Searching for New Sound - Music Composition ideas

Partch's application of just intonation through a system he called Monophony in which all intervals emerge from one fundamental pitch, rhythm and melody have their origin in the spoken inflection of the text, and performance is based on one voice. His elaboration of Monophony means more than the monophonic texture we normally understand.  Partch discusses the origin of music as monophonic songs. It can be traced to all ancient cultures and modern music cultures that still have a strong connection to ancient practice. China had a tradition of poets/musicians positing a strong connection between words and music, the singer and the poet, which is also reflected in his music. The music with lyrics, songs, usually carried concrete ideas or massage. Important ancient and near-ancient cultures-the Chinese, Greek, Arabian, Indian, Africa, in all of which music was physically allied with poetry or the dance and even further cooperate drama and story. It is Partch descibes as Corporeali...

 Cantonese opera, San Francisco, H. Partch, these three things may sound irrelevant at the first glance. However, these three things documented the very first scene of Chinese music exported to America. In California, where Partch was born, living and dead, Gold Rush first lured them in 1848, Chinese immigrants had come to the United States to work. About 175,000 Chinese immigrants who entered San Francisco through Angel Island between the great earthquake in 1906 and the Exclusion Act's repeal of many Chinese in 1943 by the Magnuson Act. The immigrants also brought with them a desire for entertainment from home, a desire musicians and touring companies eagerly filled as Chinatown prospered.  Chinese opera was regaining its foothold in Chinatown in the 1920s; Cantonese opera flourished from this early start until the 1890s and reached its peak in 1920’s. Mei Lanfang and Ma Shizeng toured the United States in 1930 and 1931–32, respectively. Chinese music kept resurfacing throug...

Li Po (Li Bai)（701－762）is considered one of the most important poets of the Tang Dynasty and when you study Chinese he is the most known poet, Li Po's work has influenced poets and artists across the world, including Ezra Pound, Gustav Mahler, and Patch as well. His talent was recognized by the emperor. Emperor Xuanzong gave Li Po a position at the Hanlin Academy, where he provided poetry and scholarly advice to the Emperor. However, he did not stay longer than 2 years in the position. Mainly his personality could not work with politics and his poems offended the aristocracy. In the later of his life, wars and rebellions devastate the whole country, he ended up as an alcoholic. His poems are romantic and expressive, at the same time, full of sarcasm to the injustice. Partch's parents had spent the years 1888-93 and 1895-1900 in China as Presbyterian missionaries, exposed to the Chinese culture (Gilmore,1992). Partch's mother even sang Chinese lullabies. It is funny to find ...

In Western music, we cannot hear the music by the ancient Greeks since they did not have a system to notate the music before Guido of Arezzo, the development of staff notation in the 10th century.  This also applies to Chinese music. This is an example of the oldest notation of Chinese music in the 7th century. It is a score for guqin (Chinese zither). The notation is text-based ( wenzipu ), telling the performer the playing position (relative pitch) and the playing technique word by word. However, there is no accurate tempo, rhythm, articulation, or tuning. The situation resembles the western staffless neumes. We have the direction but don't know where to start. Listen to the free-flowing rhythm of the example The performance of the score below Text-based notation of Jieshi Diao Youlan The text-based notation is complex, people simplify the notation to tablature ( Jianzipu ) for  guqin in the 10th century .  But the problem of lack of rhythm still was not addre...

No fancy harmony, counterpoint, chord progression, or modulation, just pure melody. This is the style of traditional Chinese music and Claude Vivier's music. In Vivier's Et je reverrai cette ville étrange, the ensemble always plays in unison or strict parallel motion, monophony, one single melody only. This less-is-more approach emphasis on the timbre of the instruments and the timbre combine. Listen to how different instruments combine together, trumpet, viola, piano, cello, double bass, and percussion. The instrumentation itself is wired enough. Listeners do not have harmony or counterpoint distraction.   Vivier's  Et je reverrai cette ville étrange This approach echoes the aesthetic of Chinese music. Only monophony in music is boring, so through the process of Jiahua (ornamenting the main melody), there is a great deal of interplay, rhythmic variation, and imitative figuration in the parts. The musicians rely on their innate musical sense and skill to create...