Variation: Modularity and Asemics

As I’m finding out: many things change, while other things stay the same. My compositional output of art music scores has changed quite a bit in the past few years, yet, I still see similarities between the newer and older. 2018 was a particularly busy year, chiseling away at new discoveries and synthesizing new ideas into my compositional outlook. The results have been amazing and interesting.

M. J. Hood – harmonic integration (2018) and anxiety (2018)

However, I have been approached with many questions regarding some of my newer works: “what is the intention, here?” or “how are these figures and passages to be played?”. So, I thought I’d take the time to give a little, basic primer post into my view of marrying modularity and asemics into my latest performative art scores.

What is Modularity?

A good primer on modularity in musical composition is James Saunders’ article “Modular Music” in Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 46 No. 1. The article’s language is easily accessible, and he makes connections to many other modular applications that we use everyday (such as modular IKEA furniture and the popular Danish toy, Legos). To summarize the subject: modular musical compositions are pieces of music that contain independent sections that are made performatively interdependent either via instructions (or ‘interface’, as Saunders’ puts it) or through performers’ intuition. This means the performances of each piece will be different to the audiences ear, while the raw pieces of musical information penned by the composer stays the same on the score. The overall goal of most modular (or mobile) compositions is to build a musical architecture by putting these malleable puzzle pieces (modules) together in interesting ways.

While studying modularity in the works of Manuel Enriquez (Móvil II for solo piano, 4×4 for solo piano, and others) in late 2016, I became fascinated with the overall process of performative exploration and collaboration (with self or others), and how that process might affect the overall result of the musical architecture.

M. J. Hood – untitled contraption no. 1 (2018)

I started writing several pieces with, both, closed (the interface creates limited numbers of combinations) and open (the lack of interface creates virtually unlimited combinations) modularity: Shelter for solo piano (2016),  ink constellations (2016), reflection now: I (2017), untitled contraption no. 1 and no. 2 (2018), thought/nexus (2018), 10.3 for orchestra (2018), and many others.

Asemics

The path that the modular composition process has taken me has been an interesting one. Each new work seems to progress in some areas, then – on the other hand – reuses similar vocabulary and shapes from other works in other areas. Even the musical and symbolic gestures within the aforementioned works became much more open and interpretive over the course of their completion; geometric shapes, lines, noteheads – all becoming broken and resequenced into larger forms for performing musicians to study and put back together. Before I knew it, I was writing music that contained many musical (and unmusical) symbolic gestures that were highly interpretive. Once that line was crossed, my output became more asemically based by using the visual forms that are found in traditional musical notation in a very different way. According to Minneapolis-based visual artist/writer Michael Jacobsen:

The forms that asemic writing may take are many, but its main trait is its resemblance to ‘traditional’ writing—with the distinction of its abandonment of specific semantics, syntax, and communication.  Asemic writing offers meaning by way of aesthetic intuition, and not by verbal expression. It often appears as abstract calligraphy, or as a drawing which resembles writing but avoids words, or if it does have words, the words are generally damaged beyond the point of legibility.

History has recorded many people purposefully creating unreadable works that are considered beautiful works of art, particularly as it pertains to cursive and calligraphy. However, my interest in marrying asemic writing to musical scores is to take the shapes of the written language of the musical score (durations, the staff, clefs, etc.), break that musical notation into parts, and then re-sequence them into different forms that still appear to be musical, but just foreign enough to traditional musical notation to make it highly interpretive.

M. J. Hood – the reason for thursday for violin, piano and percussion (2018)

In a way, these types of musical scores become performative visual poetry through this type of re-sequencing of the musical vocabulary. The modular interface or instruction in my asemic work is the amalgamation of musical and unmusical gestures that come together in one framework or form. That form then has to be interpreted by a performer based on prior experiences with that shape or gesture in nature or otherwise. Some of these gestures are easier to interpret than others because of the similarities to traditional notation. However, there are vague gestures that have to be worked through a bit more. So far, I’ve categorized these asemic gestures into two types:

Hard – when a visual gesture can be more-easily interpreted into musical phenomena based on how closely related it is to a shape in traditional musical notation. Usually these gestures can be interpreted only a couple of different ways.

Soft – when a visual gesture is much more ambiguous and can be interpreted in more than one musical way. These types of gestures tend to hold more of an important role of the overarching shape of a piece, and could play roles of changing dynamics, tempo, energy and intensity, extended techniques, etc.

The first, successful large-scale piece I produced using this combinatory approach of modularity and asemics is on life, death, and light (2018) for one vocalist and two instrumentalists. In the score, I included some basic instructions on how to approach the work so that musicians new to the experience weren’t too daunted by its openness.

M. J. Hood – on life, death, and light (2018)

instructions to on life, death, and light

Since the premiere of on life…, many other large-scale pieces and sketches have been produced using this combinatory method, and it’s been a joy to develop the vocabulary for future pieces.

