smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (03/19/90)
In article <14657@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes: > Babbitt, on the other hand, is >not the kind of guy who sets up a system, turns the crank, and sees what >comes out, though the casual listener might think so. So, then, it's "Who cares if THE CASUAL LISTENER listens?" :-) > He starts with an >idea of the things he wants to hear, and constructs a system with which >to compose those sounds. > Seriously, Roger, has this been documented at all? Certainly, Ciro Scotto's piece in the Summer 1988 PERSPECTIVES ("Preparing a Performance of Babbitt's ARIE DA CAPO") did not lend very much insight in this direction. It sounds to me very much like Babbitt has set himself an engineering design problem whose paradigm is not that different from the "composition theory" of Otto Laske. What I want to know is whether or not it is fair to ask for any clarification in words of that "idea of the things he wants to hear" and the extent to which he has refined a methodology for the task of system construction. I think, by the way, that it is also interesting to compare this approach with the one Ligeti describes in his article in Boulez for DIE REIHE. There, Ligeti talks about a three-stage process which starts out looking like your description of what Babbitt does NOT do. The first stage is one of deliberate decision regarding what parameters will be manipulated when the crank is turned. The second stage is turning the crank, but this is followed by a third stage of filling in parametric information which was not provided by the "cranked" system. Thus, whatever ideas Boulez has "of the things he wants to hear" are expressed in the first and third stages. (Incidentally, this methodology is not that different from the way in which Merce Cunningham has used chance operations in choreography, often with great success.) ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001 Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "Only a schoolteacher innocent of how literature is made could have written such a line."--Gore Vidal