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Головна Being Time: Exploring Temporalities in Experimental Music
Being Time: Exploring Temporalities in Experimental MusicRichard Glover, Bryn Harrison
There are few texts which delve beyond a superficial examination of how we experience temporality in experimental music, even though it is precisely this area of music which provides such radically unique temporal experiences for listeners. In a highly accesable format using case studies,Being Timeemploys an ongoing dialogue to examine in depth how various compositional concerns within experimental and minimal musics affect our sense of time and duration. Various theoretical viewpoints inform the dialogue, but the phenomenological lineage from Husserl, through Merleau-Ponty to Clifton infuses the discussion to provide experiential arguments, rather than abstracted hypotheses.
An introductory chapter on experimental music is followed by studies of individual composers and artists such as Morton Feldman, Manfred Werder, Bernhardt Günter, Richard Chartier, La Monte Young and Toshiya Tsunoda which are embedded in the continuing discourse, along with issues of perception and memory in experimental music.
Being Timepromotes deep, considered thought on the radical natures of our personal experience of temporality when listening to contemporary experimental approaches to composition and performance, and consequently promoting the participatory qualities of the listener in the act of music-making.
An introductory chapter on experimental music is followed by studies of individual composers and artists such as Morton Feldman, Manfred Werder, Bernhardt Günter, Richard Chartier, La Monte Young and Toshiya Tsunoda which are embedded in the continuing discourse, along with issues of perception and memory in experimental music.
Being Timepromotes deep, considered thought on the radical natures of our personal experience of temporality when listening to contemporary experimental approaches to composition and performance, and consequently promoting the participatory qualities of the listener in the act of music-making.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS All three of us would like to thank Kristine Healy for her insightful engagement with the text and the peer reviewers for their extremely useful feedback. We are also grateful to the composers of the works included for providing such a rich basis for this exploration. Jim Gardner, former director of 175 East was generous in providing information about the performances of James Saunders' 511 possible mosaics. The authors would also like to thank Radio New Zealand for making this particular set of recordings available. Lastly, we'd like to thank Bloomsbury for their open-mindedness in taking on a project of this kind. CHAPTER FOUR Filtering Temporality in Ryoji Ikeda's +/− Richard Glover This chapter focuses upon a self-contained set of three tracks from the album +/− from 1996. Ikeda's music is produced in the studio, and, as such, this demands for an appropriate response to how it relates to discussion of subjective temporality. Following Jonathan Kramer's emphasis on absolute time (rather than what he terms "experiential time") with regard to electronic music (as he states, "music born of [contemporary] technology demands its own vocabulary and syntax"1), these tracks have fixed durations and I have chosen to provide these here: + 2:51 +. 5:07 +.. 10:56 These three tracks constitute tracks 4 to 6 on the album, and due to the abstract nature of their titles, they will be referred to as tracks 4, 5, and 6 throughout this chapter. The +/− album was Ikeda's first full album release, and remains his most abstracted exploration into the sculpting and processing of individual sonic pulses. Although later albums such as Dataplex (2006), Test Pattern (2008), and Supercodex (2013) remain firmly in the progressive region between electronica and experimental music, they deploy beat patterns and structures more closely related to the Japanese techno traditions from which Ikeda emerged in the early 1990s. As such, they deploy broader musical structures and expectation techniques from these fields, prompting less of a close listening to the detail of the sound than those found within +/−, and particularly the three tracks under discussion in this chapter. The album was part of a number of developing musical tendencies evident in the early 1990s, such as Steve Roden's lowercase movement and the reductionist approach to the music-making of Wandelweiser established by Antoine Beuger and Burkhard Schlothauer in 1992. Ikeda was part of a movement of Japanese electronica artists deriving from a post-techno, post-digital scene captivated by the potential of digital technology to explore the phenomenology of sound and time. He told David Toop that he felt the most important aspect of the album +/− was the relationship between the perception of the listener and the physiological effects of the music2; this focus upon immediacy of sound and vibration, sound and signal, is explored throughout +/− and provides highly unique listening experiences. The reasons for focusing on just these three tracks from what is a ten-track album are for the support of a clarity in documentation of experience. These three tracks (which I will refer to as the + tracks) are of a type, in terms of the sound worlds they inhabit, and their broader creative approaches. The album can effectively be split up into four sections, including the + tracks (appearing as tracks 4 through 6 on the album), the three tracks preceding them (Headphonics 0/0, 0/1, and 1/0), the three tracks succeeding them (−, −., and −..), and a final coda-like track +/−. Tracks 1 through 3 explore sine tones, white noise and quick pulses which almost bleed into a single-sustained tone, tracks 7 through 9 utilize sine tones to explore divergent lines and beating patterns,3 and track 10—at only 1:05 in duration—consists solely of ultra-high sine tones right on the horizon of the human hearing range. The scope of different experiences across these three sets of three tracks (excluding the final track) is so varied that to set out to explore them all in one chapter would run counter to the argument which this book aims to communicate: that by focusing in high-level detail on individual temporal experiences, rather than more generalized descriptions which necessarily compromise on detail, much can be revealed about the nature of subjectivity and temporal experiences in response to these radical musical listening scenarios. While a focus upon any of the sets of three tracks would have undoubtedly yielded a rich exploration of my own perception, understanding, and experiential processes in listening, I selected +, +., and +.. (tracks 4 through 6 on the album) in particular due to the contrast they exhibit in sonic material to the previous chapter on Szlavnics' Gradients of Detail as a result of their rhythmic intensity, that thus prompt significantly different temporal experiences in response to my listening. The contrast in duration between the first of the set (track 4) and the final track (over three times the duration) also suggested a particularly unique aspect: How would my listening evolve, across increasingly lengthening tracks, at such a large rate of expansion (ratios of 1.7 : 3.1 : 6.6, rounded up)? I wanted to explore how a sense of preparation and accustomization might occur throughout the tracks, and how that would impact upon my own temporal awareness. However, the chapter attempts to uncover as much about the difference between the + tracks—related to their ordering, speed of the pulse, overall duration, and other aspects—than just the nature of the minimal sonic environment employed overall by the three tracks. Again, this chapter maintains the overall arguments of the book that to discuss temporal experience, and thus to discuss subjectivity, is to discuss and explore the specific, rather than the generalizable. While I do make claims relating to the three tracks as a grouping in comparison to other specific pieces toward the end of the chapter, these claims are made in the shadow of the specificity of the discussions for each individual track. Methodology While the text retains an emphasis upon the specific, it is not the job of this chapter to detail every single sonic transformation which occurs throughout these three tracks. Therefore, with this chapter I have not provided a commentary to—or documentation of—an individual listening, but rather the chapter as a whole is an accumulation of the experiences gained from all listenings; I do not attempt to recreate the sonic environment or transformations across the + tracks, but instead reference particular sonic aspects of the music where appropriate to elucidate the exploration of temporal experience. As the pieces are of shorter duration, my listening methodology has been quite different to that employed with the Szlavnics. I have listened numerous times to the tracks individually, but I based this chapter specifically around my experiences of listening to the three tracks in a single sitting, one track after another, in the order which they appear on +/− in order to explore the impact of each new track upon memory and developments in my perceptual mechanisms. The chapter will similarly address the three tracks in broad sequential order with an emphasis upon the first track to address the experience of listening to such minimal material, although as stated certain elements which are shared across the tracks will be referred to throughout. Discussion of how the listening experience of each new track is impacted by what is heard previously will then be brought in as appropriate. Although the writing in the chapter may suggest a linearity in my listening experience of these tracks, and thus in my reflection, I do not intend for this to be communicated from the structure. A spider diagram, or virtual 3D space, would communicate more accurately the nonlinearity of my own experiences from this music, including the entanglement of reflections following the listenings. The focus of the chapter is the experience of the sound itself; a discussion of the technology used in the production would lie outside of my own subjective temporal experience and focus upon the processes of construction of the music. The three tracks are certainly a marker of technology in the mid-1990s, but this chapter focuses as much as is possible on my own subjective response to temporalities as experienced, and to discuss these as a distinct topic for examination. *** Track 4 (the first track of the set) begins with a sonic gesture that underpins much of the material of the three tracks: an extended filter sweep, which here moves me gradually from initial high frequencies on the horizon of audibility, through to a more rounded timbre; this sweep operates upon a continuous fast pulse and gradually leads to a clearer perception of the timbre of the pulse throughout the duration of the sweep. Once my listening is attuned to the filter sweeps, I begin to perceive this gesture—or at least, the impact of the gesture—occurring often, regardless of whether it is actually present in the auditory material or not; I become aware that my mind is creating auditory hallucinations. My perceptual focus has been one of following the shape of the sweeps, thus temporal experience has been driven by gradual, predictable transformation. I am caught in that following of the curve, which dictates a steady, unchanging temporal flow and in which the continuous pulse actually recedes within my broader perceptual focus, which is dominated by the gradual sweeps. It seems as if I am being encouraged to explore the spectral range through the gradual change, and the continuous pulse is a mechanism, a tool, to allow me to do that. There are echoes of Larry Polansky describing James Tenney's music as "providing a tool to help you evolve"4—my ability to focus perceptual mechanisms seems to enhance while applying my attention to this track. Here, I feel as if I am continually pushed forward, to anticipate how a particular timbral shape will be revealed. The gradual sweeps afford me a clear ability to anticipate, and during the sections where no apparent sonic transformation has been applied to the pulse, I am somewhat in a state of anticipation for what the next transformation will be. I seem to superimpose my own spectral transformations upon the pulse; I sense that there is little, if any, change in the perceived auditory material (i.e., the pulses), but nonetheless my active perceptual mechanisms create filter sweeps over different durations and frequency ranges. My perception seems to struggle with auditory stability, and thus temporality seems to slow down somewhat, as the detail of these imagined spectral changes are "perceived." Then, with sudden clarity, I distinguish a gradual filter sweep existing within the track itself, as