Process music

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Process music or systems music is music that arises from a process, and more specifically, music that makes that process audible. The term predates and is often used synonymously with minimalism. The specific term Process Music was coined (in this sense) by Minimalist composer Steve Reich in his 1968 manifesto entitled "Music as a Gradual Process" in which he very carefully yet briefly described the entire concept including such definitions as phasing and the use of phrases in composing or creating this music, as well as his ideas as to its purpose as well as a brief history of his discovery of it.

A number of Steve Reich's early works are examples of process music, particularly a specific process called phasing. In his 1968 work Pendulum Music, a number of microphones are connected to a number of loudspeakers, and each is allowed to swing freely above the loudspeaker it is connected to until it is still—the feedback that results from this process, as each microphone passes above its loudspeaker, makes up the music. György Ligeti's Poème symphonique (1962), in which a hundred metronomes are set to different tempos and allowed to run down is another notable example.

Process music can also be created using relatively traditional instrumental techniques—Reich's Piano Phase is an example. James Tenney is another composer who is concerned with process, such as in his tribute to Steve Reich, Chromatic Canon, in which a tone row is eventually built up and, one note at a time, from what started as a repeated open fifth, before returning by the same path.

Michael Nyman^{[citation needed]} has described how the generally minimalistic tonal music associated with process music arose from the influence of and reaction against process-based music of extreme determinism or indeterminism using serial, aleatoric, and stochastic methods. Kyle Gann (1987), on the other hand, sees many similarities between serialism and minimalism, and Herman Sabbe (1977) has demonstrated how process music functions in the early serial works of the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts, especially in his electronic compositions Nr. 4, met dode tonen [with dead tones] (1952) and Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen [with pure tones] (1953). Elsewhere, Sabbe (1981) makes a similar demonstration for Kreuzspiel (1951) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. In the 1960s, Stockhausen composed several instrumental works which he called "process compositions", in which symbols including plus, minus, and equal signs are used to indicate successive transformations of sounds which are unspecified or unforeseeable by the composer. These works include Plus-Minus (1963), Prozession (1967), Kurzwellen, and Spiral (both 1968), and led to the verbally described processes of Aus den sieben Tagen (1968) and Für kommende Zeiten (1968–71) (Kohl 1978 and 1981; Hopp 1998).

Elliott Carter also uses the word "process" to describe the complex compositional shapes he began using around 1944 (Edwards 1971, 90–91; Brandt 1974, 27–28), with works like the Piano Sonata and First String Quartet, and continued to use down to the present time.

Within the field of popular music, process music made its strongest early appearance in the ambient works of Brian Eno, notably his first foray into the genre, Discreet Music. On several of the tracks of this album, musicians were instructed to play a small section of Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D major in different ways. On one piece, for instance musicians played the section at different speeds, the speed determined purely by the pitch of the instrument used. Thus the bass instruments played the section at a slower rate than the treble instruments, and the new piece created was shaped by these melodic lines drifting in and out of phase with each other.

1 Notable works
2 Sources
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Notable works

Musical pieces by style

Period

Neoclassical (see Neoclassicism)

Modernistic (see Modernism)

Style

Dadaistic (see Dada)

Impressionistic (see Impressionist music)

Jazz (see Jazz)

Minimalistic (see Minimalist music)

Nationalistic (see Nationalism)

Populistic (see Populism)

Postminimalistic (see Postminimalism)

Surrealist (see Surrealist music)

Technique

Atonal (see Atonality)

Twelve-tone (see Twelve-tone technique)

List of pieces which use serialism (see Serialism)

Extended techniques (see Extended technique)

Pandiatonic (see Pandiatonic)

Polytonal (see Polytonality)

Process music (see Process music)

Quartal (see Quartal harmony)

Quarter tone (see Quarter tone)

Whole tone (see Whole tone scale)

Phase (see Phasing)

Quotation (see Quotation)

William Basinski

The Disintegration Loops I-IV (2003)

The River

Elliott Carter

Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948)

String Quartet No. 1 (1950–51)

Piano Concerto (1964–65)

A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975)

Night Fantasies (1980)

Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993–1996)

Brian Eno

Discreet Music (1975)

Neroli (1993)

Karel Goeyvaerts

Nr. 4, met dode tonen (1952)

Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen (1953)

György Ligeti (1923–2006)

Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes

Alvin Lucier

I am sitting in a room

Music On A Long Thin Wire

Alli Price

Ambient aquaticsm (2001)

Steve Reich

It's Gonna Rain (1965)

Come Out (1966)

Piano Phase (1967)

Violin Phase (1967)

Pendulum Music (1968)

Clapping Music (1972)

Frederic Rzewski

Les Moutons de Panurge (1969)

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Plus-Minus (1963)

Mikrophonie I (1964)

Solo (1965–66)

Prozession (1967)

Kurzwellen (1968)

Aus den sieben Tagen (1968)

Spiral (1968)

Pole (1969–70)

Expo (1969–70)

Für kommende Zeiten (1968–70)

Ylem (1972)

James Tenney

For Ann (rising) (1969)

Chromatic Canon (1980/83)

This list of songs or music-related items is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] Sources

Edwards, Allen. 1971. Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds: A Conversation with Elliott Carter. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
Brandt, William E. 1974. "The Music of Elliott Carter: Simultaneity and Complexity". Music Educators Journal 60, no. 9 (May): 24–32.
Gann, Kyle. 1987. "Let X = X: Minimalism vs. Serialism". Village Voice (24 February): 76.
Hopp, Winrich. 1998. Kurzwellen von Karlheinz Stockhausen: Konzeption und musikalische Poiesis. Kölner Schriften zur neuen Musik 6. Mainz ; New York: Schott.
Kohl, Jerome. 1978. "Intuitive Music and Serial Determinism: An Analysis of Stockhausen’s Aus den sieben Tagen." In Theory Only 3, no. 2 (March): 7–19.[1]
———. 1981. "Serial and Non-Serial Techniques in the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1962–1968." Ph.D. diss., Seattle: University of Washington.
Nyman, Michael: Experimental Music. Cage and beyond. London 1971 (repr.1999, Cambridge University Press)
Sabbe, Herman. 1977. Het muzikale serialisme als techniek en als denkmethode: Een onderzoek naar de logische en historische samenhang van de onderscheiden toepassingen van het seriërend beginsel in de muziek van de periode 1950–1975. Ghent: Rijksuniversiteit te Gent.
Sabbe, Harman. 1981. “Die Einheit der Stockhausen-Zeit ...: Neue Erkenntnismöglichkeiten der seriellen Entwicklung anhand des frühen Wirkens von Stockhausen und Goeyvaerts. Dargestellt aufgrund der Briefe Stockhausens an Goevaerts”. In Musik-Konzepte 19: Karlheinz Stockhausen: ... wie die Zeit verging ..., edited by Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, 5–96. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik.