Title: Analytical representations of creative processes in Michael Finnissy’s Second String Quartet
Abstract: Background in music analysis. Music analysts traditionally take the score as their subject
matter but have more recently begun studying music ‘as performance’. This development poses
new challenges for analysts exploring alternative texts to the notated score. An ethnographic
approach involving the composer and performers brings more voices into play than has been
the case for traditional music-analytical approaches.
Background in music technology. Music technologists work with software creatively and
programming languages such as Cycling 74’s Max/MSP provide a versatile and powerful
means of constructing software that can present and manipulate sound recordings, video, text
and still images in a structured environment. Such techniques can also be of use in music
analysis.
Aims. Composer-performer interactions that took place during the rehearsal of Michael
Finnissy’s Second String Quartet, help to establish a network of relationships between different
layers of the musical structure. By adapting the techniques and methodologies that Clarke has
developed for analyzing electroacoustic music the aim is to provide an informative, interactive
tool for navigating through the different musical parameters of the piece.
Main contribution. From a variety of primary source material documenting the creative and
interpretative processes, this paper explores the interface between performative, analytical and
aural approaches to musical structure. Clarke’s ‘interactive aural’ approach is expanded for
Finnissy’s piece to accommodate the variety of written, aural and visual media that the piece
has generated. The approach applied to these materials enables the ‘reader’ to engage with them
in an integrated and creative manner in exploring the structure of this music.
Implications for musical practice. The software developed for this project will help to
promote multimedia techniques for music analysis more broadly and will enable the work of
other composers and performers to be disseminated in ways that will further enhance our
understanding of creative processes by actively involving the reader in the analytical process.
Implications for musicological interdisciplinarity. In recent years music analysis has
broadened to take into account music as it sounds, as it is performed. By bringing together
expertise developed in the areas of music analysis and music technology, techniques and
approaches can be developed to enable the aural aspect to be brought into the analysis and
presentation of music together with a range of other multimedia materials resulting from
ethnographical study.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 8
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