opposed to my own perception. I aim to track the higher pitch curve of this change (as the sweep occurs over discrete pulses, it is an example of good continuation, in that we fuse the frequential changes together to envisage it as a continuous, "joined up" curve moving through the frequency spectrum over time), which prompts a move away from temporal awareness during these slow gestures, and toward the changing pitch curve itself—and particularly toward the anticipation of the teleological endpoint of that spectral change. This shift of awareness away from my own temporal experience and toward pitch/melodic activity shows similarities with the experience of the glissandi in Szlavnics' Gradients of Detail; in these shifts between unchanging pulses and gradual filter sweeps, it is as if I am being wrenched out of a landscape which I populate with my own imagination, and into one being populated by an external force. There are similarities to Jonathan Kramer's nondirected linearity here,5 in which a sense of linearity operates at foreground levels within the sonic environment but without a directionality built into the underlying structure. Ikeda's filter sweeps with their inherent gestural directedness do not seem to lead toward a final sense of closure; however, within each sweep there is a clear localized directionality—indeed, these provide moments for my listening to focus upon and increase the rate of the temporal flow. Similarly to the wrenching from one landscape to another, the sudden shifts in contrasting spectra which occur from roughly halfway through track 4 move me from a very free-flowing listening mode in which I seemed to impose my own spectral change upon the sound, and into a very constrained sonic environment; each time there is a shift, my awareness of my creative temporal perception is heightened, before my perception then becomes restricted by the material following the shift. In contrast, where these new environments are sustained, the creative imagination begins again. However, the presence of the continuous pulse is a disruptive force toward this fluidity of the simple perception of the melodic curve produced by the spectral change, either real or imagined. Alongside hearing timbral change, my perception is continually striving to generate rhythmic patterns from within this pulse. There is a different form of continual creativity in my perceptual mechanisms here, distinct from when I impose my own filter sweeps upon the pulse, as the rate and short duration of the consistent pulses fairly quickly brings into question my own ability to perceive rhythmic consistency, and my neural processing seems to refute the possibility of the pulse rate remaining entirely stable. I unwittingly parse the continual flow of pulse attacks, occasionally detecting dotted or swung rhythms, even though I am aware that they do not exist. By attempting to chunk these sections, my perceptual sense is trying to form a grammar, a syntax, from the continuous flow. It is only when changes from a gradual spectral envelope occur that I become aware that my perceptual senses are less concerned with trying to find contrasting rhythmic patterns—and thus parsing up the continuous flow—and rather attempting to detect any kind of timbral differentiation. Even with this knowledge, however, I still inevitably attempt to parse out rhythms in future sections of the track over stable pulses. I certainly experience disoriented moments in which I am unsure what aspects are changing and when they are remaining constant. I sense I am finding it difficult to perceive distinction in the sound, and as such I accept absolute continuity, which itself shifts the temporal experience to a more detailed, considered, compressed environment; even in the moments when I do perceive stability in the sound, my perception seems to be drawn toward a movement which might not even be there. This track seems to be prompting my imagination as much as anything else, and thus temporality slows down when I anticipate, or imagine, change. The fast-paced pulse continues unabated throughout, and this relentlessness seems to somehow prompt a detailed attention upon each pulse, even though I know the pulse is too fast for me to actually perceive each attack—yet I still feel its impact. What seems interesting to me is that the fast pace does not yield a smooth, rapid movement of temporal flow in synchronization with the pulse. Rather, it seems to underpin temporal transformations due to my imagined timbral changes, stemming from a closer listening to each pulse than I might perform if the pulse rate were a certain amount slower. One of the more difficult experiential issues in this track was the ability of my long-term memory to differentiate between similar gestures, most prominently the gradual filter sweeps, especially when they all followed similar arcs and durations. This causes significant issues in cognitive processing, behind attempting to understand what relationship there exists between events as part of a larger construction, when particular orderings cannot be comprehended due to the inherent similarity between these gestures. The pulses provide the foundations for these sweeps, and so they cannot effectively be understood as marker points to differentiate; similarly the filter sweeps, and occasional sudden shifts in the timbre of the pulsations, do not provide significant enough contrasts for them to be individually distinguished, and thus an underlying pattern or structure proves exceptionally difficult to determine. Bob Snyder states that "it is much easier to build up a representation in memory of music that exhibits clear groupings and closures than of music that does not,"6 which aligns with these observations. The changes in track 4 are almost too similar to reflect upon (indeed, this is only heightened in the two subsequent tracks, with their longer durations and many more gradual sweeps); it is almost impossible to retain in my short-term memory the kinds of textural and spectral sound worlds which have already been sounded, and there were few clear groupings to be made. In recollection, these groupings were not distinct enough to be placed within any kind of time-ordering. The continuity of the pulse and its changing detail (either within the material or shaped within my imagination) were the overriding memories carried through. I cannot determine any sense of linearity from one spectral sweep or sudden shift to the next; there seems to be no "default" state to the pulse. I haven't heard a significant sonority from which other gestures, or timbres, relate or derive. Each section of relative stability in the perceived lack of transformation (aside from a highly focused listening which seems to superimpose spectral change onto consistency of timbre) adopts a sort of reference, but only during its existence; once a new spectral sweep is initiated, I usually lose a clear sense of the previous state of stability, and instead focus attention upon the potential destination point of this new transformation. If memory is consciousness of the past,7 then these tracks raise an intense awareness of one's own consciousness of what occurred previously. What am I able to recollect? I know that I experienced difficulty in parsing the sonic stream, but I also know that I had awareness of the global sound world; at any one point, I would consider how much the remembered sound world was different to what I am now experiencing, and whether I am experiencing something different to before (except that I am now experiencing it in this present). The very gradual increase of lower frequencies in track 4 is only perceivable on reflection, somewhere toward the end of the track; there is very little opportunity to perceive this change actually occurring, thus very precisely setting up a temporality in which my recall facilities are narrowed, limited. Following this revelatory ability to reflect upon the global timbral change in the track, Ikeda then effectively presents the sonic material from the beginning and end of the track; I heard the very high frequential band with a little bass for a short duration at 2:08, and then a shift to the mid-heavy sound at 2:22, as if to confirm this transformation. The durations of these are experienced as fairly short, matching clock durations, but what they provide is an opportunity—or rather a further muddying of resonances—to attempt to re-experience the present from both the beginning and the end of the global transformation. This necessarily proves futile—again, the lack of ability to parse any distinct gesture, phrase, duration, from earlier in the track means that it is recollected as one extended stream, and thus, there is only an estimation that these sonic signatures occurred within the track, at very different structural moments. Track 4, with its extended filter sweeps through high frequency, seems to prepare me for the quicker timbral contrasts which appear in track 5. However, my perception cannot maintain such a close, intense focus upon these quicker sweeps and higher rate of timbral shifts, and I feel I am impelled to change focal levels from what I thought I would require from track 4. This second track of the set of three is over twice as long as the first, and following an initial short section of stability in the auditory material which actually provides a stable temporal flow, becomes more sectional, and thus less difficult to parse—although most certainly no less straightforward to recall and identify time-ordering. This conflict of clear timbral contrast between the two different tracks and constituent sections within them, and the insistent, relentless unchanging pulse of each track, results in distinctly difficult time-ordering capabilities. The continuous pulse seems to hamper any perceptual attempt to recall sections and arrange them in memory, and instead the pulse prompts me to retain perceptual attention upon the present sounding environment. It seems like it is only when the contrasting sections in the track are introduced, following the initial relative timbral stability, that the track begins to fill in the tapestry of the temporal experience; what was a relatively clean, almost comprehendible, space is crowded with instability, unreliability, and disorientation. How much of these disorientation experiences can I, or should I, attribute to Ikeda's own creative capacities? I didn't feel like I was being forced into any specific experience by the human who created these tracks, but rather that person was creating an environment which they knew would prompt significant changes, disruptions, in any listener's experience—without knowing exactly how those experiences would manifest themselves. It would be easy for me to attribute all experiences as responding to a carefully calculated plan, but of course any creator cannot know, or guarantee, the response from any particular listener. While a medium such as electronic music can allow a closer connection to be made between author and listener as compared to musics in which performer-interpreters are involved in consciously shaping the auditory experience, in my own listening experiences of these tracks I have not felt pushed, or controlled, by Ikeda but rather felt free to attempt to investigate and understand my own temporal experiences, in the knowledge that the sonic environment will prompt heightened awareness and introspection. My awareness of what I am terming the creativity in my perceptual mechanisms reveals to me how much of my own input determines my experience here. Because of this heightened state of awareness, I sense the minimal material in the music has primed my listening, so that by track 5 I am able to detect nuances much more clearly, and indeed to the point that certain changes seem like sensory overload; how do I compensate my close listening with these suddenly ferocious changes? The temporal experience widens, broadens, as these large-scale changes (i.e., within the reference of the track) take considerable cognitive processing to adjust. Any attempt at positioning these changes within the time-ordering of the track is particularly difficult, due to the maximal contrast seeming to be far more significant, and capable of being differentiated, than much previous sonic material. This provides an interesting contrast with Szlavnics' Gradients of Detail, in which slow gradual textural change affords an ability to compare and contrast with previous sections, and I can attempt to build up a sequence of events, or at the least smaller sublevel sequences of events. This inability in these first two Ikeda tracks to easily arrange what I perceived as discrete sections due to contrasting spectral envelopes means that the sound seems to pass by me—I almost perceive the temporal flow passing in front or around me—without my being able to keep up and cognitively process the sonic signals I am receiving. There is a point in track 5 where the pulse has an emphasis added to every alternate beat, and I immediately begin to parse the pulse flow into on- and offbeats. However, my own perception is continually switching the dominant on-beat between different pulses, and therefore there is no consistency for me to fall back into, and the temporal flow remains utterly in flux: a continual shifting, unsecured temporality suddenly hastening, suddenly relaxing, without a balance or reliability. Of all three tracks, track 5 has the most disjointed contrasts; halfway through there is much variation, which eventually leads into a sequence of continued contrasting emphases of different frequency bands on almost every pulse. This section develops its own grammar—one which has not been anticipated beforehand in this track, or in track 4; following the sustained filter sweeps of previous material, this sudden, highly contrasting language changes too quickly for me to process—at once I am being quickly pulled through a temporal vortex, and standing outside viewing in without processing detail. The return to the gestural sweeps at the end of the track, as well as being more detailed than the beginning, necessarily now feels much more temporally uneven and detailed, following the amount and variety of disjointed emphases heard previously. I have been enabled to chunk distinct gestures, which I can now perceive as different enough due to their temporal proximity to each other within the track; sweeps are shorter, and bleed into one another. I am caught up with this interplay: the force of the pulse recedes into the background, and temporal awareness ebbs away with it, to be usurped by the interplay and discourse between filter-gestures. As my listening methodology was centered around hearing all three tracks in the order they appear on the album, I also experienced the manner in which Ikeda conceived how the listener would encounter the transition of one track to the next. Tracks 5 and 6 also include a much more pronounced use of noise at the very beginning of each track (much more so than the click found at, for instance, the beginning of track 8 of the album), and these sudden gestures create a unique impact upon my focus on the temporal flow across the three tracks. The two different noise disruptions occurring at the beginning of tracks 4 and 5 consist of almost a second's worth of sine and sawtooth tones, different color noises and other clicks and electronically generated sounds, which serve to interfere with any kind of listening habits built up by the end of the previous track, as if to disconnect the oncoming track with what has been heard previously. They are both sudden, as no parametric change has created any expectation of either track 4 or 5 ending, and their high contrast in sonic material with the slow filter sweeps of the pulse, which are the only sounds I was exposed to by this point (in this set of the album) ensures that they stand out quite significantly and interfere with perceptual experience from one track to the next. While they don't erase memories or listening habits from previous tracks, there is an impact, a brief stage wipe of memories in the perceptual present. In track 6, this disruption is followed by sixteen clicks of the pulse at a speed of what is consequently revealed as being four times as slow as the main pulse in the rest of the track. I had by this point comprehended the sonic disruption as introducing a new track, but the slower pulse engenders a quite startling, if only brief, unique temporal experience: the contrast between the previous quicker pulses from previous tracks (which the sonic disruptions have interfered with, but by no means erased from memory) gives a much wider, expansive temporal field, as if this track will cover much broader gestures, more varied sonic environments, and move away significantly from what has been heard on tracks 4 and 5. However, the introduction of the much quicker pulse after sixteen of these slower-paced clicks returns me back to a listening mode similar to that of the previous tracks; the sudden changes of temporal environment at the beginning of this track, from the sonic disruption, to the slow clicks, to the faster pulse, constitute the most intense variations in my temporality as experienced across the set of the three tracks. This immediately places my listening mode in a more animated state—supported by the quicker pulse of the track—and thus my own temporal flow is spinning, uncontrolled, off-kilter almost, from the beginning of the track. Anticipation becomes problematic, and, despite the now-experienced continuity of the pulse, I sense a temporal environment which could expand or contract violently. Again, I feel as though my listening approaches are being prepared so as to experience the possible considerable temporal variation presented by the rest of this final track of the set. As Ikeda increases the pulse rate across each of the three tracks, this counteracts my perceptual system's tendency to gradually relinquish primary focus upon the continual pulse. Having heard the slower pulse rates of the previous two tracks, the quicker rate of this track makes it seem more transformative, and more that the potential for more change, movement, development is possible. However, the filter sweeps beginning from just over half a minute into the track tend to act on a more glacial timescale in track 6 which creates a cavernous contrast with track 5. The initial emphasis and dynamism of the quicker pulse renders this slower timbral transformation in much more defined, lucid detail, giving these extended sweeps their own nature, or character. This causes the movement into an exploration of the higher-frequency bands to become much more heightened, and I experience this section as having an intensified temporal flow compared to much of the track beforehand, a temporal experience which makes me more aware of sweep duration, and the push/pull of flow as a linear frequency sweep plays itself out. With such a limited palate of sonic material due to the more extended durations of the filter sweeps, I seem to only experience more and more intensified temporal flows in this final track of the set. From 6:30, this track contains echoes of track 5's highly contrasting sequence of frequency band emphases. However, I find it hard to determine how many of these similarities are contained with the audio I am perceiving, and how many I am superimposing onto what may be stable, frequentially unchanging material, in a very similar manner to earlier tracks but this time reinforced by the possibility of Ikeda intentionally referring to the heightened timbral alteration from the second half of track 5. The experience of disorientation which occurs from this seems to only be supported—if not encouraged—by the again relentless pulse; there is no opportunity to reflect upon my experience here, no real chance to recall shapes, speeds, and contrasts. I seem to be listening to music which heavily prompts me to experience, and remain aware of, the present. The pulse rate in this final track lies on the horizon of my ability to chunk out separate sections, patterns, or gestures. At many moments in this track, I began to sense a continuous stream of sound with constant emphases, rather than discrete individual pulses. I begin to occasionally listen for pitch diversions, wondering whether phenomena from layered sustained tones such as the beating patterns appearing in the Szlavnics are occurring—which with reflection seems highly unlikely in a track consisting entirely of individual pulses; but the effect of this searching in my listening approach certainly impacted upon my temporal experience. As with the change of pulse rate at the beginning of the track, these transitions of listening modes seemed to widen out the temporality I existed in, to invite an exploration of the sound—until a new filter sweep then assumed the focus of my listening attention, and the pulses-as-continuous-stream listening mode ebbed away. At 7:15, I begin to perceive a high melody, which coheres together in my perception, rather than remaining as a series of separate pulses which it must be as it is clearly constructed from harmonics of the pulses. I seem to perceive more melodic movement, and again—similar to the end of track 5—I follow that line. I become aware that my shifts of focus in this piece revolve largely around my cognitive functions processing the onslaught of pulses, and being led either by the sweeps or particularly by what I perceive as melodic movement in the high harmonics. The extraordinary difference between this latter material, with line, shape, and journey, compared with the stability of the unchanging pulses, is foregrounded heavily due to the limited range of auditory material experienced throughout the three tracks. The line itself seems to wander, with no real destination or sense of anticipation apparent. It becomes clear very quickly that it is a product of boosting particular high harmonics; this contrasts heavily with the spectral sweeps, which have a high level of predictability about them, even if I as a listener do not know their destination point. In reflecting upon these experiences, I understand that I follow the spectral sweeps by a sense of being led, whereas the brief melodic lines I explore with more of a sense of curiosity, in which I understand that this melodic line will not lead me to a different sound world, or developed state from where I am at the point of listening. There is a gradual ebb and flow of temporal experience throughout track 6; the distinct shift in the middle of the track to a more bass-dominated timbre doesn't alter that ebb and flow, but it is only upon a clear return to the full frequency shape of the pulse that this becomes one of the few moments of certainty of recollection—which heightens this experience of an ebb and flow, a sporadic crunching together of the temporal flow. Upon repeated listenings, I do not consciously attempt to recreate or understand a simplified structural rendition of the track. It wouldn't serve to underscore my own experiences when listening to the track, regardless of what patterns or relationships I might find; the continuity of the pulse, like the two staves on the bottom of the page across the entirety of Cardew's Treatise (1963–67), suggest a platform for which other aspects are conveyed, transformed, described, prompted; but to look within those materials for structural relationships is a red herring. I feel the need to persist in examining only my listening experience, rather than referring to outside sources or referents such as any structural references I might make. Filter sweeps and frequency band shifts occur, but they do not preempt or engender new sound worlds or materials. Toward the end of this track, the high-mids of the frequency range create a highly intensified sound which seems to prompt even further lilting rhythms from the continuous pulse; the piercing sound leaves virtually no trace of transformation from sweeping, and thus my focus again switches toward the stability of the pulse. It is an exceptionally revealing listening experience as the pulse again seems to parse into discrete rhythms, and at other points seems to simply increase and decrease in tempo, forever shifting and providing very little ability to recollect particular events experienced previously in the track. The silence at the end of track 6 is really the only silence experienced in the entirety of these three tracks. It is sudden—as with the earlier tracks, no parametric change toward the end of the track engenders any sense of anticipation, and repeated listenings do very little (if anything at all) to prepare me for the moment when this silence appears, and to lessen the impact of it upon my experience. Where a clear expectation of closure (e.g., a speeding up/slowing down of the pulse and an increase/decrease in dynamics) enables a listener to prepare for reflection and initiate recollection of previous moments and perceived responses, the extreme-ness of the sudden silence after 10:45 of very fast pulses provides almost no anticipated platform for reflection, recollection, or awareness of temporal experience. The sudden lack of high-intensity pulses resulted for me in more of an auditory blinking in the daylight, in which I was only able to adjust to this new environment of silence which I had not realized had been so distant to my experience throughout the three tracks. My ears adjust by seemingly reducing their irises, and my cognitive listening processes can only attempt to experience, rather than interpret or reflect upon, this silence—and certainly not consider and compare previous material. The silence is at the end of the set of the seemingly continuous sound world of the tracks, yet it is also the end of it, as my own temporal experience during this silence forms an extraordinary conclusion to the listening experience. I sensed that this silence is here to provide the listener with a platform to conclude their listening experience themselves; as recollection and time-ordering proved so difficult for me here, I experienced the force of that silence as much as the sonic material in the rest of the track. Comparison with other pieces In order to contextualize my listening experience of the high-intensity pulse flows in these tracks, I want to draw upon some other works which are centered around a consistent pulse throughout. There are highly contrasting temporal experiences within, for instance, the repetitive onsets over sustained durations of Steve Reich's Drumming (1970–71) or Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 1 (1981); however, the speed of the pulse in these Ikeda tracks, the continuity of dynamic, the exploration of the spectral range, and the lack of any additional elements are such that I have a much more heightened sense of awareness of the pulse than in these other works. While there are plenty of other pieces demanding a focused, localized listening which contain sections of fast pulse rates, few base their entire concept around a structure entirely of continuity in pulse. When I listen to the repetitive guitar pulsing of Branca's Symphony No.1, I notice the different onsets made by the many different players and the difference in dynamic weighting between individual strums, percussive hits, which push a focus toward the human actioning of those sounds; I consider the collective actions of music-making involved, the coordination necessary to bring about this synchronization of note onset, and then conversely the differences inherent within this broader level of synchronization which are brought about by the many different performative agents at work. Indeed, this web of note onsets for each pulse is a significant part of the concept of the piece, and this temporal awareness, while still heightened here, is impacted upon by performer actions. Similarly, the continuity of pulse in Reich's Drumming—for instance, the marimbas of Part II—provides a significantly different temporal flow than the Ikeda, due to the emphasis on rhythmic pattern, superimposed upon the pulse. The pulse rate is very fast here, as in the Ikeda, but the changing rhythmic patterns are the focus. There are many moments in Drumming where there are rests, giving sustained rhythmic patterns prominence over a section; this does not occur in the Ikeda due to the absolute consistency in dynamic and pulse rate throughout each track. While there are parallels between the changing rhythmic emphases and the filter sweeps of Ikeda's electronic pulses, what I felt distinguishes the Ikeda is the lack of teleological motion across these three tracks. Across much of Drumming, there are clear local-level processes which direct rhythmic patterns to merge one into another; there is a specific sequential order to these transformations, with the particular goal of prompting emergent patterns to be audibly perceived. The temporal experience is underpinned by the sense of teleological flow, in which one anticipates each new emergent pattern, understanding its relationship to material as having been generated as a result of processes upon that material. While there is a continual pulse, Ikeda's sweeps and timbral shifts do not follow in a linear, logical form, but rather seemingly as ways to use the rate of the pulse to heighten attention toward a temporal flow. Drumming's pulse highlights the emergent patterns, and—as with the Branca—is noticeably slower, prompting my attention much more toward a narrative arising from the various rhythmic emphases and emergent patterns, along with broader issues of ensemble interaction and synchronicity. In Philip Glass' Music in Similar Motion, my perceptual focus lies firmly within the melodic development of the music; the additive and subtractive processes push me to anticipate melodic direction, note choice, intervallic relationships, and to consider future melodic development, rather than decide to focus—or rather, undergo the requisite shift in focus—for appreciating the percussive, persistent nature of Ikeda's pulses and their impact upon the transitions in my own temporal experience. To me, there is no sense when listening to the Ikeda of loops, of return, or repetition; I only experienced a temporality of unfolding, of a continual rush through new territory rather than cycling through patterns or a linear transformation of process. The melodic movement found in the contours of the filter sweeps in Ikeda's music does not progress in such a rationalized, predictable manner as with the Glass, and as such the note onsets are heard more as melodic extensions, rather than as percussive pulse with timbral transformation which I sensed much more in the Ikeda. Perhaps more importantly, though, the pulse rate of even the slowest of the Ikeda tracks (track 4) at 584 bpm is still much faster than these ensemble pieces mentioned; the ferocity of this tempo, combined with extremely short durations of the pulses (emphasized by the entire lack of any resonance from the sound) ensures that the + tracks prompt an entirely unique listening when heard alongside other works deriving from minimal approaches to unchanging tempi. While there are also many musics involving a relentless high-tempo percussive line such as those found in the techno and progressive dance worlds from which Ikeda comes, as this chapter focuses upon close listening to this music through both speakers and headphones, musics which are first and foremost designed to be heard and moved to in large venues have been considered outside of the scope of the discussion. Research in entrainment within musics demonstrate the manner in which bodies respond to music through movement,8 but this chapter—and book—has as its central theme the response to the mind's temporal experiences from listening in detail, in quiet listening conditions, to allow examination of transformations in listening modes and corresponding temporalities as felt. Similarly, electronic musics which may demand close listenings, such as progressive electronica artists like Carsten Nicolai and Mark Fell, while featuring sections of fast-paced pulsed music derived from dance music patterns, rarely create tracks entirely from a continuous pulse, unchanging in its dynamic (aside from dynamic changes as a result of timbral transformation) and speed. Often these sections are juxtaposed alongside sections of other, contrasting material, to form a narrative to a track, rather than the pulses forming the consistent element, and primary focus, of any one track. Speakers and headphones In considering tracks with such nuanced production as these, one major variable which impacts upon one's own temporal sense is the mode of listening; here I want to explore the difference in two different listening situations which I employed for this chapter—using loudspeakers within a closed-room setting, and listening through headphones—in order to discuss the impact which these different modes can have upon temporal experiences. While this chapter cannot accommodate for all of the variations of these media (different room sizes and building materials, speaker types, speaker models and arrangements, headphone types, etc.), I will be discussing and comparing the different experiences from listening through speakers, and through headphones, in order to further question what impacts temporal flow, and why might these results occur. For these three tracks, headphones provide a highly contrasting, intensified experience; I hear far more high frequencies in the sound, and am thus able to detect more nuanced control in production. The sweeps seem more detailed, and I find that I follow the contour of the sweeps in an even closer focus than when listening through speakers. There is also more of an immediate response to the intensity of the pulses, and I impose my own slight spectral variation upon the pulses as I listen more closely, becoming aware that I am consciously carrying out this process. However, when listening to the tracks through speakers, I can change the directionality of my head which enables me to control the high frequencies I perceive. Listening while wearing headphones, on the other hand, necessarily makes this task all but impossible—I am forced to focus upon the frequencies being directed straight into my ears, rather than having control over the directionality of my own auditory apparatus. While awareness of this only becomes clearer upon repeated listening across both modes, it impacted upon my temporal experiences in that I felt that a certain loss of control over my abilities to create my own structured listening response to the music; there was a much stronger sense of being pulled along by the temporal flow of the fast pulse rate when listening with headphones, as opposed to the more open sonic environment created by speakers which allowed me to shape and explore the landscape of the filter sweeps, for instance, which enabled a greater sensation of the perceptual present, and being able to broaden out my own position within a temporal flow. When listening with headphones, I am directed toward focusing upon the differentiated high harmonic line captured toward the end of track 5 which is not as pronounced as when heard through speakers. This introduction of an individual line acting seemingly separate to the pulses lies in stark contrast to the continual sonority of the pulses, focusing upon the timbral change rather than the character and development of individual lines. As I continue to listen to this distinct compositional device, it draws me away from the listening modes I had employed while following the relentlessness of the pulse. There is a renewed focus upon line; my perception moves away from pulse rate, the consistency of that pulse, and gradual change, and moves toward something which could be described as voice. My temporal experience transforms distinctly, as I experience a changeable flow which I cannot anticipate in terms of melodic direction or gesture, as opposed to the predictability inherent in the continuous pulse. The self-contained nature of the audio tracks is evident: there is no sense of expanse, and there are very clearly no environmental or studio effects added to imply a sense of space within which to position the sound. However, when listening through speakers, those environments situate themselves within the acoustic of the room or space; while any listening of the tracks necessarily undergoes this process, the specific reverb-free sound world of Ikeda's tracks transforms into a sonic object in space, when compared to the listening experience through headphones. While Ikeda makes use of the stereo space, the sound is not designed to develop within a clearly communicated acoustic, which in itself draws attention toward the timbral envelope and the gestural qualities of the sound itself, rather than its impact upon a virtual space and therefore its external situation. The dry sonic materials of short pulses, requiring a near-silence in any listening environment for them to be clearly audible, prime my ears for close listening rather than any form of more global, structure-oriented listening. Were this music to somehow be performed on any kind of acoustic instruments, the focus would quickly shift to the endurance capacity of the performers and their ability to maintain an absolute continuity in aspects such as pulse rate, dynamic, duration, and so on. As it is, the sound—without any seeming intentional external associations—is presented as being situated nowhere except in the listener's mind, to be explored as itself, with all experiences which that listener brings. Concluding comments This set of three tracks, when listened to sequentially, prompt very specific patterns of listening modes, and thus the range of temporal experiences feels fairly restrained, restricted; there is no sense that a broad range of temporalities have been explored, as with the Szlavnics, but rather the tracks—with their tight focus upon the spectral transformation of a continuous, stable pulse which is often perceived as varying—yields a narrow band of temporal experiences. However, this narrow band is magnified more and more over the three tracks, such that at certain moments these smaller shifts are experienced as momentous transitions. In my reflections upon these experiences, I focus much more on the difference between the stability in the pulse rate, and my own perceived instability of that rate. While I understand that the rate is not changing, I found it almost impossible not to perceive change, and thus any temporal flow was continually shifting, extending, and contracting as per my own perceptual system's attempts to vary, differentiate, and distinguish the sonic material. To make an analogy with sustained tone music in which an electronic held tone sustains the exact same frequency throughout, I often begin to imagine that I perceive frequency drift within the tone, where none may actually be sounding. There exists an experientially rich discord between the low-information incoming perceptual stream of consistency and the continual emphasis upon different pulses and patterns which my perceptual system superimposes, which prompts multiple and frequent deviations in temporal flow, even within the narrow band of temporal experience mentioned above. It is as if Ikeda is testing my perceptual abilities across the three tracks, utilizing a reduced language of timbral manipulation and graduated pulse-rate changes between the tracks to implement that examination. Ikeda's high pulse rate throughout the + tracks ensures the gestural sweeps and timbral shifts provide highly localized teleologies, and engenders a greatly heightened awareness of the transformational nature of the temporal flow. Much earlier in this chapter I discussed how my early familiarizations with these tracks led me to conclude that the pulses were present only to serve the filter sweeps, timbral shifts, and the broader exploration of frequential emphasis and sculpting which Ikeda employs; after my full consideration of what impacts upon my temporal experiences throughout these tracks, it seems very much that this perceptual loop is closed, as ultimately I consider that these gradual and sudden frequential gestures serve only to bring about awareness of the speed, intensity, and relentlessness of the pulse rate across the tracks. Notes 1 Jonathan D. Kramer, The Time of Music (New York: Schirmer, 1988), 72. 