A Line: Thinking Simply

Lately, I’ve been sketching some compositions based off of a simple question: what is a line?  Of course, according to Euclid, a line is “breadthless length” and is the genetic makeup of geometric figures, whether they be two or three-dimensional.  Ironically, a line in geometry is not the same as what humans perceive as a “musical line”.  When it comes to music, a line can be described as/describe many different things.  To name a few:

– a complete or incomplete phrase of melodic material

– notating a type of glissando or graphical representation relating to manipulating pitch upward or downward through time

– a way of organizing pitches evenly on a five-lined staff

Psychology and Line

Before we delve into my thoughts on musical line, I thought it would be best to first understand what the psychological effect is of a simple line.  Visual art is teeming with lines: straight, curved, hidden and leading lines, to name a few.  These lines are artistically captured or consciously put together to create some kind of perspectival awareness from an observer.  So when we talk about line, what we are dealing with is this idea of individual perception.  In other words, one person may be able to see the lineo-genetic makeup of a visual image and interpret the experience one way, while another person may only be able to ‘sense’ it, experiencing the image in a different way.

Greg Betza “High Line”

I am no psychologist, but I would bet that it takes practice to experience an image in multiple ways such as one can perceive music in multiple ways.  As a line can have infinitely-profound functions and interactions, so will the individual interpretations of that that single line.  With experience in actively viewing, listening and understanding this idea of line, a person’s awareness of it may drastically change, affecting how they respond to what they perceive – whether it be emotionally, spiritually or personably.  My goal in studying the basic functions of a line will be to consciously and carefully use it as an underlying psychological tool that can successfully affect how people respond emotionally, spiritually and personably.

Musical Composition of a Line

In thinking about this, I’ve realized that coming to a greater understanding of “line” – and its various implications – can bring profound depth to a contemporary composition.  One could say that music is geometry in time – which is the fourth dimension.  Since listeners attach linear significance to a piece of music, it’s possible to reverse engineer that perception and turn it into a compositional tool – that has been my aim.  Various questions have been coming up in my thinking about this issue:

“What is the most basic element within a line that could be used in music to encapsulate notions of spirituality, psychology, sociology, nature, emotionality and the interpretive experience?”

“How can a line be used to connect one person to another when listening to a piece of music, even if they have different cultural backgrounds?”

“Can a musical line be used to accurately represent the vastness of the cosmos, God, space and time though it is only a line?”

Two-Dimensional Line in Music

Nine Inch Nails “The Warning” Spectrograph

Ultimately, how can a line be used in a musical composition?  Already, we can easily rule in sheet music.  Sheet music is comprised of geometric shapes that stem from lines, alone.  Though humans perceive things three-dimensionally, we tend to equate sheet music to a two-dimensional surface because it sits flat, and as it sits flat, we perceive it to have no z-axis; depth.  It is profound to think that something as basic as sheet music can be interpreted into four-dimensional phenomena, however it is merely one vehicle by which music can be heard through.  

Another thing about two-dimensional figures is that color has the ability support a 2D line’s function.  Color has the power to be interpreted into emotional and psychological data.  Though most sheet music is black and white, lines found within music could be composed to have different colors, affecting a performer’s psychology.

Can music be represented through a two-dimensional object? Technically, there are no physical two-dimensional objects, but in the digital age, there are ways.  A computer screen can be an active representation of a 2D plane – despite the fact that the screen, itself, can be viewed from many angles as opposed to one.  On a screen, you can have waveforms that represent music, which can be printed onto a paper – which is another representation of a 2D plane, as discussed earlier.  These spectral analysis waveforms could represent music’s pitch, dynamic, rhythmic, textural and timing aspects.

Three-Dimensional Line in Music

Nathalie Miebach “Urban Weather Prairies –
Symphonic Studies in D”

What you see around you is perceived in a third-dimensional space.  We relate objects to each other by comparing their locations in a physical space.  Something I’ve often wondered is how music can relate to us three-dimensionally.  When it comes to attaching a meaning to music, listeners inevitably attach a geometric understanding to what they hear.  In other words, we visualize music based off of individual perceptions of a musics’ sonic results.  Is it just this psychological phenomenon that we can only interpret music into three-dimensional images?  Perhaps not.  Dance is an important aspect to active form with music.  Dance doesn’t necessarily have to have music to have form, however, can give a three-dimensional form to music via the human body.  Dancers work through body line and stage directions (which are based on lines) to create an active choreography with music.

On the flipside of things, can music be represented through three-dimensional objects?  In visual art, sculpture is usually what represents idyllic abstraction on a three-dimensional plane.  Though music would be difficult to represent on a three-dimensional plane other than that of the imagination, something that interests me is the possibility of writing 3D musical scores.  These sculptural scores could be extremely flexible ways of performers interpreting three-dimensional figures – based on many lines’ depth, height, and width, creating figures inside of figures – into a four-dimensional, sonic figure.  

