Multi-Tempi Scores

[Josh Feldman]

Hi all,

I’m looking for examples of scores that notate different tempi simultaneously. If you can direct me to any such scores, it would be a great help.

Thanks,
Josh

[Kevin Austin]

Start with Charles Ives, notably the second movement of the Symphony No. 4, and the Concord Sonata. Other pieces have the ‘multiple marching bands’, and he leaves a number of questions unanswered.

You may want to delimit your question a little first as there is the Mozart polymeter in Don Giovanni which could be polytempo with a common pulse. Sometimes called cross-rhythm. The characteristic being that the cycles of beats align, for example a 4 beat cycle and a 5 beat cycle will align after 20 beats.

See also Henry Cowell, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cowell, and New Musical Resources.

Conlon Nancarrow and the Player Piano Studies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlon_Nancarrow

Elliott Carter and metric modulation.

One of the major orchestral pieces is Stockhausen’s Gruppen, for three orchestras. There are a couple of recordings and some videos. Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqvlrphkGAU&spfreload=10

Henry Brant, however I do not know the scores so cannot say whether there were multiple conductors, ie, multiple tempi. I think there may have been, as in 1969-70 I composed a 12 minute piece, Games, for 12 brass, saxophone quartet, six flutes [thanks to the Unanswered Question], and organ after reading about Cowell and Brant.

Three conductors were required as the brass were in a high balcony, the saxophones in the middle of the audience, and the flutes were on stage. The ensembles only played together briefly at ‘cadences’, or points of articulation. There were no shared tempi to speak of. Sections of the flute part and the organ were in spatial notation. The piece was played once.

This was an outgrowth of a 1968 piece, Characters in Slow Motion, for woodwind quintet drawing heavily on the ideas of metric modulation from the early Carter works, notably the Eight Etudes and a Fantasy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_modulation. In a reading of Characters it was clear that the performers could not reliably perform in tempi related by irrational amounts, such as q = 50, q = 60 and q = 70, and maintain a sense of ‘character’ — an idea drawing heavily on Carter. To solve this I rewrote the score [on graph paper] and the parts in spatial notation with something like “10 seconds per line”. The performance demands were far too heavy for the available ensemble.

But times and hearing change. The Pacifica Quartet have released a recording of the complete Carter Quartets, http://www.amazon.com/Elliott-Carter-Complete-Quartets-Pacifica/dp/B002YOJC7W, where they play with the simplicity, grace, control and precision of performing a Haydn minuet and trio. I would suggest starting with the Fourth Quartet where the ratio of note division between the four parts is 3:4:5:7 or 5:6:7:8.

I find multi-tempo pieces work better with adequate spatial separation of the parts.



Kevin

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[Dean Rosenthal]

What a great question!

Jim Tenney's - Spectral Canon For Conlon Nancarrow

I second H. Cowell big time - I'm not sure he wrote music with multiple tempos, but New Musical Resources, his book, was a watershed and is essential, extraordinary work. His Rhythmicon instrument vision discussed in that book remains unrealized, I believe, but may be one of the first instances of the idea of creating an instrument.

I wish I could say there was a good Dean Rosenthal piece that successfully addressed multiple tempos, but there isn't one, as far as I know.

DR




--
Dean Rosenthal
www.deanrosenthal.org

[Mark AC Summers]

Xenakis' Persephassa has some, there's an example in figure 5 of this: http://www.pas.org/docs/default-source/thesisdissertations/historical-backgrounds-and-musical-development-of-iannis-xenakis's-persephassa.pdf?sfvrsn=0

[Peter Castine]

I recently edited a manuscript on Henry Brant that gave an overview of several of his scores (and argued that Stockhausen was probably aware of Brant's work while composing Gruppen). I don't recall all the details, but could review and report a few relevant details if there is interest. Christa Brüstle would know this repertoire better than I, but I don't know if she follows this list.

Switching to self-promotion mode, I used independent tempi consistently in two pieces: Ophelia und die Wörter (1979, opera) and The Phoenix Lament (2009, 12 flutes in three consorts). 

In Ophelia there are musicians on stage playing to click tracks (while the conductor in the pit has to follow an independent click track, all to synchronize with the tape part–pity the musicians, but it seemed to make sense with the technology of the day). 

In Phoenix each flute "consort" plays "normally", but each consort in a different tempo and the three consort are synchronized by cross-cueing. In performance it proved advantageous for the leader of each consort to have a metronome (muted, with LED) to prevent the individual tempi from drifting too much.

Like many composers, I have also had other pieces where for short periods individual players play independently of the rest of the ensemble. This comes up frequently enough that it is perhaps not of specific interest—you've presumably seen the "ignore the conductor" score extract that rears its head on Facebook regularly?

I may have missed some commentary on this thread… has Cage been mentioned? In particular, the Number Pieces that use "time bracket" notation seem relevant.

HtH,

-- Peter

[Kevin Austin]

In a very fundamental sense, Reich’s “Come Out” is a multi-tempo piece, it’s just that the two / four etc tempi are less than 1% apart. This is hinted at in a number of the Nancarrow Studies, and made explicit in many of them by having irrational tempo relationships between the ‘voices’. I find auditory streaming of these pieces difficult as the instrument is a homogeneous sound and many of the Studies have voice crossings.

One ear-training exercise I developed to try to get better at hearing this was to take two, three or four versions of the same work, and play them at the same time. With two loudspeakers in near-field condition it can be a challenge when the performances are similar, with headphones I found it a little easier. I would use slower movements from Bach Passions, as there was also the possibility of slight pitch standard differences which helped in the streaming, and the subsequent hearing of poly-tempi. I was often reminded of the cat in Matrix. When played over four widely separated speakers, the streaming of the tempi was considerably easier.

When I was younger, I would often hear two pieces of music in my head at the same time, an effect I could never duplicate in the audio domain. It is / was as if the two pieces existed in different ‘worlds’ that did not conflict with each other.


Kevin

[Kevin Austin]

Thanks. A wonderful reference for many related topics. I remember finding the Paul Price LPs in the ‘reduced’ bin in a record store and got one for $1.49.

http://www.amazon.com/Song-Quetzalcoatl-Music-Percussion-Instruments/dp/B006PNPX44

Kevin

[James Phelps]

Last paragraph intriguing indeed, Kevin!  

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From: Kevin Austin <kevin....@videotron.ca>
To: cec-con...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2015 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: [cec-c] Multi-Tempi Scores

Kevin

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[Josh Feldman]

Thanks so much to those who replied with suggestions. There is so much amazing material here. So far I’ve come across only two solutions:

1) Notate the different tempi on regular staff paper and “simulate” the time difference by changing how much space each bar takes up, like in Persephassa.

2) Graphic notation

My follow up question is, is anyone familiar with any digital implementation for either of these methods? As far as I know, Sibelius and Finale aren’t capable of notating multiple tempi.

Thanks,

Josh

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[Pierre Couprie]

Hello Josh,

Did you try Open Music? As far as I know, Jean Bresson, developer of Open Music, is working on a similar system (research project EFFICACE).

Best,

Pierre

Le 26 avr. 2015 à 18:52, Josh Feldman <joshfe...@gmail.com> a écrit :

Thanks so much to those who replied with suggestions. There is so much amazing material here. So far I’ve come across only two solutions:

1) Notate the different tempi on regular staff paper and “simulate” the time difference by changing how much space each bar takes up, like in Persephassa.

<Screen Shot 2015-04-26 at 12.49.06 PM.png>

[Michael Palumbo]

Hi Josh,

I just came across this library for Kontakt, Sibelius, and Max last week: http://sourceforge.net/projects/microtones/ I haven’t used it yet, though. 

Cheers,

Michael

----

Michael Palumbo

in...@palumbomichael.com
www.palumbomichael.com

[Kevin Austin]

Simplified, Finale used to work on a two-dimensional database matrix where one column of the table is one bar. The column cells represent each instrument. A four bar piece, with five instruments would be a table 4 cells by 5 cells. The cell would contain the entry data for duration, MIDI note number, and other aspects of the visual representation of the cell / bar.

Depending on what you are trying to do, the creation of a score, a MIDI-stration of the score, an audio representation of the piece, etc, will determine how far the ‘cell-based’ data structure can take you. If you want to end up with an audio representation, this would best be done with software that is designed to do this, that is, a sequencer with high quality instrument sample libraries.

If there are, for example three tempi, create three ‘Finale' files, and export the information as MIDI files, opening them in the sequencer. If the sequencer demands beats and tempo, create three files, create the audio files, and place these inside another file. With tweaking, if necessary, a viable audio representation could be prepared. The piece would likely be best assembled from smaller sections to avoid the accumulation of rounding errors. [And the tooth fairy had said that the 2048th note was a myth!]

For another example, see sections 4 & 5 of Gruppen where the three overlapping tempi are q=107, q=101, q=113.5 or in milliseconds, 561, 594 and 528. [!!] 33 ms is apparently the largest common factor.

Regarding getting a good looking score, this is, IME, a different problem altogether because the score would have to be laid out on graph paper that represented relationships. A lone measure with a whole note is not ‘simply’ the same size as a measure with 16 sixteenth notes with/without accidentals etc.

To have the word of a master, contact jef chippewa at shir...@newmusicnotation.com and http://newmusicnotation.com/index.html.

Kevin

On 2015, Apr 26, at 12:52 PM, Josh Feldman <joshfe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks so much to those who replied with suggestions. There is so much amazing material here. So far I’ve come across only two solutions:

1) Notate the different tempi on regular staff paper and “simulate” the time difference by changing how much space each bar takes up, like in Persephassa.

<Screen Shot 2015-04-26 at 12.49.06 PM.png>

[Kevin Austin]

The cite says:

− precise polyphonic playback of microtonal music with Kontakt and Max/MSP, without the requirement for pitch bends (the standard playback system of Sibelius is limited to monodies, and its use of pitch bends entails undesired pitch glitches in the rendering)

Would you know how microtonal intervals are achieved with MIDI note numbers without the use of pitchbend?

Kevin

[Bennett Dobni]

Great find Michael! 

Also, Open Music may be promising for these realms. If you want an option that is hosted within Max/MSP, check out the incredibly flexible bach~ bundle. 

http://www.bachproject.net/home

A more simple bundle in the same domain is note~.

http://www.noteformax.net/data/index.php/en/homepage

I prefer the simplicity of note~ however bach~ is quite obviously more flexible, the learning curve is steeper. 

[Bennett Dobni]

The pitch 'adjustment' information [deviation from a standard MIDI note number] appears to be transmitted via 'poly aftertouch' [also known as 'polyphonic pressure']. 

Kontakt scripting is certainly capable of performing the same decoding from one MIDI domain [poly aftertouch] to 'cents' pitch deviation. 

--

[Peter Castine]

When I was looking for a way to build a score for Phoenix Lament (three different simultaneous tempi), I was advised that it would be possible to that with SCORE.

I'm not sure to what extent the software is currently maintained, but I understand there are still people out there using it.

-- Peter

[Josh Feldman]

Thank you!

I have investigated OM, note~ and bach~. Bach~ looks most appropriate  (and fun!) so far, especially given my comfort in max/msp. I will take a look at SCORE as well. 

J

[SN jef chippewa]

3) no score, only parts

see lutoslawski's string quartet for
"independent" voices. your fundamental problem
is of course coordination across instruments.
which may or may not be a problem, depending on
the music.

or, in finale, one solution (really only feasible
in small ensembles) is to have only a performance
score, set one measure per system (no barlines)
and use invisible tuplets to create the different
tempo voices and a line (expression tool) for a
barline wherever needed.

>Thanks so much to those who replied with
>suggestions. There is so much amazing material
>here. So far I¹ve come across only two solutions:
>
>1) Notate the different tempi on regular staff
>paper and ³simulate² the time difference by
>changing how much space each bar takes up, like
>in Persephassa.
>

>2) Graphic notation
>
>My follow up question is, is anyone familiar
>with any digital implementation for either of
>these methods? As far as I know, Sibelius and
>Finale aren¹t capable of notating multiple tempi.

--

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[DEGEM / Annesley Black]

suggestions for spatial notation in notation programmes:
make an invisible (hidden) system with your smallest rhythmic division.
specify the amount of millimetres this rhythmic division should have.
Then all other systems will relate to this amount of millimetres. if you
need different spatial notations for different pages, then make new
documents for them. i don't know how that works in finale but in
sibelius it does.
you can hide 'tuplets and the likes in the other systems and insert the
tempi as a symbol/text.

or work with a graphic programme (like illustrator) where everything is
in millimetres anyway. it's much more similar to working with the pen, ruler
and paper.

best
ab

[David Mooney]

My solution was to de-MIDI-fy my setup completely and enter precise frequency values as needed (Csound and Kyma).

--David Mooney

On Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 4:26 PM, Kevin Austin <kevin....@videotron.ca> wrote:

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[David Hirst]

I seem to recall that the old Yamaha TX 81Z had micro tuning capabilities, but I don’t recall how that was achieved. There must be a manual for the module on the web.

Warren Burt would surely know all about alternate tunings and MIDI.

cheers,

David

[Bennett Dobni]

I am not familiar with the Yamaha TX 81Z but I can only assume that its micro-tonal capabilities are based on 'pitch  keyboard-scaling', as I have found with my Roland D50 and others. This allows the user to set a simple multiple of a semitone [i.e. 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1 (standard), 2, 3, 4, etc.] as the relationship between adjacent keys.  

[Rick]

has anyone tried this?

http://debussy.music.ubc.ca/NoteAbility/NAfeatures.html

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[James Phelps]

Wow!   Wonder if this is the same one, or offspring thereof, that ran on the NeXT computer back in the 90s?

(showing my age ..... once again)

-Jim

---

From: Rick <rick...@gmail.com>
To: CEC-Conference <cec-con...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2015 10:51 AM

Subject: Re: [cec-c] Multi-Tempi Scores

[colin.l...@gmail.com]

This is Keith Hamel's program. I've used it for one score.. I remember it having a steep learning curve but a very powerful program. I loved that I could drag and drop vectors from illustrator. 

I know Howard Bashaw uses this program and his scores look amazing. He has a lot of proportional notation / intricate cross-rhythms and it seems like the program handles them well.

C

[Alistair MacDonald]

I use it too (on the rare occasions I write for instruments). It allows notes to be either fixed to bar- (measure-) relative points, or to exist as graphic elements, free to move anywhere, so good for proportional notation, which is why it is most useful to me.

Alistair