2 David Toop, Haunted Weather (London: Serpent's Tail, 2005), 12. 3 And also follow the structural pattern of tracks 4–6 in which each track in a set of three is longer than the last, with track 7 at 6:37, track 8 at 11:52, and track 9 at 13:25; the ratio of these durations is quite different to the + tracks. 4 Larry Polansky, "Jim Tenney and Space Travel," Perspectives of New Music 25, no. 1 (1987): 437–438. 5 Kramer, Time of Music, 39–40. 6 Bob Snyder, Music and Memory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 66. 7 David Couzens Hoy, The Time of Our Lives (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), 101. 8 See Martin Clayton "What is Entrainment? Definitions and Applications in Musical Research," Empirical Musicology Review 7, nos. 1–2 (2012): 49–56. CHAPTER SIX Monoliths: Laurie Spiegel's The Expanding Universe and André O. Möller's musik für orgel und eine(n) tonsetzer(in) Jennie Gottschalk The pieces I will be focusing on in this chapter have made me feel as if they began before the start of the track, and as if they do not end when they stop sounding. Their static harmonic frameworks ensure that even when exiting and returning to the piece, whether through proximity or degrees of attention, I find myself back in the same territory. Beyond that, when tones are drawn from a single harmonic series, the chords have a familiar, elemental quality. They are not foreign or unusual objects in themselves, but are derived from a familiar basis. Such a world is, for me at least, a very welcoming environment. The intense clarity of the harmonic series makes it plain to me in what world I am living. The rules of these worlds, the possible articulations and actions, become quickly apparent, and I am invited to find my own place within each of them. It is challenging to sustain a discussion of a single work that has such similar properties throughout. There is a term that applies to this kind of task when it is approached in a subjective mode: it is a "meditation," in the sense of being an "introspective search."1 This particular search has led me to think back on several moments in my own life to understand my relationship to one, and eventually two, works of music. My attempt to frame these moments from my own experience in chronological order came across as a very broken autobiography. They only assume coherence in relation to these listening experiences. What I hope to reveal here is a meditation on both how my images of these pieces have evolved, and on how my thoughts about it have reframed the experiences that surround it in my thinking. The chapter focuses on my experience of two pieces of music, but from that foundation extends outward to my history as a viewer and listener and its results. One of my earliest tasks for this book was to pick two pieces to write about that had had a significant impact on me in terms of temporality. Tsunoda's O Kokos Tis Anixis was a clear choice for me, but I was unsure of the second piece. I kept remembering two listening experiences—of Laurie Spiegel's The Expanding Universe (1975)2 and André O. Möller's musik für orgel und eine(n) tonsetzer(in)3 (2003). I began by settling on the Spiegel example. I found, though, that for the same reasons that The Expanding Universe was so appealing to me, it was difficult to describe it with depth or clarity. Initially I even had trouble taking any notes on it at all. Compounding my concerns was the fact that I am not proficient with the technologies she used to make it, so I couldn't talk about it in terms of construction. This chapter is not intended to be about construction, but about my experience of the work. Still, my experience was so open and so ephemeral that I was at a loss. I felt good about my choice, though, because it is a piece that has had an interesting and memorable effect on me in terms of temporal perception, and it is also a direct contrast with the Tsunoda. Conversely to O Kokos Tis Anixis, it is not sectional, and it is completely unbroken. Tsunoda's piece has numerous irregular aspects of disorientation, whereas Spiegel's piece is consistently disorienting, or perhaps reorienting. These problems seemed intractable, and eventually led me to question the "choose a single piece" premise of the initial discussion of each chapter in the book. But what could I compare it to? Spiegel talks about "slow change music."4 For me, with my listening history, that evokes Éliane Radigue, André O. Möller, James Tenney, Catherine Lamb, La Monte Young, and others. I made a list and worked my way through it. I'll write about that series of encounters shortly, but first I will give a context for all of these encounters with a memory that took on new dimensions as I worked through them. 1984, Munich When I was six years old, my family visited Germany and we spent some time at the Alte Pinakothek. I spent about fifteen minutes staring at The Great Last Judgement5 (1614–17) by Peter Paul Rubens. My parents gave me plenty of space to have my own experience of it, but when I finally spoke with them about it, I said, "He had a really good imagination about hell, but he didn't have a very good imagination about heaven." Looking back at the painting now, though I see that it differs from my memory, the observation still feels more or less right—if a bit judgmental for a six-year-old. The focus of the entire scene is declared in the title, and it is not an equal division between heaven, purgatory, and hell. It is about judgment and separation, and not really about those select few who have gone upward. While I can't fully account for my thoughts of over thirty years ago, I may know myself well enough to speculate that I was primarily voicing my sense of a missed creative opportunity. Heaven itself was not the premise of the work, but instead judgment, which is a highly turbulent scene. Heaven is conveyed in a small sliver of the painting. This depiction is incredibly pale and lifeless—both in background and in foreground—in comparison with the flailing nakedness of the lower part of the painting. The people in the clouds are, with one exception, either standing around or looking down to see the action. No one is particularly interested in that environment. Everything behind the people in the foreground is muted—ultra-pale flesh tones and sun-drenched clouds, and a barely blue sky. The human figures in the background are so pale as to look almost blue. Those whose attention is not directed below seem bored, as well as boring. Below the clouds, everyone is painted in larger dimensions and in multiple vivid colors. Their flesh tones are brighter and more varied than the garments of their holier counterparts. They are the evident focus of the work. There are collisions, tensions, entanglements, and a range of distinct facial expressions. Without the action down below, there would be no action and no painting. What could such a painting be if it were focused entirely on the top quarter of the action, on the actions and interactions of those who were neither watching nor participating in human misery? Knowing more of the world now, I feel a bit self-conscious asking that question, but I will still ask it on behalf of my six-year-old self. Could such a scene be colorful and interesting if it were not itself placed in contrast with the vivid forms, colors, and evocations of human agony? To do so, I guess I already knew on some level, would require a great deal of imagination. It's the kind of imagination I glimpsed in the work of Georgia O'Keeffe and Mark Rothko, and found more fully years later in Agnes Martin and Vaçlav Boštik. Several decades later, visual and sonic works that have a quality of uninterruptedness still have a special draw for me. The narrative functions of conflict and resolution, tension and release, play out in the news, in sports, in the arts. This is how the world seems to watch itself going on. When forces are in opposition, whether they are geological or political or personal, there is something to talk about in that friction. What happens when that friction has been removed? Apart from narrative, how can such a thing be made or discussed? This kind of music might deal with intensities and resonances. My best chance of talking about this work, I decided, would be to compare it with one or more other works that also deal with intensities, small events, and hues. By holding the works next to each other, I hope to compare their colors, their forms, their methods of variegation, and the differences—however subtle—in their effects on my sense of the passage of time. It says something about the nature of these pieces, too, that they cause me to recall and ask new questions about an experience from my childhood. Their sense of scale is vast, and my sense of the temporality of my own experience seems to expand to meet that vastness. Other pieces I listened to many pieces that seemed related, but however significant they are on their own terms, there were differences in form, behavior, and impact that made them less applicable in this type of comparison. I learned a lot through this process, though, about the kinds of qualities that were essential to my experience of these two specific works. James Tenney's approaches to both harmony and form seemed quite pertinent, and that led me to consider making in a large, open space (1994) one of the central pieces of the chapter. The works that would seem most likely to fulfill this sense of wholeness and unlimited duration would be installations, and one installation in particular. In a large, open space is harmonically static, built on the overtone series of a low F. The first thirty-two pitches of this series are laid out for each of twelve or more instrumentalists to choose from. The title is not just an image but an instruction that the piece is to be played in an open area, with musicians on the lower pitches concentrated toward the center of the area. The musicians move between pitches that are available both within the given series and on their instruments. Each pitch is played for "some 30 to 60 seconds." In selecting the next pitch, they avoid duplication both of their own previous pitch and whatever is being played by their neighbors. Change is occurring throughout, but it is slow and entirely irregular.6 Though not written in the score, it is implied and has been a general practice that listeners can move throughout the space, experiencing the piece as a live installation.7 Listener placement, pitch change, and overall duration are fluid. What remains fixed is the location of the musicians and the harmonic series in which they operate. This juxtaposition of fixed harmony and fluid reception seems perfectly aligned with the Spiegel and Möller examples, which also are built on single overtone series and afford a great deal of freedom in the listening experience. But my actual experience of the piece was not anything like this type of immersion. At Bates Mill during the 2008 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Bozzini Quartet performed at the center of a version of this piece. The audience, including myself, wandered around among the players and through the harmonic series. In retrospect, it felt like the listeners were as much on display to each other as the performers were to them. I was inhabiting a social situation, rather than a harmonic one. The sonic qualities and layout were