall I use the sustain pedal, and if so, how much, and for how long? How about an orchestra; could they possibly all have the same understanding of 'con brio?'
In the orchestral analogy, musical society deemed it appropriate to appoint a conductor whose interpretations were forced onto all members of the orchestra. It was the conductor's responsibility to add extra notational advice and directions to let performers know how to interpret 'expressivo' or how fast 'andante' and when a performer interpretation of mp is too loud or too soft. But in the case of the solo performer, they are free to interpret the music as they see fit. Of course they can be guided by past performances, their professional teachers, or any other number of things as well.
But both performers and audiences enjoy expressive musical interpretation rather than stodgy performance. Traditionally the composer is dead, so both performer and audience do no know exactly how fast the 'allegro' should be, but they have a huge history to follow from. Not only have we recordings of most classical music, we also have a tradition. In the past, styles lasted for long periods of time. We know what to expect from a romantic, baroque or classical work. But of today's music, we have no expectations and therefore no basis.
After World War II (and possibly before) musical style has been hard to define. At this time we began to see a boom in the electronic music field (partly based on the increasing technology, partly due to surplus war equipment). Composers began writing music for tape, where the only performers were mixing board or playback operators. No score in the traditional sense was really needed. Yet composers frequently have written out scores for tape music. These scores are not aids or instructions to performers, but more like program notes for listeners.
Extended techniques and new methods of performance were taking hold of many composers, but none agreed on a standard for the notation. This is possibly because composers seemed to always be inventing something new as an aesthetic, which has required constantly generating new notation. These attempts at new forms of notation are hard to evaluate since they are not neutral symbolic media (such as the quarter note) for the expression of ideas, but rather they are attempts at the ideological compositional position; where the performer knows exactly what the composer was thinking. If this were true, and composers never lived far away, never died, or documented everything they said, meant, and felt, the contemporary explorations in musical notation may have been more successful.
On the other hand, many composers have intentionally been vague in their score writing. By reducing the specificity of the notation they have, in essence, prepared schemes for improvisation. This is perhaps the ultimate extension of the performance problem of how 'expressivo' or how slowly do we play 'slowly.' Has this helped or hurt composers? My feeling is that it has hurt. We have set up an anarchy instead of the dictatorship of the conductor, yet we seem to have lost our best musicians to playing primarily 'classics.'
Musicians that have spent their whole life learning to read and interpret traditional musical notation often can not be bothered to learn new notation which amounts to almost a new set of instructions for every piece. At least when pieces were written with figured bass, the different symbolic notation was standard from piece to piece. The guided improvisations, which are perhaps more musically intuitive to the non-musician, have lead a lot of untrained musicians to perform improvisations.
A composer such as Cardew, who experimented with graphical and instructional notation (ie. The Great Learning), eventually gave up on the idea. He saw no possibility of turning to account the tremendous musical potential that musically educated people represent except by providing them with what they want - traditionally noted scores of maximum complexity. To Cardew, notation was not an end in itself or a means of unlocking sounds, but a way of engaging the most valuable resource in any music - people. Trained musicians have not been engaged traditionally with unspecific, improvised music. Perhaps these performers would do well simply improvising, but having a composer set out some rules to control the improvisation somehow makes them fell less free to make decisions, less sure of their interpretation, and therefore more hesitant to perform.
The ego of the performer seems to me to be the reason for not learning new notation. If anybody can play it, why should a trained musician waste their time playing it when they could be playing something that nobody else could play? It was a great idea to have composers and performers work collectively, but in reality it rarely works. The situations that it has worked best in are best described as what I would call musical communes. These performance groups will be discussed in detail later.
The use of specialized notation, on the other hand, protects a composition against routine performances because of the very fact that so few musicians will take the trouble to decipher and learn the notation. Those that do take the time show they have a positive interest in performing this specific work and could possibly lead to a stronger performance. The non-standard notation is a method of stimulating the interested performer into an active role in the compositional process and decision making.
PERFORMANCE GROUPS
The 60's saw the emergence of many musical groups which either had one composer and performers that played only their music, or groups which actually composed together and performed each others works. The idea seems to stem directly from the increasingly popular Socialist views of the time. Some of the groups were Musica Electronica Viva (MEV), AAM, the Scratch Orchestra, Steve Reich and Musicians, and the Sonic Arts Union. This tradition is still being carried out by Steve Reich and many others.
These groups work as collectives and perform only current music, and usually only their own groups music. The beauty of these groups is that they form a structure for the members to compose and have their music performed and interpreted exactly as they had intended. Also, for pieces which have only basic structures for improvisation, performances occur between players that have been improvising together for extended periods of time. This seems to be the best way of having trained musicians perform non-traditionally notated music and receiving always different, and usually high quality performances.
Often I feel that vague notation performed by amateur musicians is very difficult to listen to and tends to last far longer than I can tolerate to listen. An excellent example of this is our performance of Gavin Bryars 1,2,1,2,3,4. I performed in this piece and enjoyed performing, but I would have hated to listen to us for those 10 minutes. I also hated to listen to the Lucier piece that Greg Lenczycki performed. The only thing that kept me, as a listener, involved was the trying to figure out what each performer was trying to imitate. Listening to all the performers together, at least for me, was uninteresting.
It seems to me that music that is set around a group should be structured for a group. I would be willing to guess that no matter how long our class performance group played together, the Lucier and Bryars pieces would have always sounded equally bad to me. Each member of the group is acting independently and unaware (this due to headphones in both of these cases) of what each other is doing. It is hard to imagine this would ever work well.
On the other hand, situations like the Clarence Barlow piece 'until' somehow worked better. The improvising structure was stronger, but also all performers were working together towards a common end. I think one of the main reasons this piece didn't work as well as it could have in our class is that it was our first experience all playing together. In Contemporary Music Ensemble when we performed John Zorn it sounded horrible at the beginning. Here is an example of a self-evident game whose rules are not publicly available. But the composition was somewhat structured improvisation that over time, our group became more aware of each other and subsequently performed the piece much more musically than the first rehearsal.
I thought the Pauline Oliveros we performed early on in this class was excellent. Her structure was so tight that even in one rehearsal we were able to have at least an acceptable performance (this also may have to do with the fact there was a conductor dictating). We were a little more familiar with each other as performers, and the structure for improvisation was such that it would sound similar but different from performance to performance.
ROBERT ASHLEY BRIEF HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Enclosed at the end of this paper is a list of published works during Robert Ashley's involvement in the Ann Arbor Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music (CSEM) and the ONCE festival. CSEM was founded by Ashley and Gordon Mumma in 1958 and remained active until 1966. During 1966 Ashley, Mumma, David Behrman, and Alvin Lucier formed the Sonic Arts Union. The ONCE festival was actively run by Ashley in Ann Arbor between 1961 to 1968. 1969 was the beginning of Ashley's stay at Mills College.
Specifically, I would like to focus on in memoriam...John Smith (concerto) which is part of a larger group of pieces; in memoriam...Esteban Gomez (quartet), in memoriam...Crazy Horse (symphony), and in memoriam...Kit Carson (opera). The scores to John Smith and Kit Carson are also included with this paper. I have been unable to find the Esteban Gomez and Crazy Horse scores.
Through Ashley's ongoing involvement with performance groups dedicated to new experimental music, it is clear to see the connection to his music of the time. The in memoriam series, composed in 1963 are part verbal, part graphical scores which are vehicles for improvisation. They are an attempt to allow performers to recompose the music in a way that the composer is practically absent. They outline a situation in which sound may occur, a process of generating action, a field delineated by certain compositional rules, yet each time produce a unique performance. In the end, the music is determined by them musicians themselves. It calls on the player's awareness, attentiveness, and ability to adjust to each other. Again, this shows the typical attitude of the time; ensemble playing as a social activity involving interplay between group obligations and individual intuitions.
Both CSEM and Sonic Arts Union were music theatre performance groups. The act of performing the music itself was often the only theatre involved. The theatre could be only what the music is asking for (ie. walking over across stage and hitting a gong instead of situating it next to the performers) but the aim was to create music that had as much visual as sonorous appeal.
ROBERT ASHLEY IN MEMORIAM...JOHN SMITH (concerto) 1963 ANALYSIS, INTERPRETATION, AND PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
In memoriam...John Smith is a part verbal, part graphical score which lays down the basic processes of movement and coordination. The coordination is not between performers nor instrument with instrument necessarily, but with some outside reference whose exact composition is to be determined in each performance by each performer or as a total performance group. The score leaves a lot of room for the players to use their discretion and determine their own interpretation. Although the openness of the score would lead to varied performances from one to the other, the piece will always clearly be itself.
In memoriam...John Smith (concerto) for three performers with assistants is scored for any instruments. Each of the four 1963 in memoriam pieces are called by a different musical style; concerto, opera, quartet and symphony. Although I was only able to find John Smith (concerto) and Kit Carson (opera), it is interesting to note their similarities and differences. A concerto, in a traditional sense, is best described as a small solo group of players. It seems that John Smith fits that description. There are three performers, and each is equally important. I consider this a small solo group.
