Tomorrow I will present the following at a postgraduate conference in Leeds: Defining compositional material is not straightforward. Much of existing literature suggests there are many varied perspectives on this that are ultimately dependent upon each individual composer’s personal approach to writing music. As such, it can be argued that compositional material is an individual strategy for composing. Taking on this perspective, and with reference to my own work, this presentation explores a personal definition for compositional material by way of a particular compositional approach: improvisation. It is my current hypothesis that improvisation not only embodies a middle ground between … Continue reading Considering Expression as Compositional Material: ‘Improvisation is the Middle Ground between Composing and Performing’ or ‘Using Improvisation in Live Performance as a Compositional Technique’

Tomorrow I will present a paper at a postgraduate symposium in Leeds. This presentation forms part of my ongoing PhD research. An abstract is included below: One can investigate the compositional process in terms of the conflict between restriction and freedom. Restriction can take many forms, some of which are imposed by logistics (for example, instrumental practicalities and performer ability), and others which are imposed by the composer (such as macro- and micro-level patterning processes and extra-musical concepts). These often then become the basis of stylistic conventions and, in a way, ‘knowledge’. Freedom exists in symbiotic relation to restriction, and … Continue reading The Composer’s Paradox: An Exploration of Restriction and Freedom in the Compositional Process

Tomorrow I will present the following at a postgraduate conference in Leeds. The research is still in development. An abstract is included below: The process of encountering a work of art potentially involves a hidden ‘violent’ event. In ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, Martin Heidegger portrays the encounter with an artwork as entailing a dynamic strife-filled ‘world’ of sociocultural and historical relations and signifiers that is paradoxically both autonomous and reliant on human interaction. Although Heidegger explains that the overall interpretation of such a work of art is not violent, but transports the receiver into an ‘openness’ opened … Continue reading A Violent Encounter? : Notions of Hidden ‘Violence’ in Compositional Thoughts, Acts, and Encounters with the Work of Art

I presented the following at the ‘Music and/as Process’ Symposium in Huddersfield last summer.  Although my research has developed since then, this presentation is still relevant to my current perspective on music’s relationship with society. More than anything else, though, I am fascinated with Michel Foucault’s article ‘Of Other Spaces’. His concept of ‘Heterotopia’ opens up  a perspective on society that resonates with my own ideas about composition. Art is invariably a social event and we must acknowledge this in our quest to explore its mechanics. An awareness of Foucault’s ‘Heterotopology’ can potentially guide the compositional process and expand the existing perspective of semiotics that music and … Continue reading Considering Compositional ‘Spaces’ as ‘Heterotopias’: ‘Music and/as Process’ Symposium