secondary to the choices of how to physically navigate the space. While I only have the memory of the piece, and haven't heard it recently, my recollection is that it did not have an overpowering effect. Moving through it became a question literally of location, and was very much a walking—rather than a swimming or floating—experience. Physically moving in space was difficult to map to harmonic positioning for me in that case, though I often imagine physical vistas and landscapes while listening to sound, and I do like to imagine these scenarios.8 But I was not really sonically immersed in this piece. I was spatially immersed in it and could always hear some sound, but never in a way that affected my subjectivity such that my sense of the passage of time was transformed. Spending some time with other Tenney pieces, I found that while the harmonic or formal profiles were a good fit, specific choices of instrumentation or configuration led away from the sort of immersive qualities I sought. But he's an important connecting figure for many of the people mentioned in this chapter, having worked with Éliane Radigue in New York in 1961 and worked at Bell Labs before Laurie Spiegel. He was also an influence on Möller. I thought Catherine Lamb might have some work along these lines, in part because of her studies with Tenney, and also because of her extensive interest in tuning.9 But her interest extends to shading, as demonstrated clearly in matter/moving (2011) and in/gradient (2012), and draws me as a listener away from a static experience as effectively as any developmental form. The beating patterns she sets up create clear patterns of tension and release. The movements away from a central tuning are slow, pronounced, and deliberate. Other pieces like curvo totalitas (2016) are more developmental and sectional.10 Much of her work deals in shadings, in departures from an overall wholeness or totality that are so frequent that no such totality ever comes into view. There is a sense of change that she looks for, a sense of development or gradual refinement (see in/gradient), rather than an immersion in something that has always been. I also spent some time with Éliane Radigue's work, settling on Jetsun Mila (1986) for a time, but it turns out to be highly sectional.11 Each section could be taken in the terms I was looking for, but it felt important to me to look at entire unbroken worlds for this chapter, rather than works that involve shifts or lengthy transitions from one set of behaviors to another. Chuck Johnson has pointed out that in Radigue's work, "even with attentive listening it can be difficult to perceive structure."12 And yet those shifts are present. She deals more in transitions and in sections than in monoliths. I found that André Möller's blue/dense was also further from the type of listening experience I was thinking about than I had remembered, being more sectional than continuous in character.13 In one listening session I wrote: Is this as relevant a piece as I originally thought? … I find myself wanting to be temporally dislocated, but failing to be so. In part it's that I know the piece is sectional. The presence of human breath from time to time (heard in the onset) also pulls me back into measurable human time, although the lengths of the breaths are quite exaggerated with the technology that is used in the piece.14 Ultimately, its sectionality was what made it less relevant to the heart of this project than the organ piece. Möller's in memory of James Tenney (2015) includes a piece subtitled "expanding universe."15 I was struck by the similarity to Spiegel's title, and wrote to him to find out if the evocation was intentional. I found out that no, it was really just a coincidence. He didn't know this piece. The piece itself did not, as it turned out, have the type of impact on me that I was seeking based on the correlation of titles. But the image of an expanding universe, allied with a long swim in pitches derived from a single chord, seemed to be uniquely appropriate. Why? Expanding universes The sense that such a universe—whether it be musical or astronomical—could go on without interruption, not ever truly starting or finishing, seems fitting. It is allowed to expand. At the same time, it has certain gravitational pulls and principles, not only in its framework but in the set of available possibilities that can occur from one moment to the next. Does the universe itself expand, or do we become more aware of its dimensions over time? It is a speculative question, and impossible for me to answer outside of my own subjectivity. What kind of temporal experience is suggested by an expanding universe? For me, it depends entirely on how grounded I am within it. If I am disoriented, lost, or confused, it's terrifying. On the other hand, to be trapped would also be terrifying. Those are two extremes that can make any duration—however brief—feel too long. But if it is grounded and rich and open to possibility, it can be an incredibly full and satisfying time, like entering into a new environment and taking it in with every sense. In a musical context, small fluctuations, shifts in direction, and micro-events are constantly occurring, and they are all the more evident because other aspects of the work are so static. But a kind of inversion occurs as well, where the very slowness or stasis of harmonic, rhythmic, and timbral parameters allows me to enter into these spaces with a sense that it is, whether despite or because of its limitations, an entire open universe. As I write this, I'm realizing that it's no coincidence that my website about experimental music is called Sound Expanse. My engagement with the field is one of immersion—spending time within it through listening, travel, writing, composing, interviewing, and so on to try to get a sense of this territory, how it operates, its hidden nooks and crannies, its boundaries. It is a field in continuous development and I will never know it entirely, but I can know it better through continued immersion. Möller listening experiences (2015) Writing about a great deal of music, as I did in Experimental Music since 1970,16 involves listening to quite a bit more than is covered. As I worked on that project for over two years, a certain kind of saturation began to set in. It felt more difficult to sit back and listen to music. I was always trying to connect the dots, or else I was realizing that what I was hearing did not connect to my larger project. Works I was listening to became pieces in a puzzle. The puzzle will never be finished, but it felt important that connections be established with some semblance of clear logic. My listening process in general became very targeted and analytical. When I put on André O. Möller's musik für orgel und eine(n) tonsetzer(in) (as played by Eva-Maria Houben at St. Suitbertus Church in Dortmund), this particular dot clearly fit, and quickly became a circle, a sphere, a world, a universe. It is still singular in its intent and in how it fit within the framework I was building; but it opened up a portal that enveloped me, providing a sonic and imaginative space that surpassed musical devices. It was totally engrossing and refreshing. I went on to listen to blue/dense (2003), which operated on similar principles but with different materials, and which had a related (though distinct) effect on me. Spiegel listening experience At a later point in the book-writing process, I was feeling similarly overwhelmed with the amount of sound work I was trying to consume and understand. I sat down to get a sense of this piece, and it seemed like it would be somewhat long. Somehow the half hour passed in a moment, and I knew that I had found something that reached me in a fundamental way. It seemed like a beautiful act on Spiegel's part to create such an open space. It offered an uninterrupted expanse, a careful balancing of absorbing foundational structure and complementary details. It absolutely merited close listening, and still does every time, but it doesn't reveal any devices. The techniques she used to make the piece at Bell Labs were extensive and laborious, but they led to something that sounds absolutely seamless and is part of an irreducible whole. Zeroing in So after exploring a number of other pieces by Spiegel and Möller, as well as the other aforementioned composers, I returned to these two memories of listening and the pieces that went with them. How was it that these two recordings had such a hold on my memory after several fairly turbulent years filled with a great deal of recorded music? What did they have in common? The simplest answer is that they caused me to lose track of both clock time and physical place. In these instances, I found that I was not sitting down to complete a task of listening to a piece, but becoming immersed in an environment. I'll explain the similarities and differences between the pieces in the rest of the chapter, but for the moment I'll try to recall their direct impact on me at that time, which from the present moment is rather indistinguishable. I found that I couldn't take notes. It felt like there was too much to experience and the note-taking process would be nothing but an interruption. There also was no consistent temporal grid. When music listening becomes a task, it is a sort of default to watch the minutes go by on the CD counter, but I could not do that in either case. The immersive qualities of the music and the aperiodicity of the foreground caused me to completely lose track of time. In both cases, the end of the track was only apparent for musical reasons, because of some tapering. Temporally, it came as a total surprise. The two experiences were completely absorbing and restful. Technically, the pieces have significant aspects in common. Both derive their entire material from a single harmonic series, and in fact are built on the same fundamental, or at least the same pitch class of C. They use extended sustained tones. (Spiegel also uses repeated tones, but sustained tones are almost always present.) Entrances and exits are not abrupt but tapered. Melodies are not constructed, but instead result from the interplay of overtones in a subtle shimmer. Foreground and background are not differentiated by type of material, but seem to be shifts in perspective from moment to moment. The degrees of presence and absence of sonic material are indicators of one's placement in the environment. The formal shifts are in density and range of material, rather than type of material. The properties of the musical material are consistent throughout. The differences between the pieces can initially be described based on their surface aspects. The Expanding Universe was created at Bell Labs on a GROOVE console. It is early computer music, while Möller's piece is for organ. The timbres of the two instruments, as they are used here, are more similar than might be expected. Spiegel's piece is less than half the duration of Möller's, at 28:28 compared to his 73:44. Before exploring the relationship between the two works in more detail, I'll write about the pieces and my experiences of them individually. Laurie Spiegel: The Expanding Universe Spiegel writes that the GROOVE hybrid system permitted "the creation, storage, editing, and manipulation of a piece of music as pure pattern change, over time, parameter by parameter. This [is] rather different from conventional musical notation, which records music on paper as descriptions of individual events, one by one."17 This quote about the GROOVE system technology goes along with the total coherence of this sound space. We experience transitions of parameters, but not events as such. She continues, "Instead of pitch, amplitude, timbre, I had location, hue, value, saturation, texture, and the same time-structuring, storage, and editing capabilities."18 Part of this piece's appeal for me is that I don't understand how it was made. I am not versed in its technology beyond Spiegel's brief description of it. I don't have technical insights into the workings of the piece. Beyond that, its temporal impact is still somewhat mysterious to me. I can begin to outline reasons why it affects me as it does, but even after many listenings, writing sessions, and comparisons with other works that are historically or aesthetically relevant, there is still some mystery there. In fact I find that as I listen to the piece, I am resistant to writing about it in a narrative flow. I simply don't experience it as a passage of time. I thought of it for a time as "vertical music," largely because of its firm roots in a single fundamental.19 There might be something to that, but it doesn't resemble my more considered experience of it either, which is neither horizontal (development over time, unfolding melodies, etc.) nor vertical, but spatial. The closest imagined experience I can liken it to—one that becomes more vivid every time I hear the piece—is a listening tour of a