Composed by Sam Longbottom and Tanguy Pocquet

two variable speed turntables with pulley attachments, fishing line, powdered rosin, classical guitar, acoustic guitar, violin, viola

photo credit - Dimitri Djuric and nonclassical

threaded | spinning | abrading | possibly breaking 4.3.1

Concerning most musical works, one can reasonably say that they unfold within some preexisting musical language (so "language" at least in the sense of a vocabulary governed by a syntax governed by stylistic norms).  On one hand, many conservatives contend that a common language constitutes a minimum prerequisite for "communication," and that that principle makes any fiat language (e.g. Schoenberg's twelve-tone system) fundamentally problematic; on the other, hand many radicals advocate for language-free music grounded only in visceral sensation, music that explores the lives of individual sounds with no "glue" at all.  Of course myriad intermediate positions exist as well.

This piece indeed projects a fiat language (not Schoenberg's!), but by design allows listeners to internalize the workings that language gradually.  Now the following effect may be lost on certain experts possessed of excellent universal ear training and audacious on-the-fly analytical ability: for many listeners, jumping right to the middle of the piece may make the music there seem quite "random" and difficult to parse, while listening from the beginning renders the whole work quite legible on account of how the piece naturally trains the ear to hear what's coming next.

Apsides, an atonal passacaglia for piano

Proportions/Frame

2019, revised 2023 - Ravel and Tenney as Materials - performed by limit duo, for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart.

Ravel And Tenney As Materials

Each tone played exactly when the previous can no longer be heard ringing. Performance by composer.  Painting by William Marlow.

Tone Row

Eliot Burk makes experimental music. erburk@gmail.com

Tone Row

Eliot Ray Burk

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