Interestingly, everyday 3D objects are still subject to the effects of time; aging.  It would be interesting to purposefully create a sculptural score that decays slowly or quickly, and therefore is subject to be interpreted differently every time it were performed.

Sketches on Musical Line

Micah Hood “Imago Dei” [click for larger view]

I’ll be thinking more about what line is.  Already, I’ve found myself writing a few essay pieces on how a physical line relates to the sonic results of music, and it has been a great time of study.  Cathect (2014) for thirteen (or more) trombones and Imago Dei (in process) for chorus, organ and two percussionists use similar ideas of line and how it is represented in sheet music.  Both settings of a basic line-form will be perceived differently from an audience’s perspective but are both built upon the same building blocks.

Micah Hood “Cathect” [click for larger view]

As time progresses, I hope to come to a better understanding of the psychological effects of line and implement it into my music.  I foresee many sketches in my future, but I’m sure it will be worth it.  In all of this, I hope that I got you thinking about musical and geometric lines in different ways.  It is my hope, too, that in daily life, no one will take for granted the genetic makeup of everything they see around them and respond thoughtfully to how complex the universe truly is.

What Sketching Promotes

When you were a kid, did you ever doodle on your homework or notes in class?  (Actually, come to think of it, I remember doing that in my Political Science classes in my undergraduate.  They were the bane of my existence!)  Whatever became of those sketches that were so important to you in that very moment you drew them?  Growing up, I drew a lot – a doodle here and a sketch there.  I still have the sketchbooks from my middle school and high school years that contain anything from caricatures to comics, landscapes to abstract sketches. Back then, these were innocent sketches: all of them in-the-moment and perfectly content to settle into their identities as sporadic ideas.   Interestingly, I had no idea that I would be thinking critically about that material now.  Now, these early drawings are the impetus on which I think critically about everything I do.  These sketches are almost like a log of how I’ve travelled from one place to another and found that I really enjoyed passing several sites of interest over and over because I liked they way they looked or felt.

Sketches Promote Freedom and Invention

One of the best things I’ve heard about sketches comes from concept artist and blogger Anthony Mychal.  He says you can’t turn sketches into masterpieces – or, more exactly, you shouldn’t turn sketches into masterpieces.  Sketches are free forms by which your body feels the devices you’re experimenting with and allows you to have unrefined adventures.  In relating this to music, many things are sketched but sometimes never come to fruition.  In my own music composition flow, sketching requires many recorded improvisations upon a morsel of an idea.  That same juicy morsel could very well become something of a piece, or, instead, can teach you something about the usage of the devices you’re experimenting with.  Both outcomes are very constructive to your own musical progress.  Many times in my improvisations, I will stumble upon sounds or harmonic movements I’ve never heard before and write a short sketch to see how it works in context.  Many times, these sketches put a concept or device into practice badly – in fact, this will probably be the case more often than not.  However, freedom and invention is the goal.  The fact that you can do whatever you want is actually a pretty big deal.

Sketches Promote Critical Thinking

As soon as I open up a book of my past sketches, I realize that I have always had certain interests.  Even in the past, I enjoyed certain things and have subconsciously held on to these facets that make up my artistic identity.  As I roam through old music sketches, I feel I’m allowed to use these personal devices in interesting ways.  When sketching, it is as if the conceptual information within the devices is to be tested and assimilated so that they become easier to use later in larger works.  The adventurous work of discovering how to use these devices almost permits a composer to move forward in using them in intelligent ways.  The experiences you personally go through can lead you to look at your old sketches and devices in a different light.  

Sketching Promotes Emotional Therapy

Drawing has become a successful therapeutic practice for traumatized children.  It is a way for children to express experiences and emotions without using words.  If we, as artists and composers, come to the drafting table with the mind of a child, we will always be honest with ourselves.  To pour out experiences and emotion into these devices can be healing, even prayerful.  Easily, these sketches become somewhat of an abstract biographical image of yourself and in keeping these sketches you create a dialogue with your future self.  

Sketches Promote Lifelong Usage

Lastly, I’m convinced that these sketches – musical and artistic – should never be out of reach.  No matter how simple the sketch is, there’s always something to learn from it.  Keep a library of your sketches and sketchbooks.  Make new notes on the sketches – be sure to put the date on the notes – or form other sketches based on the original and paper-clip them together so there is a clear sign of relation.  One should always feel free to revisit these sketches and not be afraid of failed experiments with them.  

 

Try crazy things.  Try conservative things.  Try tracing the thematic architecture of the sketch to create a new shape or musical structure. Invent a new device out of an existing device you created in kindergarten.  If you feel free to do what you will with the sketches that you make, then you’ll be encouraged to revisit them for future experiments.