Text Music

This is a musical form based on text. The underlying reasoning is that text already contains structure and pattern which should translate into musical structure and pattern without much difficulty. Therefore, I have devised a process which will allow text to be performed as music. This requires the production of pitched sound, dynamics, etc. from the written word.

The process may be compared with Christopher Hobbs's Voicepiece (1967), which is for any number of vocalists who make vocal noises (including singing and speaking, humming, etc.) according to a procedure where the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 0 indicate a specified vocal noise, the volume, pitch, duration, and the duration of silence following the vocal noise. The numbers that constitute the "score" are the last 4 digits of a series of telephone numbers obtained by opening a telephone directory at random and commencing at the top of the left hand page.

The Mechanics Of Text Music

Suppose we take a sentence such as the following:-

The cat sat on the mat.

This already has an implicit rhythm that is like a musical phrase; longer sentences will have more complicated rhythms, a mixture of upper/lower case letters, numbers, punctuation, type faces, etc. As our music is to be Text Music, then we will discount diagrams, tables, etc.

Performance Directions

The performance directions consist of instructions which are general to all performance of all pieces, and should be understood by all performers before the performance starts. The performance itself is derived from a typed piece of text (preferably on squared paper with punctuation "rests" expanded); all performers have exact copies of the text, and the rhythm or metre may be given by a large (visible to all) dial, or by a conductor, who will beat out a pulse per character. If the dial method is to be used, it should be a counter which can count to a fairly large number; for simplicity, this may be reset to zero at pre-designated points in the script.

Instrumentation

Again for the sake of simplicity, we will divide instruments into 2 classes; sustaining and non-sustaining. Sustaining instruments are those in which the sound can be sustained for significant time - such as the violin family, organs, running water, singing, electric motors, the clarinet, etc. The others are instruments where the sound dies away fairly quickly, such as the piano, a footstep, a drum beat, gunshot, guitar, etc. If there are techniques which allow a non-sustaining instrument to emulate a sustaining instrument, these may be employed, but must be continued to comply with other rules to be specified; hence, you can't perform a drum roll at one place, and then change to a drum beat elsewhere!

Similarly, if the performers wish to play non-sustaining notes on sustaining instruments, this is allowable as long as the instrument remains non- sustaining throughout the piece.

Punctuation

Looking at our text source, we can see certain obvious translations between text and music; the punctuation serves to emphasise or separate elements of the rhythm, which we can put into performance instructions.

1. Exclamation marks, capitals, italics and underlining all emphasise, which we shall equate to volume. If we specify a nominal (say, mezzo-piano) volume for the normal text, then capitals can be one step louder, italics 2 steps, underlining 3 steps, and an exclamation mark adds a further step to the whole word; this gives seven levels of increased volume, when used in combination.

2. Quotes and question marks - partly due to the predominance of Qs - are used to reduce the volume (quietly). Single quotes reduce the volume 1 step, double quotes, 2 steps, and the question mark a further step for the whole of that word. Quotes that are in pairs within the sentence work as grammar - the second quote cancels the first. Brackets have the same effect as single quotes.

3. Spaces, commas, semi-colons, colons all control the flow of sound. Spaces count as 1 beat rests, and commas as 2 beats, semi-colons as 3 beats, and colons as 4 beats, as well as their own duration. Instruments/sounds which are already playing are unaffected by these rests, they continue to play through them. Others count them as silent beats.

In this world of word-processing all spaces between words are classed as equal to one space, and a new line (carriage return, etc.) is assumed to be an implicit space. Blank lines indicate a pause of indefinite duration, during which the counter may be reset if appropriate.

4. Full stops, question marks and exclamation marks also cause all instruments to stop playing for 5 beats, as well as their other attributes. Close brackets also stop all instruments currently playing. All these characters reset all volume levels to the nominal start level.

5. Ellipsis indicate that any instrument/sound adjacent to the ellipsis performs its allotted task the number of times that there are dots in the ellipsis, within the beat.

6. A "-" indicates a reduction of volume of one step.

7. "+" means an increase of volume one step.

8. "=" means that the next note is heavily emphasised.

9. "/" means the next note is played very softly.

The actual sound produced at each beat must be determined in advance of any performance, but may vary between performances, and is determined by the character at that position in the score. All characters have a duration of one beat only, including the punctuation, but the actual value of that beat may be specified in advance; it is expected that inexperienced players will play with 1 beat=1 second, in order to simplify location within the score when using a stop watch, but this could be speeded up with increasing skill on the part of the performers, or if there is a conductor, or if a counter dial is used.

A list of the letter and numbers that appear within the piece must be prepared before the performance, and each character assigned a sound, using one of the following rules:-

1. The letter is translated to its direct musical equivalent on a specified instrument, in a specified octave.

2. The letter is translated to some other specified pitch on a specified instrument.

3. A vocalist can make an onomatopoeic sound.

4. A sound is made with an object beginning with the letter. This may be a pitched or unpitched sound. A certain amount of licence may be used - e.g. s= small jug, t= twin-neck guitar.

5. Some other sound may be used, but it must be clearly specified.

6. A number must be treated as individual digits; the digits are treated as offsets from middle C, in semitones, and are played by the last instrument to begin playing. If this is a non-pitched instrument, the performer should make the best attempt possible to emulate a pitched instrument.

Instruments that are capable of sustained notes should begin playing at the time the specified letter appears, and cease playing at the next appearance, or at a full stop, etc. Other sound sources should play at each appearance of the appropriate letter.

In order to allow repeat performance, the rules applying to individual letters must be carefully noted by the conductor and/or performers.

Summary

That's about the size of it. I have played with this and produced some (fairly unexciting) music! But it's a start... The piece you are hearing is built from a paragraph of random text, configured for tubular bells, cello and oboe. More exciting pieces probably need more exciting text to start with, or at least more deliberately structured forms.