Amazing Malaysian Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WATyE6ViMhQ&feature=player_embedded

Jaap Kunst

Jaap Kunst was born in Groningen on August 12th in 1891. He was a Dutch musicologist and was famous for analyzing the gamelan music of Indonesia. He is the scholar who created the word ethnomusicology because it was more accurate than the existing word "comparative musicology."

He defined it as "the study of music and instruments of all non-European peoples including the so called primitive peoples and the civilized Eastern nations. Kunst is considered to be one of the fathers of contemporary ethnomusicology. He was taught the violin when he was very young. Later he also was very enamored with the folk music and dance of the Netherlands.

He made a recording called Living Folksongs and Dance Tunes from the Netherlands in 1956, which is still for sale. When performing on violin for a trio he was involved with, they toured in the East Indies as Indonesia was known then as part of the sprawling, politically and economically powerful Dutch empire. He made the decision to stay on Java.

While in Java, he found 7,500 gamelan orchestra sets in the region of central Java alone. Since each had a place for about 15 musicians he reasoned there must have been about 150,000 musicians in Java at the time. This meant that 1 in every 100 Indonesians must be a musician.

He took photos, made lists of instruments, made field recordings initially on wax cylinders and wrote books; on the music of Bali in 1925, of Java in 1934, New Guinea in 1967, Nias in 1939 and Flores in 1942.

He also wrote articles; Indigenous Music and the Christian Mission in 1947, Musicologica in 1950, Ancient Western Songs from Eastern Countries in 1934, Music and Dance in the Outer Provinces in 1946, Music of the Kai Islands in 1945 and Two Thousand Years of South Sumatra Retold in its Music in 1952, all for the museum in Jakarta.

He went back to the Netherlands in 1936 and took a post as head of the Royal Tropical Institute. Under his supervision it became the most important center of Ethnomusicology in the West at the time. Much later he also gave presentations at the University of Amsterdam on Indonesian music and began to teach there in 1958.

Jaap Kunst had originally wanted to give his entire collection to the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam but, because of extenuating events, it was given to the University of Amsterdam instead in 1963.

The collection reveals his passion for his field, which contains 2,500 books and professional journals. 3,000 photos, slides and negatives, 7 films, 800 records, tapes and wax cylinders and 8400 letters describing 1250 people written between 1919 and 1960. He died on December 7th in 1960 in Amsterdam.

Gongchime CD

[Newsletter] Gongchime News
Gongchime Times

Welcome to the Gongchime Times

This is the newsletter of The Resplendent Garden of Contemplation Gongchime Rainforest Ensemble, the first Javense gamelan ensemble to reside in Korea dedicated to increasing the awareness and understanding of Southeast Asian music.

In This Issue:

Latest Release

Gongchime CD on cdbaby.

Gongchime has it's CD's address at http://www.cdbaby.com/gongchime.



It has received this review from Gerald Van Waes at Psyche Van Het Folk, Eastern Fusion Review.

A combination of gamelan with varied percussion and what seems like close, multi-colored acoustic arrangements. The feeling completely takes all elements from the east, which makes an unusual vision. A very enjoyable, fresh approach."

Others who have listened to it say they play it for meditation or martial arts work outs. If you've got Hindu gods and beings from the Buddhist pantheon in your house then you need a sound track to match.

My goal had been to create a Southeast Asian rainy jungle. People said they didn't really care much about that though. The reason they liked is was that they wanted meditation music that wasn't too slow and boring.

It turns out that you can put this on and work out or you can lie down and fall into a trance. Nothing is going to cause you to get up and turn a noisy, obnoxious part down.

If you drift into alpha or happen to see a small village in a Southeast Asian jungle in the rain among your visions, say hello to the shaman living there and tell him my job here is finished.

Gongchime: http://www.myspace.com/gongchime http://www.cdbaby.com/gongchime

Gamelan Metal Xyllophones, Bowed Rebab and Gentorag Bell Rattle

Check out the gamelan instruments you can get from Bali in page 3 of my photo albums at www.myspace.com/gongchime. Especially notice the Kendang drums,



Bowed Rebab,



and Gentorag Bell Rattle.



They're available both new and used. Very fun stuff.

Arranging Verses and Choruses

I remembered there are a couple other ways to distinguish verses and choruses. That’s with arranging. Sometimes the chorus is a little faster or has added instruments or is louder or all of the above. I’ve heard people change the groove between sections too but I don’t feel it’s as effective. I think if the new groove is based on the original groove then that works and I’ve done that a lot but a completely new groove often sounds like it should be a separate song.

It’s probably a good idea to listen to your favorite composers and hear what they’re doing concerning all of the points in this thread. I’m good at analysis so I get my hands on scores. That’s the main way how I learned Indonesian gamelan music.

I’ll do something like get a Mariah Carey song book and write out the melodic rhythms of the tunes I like and analyze starting positions, rhythm schemes such as aaab, aaba, and I’ll just put the notes in that tune’s chorus’ starting note such as the first note of the scale or the fifth or whatever.

Here is what an old one looks like in my notebook. About every four lines is a new song. Bridges and transitions such as prechoruses are NOT included. The first four lines are Mariah’s tune Sweetheart, the next four are When You Believe, then Always Be My Baby, One Sweet Day, Dreamlover, Emotions, then U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday which takes up six lines, On New Years Day, the last four lines are their tune In The Name Of Love.

William Russo, in his book Composing Music, recommends writing new melodies to your favorite melodic rhythms.

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh53/gongchime/MariahU2Marley.jpg

On the Ethnomusicologist Mantle Hood

Mantle Hood was born on June 24th, 1918 in Springfield, Illinois. He was an American ethnomusicologist. He specialized in gamelan music.

He created the first university program in America for ethnomusicology. He recommended that students actually learn to play what they studied, which was a new idea at the time. He studied piano and played sax in jazz venues while a teenager.

He moved to Los Angeles in the 30's and returned there after serving during World War II. For 5 years after 1945, he studied music under composer Ernst Toch and received a master's degree in composition in UCLA in 1951. He was also a Fulbright scholar and studied Indonesian music under Jaap Kunst in Amsterdam at the university.

He wrote a dissertation on pathet called The Nuclear Theme as a Determinant of Patet in Javanese Music in 1954. "He was a fellow at the East-West Center of Arts and Sciences and a Senior Distinguished Professor at West Virginia University." After his doctorate he spent two years in Indonesia and did field research through a Ford Foundation fellowship.

He became a faculty member at UCLA and made the first gamelan performance program in the U.S. in 1958. "This set of instruments (bronze gongs and metallophones) was cast in Java and given by the Javanese the honorific name Venerable Dark Cloud to describe its sound. It is widely regarded as the finest gamelan in the United States."

In 1960, he started the Institute for Ethnomusicology at UCLA. It inspired more than 100 gamelan groups in the U.S. In 1986 for his research, he received honors from the Indonesian government.

At the time, he also received the title of Ki meaning ‘venerable’ and was inducted into the Society of Indonesian National Heroes known as the Dharma Kusuma. He wrote many scholarly books, journal and encyclopedia articles. In particular he wrote The Ethnomusicologist in 1971, Music in Indonesia in 1972, and The Evolution of Javanese Gamelan and nearly 100 chapters for other books.

He could speak the Balinese and Javanese languages fluently as well as languages from the other Indonesian Islands. He retired in Hawaii in 1973 where he composed music, was editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and contributed to the Harvard Dictionary of Music and the Encyclopdie de la Musique. He came out of retirement in the 1980s to serve as Senior Distinguished Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County until 1996.

He also created an ethnomusicology program there as well. He was a professor of music at West Virginia University and a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, Wesleyan, Indiana, Drake and the University of Ghana. He was also president of the Society for Ethnomusicology from 1965 until 1967.

In 1999, he was the Charles Seeger lecturer at the SEM annual conference. "In 2002, Hood was awarded the prestigious USINDO award by the United States-Indonesia Society, which recognized his contributions to U.S.-Indonesia relations." Within Organology he was the first to propose a new category called electronophones for electronic musical instruments.

He married twice. His first wife was Shirley Hood and they divorced. His 2nd wife, Hazel Chung, taught Indonesian and African dance with who Dr. Hood collaborated in his research. In addition to his wife, of Ellicott City, survivors include one son from his first marriage, Marlowe Hood of Paris; three sons from his second marriage, Maiyo J. Hood of Shanghai, Mitro A. Hood of Baltimore and Made M. Hood of Melbourne, Australia and three grandchildren.

Southeast Asian Melody

Southeast Asia's melodic development is very similar to the Indian. But it gives a straight melody with an ornamented version and variations such as a rhythmically altered version all presented simultaneously. Voice crossing is integral to gamelan music. It’s used to maintain interest.

Sometimes the melody is played at different tempos simultaneously. Western melody is very goal oriented. Gamelan melody is not like this and is supposed to create a timeless feeling which it does quite effectively. Like the classical music of India and Korea, the introduction usually has a part where there is no rhythmic beat. The Kebyar form has a melody in unison during the intro with no beat or it occasionally plays interlocking rhythms alternated with melody played by different groupings of the instruments. It plays interlocking variations in subsequent sections. It also has a grand finale beginning slow and ending fast just like Indian and Korean music.

Before moving from the intro to the first section, the rhythm can completely break down while the musicians play fast but soft and making sure their part does NOT match rhythmically with anyone else’s as a transition. In the first section it has interlocking rhythms which is also found in the music of Africa, Cuba and Haiti though not as much in a melodic form but only in a rhythmic one.

Gamelan music is based on a cantus firmus similar to the occidental sacred music that was based on the ancient melodies of Gregorian chant. The scale is based on ten equal divisions and their first scale was slendro which is about equal to C,D,F,G and A. It’s a pentatonic scale. This scale is used in temple services which are a combination of Budhism, Hinduism in Bali and Buddhism and Islam in Java. It is considered more dignified and less passionate than the pelog scale which sounds angry or sad to the South East Asians.

Pelog was created after the Dutch invasion. The native people fought bravely for a long time but were cornered and about to be captured at which point the people who were still alive, of which there were a large number, committed mass suicide. The music created using Pelog is supposed to sound like the thunder of war and the clash of armies. It became popular very quickly and the forms that use it such as Kebyar, were never elitist music played in the courts of the king. It is a very recent development.

Pelog has three forms known as patet. The first is roughly equal to C, Db, Eb, G and Ab a kind of Phrygian pentatonic scale. Anything played in pelog immediately sounds exotic to westerners because of the flat second degree and the strange skipping of F and B(b). One instrument in the ensemble plays neighbor notes around the cantus in a tenor voice where the cantus note is the middle of three notes. There are several different kinds of interlock! ing rhythms in gamelan music. The first is just a repeated note. The second is in the range of a fifth and where the two rhythms coincide, they meet on the fifth. The lower voice of the interlocking rhythm is comosed after the cantus. The upper voice is composed after that.

The music has breaks and fill to add variety and to mark sections. Gamelan music has a colotomic structure where the largest gong marks the beginning and ending of large sections. Usually only the most experienced musicians play it, since its placement is so important. It plays every 32 or 64 beats, for example depending on the structure. Gongs for the colotomic structure are often gloriously out of tune with the rest of the ensemble. There are higher gongs which divide the structure further.

One set of gongs plays on the last beat of every measure. This is similar to Korean music which places the accent in the same place and very different from western musical practice which usually places the accent on the first beat of every measure. The rhythms usually coincide on the last beat of a measure and meet on the fifth as I said before. When the music gets fast the players divide the music between them in hockett so that each person takes a turn playing each note of the interlocking rhythm. This technique is applied to all instrumental ensembles even one made up only of flutes. The higher pitched and fastest instruments are played by the youngest members of the ensemble.

Playing in a gamelan orchestra is considered a community service. Songs are often named after the doings of animals. The cantus has definite methods for targeting destination notes. Just like classical and jazz. The most senior musician plays the drums and/or rebab, a bowed string instrument. Flutes play in unison with the rebab.

Southeast Asian/Gamelan Music

Indian, Persian and Southeast Asian music has a cyclic rhythmic concept and so the circular representation of it is the most appropriate. This is also the way they view time with reincarnation and past-lives etc. so the circular representation is a natural.

If we look at the rhythmic cycle in gamelan music on a circular grid, it often has two superimposed triangles representing 6 rhyhmic events divided into two kinds played in duple meter. They do not create polyrhythmic tuplets so are not symmetrical triangles. But the way the two overlap produces a symmetrical star of David/Jewish star, though usually the downbeat is not on the axis of symmetry.

Microtones:

Indonesian Gamelan has an octave divided into ten equal parts for the Slendro scale. Ten being a number of completion in Chinese theory which was carried to South-East Asia. Thai music is divided into seven equal parts where two are left out, usually the 4th and 6th so that there isn't just a scale of all equal intervals like the whole tone. This creates a pentatonic scale (5 notes). The notes that are left out are sometimes used as ornaments and passing tones. Burma leaves those degrees out too and also makes another scale in seven equal but leaves out the third and seventh instead.

Healing Music, Gamelan and Microtones:

The binaural beats of gamelan, created by the 2 identical instrument sets which are tuned about a 1/4 step apart, synchronizes with alpha or theta brainwave patterns depending on the exact distance of the interval. Gamelan musicians even say that their intent is to make the audience half-awake/half-asleep. I thought a 12-string type guitar retuned could also reproduce the shimmering quality of gamelan. The scraper used in Cuban music can also scrape out brain wave tuplets in 7, 9, 11, 13 or whatever.

World Music Tunings and Western Compatibility

Western Compatibility:

The microtonal inflections used in Persian and Indian music aren't necessarily incompatible with western harmony. Right now, the case is that many musicians in Persia improvise in 24 or 48 equal on microtone capable instruments over 12 equal harmonies played on western instruments like the guitar and piano.

Expanded Tonal Palette:

Some people who are more heavily involved in the modern avant-garde microtonal movement are saying that 24 and 48 equal just highlight the limitations of 12 equal and many are calling for an expanded palette such as that based on 31 equal which more or less includes the usually preferred “just” intonations of western and Persian scales without overburdening the performer or composer with divisions that are too large and unweildy like 104 divisions of the octave for example! However, instruments with moveable frets, no frets, sliding mechanisms or easily inflected wind instruments like bassoon have many advantages in that they're not locked into anything really and can be asked to play whatever the composer wants or made to actualize whatever the player wants.

Minor keys and chords handle dissonances well, so scale options like Afshari/Esfahan which go C D Eb F G A1/2b Bb will easily work in C aeolian or C dorian with careful attention to the chords whose fifths and roots have the sixth "A" in them

It's other mode starting on the Bb results in a dominant scale that has a 1/2 tone flat 7th. The dominant chord handles dissonances better than anything, even allowing for sharp and flat fifths so this is very doable with consciousness given to chords that have the b7th as their root or fifth.

Suznak C D E1/2b F G Ab B is basically a "harmonic" minor scale with a slightly raised minor third. This is probably a very useful scale over classical western harmonies in a non-modal minor "key" while watching out for the b3rd in the chords.

Rast is basically the same scale as Afshari except it also has a 1/2 flat second. Not really a problem in a minor key. Attention being payed to the chords as stated previously.

Another scale is Hijaz which is the same as the dominant mode of Afshari except with an added nonmicrotonally flat second.

A possibility allowing for "weird" scales is to limit the accompaniment to the notes from the scale that are not microtonal. This would not be a chordal accompaniment per se but provide harmonious elements. This is an aspect of the kind of modified harmonic theory we are in need of today.

The dominant scale of Afshari that goes C D E F G A B1/2b would work well over an accompaniment built on the Chinese form of the pentatonic scale C D F G A since it doesn't have any kind of "B", microtonal or otherwise.

We could also adopt the Chinese concept of using notes outside of the pentatonic scale, which occur in the melody, as passing tones or neighbor tones.

The regular form of Afshari that goes C D Eb F G A1/2b Bb would work well over the more American form of the pentatonic scale C Eb F G Bb.

Hijaz would work over a pentatonic made of C E F G Bb, Suznak over C D F G Ab or C D F G B, Afshari/ Esfahan would also work over C D F G B among others.

There is an important connection between timbre and tuning. An instrument that has the prominent overtones that correspond to the microtonally flat intervals of a "weird" tuning doesn't sound particularly out of tune anymore. This has important implications for composers, synthesists and instrument builders. For practicality, tunings up to 41 equal divisions of the octave are about as many divisions that can be made, heard and played reasonably.

It has been suggested that tactile frets be added to the fingerboards of violins and cellos so performers unfamiliar with the tunings could approximate them on western style instruments. Another suggestion is to have a wavy fingerboard that will approximate different tunings by high and low crests on the fingerboard.

Some "weird" tunings are more consonant than others by western standards. The less consonant ones can be made more consonant by choosing the correct instrumental timbre to play it. The sitar has the jiwari bridge that creates the buzzing which brings out more prominently many of the upper partials. I suspect this allows them to play 1/8 or 1/2 flat intervals which don't sound so weird to us in that context. Maybe a classical flute might be particularly inappropriate for unconventional tunings because of its almost pure sine wave.

Lately I've been thinking about why the gamelans have instrument pairs tuned about a 1/4 step apart and how the Setar is tuned to C and C1/4 sharp.

In Persian music, it's often the case that the scales have tones which are only 1/4 flat instead of real quarter tones/1/2 flat intervals except in Turkey. This does not produce the visual symmetry as I said before. They must be sacrificing the perfect visual symmetry because some other element of the music is affecting it or is more important. I was pondering this when I came to the insight that if there is a B1/2 #, its tone might easily be confused with C or C1/2b. The same with F1/2b and E or E1/2 sharp. Diatonic scales probably favor less flattedness or sharpedness to maintain the distinctions between notes. Gamelan music is pentatonic without half-steps so the paired notes can be seriously sharp or flat even when played simultaneously without losing their identity to another scale degree.

Another related phenomenon is the binaural beats of gamelan and Persian music. Why do two systems of music in non-western tunings use simultaneously sounding 1/4 steps? Is there a connection to the tuning? Probably.

Thai Music: Central Instuments

The Saw Samsai is also a spike fiddle made from a coconut shell with an animal skin soundboard. It is only played in the Mahori ensemble. It has been in use since the Sukhothai period (c. 1350). King Rama II was fond of it.

The Saw U has two strings, a coconut body and an animal skin soundboard. Similar to the Chinese Hu-hu but without frets.

The Saw Duang is another fiddle but it has a small tubular hardwood body and a snake skin soundboard. It can use 2 silk, gut or metal strings. It is the leader of the string ensemble.

The Jakae is a plucked instrument. Its first two strings are made of silk and the last is made of brass. It is played while the instrument is layed horizonatally on the ground like the Japanese Koto but has a banjo like body and high frets like the Korean Komungo. The right hand plucks with an ivory pick.

The Khlui is a bamboo recorder with seven holes covering one and a half octaves. It comes in several sizes and is used in the Mahori and string ensembles.

The central Pi is one of the oldest Thai instruments. It is an oboe usually made of hardwood with six holes. It is an instrument capable of a wide range of _expression.

The Ranad Ek is a xylophone whose 21-22 bars are strung together and "hang" down making a curve which gives the instrument the appearance of a barge. The bars are either made of bamboo or hardwood. It is the leader of the ensemble. It is higher in pitch than the Ranad Thume.

The Ranad Thume is a xylophone with 18 bars. It accompanies the Ranad Ek.

The Gong Wong Yai plays the main melody. It contains 16 gongs similar to those used in gamelan ensembles except arranged in a circle. It is played with mallets.

The Thon is a drum whose body is made of wood or clay it is originally from Arabia though the Thais acquired it by way of China.

The Rammana is a thin/short frame drum played together with the Thon also originally from Arabia.

The Glong Khaek is a drum that plays in the Mahori, Piphat and Krung Sai ensembles. It is played with two hands. It is originally from Java.

The Glong Song Na is a drum always associated with the Phiphat ensemble.

My Bio V

My music also incorporates music from Cuba and the Carribean. It also uses drones, modal chord progressions and instruments from around the world such as Koto, Gongs and Gamelan. My music sometimes utilizes interlocking patterns in the vein of gamelan and African Amadinda.

My music could be described as Bankok Blue meets Deep Forest.

I'm a member of "TAXI" the world's largest independant A&R company. I'll be marketing my Resplendant Garden of Contemplation/Gongchime Rainforest project to the Cultural Creatives market as well as to T.V. and film through sound libraries. Some titles from my portfolio include;

My Bio II

I have read many books on aesthetics, music composition, and ethnomusicology especially gamelan transcriptions and East Indian musical practices. I'm interested in world music theory, scales, chords, harmony, music composition, rhythms, drums and drumming.

I have jammed with Korean jazz marimba player and music professor Baek Jin Woo and Blues artist Son Yong Woo of the band Shincheon Blues.

I have a sitar, a Korean Kayageum (Koto), Korean Guengari (small gong), Korean Jing (medium gong), Korean Chango (double headed drum played with a stick and a hard ball mallet), American Chapman Stick, Steel drums from Trinidad, a didgeridoo from Australia and an equal tempered Indonesian Gamelan!

My Bio

I majored in music at Northern Arizona University. I studied music composition with Bruce Reiprich and Kenneth Rummery. I directed NAU preparatory school's jazz combos I and II and played bass in their big band.

I also played in NAU's steel drum ensemble under Steve Hemphill, president of the Arizona Chapter of the percussive arts society.

I have traveled to Miami and heard the Miami Cuban sound. I have heard; the blues played proper in New Orleans, Mariachi music in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, the traditional music in Korea and went to a traditional Piphat Mon performance at a temple in Hua Hin, Thailand.

Music That Accelerates From 0-60 p.7

Where do we expect to find symmetry in music. Actually, it seems that the primary place it is located is in the scale and often its tuning. There really aren't that many examples of reversible rhythms except at large levels of the rhythmic structure or melodies except with Bach and such, whose music is definitely for the mathematically inclined and not really the general fare even among Classical or Baroque composers.

Arabic scales known as Maqams and the gamalen's colotomic structure produce very symmetrical scales and rhythms. Two very beautiful musical traditions.

It becomes very obvious that every scale you can play also has a rhythm associated with it when you look at it constructed on a circle with the unison and the octave at the top in the same location. It’s manifestly apparent that some of the Arabic scales have notes which are half-flat or quarter tones for reasons of visual symmetry. It seemed to me unusual that the starting note for many maqams was not the one on the axis of symmetry.

Usually, it places the 1/4 flat on the 6th and/or 7th. That was interesting to me because the seventh degree is the one played microtonally flat or “blue” in Blues, Jazz, Rock and African as well, since that’s where Blues and Jazz comes from primarily. The seventh is often microtonally inflected in the Classical music of India also.


The form of a piece of music is another place where we often find a little symmetry. Beethoven and others were of the opinion that if you are writing a long piece then the beginning goes nowhere fast so you are alerted to the fact it's going to be a longer composition and likewise the ending needed to match the beginning in size somewhat and also relate to the scope of the entire piece.


Jazz tunes play the head, improvise and then return to the head. If the head is short, they play the head twice and the ending twice. This is a kind of symmetry without going to the extent of playing the theme backwards at the end which we don't expect in our tradition.

Symmetry is actually rare in nature except in the faces and bodies of animals. Trees, lakes, rivers, mountains etc. are not symmetrical. Music which does not have the symmetrical elements previously presented has the aesthetic of the nomad not seeing many faces or symmetrical buildings who often lives alone closer to nature and derives his aesthetic from that.

Contemporary composers could write more inter locking rhythms because it creates a smooth rhythmic surface without leaving any holes, just like a beautiful face

Some aestheticians say the reason we are all so concerned with beauty in art and music is because we don't live close enough to nature. We yearn for it and try to create it. I tentatively add that we may be trying to create it in our own image.

Perhaps a reason to use self retrograding rhythmic structures similar to palinromes in literature such as "A man, a plan, a canal. Panama." is not because of a need for symmetry. It's because the retrograde implies a desire to go backwad in time perhaps to a golden age. This is a little regressive however.

Another interpretation is that its a bit revolutionary. Anagrams/permutations imply an even more revolutionary philosophical standpoint.

Then there are philosophical considerations. In the Heterotopia where we actually live, we have to honor the interests and aptitudes of the composer, the performer and the audience. We cannot mirror a utopia in which we do not believe.

One based on elitism, ageism, classism, sexism and all. In my case, I'm a composer whose interests and aptitudes cluster around symbols. As such, when made aware of the fact the very notes themselves have symbollic meaning, these symbols are of interest to me.

Music That Accelerates From 0-60 p.6

I would prefer to avoid the criticism leveled at Wagner by Mark Twain that his music is better than it sounds. This is accomplished by reigning in the proclivity toward exclusive atonalism, serialism and the avant garde. As I said before, dissonance and complexity for no other reason than that seems to be the way we are headed is like stepping on the gas while approaching a fatal fall from a cliff.

We should lean back toward the popular, something which has been termed populist so as to remain on the road. We can also lean toward the romantic with greater awareness so as not to wallow in excessive sentimentality which is one of its downfalls.

One of the definitions of beauty is that anything which copies nature is beautiful. The Chambered Nautilus, the Golden Mean and the Fibonacci series are all found in nature and so must be beautiful. They exhibit characteristics of self similarity. A lot of fuss has been made over fractal art and music.