In memoriam...Kit Carson is listed as an opera. It appears to me that this is the first piece where Ashley plays with what the traditional sense of opera is. Simply, an opera could be described as a play set to music or a musical drama. Clearly, Ashley is, to this day, still concerned and experimenting with this idea. The only thing that would lead me to see Kit Carson as an opera would be that the piece is, in a strange way, linear. There is a progression, precomposed by Ashley, that must be followed. And all performers should interpret their scores in the same manner. Ashley appears to be using 'opera' in the sense of a group of people working together. The solo identities of the concerto are lost to the common group.
It seems to me that the best way to interpret John Smith is to repeat the instructions listed on the first page of the score, and interject my interpretation and what the performance problems were with each specific aspect of the piece. Ashley's words shall be bold, mine plain text.
in memoriam . . . John Smith (concerto) . . . for three performers with assistants.
Our first task was dividing up the parts with two people to a score; one performer and one assistant. The teams were performer : assistant as follows; Erin Espeland : Paula Cekola; Makiko Nishikaze : Steven Noll; and Tim Walters : Donna McCabe. The scores were then handed out.
Each performer assigns the rows along one axis to represent any eight locations and the rows along the other axis to represent any eight instruments. Each circle, thus, represents the coordination of a particular instrument and a particular location.
Each performer, with the help and full understanding of their assistant, labelled their score with coordinates (see attached score). Each performer and assistant team worked independently and with no knowledge of the other teams' decisions. Vertical and horizontal axis' were determined to represent either instrument choices or location positions. It was then clear to see how the coordination of a circle represented both an instrument and a location. At this point, it was obvious that the assistant's tasks were difficult to remember, and even though we wrote coordination numbers (ie. 1,8) directly below the circles, it was difficult to remember if it was instrument 1, location 8 or instrument 8, location 1. We decided to color code our scores, red being the instrument, green being the location. Yet each performer/assistant team did this independently, so some had green, red combinations, while others had red, green. This appeared to help the assistants.
The three performers should use as many of the same instruments (in common) as possible, and their location assignments should define roughly the same area.
This sentence was one of the most troublesome of the whole score. It immediately was confusing to understand the clarification (in common). To this day, I don't understand the difference between the same instruments and instruments in common. The running debate, usually between myself and Steve Noll, was should we only use 8 instruments, or should each performer have a battery of 8 instruments? We figured that it would be very confusing to have 24 instruments floating around, and that it would be hard to find 3 sets of similar type instruments (so that they could be in common), so I decided that we would use only 8 instruments between the three performers and that (in common) would be 8 instruments from the same family. Right or wrong, I think this decision worked very well for reasons I will explain later.
We simply assigned 8 locations around the ensemble room which were the same for each of the three teams. The diagram was as follows:
I imagine that the clarification 'roughly' the same area that Ashley used, was so that more than one team could be at the same location at the same time. It happened on occasion that 2 or 3 teams were in the same area, which meant the locations needed to be somewhat flexible so that people did not need to stand on each other!
Otherwise, it is unnecessary that any performer's assignments (on the score) of either locations or instruments be known to other than him and his assistants or have anything in common with the assignments by the other performers.
Each team independently determined which axis on the score was location and which was instrument. I figured that the clarification (on the score) was made so that we could all assign the same general location as position 8 and also, our choice of instruments as instrument 1. Had all three teams had a battery of 8 instruments each, it would be unnecessary to know the instrument numbers of the other teams. This clarification seemed to say that each team should know the others physical assignment of instruments. Having made the decision to use on 8 instruments for all three teams, we then numbered the instruments and put stickers on them so that every team worked with the same correspondence between instrument number and actual instrument. Although we perhaps could have had each team number the same instruments differently, it was easier to have them commonly numbered.
The performer will use two kinds of actions (sound): a continuous action (sound) that is appropriate to all of the instruments or locations involved in the execution of a line of coordinates and that can be transferred without interruption from one coordinate to another.
a transitory action (sound) that is unique to the coordination of one instrument and one location, and that is intrinsically brief.
Here again we became confused by Ashley's 'clarifications' in parenthesis. Why didn't he just say a continuous sound instead of a continuous action (sound)? We broke this down into both the instrument playing (sound) and the motion between locations (action). A continuous sound that was appropriate to all our instruments was a long held note (another reason for choosing all instruments from the same family). This long held note could be transferred from one instrument/location to another by simply playing both a bit, then continuing playing a long sustained note on the new instrument. Our continuous action was the slow walking from one location to the next while still playing the instruments.
The transitory sounds were difficult to execute. Ideally they needed to be unique based on the coordination of location and instrument. We found this impossible. There was too much to remember while playing to set up unique combination and remember which combinations we had already used. We had loud, quick, distinct notes be transitory actions every time one occurred.