galaxy. Everything is existent already, though not necessarily static. What is shifting is my position within the objects and events that are ongoing. Sound objects, pulsations, and mutual impacts advance and recede from my vantage point. The scope of the space I am occupying feels massive, but my perspective on it is changing very gradually and gently. It is an ungrounded, nondirectional experience of floating or flying among these objects. It doesn't feel like much of a stretch of my imagination to think of this work as an installation that has transcended the physical limitation of an act. My experience of it resembles that of a flight simulator or a description of travel in a book of fantasy or science fiction far more than a piece of music or a sound installation. Though of course I know that the inputs of the piece are reproducible (the CD track can be played any number of times), each time I sit down to listen I feel like my efforts to describe the event impede my experience of it. It's not so much a "blink and you miss it" concern, but rather that the mere grip on a laptop and the reference to its keyboard structure impede the suspension of disbelief that the piece brings about so powerfully. The previous paragraph is in equal parts a description of the piece and an explanation of the relative sparsity of my notes on it. It might also be an attempt to describe the indescribability of the indescribable. That indescribable thing is the temporal experience of a work that overwhelms my sense of temporality. All that being said, I'll include several sets of listening notes below to relay some of the details of that experience. May 22, 2017, listening session It truly does feel like a universe built around one note, one massive, unbroken sustain. Harmonic series. Pulsations are wrapped into the sustain. I am made to feel at home here. It invites me to participate in its rhythms viscerally. At 5:20 I still feel that only a moment has gone by because the musical content has been shaping me rather than me marking time. Differentiations in pulse. Have we traveled anywhere harmonically? Has the fundamental changed? Increasing number of sound objects. Pulses are more independent of the fundamental [not harmonically but in terms of their prominence], but still essentially part of one body or environment. More bass. Rising tides around 19:30. Levels—undulations, pulses, crescendos. Marking time, expanding time, contracting time. When does it feel shortest/longest compared to what it actually is? How can I find this out? June 24 Expanding through the harmonic series. The fundamental is the center, the point of gravity. Expansion of timbre and dynamics as well as pitch. Rhythms have suggestions of pulsation early on. At 3:40, the pulsation takes on a more prominent role. There is a sense of sweeping through the possibilities, slowly, and gradually expanding what is possible. The rates of pulsations become more diverse. New parameters are being added. The pulsation rate starts increasing within one instance around 6:40. The rules seem to be developing within the experience, rather than being externally imposed. The vibrations, pulsations, and strong harmonic profile makes me feel like something is bubbling up out of necessity. Even when I've intended to, I find it very difficult to segment this experience into separate listening moments. It's [almost] a full half an hour almost but it is riveting every time. The variations in pulsation rate are part of that: it never becomes known or predictable in its activity. Increases in density [i.e., 10:45]. A growing number of active agents. The pulsations seem to have characters and behaviors of their own. The [harmonic] ground is stable, there is still gravitation, but all sorts of things are going on in this environment. I do picture it as action on a planet, impact on a living sphere. Is there an under-over sort of construction? Fundamental and drone is under, pulsations over, pulsations are like weather events. Rates are faster for higher-pitched tones. June 28 Opens with exploration of harmonic series, fills in with expanded timbres, time is unmarked. It glides, rather than presenting abrupt shifts. Pulsations are first introduced around 1:30. The pulsations gradually (but rather quickly) become more active, occupying more pitch space. Pulsations are sometimes set against each other, each with a different pitch and rate. I have the sense that the whole is always active, and it is only my perspective that is changing. This is much like the Tenney, in a large, open space. There is a principle, a fundamental, a basis for all this activity, and the pulsations are the detailed events within that clearly ordered space. What is known is the harmonic space. The prominence of one element over another, the audibility of a particular pitch and pulse rate, and its juxtaposition with other pitches and pulse rates are the details that become objects of focus. What others may call a meditation, I think of as a realignment [layers, rather than transitions]. Around 18:46, there are more audible layers than heard previously. They coexist, interacting with each other only insofar as they don't obscure each other but simultaneously imprint themselves in the listening space. July 1 The opening is a smooth transition through parts of the overtone series. There are no abrupt shifts but gentle introductions and transitions. Pulsations begin to reveal themselves, repetitions on single notes, as the most prominent change on the surface (from presence to absence and back). The timing of these pulsations is irregular, always a surprise—sometimes internally even, sometimes irregular, sometimes multiple pulsations are juxtaposed. The pitches are different each time. Meanwhile, there are smoother transitions of pitch and amplitude under that sonic surface. This piece has a sense of timelessness. There is no single pulse but many pulses, fluid transitions between states, no clear arrivals or departures but a gradually expanding set of possibilities. I have the sense that I am not traveling to a different zone over time, but instead hearing more of what is happening within the zone we started in. It is a shift in hearing that happens over time, rather than a shift in perspective or position. Since there are no clear transitions from one space to another, but instead an occupancy of a single space, time is essentially removed from the range of consideration. It is a space to occupy. What is this universe that is expanding? Is it utopian? Everything is always possible. This sound world is coherent throughout. The only jarring or abrupt thing would be a pitch/timbre/rhythm that came from outside of this set of possibilities. But once the world has been set up, however narrow the set of limits, anything possible within it can occur at any moment. August 8 Everything is so grounded in one aspect that my entrance as a listener is into a single unfolding activity. There is no break in continuity, but the consequences of the given universe are becoming more apparent and intense. The vertical nature of this piece is not a by-product simply of a relationship to a harmonic series, but the quality of deepening a texture within a clear framework. When the pulsations begin, they are only a continuation of that sense of consequence and possibility within the given parameters. One thing is limited (harmony) but within that limitation it seems like there are an ever-expanding number of possible expressions. A pulsation and a sustain. Another sustain cross-cuts the pulsation. The notes present in the chord are shifting from moment to moment, though they are all on the same basis. There are clear aspects of foreground and background. The way these voices phase in and out is seamless. I can't tell when one begins and another ends. They seem to all be there always, and the clarity of appearance is a matter of perspective rather than presence. I am traveling through this network of possibilities, seeing more detail as I approach one thing more closely and others fade. My perspective is actually shifting from moment to moment, in the sense that something is always advancing or receding. There is a quality of weightlessness that takes me out of a temporal flow. The grounding is there, but I am traveling freely among its consequences. The grounding is of a network of possibilities rather than of me as a listener. Weightlessness here feels equivalent to timelessness. It's like swimming or what I imagine flying might be, a departure from the usual relation to ground. Everything is rounded, circular. There are returns, circlings back, things that glimmer and then recede. It is both simple and complex: simple in its limitation of possibilities, complex in its outcomes. Twenty minutes have gone by and it could as well have been five minutes or forty minutes, as far as how I am experiencing the work. The track began from nothing, but every possibility was embedded within the opening. I am witnessing these possibilities in an untethered way. It feels to me like a flight. I am not choosing the direction of the flight, but the things that come into and go out of focus are all within my realm of interest and might as well be of my volition. Rather than being (as it literally is) a fixed recording, it feels like a transcendent installation. It is like flying through an unknown, airborne ecosystem. At the close of the track, the view becomes more clear and I can see farther to some horizon. Perhaps it is a gentle exit from that space. André O. Möller: musik für orgel und eine(n) tonsetzer(in) André Möller describes the construction of this piece as follows: in this piece only those frequencies of the organ sound that have close to whole-numbered ratios (+/− 6 cents) to a fundamental (in this case C' at about 32 Hz). because the frequencies are never perfectly tuned – a result of the organ's tempered tuning – more or less strong beatings and frictions emerge, that rhythmically and timbrally shape the inner life of the sounds.20 I did not have as much trouble finding words to accompany this piece as I did with the Spiegel. My first complete listening in some time resulted in an essay of sorts, even with a twenty-minute lapse. July 31, 2017, listening session It starts without introduction, as if it has already been going on beforehand. [In retrospect, I'm not at all sure that this is even perceptually true. I wrote it down then but I think I had an agenda at the time. This comment is more relevant to the Spiegel.] I can't tell if the overtones I'm hearing were there perpetually or if I am just noticing their presence after a short interval of listening. They seem to become more and more active, but they are still phantoms. It is a fleeting foreground of activity, as if some imp is working behind the scenes to play with my senses. Other, played notes become more prominent, also changing the contours of the half-audible motion. On the level of human articulation, nothing has changed. The same notes have been sustained. No tone has been added, removed, or even rearticulated. But there is a phasing in and out, and a resultant flickering of the harmonic components of the sound. Suddenly, around 5:30, new tones in the chord are added. I no longer hear melodies, but instead something like pulsars at a frequency not much higher than the added tones played on the organ. New low tones enter at 8:00. It feels like no time has gone by. Two and a half minutes normally feel to me like at least a modicum of time has elapsed, but the pace of change feels quite rapid at this point. The harmonics are going wild. It sounds like a whole string and brass orchestra busily creating an intricate texture. The level of activity is immense. And yet I know these are sustained tones only and their results. There is some change in registration around 10:45 that feels like an inundation of harmonic activity. What felt at first like a baseline of trackable activity has become an entire universe in itself, something that cannot be grasped in all its levels. Just after 14:00, the weather becomes more turbulent. Sounds are blurring past each other, swirling in a chaotic hum. It is a total submergence, not just in a chord but in that swirl and all its harmonic consequences. It never seems to diminish, but always to increase. I feel like I'm in some sort of aural illusion equivalent to Escher's staircases that are perpetually rising while looping back on themselves. The harmonic activity might indeed be more complex over time, but the constantly changing weather patterns are at odds with the absolute grounding in a single fundamental and chord structure. My sense of time passing is not linear. I am relating to this chord, this body of sound, in terms of depth of placement in a vast body of water. There are different patterns of motion, different levels of visibility. They do not unfold neatly over time. It is not a progression. It is a single volatile body with perpetually shifting temperatures and conditions. Rhythms occur as a by-product of those conditions, and not as accelerants in and of themselves. Sometime around (or before) 25:00 I seem to lose my grasp on the specific conditions, lumping it all together as volatile and complex. It is no less absorbing, but just too hard to pick apart the micro from the macro level. Around 27:50 it suddenly pulls back to something that I can observe more closely. It is a contained environment, or at least calmer waters. I am again listening for detail. *** If I'm honest, I fell asleep. I woke up at around 48:00, and the waters were noticeably calmer. Lower tones have been removed. There are stirrings, but they are subtle and soothing, not vast and overwhelming. Contrary to what I'd expect, the continually diminishing (I'm at 55:00 by now) level of activity makes time seem to pass more quickly. I am not caught in the storm, but can relax and take in the wider vistas. I'm traveling smoothly on the surface of the water, rather than being in some relative sense of danger in the midst of it. That heightened sense of safety offers me a calmer space for reflection. I don't shut off at the spectrum of activity, but open myself up to its subtleties. I'm in a more receptive state, not at all restless, because this is a place I want to be. It feels impervious to the turbulence, for example, of American politics. I'm traveling instead to some sort of horizon, not knowing how the waters will continue to be so clear but somehow sure that they will be. (I don't recall from my last listening how the track ends, but the end is approaching.) The activity has been distilled into some almost singular essential quality—though the fundamental, in the harmonic sense, is no longer audible. I am experiencing the effect of some underlying calming of conditions. The cause of it is almost certainly relatively simple (fewer and higher notes being played at a lower dynamic level), but the effect in the context of the work is staggeringly beautiful. There is less activity resulting from the played tones. The activity is smoother than a whisper, but no more prominent. A low whistle, perhaps. The horizon seems to be nearer than ever, but I am experiencing less of its amplitude. I know I am traveling in that direction though, it is totally clear. The piece has become linear, in its simple decrescendo. The surface activity is really a phantom now. I can't be sure that I'm hearing anything other than the played tones. But I remember them, and there are signs that they are still present. I am fascinated by that threshold, and pulled into a very close, attentive listening. The sound of my typing is an unwelcome interruption. I hear flickers only of that activity now, just before 70:00. Now I don't even know what I'm hearing, perhaps the air conditioning in the other room. I need to wait until the track ends to know for sure. It is done, disappeared without a trace. I was hearing nothing from the recording for the last minute or more. The feeling I had of being on the boat was taken away from me. Perhaps I was never on the boat, but traveling alongside it for a time, or grasping the side and slowly slipping off. It is apparent to me that it is still traveling toward that horizon, but well out of my sight now. The piece is at first immersive, then to me it feels vertical and turbulent—quite the opposite of linear. Then it becomes linear in the sense of a gradual diminishment of amplitude and register, then liminal as it slowly recedes from audibility. How much of that is simply a factor of my capacity to understand, to process, to hear? How much of it is the work itself? And then what of that is simply me and my reaction, and what is a by-product of normal bands of human perception? I will wait to learn more from others who have heard the piece. Listening again two weeks later, I came to an important—and seemingly obvious—realization about the form of the piece. August 13 It opens with a single sustained tone, but many other tones are included among the overtones and there is a flickering in prominence between them. There is a slow timbral shift in the lowest (played) note, similar to a gradual vowel change in overtone singing. I know that a burst of sound in at least two new, prominent notes will come at some point but forgetting when builds up suspense. (My computer is charging in the other room so I don't have access to my notes.) The overtones are stirring, alternating, generating more suspense. Since other parameters are static, I am able to focus in behind the surface of the drone. Here is the new entrance; new played notes make the overtone activity more intense, alternating and flickering. As much of a surprise as those notes were the first time, as much as they built up suspense, they very quickly (in less than a minute) have become integrated into the texture in my listening experience. Now there are more low notes, the lowest yet, and the texture of the overtones, the alternating and flickering in prominence, is starting to go wild. More high notes (played) are quickly added, and the overtone activity is so rapid that it is no longer trackable but is instead a texture, very rapid streams of melody within tight registral areas. It is a great stirring. I need to turn the volume up because I feel like I'm not fully in it. I see that all that I've narrated has happened at least eight minutes earlier, by 12:00. A long sustain with all that has accumulated with occasional additions. Unlike my sense of the pulsations in the Spiegel, a total environment or weather system has built up that is not composed of isolated events, but is an encompassing atmosphere. Occasional gusts might be new keys of the organ sustained, but I'm not sure. They don't seem to go away, but get wrapped into the texture. There is a certain rhythm of pulsation that dominates and feels very much equivalent to my own bodily rhythms, but I couldn't say which ones—breathing, pulse, and so on. There are many rhythms going though, and they are not in lock step. The rhythms are being controlled by the harmonic interactions. A prominent entrance of a pitch class some octaves above the fundamental feels like a defining moment shortly before 23:00. New melodies are created by it. A chord is played around 24:00. It feels like we're coming to a formal demarcation. It's not particularly that the material is stretched out. It actually needs this much time to reveal itself. There is plenty of activity, plenty of change to keep me fully engaged, and even at times overwhelmed. The changes are so far all of a certain nature but they have a complex series of consequences in harmony and resultant rhythm. The texture suddenly pulls back shortly before 28:00. I know what to be listening for, the pulling away and reappearance of the overtones, a kind of stirring or flickering (or perhaps a shimmering as a result of stirring,) and it is vivid and very present for me. Or I am present for it. At 30:30, the played notes are beginning to advance in front of the overtones, then recede again as I become more accustomed to them. The rate of shimmer is becoming faster and I don't know why or how. Now the shimmer is clearly in the foreground. The texture has not changed, but it has acted on me. What is the subject-object relationship here? It feels like the piece is playing me over time. Gradual changes have a lasting impact on what I hear and how I hear it. Harmony morphs into rhythm. Overtones become melodies. Foreground becomes background and vice versa. There is a reduction in forces leading into 37:00. The shimmer is gradually stilling. There is motion but it has significantly slowed. Fewer elements are in motion as there are fewer played tones, but with each reduction there is still plenty of material to listen to. It would be fascinating to listen back to this section for absence, trying to hear what's going away with each instance of removal. A high, almost rattling sound becomes apparent through reduction of more prominent melodies (43:00). Other rhythms develop too, even as there seems to be an almost-complete diminishment in texture. I can't really tell at this point which notes are being played. Maybe it's a lowish note that began the piece. Is there a second one? Third? There must have been three because something went away and now it sounds like at least two. We're back at the calm surface of the water. Fewer things are flickering. For a moment I thought there was stasis, but then I heard something else. In any case it feels calmer than before, though change is still rapid in the reduction of elements. The return to a single note feels like something to anticipate as much as the original anticipation of the higher chord. That felt like an age ago. This reductive process is lengthy in time. (It started at about 28:00 and is now still going at 50:30) but continually engaging, now still at 53:30. There are compelling rhythmic changes even when there seems to be no change in played notes. I don't know how that happens. It is still reducing at 59:00. This is a momentous, compelling reduction. I can see how it allowed for sleep before but there is plenty to listen for in absence and presence. It feels like a total calm, the bluest of skies with no clouds or interference. Now I'm floating on the water looking upward. It is still diminishing at 63:00, yet still very present, still and peaceful, but clearly it feels like daytime and not nighttime. Different objects come into prominence, advance and recede within a vast expanse, without distinct temporal markers. For this moment, past and present feel indistinguishable. The end of the piece is somewhere on the horizon, and gradually the chord diminishes to nothing. Having completed this closer and more careful listening, the entire form of the work has finally come into view. From 0 to 27:46, it builds. From that point to the end, it recedes. It seems fairly evident now that everything before this crest is an addition and everything after is a reduction, but I was caught up in moments rather than structure in earlier encounters and didn't know that until this late moment. Formally, it mirrors James Tenney's, having never written a note for percussion (1971). It could almost be said to be that piece transcribed for organ. (But of course it isn't.) The clarity of the form is something that recedes into the background, allowing various harmonic and perceptual phenomena to come into clear view. Conclusion Now that I've finally talked about the actual content and my listening experiences of these two pieces, I can address the question of differences between them. My memory of much earlier listening experiences had a nearly identical impact on me, both viscerally and temporally. The timbral and harmonic content, taken as a whole, is in fact rather similar between them. But the treatment of material, from foreground elements through to the overall form, is vastly different. Now that I know the pieces better, they are quite distinct experiences. Spiegel's piece operates in some ways as an unordered list. A certain number of actions are possible (though at a number of pitches, speeds, and amplitudes) and can be brought in at any time. Things go in and out of focus in the listening experience, but there is an ongoing sense that all of them are always there. My perceived shift from moment to moment is in perspective, rather than in content. In the Möller, the structure is additive and then subtractive. It begins with a single low tone, adds a note or two at a time, along with the resultant overtones, mounting to an incomprehensible complex of pitches, melodies, and rhythms all derived from these sustained organ tones. Then the pitches are slowly removed. The perceptual results of this process are so complex, and take place over such a long stretch of time, that it was far from obvious to me for some time how very straightforward the form was. How then, given the basic formal differences between the pieces, do the perceptual experiences of them differ? Here I'll write from the standpoint of my later listenings, having more information. In the Spiegel, I am witnessing sound objects advancing and receding, and I am registering their appearance and disappearance from moment to moment much as I might with visual objects. In the Möller, I am anticipating. At the opening I anticipate the abrupt appearance of two notes in the organ. Then I am listening for more tones and their interactions. When the space becomes perceptually saturated, I keep imagining that the texture is one or two note-removals away from silence. Every removal leaves more than I expected until the very last actual moments of the piece. The image I returned to several times is a slow return to the surface of the water. Though the processes of building up and reducing chords on the organ might objectively seem to be mirroring each other, they have very different perceptual impacts on me. Even with repeated listenings, the