Most music has not been very fractal. Music composed using fractal ideas usually fails to satisfy as much as the visual dimension. Gamelan music is more fractal than western music but not as fractal as the scientists making fractal music based on the Mandelbrot set, the Julia set and fractal triangles etc...

What many fractal musicians don't seem to realize is that the self similarity of many fractals is not identically similar. At each level more and more deviation often occurs. I see this is one recipe for how to make a spiral.

Another definition of beauty, and one that I think is better, is that what is beautiful copies the "FUNCTION" of nature. To copy a termite mound wouldn't necessarily be beautiful but copying a termite mound's cooling function is profoundly beautiful. The office building in Zimbabwe modeled after termite houses keeps all the occupants cool in the sweltering summers without airconditioning while simultaneously preserving the earth's precious resources.

Anyway, perhaps symmetry is a property of beauty since physical bodies exhibit symmetry, are beautiful and part of the natural world.

ln art, we want to see symmetry where we expect to find it. When we look at a painting in the western tradition we only expect to see symmetry in the face and body really.

I also write inter locking rhythms because it creates a smooth rhythmic surface without leaving any holes, just like a beautiful face.

Music That Accelerates From 0-60

It has been said that one of the merits of getting a music education is to be able to communicate about music in a clear and concise manner. I'm sure I've mastered the first point but perhaps I have not mastered the second. In any event, this article delineates, in as concise a manner (in a field as complex as music) as I am capable of at this point in time, what contemporary composers could be doing and why.

In talking about it I will attempt to show how to balance competing forces that transmodern composers are faced with. The competing forces I see are to a) be different, b) be likeable, c) be accessible to performers, d) be flexible, e) be inclusive of the community,

First of all, the contemporary mature audience requires something they can sink their teeth into. The music can be different enough to sound fresh, keeping up with modern developments such as additive techniques and self-retrograding rhythms as in one of the most recent developments, the downtown school of postminimalist music which has also been titled Totalism. Its better if composers don not talk in terms of their influences.

That usually means a composer might be openminded but doesn't prove originality or anything else. Originality is also over rated. It will become clear why I think so. I prefer to talk in terms of ideas especially the ones based on philosophical considerations whether they're unique or not.

It has been suggested that one way innovation occurs is from contributions made by fields tangential to the one in question, in this case music. If a person trained in car design is asked to make a radically new design, they usually can't do it. They can't think out of the car design box in which they were trained.

But if someone trained in hydraulics is asked ,they come up with a car that accelerates from 0-60 without even turning on the motor by storing the normally wasted energy, the last time the car came to a stop, as hydraulic pressure. This is what innovative composers do with music. I aspire to be innovative in the same way. Architecture, geometry, developments in art and literature to name a few can and do influence music in the transmodern era.

So, that's where a composer can look for inspiration. For example, some postmodern architecture goes through different detail elaborations as a person walks through a building. This can be translated into music.

Techno is similar in this respect. Geometry has made gains in recent years with the development of fractal geometry. Music usually isn't very fractal but some aspects of self similarity can be used in music composition.

Gamelan music is more fractal than western music. Post-postmodern art is putting the frame back on the canvas while still incorporating some process oriented and audience participatory elements. Musically this means, that chance and serialist procedures can be a tool in the compositional arsenal but not the whole deal.

Experimental music is for working out compositional ideas and not for holding up to the world saying this is the best art on offer. Only the ideas that work are published. Recent innovations in art were impressionism (innovation which
moved away from well defined lines), abstract (innovation away from traditional subject matter) and postmodernism (innovation away from preconceptions about art having a frame where the art stops and the media used to create it).

They are sweeping simplifications, to be sure, but not without their usefulness.

In literature, a fairly recent innovation is the cut up technique. A piece of text can be permutated at the level of paragraph, sentence, words or syllables to achieve unique interesting juxtapositions. It helps achieve a unique approach to self expression and can even create new words.

This really works well to break out of the stranglehold of convention. It has been applied to music also in various ways but the ramifications for it have not been fully explored or explored down sonic dead ends. Tony Williams, Bill Bruford and Allan Holdsworth to name a few postmodern performers used the technique in the studio after recording.

They would cut up pieces of music and rearrange them with other pieces they recorded for the albums. Allan didn't like it that much because he had to relearn all the songs for performance in their new arrangements but the music is really good because Tony's ears have a good aesthetic sense.