When composition is not research³

On November 25, 2015, at 17.30, a group of panellists will address critical perspectives on the question "Can Composition and Performance be Research?" in London. The panellists will be Ian Pace (pianist), Miguel Mera (composer), Annie Yim (pianist), Christine Dysers ("PhD student"), Camden Reeves (composer), and Christopher Fox (composer). The latter is also the editor of Tempo, the journal in which John Croft published the article that exposed the issue of composition-as-research to the widest and most intense public interest that I have witnessed so far.

As this debate initially dealt with composition, I have followed it, and engaged with it (here and here in writing, as well as in live fora) due to my general interest as expressed in this blog, but also more specifically because of my involvement with doctoral students in AR (often composers) and the fact that the AR discourse seemed to consistantly shy away from taking a clear stance in matters of composition, compared to performance. 

Ian Pace

As the discussion has now been widening its focus to cover performance as well, my interest is sparked beyond what I thought before. Ian's announcement of this event (in this post on his blog) links to a good number of writings on the subject, including a forthcoming article of his own (to be published in Tempo, also). In it, he states that:

If I say that I have learned a good deal from listening to performances and recordings of Walter Gieseking, György Cziffra, Charles Rosen, or Frederic Rzewski, or Barbara Bonney, or Nikolaus Harnoncourt, or even Marcel Pérès, this is not simply in the sense of old-fashioned conceptions of ‘influence’ and osmosis (not that these do not also occur). But I listen to these performers to garner some idea of what is distinctive about their approach, and how they have set about achieving this. In a critical, non-slavish manner it is then possible to draw upon their achievements and also to discern what other possibilities might exist, opening up a new range of interpretive – and I would say research – questions.

He goes on to compare this artistic process of seeking direction in context (my interpretation) with an example from the "wilder fringes of theatre and visual performance", stating that his approach is "no less 'research' as result". This is followed by concluding that 

[...] composition-as-research, and performance-as-research (and performance-based research) are real activities; the terms themselves are just new ways to describe what has gone on earlier, with the addition of a demand for explicit articulation to facilitate integration into academic structures.

I don't agree with the jump from "opening up research questions" to actually being "research as a result", nor do I think performance-based research should be considered on the same level (much legitimate systematic musicology - e.g. performance science - is performance-based or -led). I more than agree with that "additional demand", as I find the explication of the research to be essential to its identity. As long as it is impossible for me to assess how (and how exactly) Ian has learned from Gieseking, Cziffra, et all., how exactly this has opened up new questions, how exactly this worked in a certain way (and not in perhaps certain other ways), what the conclusions are, etc., it is not worth it to use a new term to describe the age-old process he described. Research is a collective effort, with peer-interaction as a fundamental, i.e. peer-based and peer-oriented. Contrary to matters of composition, I can consider myself to be a peer of Ian's, but, from his performances, I cannot tell any of the above to a level that informs me about his research.

A few years ago, I have had a discussion with composer Aaron Holloway-Nahum about that latter notion. I argued that I couldn't tell any compositional research aspect from looking at a score. Even on the level of composition, I cannot find myself be sure about how something is put together. His reply offered the example of a chord that consists of intervals that are stacked symmetrically around a center C, and argued that the idea and the knowledge necessary to come to that conclusion (i.e. the chord is symmetrical rather than a functional harmonic construction within a scale or key) are contained in the chord itself. Well, philosophically, that point can be pushed, yes, but when the real potential knowledge is tacit (the decisions that were involved, the choices that were made, and how the assessment of the outcome relates to the research question, etc. - not the apparent positioning of visual constituents), then by definition it resists explicit articulation and thereby merely leads to interpretation and  speculation, even for specialists. When browsing through the many folders of archival materials for Boulez's third piano sonata, it is only possible to reliably explain the knowledge or - if you will - the research processes that lie behind any given chord in such a piece when going through the work that Peter O'Hagan did. And then we still only know something about the processes of construction, which, methodical as Boulez may have been, is still not necessarily saying anything about the research premisses, methodology, or conclusions. It does not even indicate that there was any research to begin with.

One of the articles Ian's post refers to is Nicholas Till's Opus versus output. Till gives examples of what he considers historical instances of creative practice, arguing them to be research by way of retro-actively devising research questions, e.g. in the case of Arnold Schoenberg (of whom Till states that he "developed serialism"): "how can we reconstitute musical form on a non-harmonic basis?" Both the statement and the research question are not only as "confused and lacking intellectual rigour" as Till accuses "the present model [of artistic practice as research] in UK universities" of, they also demonstrate how futile it is to try and rephrase an artistic process in terms of research methodology. 

It is quite possible that Schoenberg carried out actual research, but we won't know anything about it as long we only assess the artistic output. And that is what, by definition, happens with practice-as-research.

It is too bad that I cannot be in London on the 25th - would love to hear what is being brought to the fore. If I hear of anything new, I'll be posting about it, although I am running out of superscript numbers on my keyboard to write out more follow-up titles. On the other hand, the discussion still seems to show no promise of dealing with the question of what AR in composition can be if research and composition are not equated.

When composition is not research²

It has been surprising to see how much interest the previous post has generated. In less than four days, it attained a higher access rate than any other posts on this blog ever enjoyed, including the (until then) all-time favorite. The latter announced new research jobs; some of the reactions to the former were about how the Croft article was tantamount to a professional suicide note. Clearly, many are looking for a job, and some, if not many, are looking to keep their existing one. This will lead to more posts, but, for now, I want to follow up on the composition as/vs. research discussion.

