Music Of Changes
''Music of Changes'' is a piece for solo piano by John Cage. Composed in 1951 for pianist and friend David Tudor, it is a ground-breaking piece of indeterminate music. The process of composition involved applying decisions made using the ''I Ching'', a Chinese classic text that is commonly used as a divination system. The ''I Ching'' was applied to large charts of sounds, durations, dynamics, tempo and densities. History of composition ''Music of Changes'' was the second work Cage composed to be fully indeterminate in some sense (the first is '' Imaginary Landscape No. 4'', completed in April 1951, and the third movement of ''Concerto for prepared piano'' also used chance), and the first instrumental work that uses chance throughout. He was still using magic square-like charts to introduce chance into composition, when, in early 1951, Christian Wolff presented Cage with a copy of the ''I Ching'' (Wolff's father published a translation of the book at around the same time).. This ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Music For Piano (Cage)
''Music for Piano'' is a series of 85 indeterminate musical compositions for piano by American avant-garde composer John Cage. All of these works were composed by making paper imperfections into sounds using various kinds of chance operations. General information The use of paper imperfections was suggested by fast techniques in painting. Cage recounts that using the ''I Ching'' was always a very slow process. In 1952 a dancer (probably Jo Anne Melcher, the dedicatee of ''Music for Piano 1'') made a request for a piece of music which was needed urgently, and Cage had to find a way to speed up the process: Certainly I intended to continue working ..by consulting the ''I Ching'' as usual. But I also wanted to have a very rapid manner of writing a piece of music. Painters, for example, work slowly with oil and rapidly with water colors ..I looked at my paper, and I found my "water colors": suddenly I saw that the music, all the music, was already there. A description of the proces ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Grove Music Online
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theory of music. Earlier editions were published under the titles ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', and ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''; the work has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as an electronic resource called ''Grove Music Online'', which is now an important part of ''Oxford Music Online''. ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' was first published in London by Macmillan and Co. in four volumes (1879, 1880, 1883, 1889) edited by George Grove with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland in the fourth volume. An Index edited by Mrs. E. Wodehouse was issued as a separate volume in 1890. In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Darmstädter Ferienkurse
Darmstädter Ferienkurse ("Darmstadt Summer Course") is a regular summer event of contemporary classical music in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany. It was founded in 1946, under the name "Ferienkurse für Internationale Neue Musik Darmstadt" (Vacation Courses of International New Music in Darmstadt), as a gathering with lectures and concerts over several summer weeks. Composers, performers, theorists and philosophers of contemporary music met first annually until 1970, and then biannually. The event was organised by the Kranichsteiner Musikinstitut, which was renamed Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD). It is regarded as a leading international forum of contemporary and experimental music with a focus on composition. The festival awards the for performers and young composers. History Overview The Ferienkurse were initiated in 1946 by Wolfgang Steinecke, then responsible for culture in the municipal government of Darmstadt. He directed them until his death in 1961, succeeded by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lectures And Writings
A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history, background, theories, and equations. A politician's speech, a minister's sermon, or even a business person's sales presentation may be similar in form to a lecture. Usually the lecturer will stand at the front of the room and recite information relevant to the lecture's content. Though lectures are much criticised as a teaching method, universities have not yet found practical alternative teaching methods for the large majority of their courses. Critics point out that lecturing is mainly a one-way method of communication that does not involve significant audience participation but relies upon passive learning. Therefore, lecturing is often contrasted to active learning. Lectures delivered by talented speakers can be high ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Perspectives Of New Music
''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was first published by the Princeton University Press, initially supported by the Fromm Music Foundation.David Carson Berry, "''Journal of Music Theory'' under Allen Forte's Editorship," ''Journal of Music Theory'' 50/1 (2006), 21, n49. The first issue was favorably reviewed in the ''Journal of Music Theory'', which observed that Berger and Boretz had produced "a first issue which sustains such a high quality of interest and cogency among its articles that one suspects the long delay preceding the yet-unborn Spring 1963 issue may reflect a scarcity of material up to their standard". However, as the journal's editorial "perspective" coalesced, Fromm became—in the words of David Gable—disenchanted with the "exclusive viewpoint hatcame to dominate" ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Cory Kostelanetz (born May 14, 1940) is an American artist, author, and critic. Birth and Education Kostelanetz was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the conductor Andre Kostelanetz. He has a B.A. (1962) from Brown University and an M.A. (1966) in American History from Columbia University under Woodrow Wilson, NYS Regents, and International Fellowships; he also studied at King's College London as a Fulbright Scholar during 1964-1965.''Directory of American Scholars'', 6th ed. (Bowker, 1974), Vol. I, p. 350. He is the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation (1967), Pulitzer Foundation (1965), the DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogramm (1981–1983), Vogelstein Foundation (1980), Fund for Investigative Journalism (1981), Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2001), CCLM (1981), ASCAP (1983 annually to the present), American Public Radio Program Fund (1984), and the National Endowment for the Arts with ten individual awards (1976, 1978, 1979, 1981, 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edition Peters
