THE CONTEMPORARY COMPOSER'S GREATEST PROBLEM--AND ITS SOLUTION

by Ivor Darreg (1952?)

In three other articles by this writer ["The place of Electronic Music in Films," published in Film Music Notes; "Streamlined Instruments for the Modern Age," published in the Musical Courier; and "The Coming Electronic Orchestra."], the potentialities of electronic musical instrument designed for solo or orchestral performance have been discussed. Of such instruments, there are two types--the first comprising instruments (usually guitars, violins, etc.) built without soundboxes or other resonators,and played with customary techniques, their tones being electronically amplified, but not electrically generated. The other type, more properly deserving the designation "electrical" or "electronic," uses electric apparatus actually to originate alternating currents, which are then amplified, modified, and converted into sound. Organs of both these types have come into extensive use, and the possibilities of electronic orchestras have also had some recognition.

Many musicians, of course, will prefer the amplified instrument with conventional technique; they have invested years in practice of methods which are not lightly to be discarded. Other more adventuresome will investigate the added resources of the purely electronic instruments, which have added means of controlling their tones not found on ordinary instruments.

The dead weight of tradition hangs heavily on the musical world; pianos are built as grandfather used to make them, while organs and violins are more apt to follow the patterns laid down by great-grandfather...or by ancestors even more remote! Our orchestras are veritable museums, full of assorted antiques painfully evolved through trial-and-error. Thus the adoption of electronic orchestras may be a gradual, piecemeal process spread over decades, though several electronic solo instruments are already in use.

This resistance by performing musicians to the introduction of new orchestral instruments, however, is as nothing compared to the fanatical opposition offered toward new musical compositions by professional players and conductors. Indeed, through over-emphasis on memorization and stick-in-the-rut attitudes toward repertory, many musicians have converted themselves into mindless robots, playing the same old "records" over and over again, with a colorless, expressionless "polish." Music teachers have indoctrinated their pupils with a bias toward "the standard works" (by the way, who sets the standard?) and have studiously and assiduously throttled any tendencies toward original composition on the part of their pupils.

Were the laws against murder not strict, many a composer or liberal-minded musicians would find himself or herslf burned at the stake for musical heresy! Concert performers are held rigidly tot he line by managers and program-note writers; composers are prevented from making a living by composing. The formation of schools and groups of contemporary composers is thwarted because composers are never allowed to hear one another's works if this can at all be prevented. Furthermore, an attitude has been fostered among the general public to this effect: there are only two kinds of music in the universe. One is old, respectable, stiff-collar, long-hair, highbrow stuff. The other is popular music, which is danceable, light and above all streamlined, up-to-date. The existence of SERIOUS MODERN MUSIC is carefully and anxiously ignored by those who would direct the public taste. Why this should be, is not apparent.

Yet, despite the opposition of the concert hall to new compositions, composers discover through personal experience that a considerable audience for new works exists--there can even be found willing listeners for pieces written in extremely ultramodern idioms. The problem, then, is that of giving composers direct access to their audiences. For composers to beat their brains out against the stone wall of conductors,' performers', and publishers' opposition is futile.

Persistence only antagonizes the persistee. All of us resent the won't-let-go type of door-to-door salesman. For the best relations among all concerned, it might be better for the composer to leave the orchestras alone. Let them play the same old things over and over again, ad infinitum et ad nauseum, until they themselves get tired of them, which eventually they will. Happily,there is another way out of the composers' impasse. We need not disturb the sleep of the conventionalists.

Sculptors, painters, writers, lecturers--yes, even cooks!--all reach their audiences directly--no middleman interposes his personality or ideas between artist and "consumer." It is not in any way unfair for the composer to demand this same privilege. And there are at least two ways in which this may be done.

The first of these methods is by no means new in basic principle. The automatically-played musical instrument is of considerable antiquity. The player-piano and the orchestrion improved on the barrel-organ and the music-box by substituting a perforated roll of paper, actuating pneumatic mechanism, for the rather crude earlier system of a revolving drum bearing spikes. However, even the more refined types of pneumatic player-mechanisms have not been able fully to capitalize on their possibilities, since the musical instruments played by them have been restricted to mechanico-acoustic methods of producing tone. It has been of little value to surmount the limitations of human hands, if the instruments played are still the conventional musical instruments of limited resources. The piano, to which player-devices have more often been attached, is not capable of producing sustained tones, nor of varying the quality of its sounds. The pipe organ, whether it be played by a musician at the console, or by a roll, can do no more than turn pipes on and off; the dynamic range obtainable from any one set of pipes is limited by the tone-smothering ability of the well-box in which the pipes maybe enclosed, and tremolo--which should be capable of subtle variation--is rigid and mechanical here. Automatic violins are very restricted as to expression, for no change in force or speed of bowing is possible. Attack variations are also missing, because the non-electrical mechanical violin-players cannot readily be given the ability to manipulate an instrument of the violin family as the human hands can. A further restriction has often been added to those already mentioned--piano rolls are usually cut from the playing of some pianist (organ rolls likewise); no advantage is taken of the fact that a player-piano has eighty-eight "fingers."

With electronically-produced tones, however, the roll could work far more effectively. TImbre, pitch, vibrato of various kinds, attack, release, volume, all the little nuances that give life to a musical performance, could be rendered on the electronic instrument, since the electrical circuit is controllable at all its points, and controllable in ways inconceivable on any ordinary instrument. Indeed, the electronic instrument may sometimes give a better account of itself when automatically played, for one performer might not have enough hands and feet to operate simultaneously all the keys and levers that even a one-note-at-a-time electronic instrument ought to have. (The electronic orchestra employing performers may even need two players at each instrument, one to play the notes and other to take care of the timbre and attack variations.)

The complicated rhythmic patterns and changes of time in contemporary compositions cause trouble to present-day musicians. This is one reason why the so-called common time, or 4/4 measure has been used too much in proportion to the other kinds of meter possible in music. COnductors do not like to beat 7/8 or 2 1/2/ 4; performers can't follow it readily. Let the composer write three groups of two notes each (eight-notes in 3/4) against two groups of three notes each (customarily written 6/8), and the average ensemble will be thrown into confusion. And if one dare to have on part play seven notes while another plays five...! The single player, at piano or organ, will also rebel. But the roll will follow the composer's intentions exactly.

True, a performance may seem too "dead" or "wooden" if the pitches be too exact and the time too metronomically perfect. This need not happen--a roll can be perforated with the most subtle rubato, if the composer knows how to do it.

Many possibilities in rhythm, as just mentioned, and many possibilities in melody, have been rejected by the composer because there is no technique adequate to execute them, and often no instrument capable of rendering them, even were the player able to play such a passage. Also, the introduction of new scale-systems, such as quartertone, the nineteen-tone system, the 53-note system, just intonation, inharmonic tuning for atonal music, has been prevented because the new notations and new techniques required are too much to expect a musician to learn, let along a whole orchestra. Yet such new tuning systems might often afford delightful and refreshing adventure to listeners. Furthers, it has in the past hardly seemed worthwhile to build instruments for new scale-systems if they are to be used only occasionally and for just a few compositions. The roll will not quibble or complain about he tuning-system; many electronic instruments will admit of easy alteration to another tuning.

In addition to the normal method of using the player roll with pneumatic devices, there is also the possibility of using a perforated rolls to actuate electrical circuits directly, through wires resting on the paper where it passes over the tracker-bar, or the use of a roll which is not perforated, but merely coated with electrically conducting ink lines. Holes or ink marks may also be used to actuate photoelectric cells (eye-tubes) through the reflection of light beams. All these methods, though, are not sufficiently different in nature from the pneumatic-player perforated roll to require separate comment.

Leaving the subject of perforated rolls for a moment, there is another method for composing what we may call fixed music. There are several systems of recording and reproducing sound. Besides the familiar disk cut with grooves,there are embossed disks, films, wire, paper tape,and other methods. It is possible to alter in many ways the recording before reproducing it. One may vary the tone quality, change the pitch, alter the order in which the sounds occur, or even prepare an "artificial" record by means other than sound. Attempts have been made from time to time to cut a disk record of the usual type by various mechanical means, but they have not so far been at all successful.. With the perfection of sound-on-film, however, the picture has changed. One might make sound-track records of all the pitches and tone-qualities of existing instruments, and stock a roomful of shelves with reels of film, each bearing such tones as Oboes C sharp, middle octave, Violin Treble D, Bassoon Low A flat, or whatever. Such films could be cut intro strips of the proper length and spliced together to produce the desired composition. The process would be far more practical if one were to use the new tape on which sound is magnetically recorded, though this would entail the difficulty of the recordings being invisible, whereas with the film sound-track one can,in a measure, see what kind of sound has been recorded on it.

Visible sound-tracks of the kind appearing on film can also be prepared by electrochemical processes. This method of composition would have the advantage that mistakes could be more easily corrected--it is rather difficult to un-perforate a roll.

The wave-forms corresponding to sounds can be synthesized in a number of ways and sound-tracks made from them. THus it becomes possible to devise tone-qualities never heard before. Such sound-tracks not only maybe used in automatic instruments, but also as the tone-sources for electronic organs. It is further possible to perform music on special instruments at, say, one-fourth the normal speed--this would greatly simplify performance, and the record played back at normal speed would doubtless give a more precise performance than can be obtained by ordinary means. Some composers might find it agreeable to play an orchestra or chamber-music score one part at a time, recording these parts singly and then uniting them to make the whole. Many other things are possible with recording processes, and several of these methods might be combined in the recording of one composition. Perhaps a typewriter-like machine will be invented which will write out sound-tracks. It might be mentioned here that it is also possible, here and now, to produce song synthetically--words as well as music can be electronically generated.

The popular scientific publications have recently told us about the Eniac and the Univac--those remarkable calculating machines which, in the fraction of a second, do mathematical problems that would take a mathematician weeks or months to solve.

Surely, if such feats as these are possible already, performing a musical composition would be much easier to the electronic "brain." Note well, please, that we are not suggestion composition by robots, nor the adoption of any mechanical scheme of putting notes together to make a symphony. Such an idea is only the ridiculous thought of a heckler trying to confuse the issue.

The mechanical and precise nature of typewriters and of printers' type, to say nothing of duplicating machines and printing presses, has not int eh slightest lessened the inspirational or artistic value of our literature. The spiritual thoughts of poets seem to survive very well the mechanical processes which convey them to the book's printed pages. Nay, more than that: if all books were handwritten, they would be very hard to read, and those few fortunate enough to own copies would tire their eyes and lay the book down long before it was finished. Fear of the machine is not the way to solve the problems our technological world has created. The composer who also uses mechanical and electrical means to express himself does not thereby become the slave of his mechanisms. After all, it should be easier to master and rule a box of tubes, wires, and gears than it would be to conduct a symphony orchestra with seventy-odd people and instruments. At least, the box of coils and condensers and transformers won't talk back and tell the composer that "We won't play that--it's too advanced!"

Th automatically-played electronic musical instrument, whatever form it may take, is only a servant to the composer's inspiration. If the music coming out of the instrument should sound mechanical, it will be composer's fault and nobody else's. He will have only himself to blame. However, he will have the ability to correct all his error, and to re-do the composition until it expresses every shade of what originally was within his mind. This, of course, implies the assuming of great responsibility. Perhaps some composers--or most composers at some times--may not wish to shoulder this responsibility. In that case,they can write for instruments requiring performers, and pass the responsibilities on to the performers, as is now the general case. But the development of composition in general,and of individual composers themselves, will be greatly aided by automatic electronic musical instruments. The knowledge that no one stands between composer and audience is in itself a great satisfaction. Also, interpreters will have a high standard set before them to emulate.

COmposing should not be the rare phenomenon it now is. The musical public, event hose who are not proficient on some instrument, should have the same facilities for composing that everyone now has to write articles or stories. Automatic instruments should help tremendously in this regard.

Many musicians worry about being put out of work by automatic instruments. They should not. The phonograph and radio, as well as the sound film, have had more effect than automatic instruments ever will have. It is more likely that the automatic instrument will encroach on the phonograph than on the existing orchestra. Just as the ordinary musical instruments are suited to the older music, the new electronic instruments are primarily suited to new music. Therefore, automatic electronic musical instruments should find their proper sphere in the interpretation of contemporary and future music, and only for a certain percentage of this--the other portion of new music being played on the electronic instrument requiring their performance. What the present opponents to new instruments are actually railing against is the use of new instruments to perform old music. For that, they have considerable justification. Our contemporary composers should keep the new electronic instruments, automatic and otherwise, so busy that they will have little time of performing compositions of the Romantic Period and earlier. It should be perfectly practical tot leave the present musical world relatively undistrurbed, performing earlier compositiosn on conventional instruments, and with the new devices adding to it rather than supplanting it. Just because ultra-modern novels, poetry and art are produced, people do not stop reading old books and going to the art galleries to view old masters. Why should the situation be any different with regard to music?

The rights of the creative artist must be at least equal to those of the interpretive artist. The present unbalanced condition in the musical world is an unhealthy one and should be eliminated by restoring to the composers their proper standing.