Labyrinth: Mneme by joel taylor

Composer's admonition/suggestion/plea:
Please do not read these notes, which are very detailed and technical, while listening to the music. Ideally, listen to the music first, and then read the notes.

Overview:

This album contains works created over the last two months, from August and September, 2023, while exploring the microtonal harmonic and melodic potentials of the septimal, undecimal, and tridecimal primodalities, which have been so well described and promoted by Amelia Huff.

The timbres and rhythms, the melodies, and harmonies, are encapsulated in note list style scores that drive my synthesis program, RatioTreader, which performs the pieces.

The sub-titles for the pieces are lifted from William Gaddis's "The Recognitions," which I have been reading while composing these works. The sub-titles are associations, not descriptions of the music.

All of these pieces have been composed in a more or less intuitive fashion, rather than using predetermined forms or processes.

The music:

The first and fourth tracks here, "For the starry robes of night illuminate," and "For the starry robes of night illuminate"-vers. 2, are both created by the same eight, note list scores, but conducted, through differing global tempo changes by two different "tempo multiplier scores." I consider them to be two performances of the same piece. This piece is both polytempic and polymicrotonal, utilizing three different tunings simultaneously. The other tracks in this album all use only one tuning for their entire duration.

The descriptive names I give to the "instruments" used in these pieces are analogies, all of the instruments are created with the same software algorithms, described later, and these instruments are named after acoustic instruments which they somewhat resemble in sound - and only resemble, to greater or lesser degree. There has been no attempt to create perfect substitutes for acoustic instruments, rather, there is a concerted effort to create software synthesis "instruments" that have the complexity of sound, and the flexibility of application, of acoustic instruments. So, when I write "horn," you should think, "horn-like."

Tunings, tempos, and instrumentation, in detail, of each track:

Track1 and Track4, Octets - "For the starry robes of night illuminate" -

Voice1=Gong, Voice2=Metallophone (Saron Panerus), and Voice 3=Rebab(or violin), are all three in septimal primodality, with 1/1 = (8/7)440Hz = B+32c.
note: letter names in these notes refer to 12tET with A=440Hz.

Voice4=Horn, and Voice5=Horn, are both in tridecimal primodality, with 1/1 = (21/13)440Hz = F+30c. And in the course of the piece, transposed to (29/26) and (35/26) times that 1/1, that is, to G+19c, and A#+45c.

Voice6=Bell, Voice7=Bell, and Voice8=Metallophone (Saron Panerus), are all in undecimal primodality, with 1/1 = (20/11)440Hz = G+35c.

The first of these instrument groups has a "base tempo" of 50mm, the second a "base tempo" of 52mm, and the third a "base tempo" of 78mm. These proportional relationships are always intact throughout the piece. But tempo multiplier settings will change these three settings, for example, a tempo multiplier setting of 1.5, will change these three tempos to 1.5x50= 75mm, 1.5x52=78mm, and 1.5x78=117mm respectively. In this piece the tempo multiplier settings change every 2 to 15 seconds, from 0.2, to 3.5, to 0.1, to 0.75, to 6.75, etc. Thus even though the relationship of the beats in one group are kept in a rigid proportional relation to another group, the global tempo of the piece is always shifting in a very fluid and free manner.
The tempo multiplier scores used in the pieces in this album which use tempo multiplier scores, were created in a trial and error fashion by auditioning, not by application of a system.

Track 2, Solo, "Its weight not enough to dislodge the snow" -
Voice1=Horn, in septimal primodality, with 1/1 = (12/7)440Hz = F#+33c. The tempo changes throughout this piece: from 75mm, to 85mm, to 55mm, then back to 85mm, then to 75mm (again). Note the tempo palindrome.

Track 3, Trio, - "Where a point of light expands into a field of space and a wordless universe" -

Voice1=Gongs, Voice2=metallophone (saron panerus), and Voice3=rebab (spiked fiddle), all in septimal primodality, with 1/1 = (8/7)440Hz = B+32c. This piece is in an American Gamelan form of my creation, where the length of the gong cycle is 24 beats long, divided into eight groups of three beats. The balungan, or nuclear melody is 18 beats long, also divided into groups of 3 beats. This kind of metrical overlapping is not found in traditional Javanese Gamelan forms. In this case the balungan is repeated four times for every three times the gong cycle is repeated, for a form length of 72 beats. The spiked fiddle voice carries a free solo melody, which is not tied to either the balungan or gong cycle.

Please note: a close variation of this piece is used in "For the starry robes of night illuminate," in the first group of three voices, and the cyclic form that these three voices adhere to, provides the structural "ground" for the octet. The trio "Where a point of light expands..." can be thought of as the mother of "For the starry robes...".

Track 5, Trio - "The moon had sent a stream of light" -
Voice1=trombone, Voice2=bass clarinet, and Voice3= trumpet, all in undecimal primodality, with 1/1 = (23/22)440Hz = Bb-23c. This piece has complex base tempo relationships between the voices, and a tempo-multiplier score.

Track 6, Septet "The wind had gone down, and the snow continued" -
Voice1=trombone, Voice2=tenor sax, Voice3=horn, Voice4=trombone2, Voice5=tuba, Voice6=trombone3, Voice7=trumpet. All of these in tridecimal primodality with 1/1 = (15/13)440Hz = B+48c. This score has complex relationships between the base tempos for the different voices, and a tempo-multiplier score. Some of the voices are sometimes driven to speeds which change their timbres radically, resulting in electronic sounds of fast pops, combs teeth clattering, etc.

Track 7, Duo "The moon is always in motion" -
Both voices, hornlike, but also electronic sound. Both voices in undecimal primodality, with 1/1 = (14/11)440Hz = C#+18c. The tempos of these voices change together, in the following sequence: 72mm, 45mm, 70mm, 84mm.

Xenharmonic Theory of Primodalities
I became aware of the just intonation structures composer/theorist Amelia Huff calls primodalities by reading her article on the undecimal primodality in the Xenharmonic Wiki. Here is the current xenharmonic wiki article on primodality:

https://en.xen.wiki/w/Primodality#:~:text=Primodality%20(also%20informally%20called%20Zheanism,chords%20with%20a%20given%20tonic.

Here is Amelia Huff's three plus hour long video introduction to her ideas about the primodalities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKxXdD-lkwI

In these pieces the primodalities are the pitch world domain from which the pitches actually used are selected. In some pieces, only a small subset of the primodality is used, in others, almost every pitch is used.

The primodality tunings used in these pieces are these:

Septimal Primodality, third octave =
{ 28/28 (1/1), 29/28, 30/28 (15/14), ... 55/28, 56/28 (2/1)}

Undecimal Primodality, second octave =
{ 22/22 (1/1), 23/22, 24/22 (12/11), ... 43/22, 44/22 (2/2)}

Tridecimal Primodality, second octave =
{ 26/26 (1/1), 27/26, 28/26 (14/13), ... 51/26, 52/26 (2/1)}

Joel Taylor is a composer/improvisor/programmer who works with a wide variety of electronic and acoustic media. He performs on analog synths, computers, keyboards, shakuhachi, suling, flute, and percussion, and has composed concert music for orchestra, gamelan, and various chamber ensembles.

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