Old lady dies (see other post)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In fact it's a new piano piece written for Nicolas Hodges called Quirl and subtitled "Study in self-similar rhythms". The premiere was announced a couple of years ago but it's only just been finished.

Ah! So that's why I couldn't place it! How come you and ahinton know it? (I mean, he even knows how long the piece is! I'm beginning to feel left out.)

I like that "self-similar rhythms": presumably helping to "explain" the "mirror-within-mirror" [(7:6):7:6]:7:6 in the first bar of the extract you printed?

[hedgehog]

I thought this was the Gove Style extreme notation pub quiz ?
I've plenty more of that stuff
but not if folk cheat (calculator's are not allowed in the examination room)

Sigh.
MrGongGong: I teach music, in particular I devote a semester to graphic notation (should be more I know, but that's as much as is allowed these days). I have a quite large collection of scores.
I know who Logothetis is, know his scores and deliberately put up a that link with that image. You bit

I was annoyed. I'm sorry. I just don't think people should talk about their masters and PhD students & etc whilst having a so-called quiz.

[MrGongGong]

Sigh.
MrGongGong: I teach music, in particular I devote a semester to graphic notation. I have a quite large collection of scores.
I know who Logothetis is, know his scores and deliberately put up a that link with that image. You bit

I was annoyed. I'm sorry. I just don't think people should talk about their masters and PhD students & etc whilst having a so-called quiz.

1: The score of the Eroica is "graphic notation"
2: I never mentioned "MY" masters or Phd students at all , just that I had an interesting text about that body of work

[Nick Armstrong]

Moving on....

Anyone got any more good root crop jokes?

How about

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anyone got any more good root crop jokes?

Tuber Concerto?

Oh, sorry: you stipulated "good".

[Nick Armstrong]

Tuber Concerto?

Oh, sorry: you stipulated "good".

[Pabmusic]

And I dreamt that I was within a labyrinth. Walls of adamant were about me nor could I pass. Yet forward or rearward could I move until having to choose betwixt ways I took the dexter path.

And as I movèd along the straitened way lo! a voice unto me said: This is the narrow path that leadeth where all else hath gone. But beware the giants Oyesitis and Onoitisnt who lurk thereon to the bane of the unwary. Forth I went but by degrees the way became narrow on narrow till I was met with a wall of solid adamant. And I could not pass. Therefore turned I about and coming to the place of my earlier choice I took the sinister way.

And as I moved along the straitened way lo! a voice unto me said: This is the sinister path that leadeth whereto we cannot know. And I replied: Nonetheless shall I go there for sick am I of doing what all others doeth. And I continuèd on my way knowing not what might happen there.

And I came across folk that talked of the symbols of musick and the alchemy of the mind. And lo! some were pleasèd to know the secrets of the art. And yet later lo! none there did comprehend save for a learnèd few.

And I thought: hath not this thread come a long way?

[Richard Barrett]

How come you and ahinton know it?

I can't speak for ahinton but I received the score by email from Brian this morning.

[ahinton]

I can't speak for ahinton but I received the score by email from Brian this morning.

Well, I guess that I ought to speak for him, then; I received it from Brian in February just after he completed it (we just happened to be in correspondence about other things at the time) but, despite this - and with the subsequent passage of (Shadow?)time - the particular passage that you quoted just didn't register with what passes for my brain these days, for which fact I am suitably embarrassed. In my defence (if such there could be), I was more concerned with how the piece sounded than how it appeared when I looked through it.

I'm sure that it will find a splendid advocate in Nic Hodges.

[Quarky]

I would be interested to know what the prize might have been for getting the right answer, if by some sixth sense a poster had worked it out. If it were the honour of setting another impossible puzzle, then this seems already to have been taken.

Anyway, getting back to earthly matters and root jokes, I'm sure there must be some jokes concerning that somewhat better known composer Beet-hoven. Although German, I believe the name may have originated from Flanders farm communities. But possibly some swede-ish ancestry there? (apologies for bad taste).

[Richard Barrett]

I would be interested to know what the prize might have been for getting the right answer, if by some sixth sense a poster had worked it out.

TBH I hadn't got as far as working that out...

[Quarky]

Just an odd query from far away from the compositional process.

Whether Ferneyhough or other highly mathematical composers use matrices at all to generate scores. Matrices are of course used extensively in modern science and engineering, and would seem a more generalised way of representing total serial music:

http://solomonsmusic.net/setheor2.htm

[MrGongGong]

I would be interested to know what the prize might have been for getting the right answer, if by some sixth sense a poster had worked it out. If it were the honour of setting another impossible puzzle, then this seems already to have been taken.
.

I don't think that's now allowed ...... so i'm looking forward to the closure of the impossibly cryptic Alphabets thread

(that's NOT meant to be serious)

[Richard Barrett]

Ferneyhough or other highly mathematical composers

First off, Ferneyhough isn't really a "highly mathematical" composer. The complexities of his music are generally the result of many layers of relatively simple processes interacting with one another. Matrices are used in diverse ways by many composers working with serial or serial-derived methods, since as you suggest they're a concise and general way of representing that kind of basic material.

At this point though it might be useful to reiterate that what kind of techniques a composer has used are not necessarily supposed to be in the foreground of what you hear, which applies to every technique and every style. The question why a composer might use some technique or other is more interesting but seldom asked.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

may i ask a question that fascinates me? how do composers choose their ouput; not the means used to create, but the judgement to release the work as draft or complete .... no techniques involved surely? is it a some combination of listening, aesthetics and i have done enough etc .... the sense of what works as art, what is right about a piece is critical to the artist?

complexity theory was rearing it's serpentine tail when we visited York U Music Dept Open Day some years back .... sample lecture [wonderful experience] comparing the Central African rain forest drummers with Ligetti ... much discussion of strange attractors randomness in confined spaces and butterflies .... bit like this thread really