[microsound] musical structure

[Stephen Hastings-King]

i'm largely an acoustic performer (prepared piano) but i work in various
hybrid contexts (electro-acoustic, with dance, etc.).

i use various means to organize pieces, but the consistent ones are
rules/constraints and durations.
i also treat recordings as compositions--the fact that a track has a fixed
duration means that whatever unfolds within it has a structure.  this comes
straight from john cage: structure=duration.

the constraints give a conceptual direction to a piece. (my favorite is make
a hole and walk through it, but you can't do that one all the time.)
the duration stipulations--the sequence of events---is  the way a particular
piece works with he overarching constraint.  they are also themselves
constraints, but locally oriented.

the organization of events within a duration varies.  prepared piano is
largely about materials--what you use in the wires, what you use on the
wires.  so alot of events are about the exploring of possibilities opened up
by the interaction of, say, a glass vase, the piano soundboard and the
treatments that are between the wires in a particular area of the
soundboard.  most of the activity happens in a space of decay.

in a mixed electronic/acoustic piece, i like having two sets of event
sequences going simultaneously which pull the piece toward and away from
scattering.
i think the thresholds between the two are interesting to find and work
with.

with oulipo-style constraint systems, there's the principle o clinamen
(swerve..it's from lucretius) which enables you to break them.  if you find
a cool threshold space, it's good to stay there a while.  usually, if its a
good night and the machinery is working, it's worth the chaos it generates
in the frame.  and the recording integrates these spaces of clinamen back
into what they aren't.

that's what i gots.
stephen
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