Since the transitory sounds are brief, there was too much running around that the assistants needed to do that we never got really accurate transitory sounds. Transitory actions would indicate that performers are to move in a way other than our slow walking for continuous actions. Performers would ideally be ably to hop or skip or do anything they physically can between locations, but this was determined to be too difficult, so we simply walked fast on transitory actions. Perhaps it would have been better to have more than one assistant per performer. Ashley never indicates how many assistants each performer should have.
Beginning at one end of any line of adjacent circles the performer proceeds along the line in a continuous action, with the help of assistants who will move and prepare the required instruments and otherwise facilitate the performer's change from one instrument or location to the next.
At this point the understanding of a line of adjacent circles was questioned. To me, the beginning of a line meant we needed to start at the edge of a page, but to Tim it mean just the last circle in a line, no matter where its position on the page. Please refer to the graphic score page one for the following problem. My understanding of the beginning of the line was location 1,8 horizontally or 8,5 horizontally or 6,1 vertically for example. These were beginnings of lines of coordinates that started with a circle. But Tim, on the other hand, felt that 4,5 or 4,3 vertically were the beginning of a line of circles, or 2,3 or 6,3 horizontally the beginning of a line. After our first run through, it was clear that Tim was probably right because this gave us many more options of routes to take through the score and less often did teams get stuck with no moves to make early on. When we figured out the triangulation which is described later, it confirmed the latter definition of a line to be correct. We adopted his method and proceeded.
Next we needed to question what was meant by adjacent circles. At first that inferred any circles that were next to each other. This could include horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. We were eventually able to rule out diagonal progression when we learned of the triangulations later in the score. Also, we figured it would be too difficult to be make a continuous sound if a performer was both changing location and instrument at the same time. Taking only horizontal or vertical lines meant that performer's changed either location or instrument at one time, but never both. So with beginnings of lines and ways of travelling through lines determined, we were able to continue along. It also became clear that some circles were beginnings of horizontal lines and not vertical lines (ie 2,4 on page one) and therefore by choosing that location as the end of a line, we were forced to travel horizontally from that point. At this point we all chose a starting circle and proceeded along one line in a continuous action (as defined above) until we reached the end of the line and stopped for another conference.
Upon completing a line the performer moves to the beginning of another line by triangulation through at least one transitory action (ie. by choosing on the score a circle that either vertically or horizontally is aligned with his position, and that, in turn, is aligned with the beginning of another line of coordinates, and that is not part of either line.)
After we completed the end of our first line we stopped. At first we became confused about how to react to lines that had spaces between the circles. For example, take page one circle 7,7. Once we start there as the beginning of the vertical line, how shall we proceed to 7,2; the next circle in the line? Although these clearly formed a line, and as previously stated a line was played with a continuous sound, what about the jumps? A later instruction states that timing is free in all respects, which lead us to the conclusion that we could just play 7,7 and jump to 7,2 with no silence in between, and that that was probably preferred since it needed to be a continuous sound, and the silence would obscure that. One possible problem with this solution was that there was no silence in the piece.
The next move in question was what was meant by triangulation through a point. Triangulation simply means to divide into triangles, which seemed easy enough to do, but through a transitory action (as defined above). So our task was to find a triangle that landed us at the beginning of another line which was not part of either line. For example, on score page two we began at 5,7 and travelled vertically until 5,2. At 5,2 we 'triangulated' through 4,3 and then on to 3,2. Our reason for not stopping at 4,3 and continuing vertically up to 4,4 4,5 4,6 4,7 was that our triangulation point of 4,3 was a starting point, and not a triangulation through that point.
So we continued to triangulate through a transitory action to 3,2 which is the beginning of the line 3,2 5,2, 6,2, 8,2 which is not part of our initial line, nor part of our triangulation line. When we continue through to 8,2 we triangulated through 7,3 which is the beginning of horizontal line, but we had to continue through to 6,4. After arriving at 6,4 it is the beginning of only one line, the vertical line 6,4 6,3 6,2 6,1.
By definition of triangulation, Ashley's instructions contradicted themselves when they say by choosing on the score a circle that either vertically or horizontally is aligned with his position. Triangulation implies a diagonal. We, therefore, ignored this direction.
On score page three, for your clarification, I drew up a version of triangulating to a point instead of the triangulation through a point which we performed. There are some strong points to this being another correct version of reading the score as well. Starting at 3,4 and continuing 4,4 5,4 6,4 to the end of the line, we could triangulate to 7,3. 7,3 begins the line 5,3 4,3 3,3. Here the triangulation is not part of either line, if Ashley means the line drawn by the triangulation itself (ie. the diagonal line). Since we determined early on that the lines he was referring to were only vertical and horizontal lines, here the 7,3 5,3... line is not part of the first line, nor part of the diagonal line. Whether this is triangulation 'through' a point is certainly debatable.
This way of reading the score was very confusing to us, which lead us to predefine a path to take before performance. It was this decision alone that allowed us to logically end the piece. This will be described later.
Time is free in all respects, except that a continuous action is always terminated without pause by a transitory action (ie. the execution of a line of coordinates leads directly to the execution of a point of triangulation). Movement through transitory actions should be as efficient as possible.
This instruction was another reason we performed the piece with no silences. Each team moved at their own pace, only slightly determined by the other teams. It occurred frequently that another team would be using an instrument that our team needed to move onto our next coordinate point in the score. We were therefore stopped and our time was no longer free, it was dictated by when they released their instrument. This is what lead Steven Noll to believe again that we should each have a battery of 8 instruments so that this problem would not occur. But the beauty of this problem was that it was the only way we knew how to end the piece. Due to the laws of chance, it was only a matter of time before team A was waiting for team B who was waiting for team C's instrument. Since the locations were 'roughly' the same, there was never a hold up waiting for a location, only for an instrument which were 'common' to all teams. It was this unresolvable situation (unless someone cheated) that we decided would be an excellent way of ending this piece. It never says in the score how long it should be or that we should have stopped when this situation occurred.
Assistants should anticipate the situations of change and allow the performer the greatest possible freedom of choice.
The largest problem with this statement was that this would mean that the assistants should be making up the score as the performance was taking place. This meant that each team should not have independently planned out their routes before the performance. But we found it necessary because it was difficult enough to read the score and look for the instruments, let alone figure it out real time. But, had we been planning routes on the fly, we would have actually allowed the performers the greatest possible freedom of choice. If instrument 6 was being used by team A already, we could have changed our route so as not to have to wait for them. This would also have potentially lead to a score that had no logical ending. We simply would have just continually been planning alternative routes and never gotten 'stuck' like we did.
Within continuous actions the changes of instruments and locations should be as smooth as possible, minimizing the differences between instruments and affecting changes of location with the greatest simplicity.
This instruction was also part of my reason for choosing instruments from the same family. It was much easier to minimize the difference between all blown instruments or all struck instruments than between the two groups mixed together.
No words or signals of instruction are to be exchanged during the performance.
This was perhaps the hardest instruction of all. Not even performer/assistant teams were allowed to tell each other why they were waiting in one location so long, or what location they were going to next. Although we never spoke and never pointed to where our performers were to be, we agreed beforehand that if we were waiting for an instrument from another team, the assistant would stare at the assistant of the other team to signal them we were waiting for them. The other team did not have to move quicker or do anything because someone was waiting for them, but they were at least aware of the situation.
This visual cue also meant that at the end of the piece we were in a three way staring match and knew then that everyone was finished. Assistants dropped their scores on the central instrument table and that signalled the performers to stop playing.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE AND NOTATION COMMENTS
After hearing our two rehearsals and one performance in class, I think that we made the right decision to use instruments from the same family. The way that the sounds joined together was nice, and it sounded more unified than if we all chose completely different instruments. The static aspect of the music was nicely interrupted by the transitory actions, which appear to be what Ashley wanted simply by his using the word 'transitory.' In the concerto style, no one performer overshadowed any other.
The movement from location to location was somewhat interesting, but I think we could have gotten better sounds if we were not concerned with moving around. I think one thing I would do differently next time would be to place the eight locations around the audience. This would allow for excellent spacialization of sounds as well as make it somewhat more visually coherent for the listener. I think a circular set up would make performance much more difficult because the locations would need to be further apart than we had them set up, but with practice, it could be interesting.
The score was somewhat successful in allowing a controlled structure for improvisation. Perhaps if we had spent more time with the notation we could have spent less energy figuring out where to go next and what instrument to play next, and more time on the way the three teams were working together. The graphical notation is a nice way of aligning the instruments and locations, but the text instructions are confusing. We may not have interpreted 'the same instruments (in common),' and 'triangulation through a point' correctly, but I do believe that we achieved the essence of this piece.
I think one thing that is essential is that the group make the decisions about how to interpret the score and how to end the piece. Our suggestion of an ending seems appropriate to this type of always changing score, but it should be a group decision and abided by throughout the piece. No cheating should be allowed. For a graphical improvisation, the group integrity is of utmost concern.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Référence: http://www.rpi.edu/~mccabd/ashley.html