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Musical Creativity

Strategies and Tools in Composition and Improvisation

verfasst von: Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Buchreihe : Computational Music Science

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book represents a new approach to musical creativity, dealing with the semiotics, mathematical principles, and software for creativity processes.

After a thorough introduction, the book offers a first practical part with a detailed tutorial for students in composition and improvisation, using musical instruments and music software. The second, theoretical part deals with historical, actual, and new principles of creative processes in music, based on the results and methods developed in the first author’s book Topos of Music and referring to semiotics, predicative objects, topos theory, and object-oriented concept architectures. The third part of the book details four case studies in musical creativity, including an analysis of the six variations of Beethoven's sonata op. 109, a discussion of the creative process in a CD coproduced in 2011 by the first and second authors, a recomposition of Boulez’s "Structures pour deux pianos" using the Rubato software module BigBang developed by the third author, and the Escher theorem from mathematical gesture theory in music.

This is both a textbook addressed to undergraduate and graduate students of music composition and improvisation, and also a state-of-the-art survey addressed to researchers in creativity studies and music technology. The book contains summaries and end-of-chapter questions, and the authors have used the book as the main reference to teach an undergraduate creativity studies program and also to teach composition. The text is supported throughout with musical score examples.

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Frontmatter

1. What the Book Is About

Abstract

This book is about creativity. After a short introduction (Part I), it presents its practical aspects in a tutorial (Part II), the theoretical background (Part III), and four extensive case studies (Part IV).

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

2. Oniontology: Realities, Communication, Semiotics, and Embodiment of Music

Abstract

Before we embark on the detailed investigation of musical creativity, we should ask about the localization of such creation: Where are those works which composers and improvisers are generating? And also: Where are the generative processes and gestures located, and is there an option to view all these objects and activities in a big existential topography?

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

Practice

Frontmatter

3. The Tutorial

Abstract

This book has two parts, a first practical one, and a second theoretical one. We have decided to prepend the practical part because we believe it is possible and also our obligation to the students and instructors to access creativity without having to go through heavy theories. Those who want to learn about more theoretical topics will find a lot of theory and case studies in the theoretical part.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

4. The General Method of Creativity

Abstract

While we give a theoretically founded presentation of creativity, its history, present trends, and our own approach in chapters 17, 18, and 19, we want to describe here the essentials of our approach to creativity in practical terms to be used in the tutorial.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

5. Getting Off the Ground

Abstract

The following tutorial is not a full-fledged syllabus, but it should give you, as a student or as an instructor, enough information to complete such a syllabus and to run through a course in creative musical composition applying creative pedagogy. For convenience, in the tutorial, we use the term “composition” to represent both, composition and improvisation.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

6. Motivational Aspects

Abstract

This is the very beginning of our tutorial. In this initial unit, we want to approach creatively the very motivation you, the student, may discover and set up for the entire study lying ahead: more precisely, for the will to compose music.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

7. Rhythmical Aspects

Abstract

We now suppose that you found your motivation to delve into the art and business of inventing music.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

8. The Pitch Aspect

Abstract

When shaping the body of time in music, we have to think about what material we want to distribute over time. Time as such has no sensual quality: You don’t see, smell, hear, touch it. We need to think about what is being dealt with in time.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

9. The Harmonic Aspect

Abstract

Harmony is a magic word in music theory and practice. It is not only a technical term but also refers to more transcendental layers of existence. In ancient Greece, harmony was the ultimate ground of the universe. In Pythagorean philosophy, the ultimate formula of the universe was their tetractys, a triangular arrangement of ten points starting at the base with 4, then 3, then 2, then 1 on top. You have already seen in the previous chapter on intervals that the successive ratios of these triangular numbers—2/1, 3/2, 4/3—are the intervals of an octave, perfect fifth, and perfect fourth. So the tetractys was the universal law behind both music and the universe. This formula was an expression of harmony since these intervals were considered to be particularly agreeable, or “consonant,” as music theorist call them. In opposition to consonant intervals, they speak of “dissonant” intervals; for example, the minor second or the tritone are dissonant and sound less agreeable to many persons—but not all. We come back to these interval qualities in tutorial 11 about counterpoint.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