Edition Peters is a classical music publisher founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1800. History The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühnel (1770–1813) opened a concern in Leipzig known as the "Bureau de Musique." Along with publishing, the new firm included an engraving and printing works and a retail shop for selling printed music and instruments. Among its earliest publications were collections of chamber music works by Haydn and Mozart. When Hoffmeister departed for Vienna in 1805, the firm had already issued several works by the then new Viennese composer, Ludwig van Beethoven (Opp. 19-22; 39-42). Kühnel continued publishing new works, adding those of composers Daniel Gottlob Türk, Václav Tomášek, and Louis Spohr, all of whom went on to have a long relationship with the firm. After Kühnel's death, the enterprise was sold to Carl Friedrich Peters (1779–1827), a Le ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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String Piano
String piano is a term coined by American composer-theorist Henry Cowell (1897–1965) to collectively describe those pianistic extended techniques in which sound is produced by direct manipulation of the strings, instead of or in addition to striking the piano's keys. Pioneered by Cowell in the 1920s, such techniques are now often called upon in the works of avant-garde classical music composers. Techniques String piano compositions can involve a wide range of techniques. Among those employed by Cowell, the first major proponent of the approach, are: *plucking (pizzicato) *flicking back and forth across a string with a fingernail (similar to a mandolin tremolo) *sweeping chromatically across the strings with the fingers *sweeping across the strings with the flat of the hand (producing a tone cluster) *sweeping along one or more strings with the flesh of the finger(s) *scraping along one or more strings with the fingernail(s) Strings may also be pressed at specific points along ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Note Head
In music, a notehead is the part of a note, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the staff indicates the pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate duration. Noteheads may be the same shape but colored completely black or white, indicating the note value (i.e., rhythmic duration). In a whole note, the notehead, shaped differently than shorter notes, is the only component of the note. Shorter note values attach a stem to the notehead, and possibly beams or flags. The longer double whole note can be written with vertical lines surrounding it, two attached noteheads, or a rectangular notehead.Gerou, Tom & Lusk, Linda''Essential Dictionary of Music Notation''.Alfred Music, 1996, p. 210. An "x" shaped notehead may be used to indicate percussion, percussive effects (ghost notes), or speaking. A square, diamond, or box shaped notehead may be used to indicate a natural or artificial harmonic. A small notehead can be used to indicate a grace note. History Not ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stem (music)
In musical notation, stems are the, "thin, vertical lines that are directly connected to the otehead." Stems may point up or down. Different-pointing stems indicate the voice for polyphonic music written on the same staff. Within one voice, the stems usually point down for notes on the middle line or higher, and up for those below. If the stem points up from a notehead, the stem originates from the right-hand side of the note, but if it points down, it originates from the left. If there are multiple notes beamed together, the stem's direction is defined by the average of the lowest and highest notes in the beam. There is an exception to this rule: if a chord contains a second, the stem runs between the two notes with the higher being placed on the right of the stem and the lower on the left. If the chord contains an odd numbered cluster of notes a second apart (such as C, D, E), the outer two will be on the correct side of the stem, while the middle note will be on the wrong s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Quarter Note
A quarter note (American) or crotchet ( ) (British) is a note (music), musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless stem (music), stem. The stem usually points upwards if it is below the middle line of the musical staff, staff, and downwards if it is on or above the middle line. An upward stem is placed on the right side of the notehead, a downward stem is placed on the left (see image). The Unicode symbol is U+2669 (♩). A quarter rest (music), rest (or crotchet rest) denotes a silence of the same duration as a quarter note. It typically appears as the symbol , or occasionally, as the older symbol .''Rudiments and Theory of Music'' Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, London 1958. I,33 and III,25. The former section shows both forms without distinction, the latter the "old" form only. The book was the Official ABRSM theory manual in the UK ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |