Stressful weeks!

In my Contemporary Performace Practice seminar the only real grade is the final presentation and paper.  I've known about it all semester, I've had my topic loosely chosen since the beginning of October and of course three weeks ago I was sick on the day we signed up for the presentation and I got tomorrow, instead of after thanksgiving.  This is a blessing and a curse in that I only had a few weeks to get it all ready, but I would be done before thanksgiving and I could write the paper over the "break" (in quotes because UNT only give thurs and friday off). 

Of course the focus on my topic has shifted throughout my reseatch and I finally have a solid topic.  I am exploring the strictness of time in some proportionally notated works by Toru Takemitsu.  If you aren't a musician what that means is Takemitsu wrote a few pieces that don't have defined time-divisions (like a meter with tempo [remember from band a time signature 'four-four' and a tempo 'Quarter = 90 beats per minute]) but with gestures of notes with no clearly quantized (lined up) rhythms.  While this is really an oversimplification, it's the best I can do.  What typical performers see when they see proportional notation is freedom and expression.  They think they can hold notes longer because it may be a note that is to be held for 4 to 6 seconds, which gives them an option for how long they hold the note.

What I am proving through Bryce, Water-ways, and Rain Spell is that Takemitsu did not intend for the spatial notation to give hte performers licence to alter the time more than he has allowed.  There is very intricate timing-cues and event orderings that make the piece sound how it does.  If a careless ensemble were to perform these works they could really mess up the sound by being lazy.  Contant diligence is required by the performers to be listening and knowing the other parts to see how they incorporate into the fray. 

I am especially interested in this because my new string quartet has many minutes of spatial notation and I've been frustrated with my quartet for not knowing how to interpret it and I have to explain it and count it for them.  Spatial notation is nothing new, but apparently it's not dogma quite yet, and how to interpret it is even farther behind than even knowing what it is.  I am hoping to bridge some kind of gap for performers on what the composer's intent it and how to interact with the music.

At any rate, I've found this very interesting and useful to my research interests.  I also really love the music.  If you want to hear bits of Bryce  or Rain Spell go to this page and have a listen for a minute.  It's really beautiful, exotic stuff.