10. Melodic Aspects

Abstract

Melody is a central aspect of musical creation. In most popular music, the melody is the only characteristic feature that is retained and memorized by everybody. This is certainly also due to the fact that the human voice is the first of all valid musical instruments, and that melody relates to music for and by human voices. Knowing this dominant role of melody, many instructors stress composing cantabile (in a singing manner) and then also performing as if one were singing—even on instruments (such as the piano) where this approach is somewhat artificial in view of their mechanical construction (the piano being more a percussive than a melodic instrument). Mozart was in fact famous for his “oily flowing” pianistic attack.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

11. The Contrapuntal Aspect

Abstract

Counterpoint is perhaps the most critical topic when it comes to the search for creativity. In fact, counterpoint is strictly codified and taught as a sort of catechism of classical compositional discipline in polyphony, the art of combining several voices to a balance interplay. In its most formalized shape, counterpoint has been described in Johann Joseph Fux’s famous treatise in 1725, Gradus ad Parnassum (Fux, 1725). It was written in Bach’s time but consciously refers to Fux’s idol Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (February 2, 1526 (or possibly February 3, 1525) - February 2, 1594). In the foreword, Fux even stresses his conservative position: “Why should I be doing so (writing about music) just at this time when music has become almost arbitrary and composers refuse to be bound by any rules and principle, detesting the very name of school and law like death itself.”

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

12. Instrumental Aspects

Abstract

After a series of abstract sound-oriented topics of creativity we want to consider a practical aspect of music: musical instruments and how they are played by humans. We give an in-depth description of the physical theory of instruments in the theory chapter 21, and especially in section 21.1.2 devoted to technical question regarding the making of sound. Here we focus on the creative rather than the descriptive aspect: How can we be creative when we play an instrument?

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

13. Creative Aspects of Musical Systems: The Case of Serialism

Abstract

In this tutorial we want to think about dealing creatively with a given musical system. There are many such systems—the traditional Western tonal system is one of them, and other cultures have their own systems, such as Indian Raga with its mela scales, or the traditional Korean musics like Pansori, Pungmul, Sanjo, Nongak, etc. with pentatonic scales. In what follows, we want to investigate a system that is an ideal candidate for such a reflection: the serial composition technique. It is an ideal candidate for our tutorial because it has been invented from scratch; it has no dark and complex historical roots and can be viewed as an experiment in musical composition systems. Moreover, the serial system is particularly simple and explicit. Its rules are clear, and it is operated more like a game than a deep musical thought. It has inspired musical composition during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century but has also paralyzed essential aspects of music, such as new directions in harmony or generalized tonality. Serialism was invented in pitch dimension under the title of dodecaphonic composition technique by Arnold Schoenberg around 1921 and realized in his first dodecaphonic composition, the Waltz for Piano, op. 23, No. 5. Later, the dodecaphonic idea was extended to all other parameters—duration, loudness, and attack—and then called serialism.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

14. Large Form Aspects

Abstract

The topic of large forms is a culmination of our previous tutorials: All of them converge to this one, as can be seen from the leitfaden (Figure 3.1). This means that large forms use all of the preceding aspects: systemic, contrapuntal, and instrumental—of course including their own predecessors.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

15. Community Aspects

Abstract

This tutorial unit and the next one are a bit different from the preceding ones because these two touch less on the music and more on the human conditions that define the composer’s existence: community and commercial aspects. But we believe that they are nonetheless important to understand the shape music gives to composers’ lives as its creators.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

16. Commercial Aspects

Abstract

When you have put all the ingredients together, from community to large form, you are confronted with the most annoying question: Where will I be positioned in the local or global marketplace? After all, you want or have to make a living out of your profession as a composer. Of course, you can become a teacher or even a university professor of composition and then you have also answered the survival question, but this is not our concern here. We want to think about earning money as a composer, not as a teacher.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

Theory

Frontmatter

17. Historical Approaches

Abstract

Historically, creativity was reserved for divine instances, which accordingly were also called creators. Humans were never endowed with the genuine capability of creating anything.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

18. Present Approaches

Abstract

Since we are proposing strategies and tools for being creative, it is necessary to briefly focus on contemporary theories that deal with describing the creative process. Before giving an overview of such theories, we will come back to the questions asked in the introduction to this section and attempt to give present-day answers to them that also reflect our view presented in this book.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

19. Our Approach

Abstract

This chapter presents two versions of our approach to creativity. First (section 19.1) we discuss this approach from a semiotic point of view. This is also the more accessible presentation since it does not rely on mathematical formalism. It is however connected to the second version (section 19.2) which relies on category theory. This means that both versions have corresponding components, but the mathematical one shows them as processes that are formalized in terms of functors.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

20. Principles of Creative Pedagogy

Abstract

The concept of a creative pedagogy as an approach to creative teaching was introduced by Andrei Aleinikov in 1989. We summarize its theoretical and practical aspects and discuss its realization when introducing our concept of creativity. We conclude with the special situation of creative pedagogy in musical education, where not only the methodological aspect of this pedagogy relates to creativity (which would be the case in general education in chemistry or physics, for example), but also the creative activity of a composer or improviser.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

21. Acoustics, Instruments, Music Software, and Creativity

Abstract

This chapter is about technological issues of music and therefore might be more interesting to those who deal with technology, for example in computer music, studio recording and postproduction, or new electronic instruments. However, this chapter is not a standard exposition of acoustics and music hardware and software as may be found in textbooks about music technology, such as (Hosken, 2011; Mazzola, 2006). We shall discuss those contents but with emphasis on their potential roles as tools for musical creativity.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

22. Creativity in Composition and Improvisation

Abstract

Composition and improvisation are two forms of musical creation. Although they are different, they share a number of characteristic features. We are not going to claim their equivalence or even essential identity. But we shall focus on the aspect of creativity they share, and we shall try to prove that this aspect is—albeit complementary—essentially of equal weight in the creation of musical works. We shall more precisely make clear that composition and improvisation turn out to be two ramifications of one and the same creative strategy: There is always composition in the genesis of improvisation, and vice versa.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

Case Studies

Frontmatter

23. The CD Passionate Message

Abstract

This chapter is about a shared creative production of a CD, entitled Passionate Message, by two pianists, Joomi Park and Guerino Mazzola. It is a work that was prepared during five months, January to May 2011. We planned to record four series, and each series has three layers: A compositional component by Joomi, a corresponding ‘comment’ by Guerino, and an improvisation on two pianos by Joomi and Guerino. The last series is a bit different. It starts with an improvisation (not a composition) by Joomi, a further comment by Guerino, and again a shared piano duo improvisation.

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

24. The Escher Theorem

Abstract

The Escher Theorem was first proved and discussed in the context of mathematical gesture theory (Mazzola and Andreatta, 2007; Mazzola, 2009). We shall review the theorem here as a case study relating to explicit strategies for creativity. This theorem was first applied to describe creative strategies in free jazz, see (Mazzola and Cherlin, 2009).

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

25. Boulez: Structures Recomposed

Abstract

In (Boulez, 1989), Pierre Boulez describes a compositional strategy called analyse créatrice, creative analysis, which is opposed to what he calls “sterile academic” analysis in that the analytical results are used as germs to create new compositions. Before discussing Boulez’s ideas in detail, we should stress that his procedure transcends the purely analytical or compositional activities: He proposes a coherent double activity that includes both analysis and composition. This means that our own discourse in this chapter will deal with both, analysis and composition, the latter more specifically realized by use of the music composition software RUBATO^® (Mazzola et al., 1996).

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

26. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata opus 109: Six Variations

Abstract

This case study illustrates the mathematical variant of our concept of creativity as discussed in section 19.2. The musical example we are looking at in this chapter is the third movement of Beethoven’s piano Sonata in E-major, op. 109, which is a sequence of six variations on the sonata’s main theme, and which is titled “Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung” (“Lyrical, with deepest sentiment”). We mainly follow the brilliant analysis by Jürgen Uhde (1974, p. 465 ff.).

Guerino Mazzola, Joomi Park, Florian Thalmann

Backmatter

Titel: Musical Creativity
verfasst von: Guerino Mazzola
Joomi Park
Florian Thalmann
Copyright-Jahr: 2011
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-642-24517-6
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-24516-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24517-6

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