Despite the attention, still very few arguments and cases are presented on how exactly composition can be equal to research (other than through notions of tacit knowledge, which seem to lead more to theories about it than to knowledge on how to work with it in practice). Equally lacking, but more poignantly so, is how exactly both can relate to each other if they are not synonymous, which is what I had intended to be the gist of my post. Meanwhile, on June 11-13, the Performa 2015 conference (not to be confused with the New York Performa 15 biennial) took place in Aveiro, Portugal, with relevant keynotes by Croft (elaborating on his article) and Marcel Cobussen ("Musical Performances are (not) Artistic Research"). Commenting on a FaceBook report by Cobussen, Croft has mentioned a forthcoming "positive corollary" to his arguments. I am curious and intend to keep you posted, here.

Serendipitously, I just found two ads for future symposia that may help propell the discussion further. The first one – (PER)FORMING ART: PERFORMANCE AS RESEARCH IN CONTEMPORARY ARTWORKS – will be organized to take place at Leeds University on September 20, 2015, and will consider performance as a guiding force in the compositional process. Some of the proposed topics seem apt to inspire thinking about ways in which composition can be researched from within, e.g. performance as an actual technique for composing music, how performing other works can inform the compositional process of one’s own work, live coding and its influence on compositional practice, improvisation and its influence on compositional practice, etc.

Apparently, it will only be a small-scale affair (the program foresees 4 candidates and a keynote) , which is too bad, I think: it is certainly the first time I see any conference directly addressing the explication of compositional techniques from a practical perspective. Thinking back of the intensity with which the composition-is-(not)-research issue was engaged with on social networks, I would hope that more than four submit something and stand a chance at being heard. Watch out for the deadline, though: July 6, already!

Just this morning, I saw a call for proposals to be submitted for a later and larger-scale conference on Artistic Research: Is there Some Method?, to be held at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague on April 7 – 9, 2016. Here, the questions are sought to deal with, amongst others, artistic research as an art of its kind, how to scrutinize the knowledge that art claims to produce, the extent to which methodological approaches in artistic research are hostile to the creative process, the added value of artistic research methods for art. Keynote speakers are already determined and make for an interdisciplinary setting: Bruce Brown (University of Brighton, UK), Bojana Kunst (Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, Giessen, Germany), Kent Sjöström (Malmö Theatre Academy, Sweden), Teemu Mäki ( Helsinki, Finland) and Julian Klein (Institute for Artistic Research, Berlin, Germany). Submissions are expected by October 15. 

Dr. Picknett's wondrous world of devised music

I heard composer, director and performer Michael Picknett for the first time at the June 2013 conference on “Music and/as process”, in Huddersfield, where he presented “Who are we watching? Performing Devised Processes in Music”. Last month, he got his PhD in music composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, on the topic of “Devising Music. Applying Creative Approaches from Dance and Theatre to Music Composition”.

Dr.Michael Picknett

Devising is a term known from contemporary dance or theatre. But, as Michael has shown, the techniques and approaches can equally be applied to creating music. In its simplest form, devising refers to any collaborative creative practice that begins with the performers and is generated through their responses to tasks. Tasks can take the form of instructions, questions, rules or games. As the performers create the material, it can be shaped by the composer or director by refining the tasks or setting the materials to form a finished piece.

Michael’s dissertation is accompanied by three DVDs with audio-video materials (available here), deals with the history and terminology of ‘devising’, discusses five compositions of his, and ends with two appendices (an interview with collaborating musicians, and related compositional approaches, practices and works).

Focusing on finding ways of developing his devised music practice through an understanding and application of devising approaches found in theatre and dance, Michael has explored the practices of three strikingly different devising companies: the American theatre company The Wooster Group, the German dance company Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, and the British theatre collective Forced Entertainment. These are representative of the diversity of work that can emerge from a devising process, which give some indication of the nature of the process Michael has been investigating within his own practice.

Ne Pleure Pas, Alfred (picture from performance)

In Ne Pleure Pas, Alfred, a duet for two percussionists, Michael looks at transposing physical and semantic practices from devised theatre and dance onto composition, and how musical product differs from creative process. The solo piano The Carter Piece served to examine the enabling of “a sufficiently rich relationship between performer and project as to allow the piece to adapt to the context of a performance”, leading to the concepts of performers as score and projects that age and even expire. In Apologetics 1 for harp and bass clarinet, laboratory practice is explored, i.e. “work on ideas that were not necessarily going to be performed, but that informed our practice in both performance and creation”. This piece changed in between performances, contrary to Ne Pleure Pas, Alfred (no development between performances) and The Carter Piece (reacting to the environment in the moment of performance). Water Music – a piece “about breathing” for two performers – uses the performer’s autobiography and investigates the aesthetic of failure and non-acting. Finally, Apologetics 3, “a play for musicians”, focusses on the relationships between performer and material.

See a promo video for Apologetics here (4'), and of Water Music here (14'39").

Carter Piece (picture from performance)

In a chapter on devising projects from the performer’s perspective, ideas of trust and ownership are discussed. The ‘related compositional practices’ are about scores with increased performer input, collaborative composition of solo repertoire (e.g. Berio’s Sequenza III for Cathy Berberian), composers with their own ensemble (e.g. Steve Reich), Scelsi’s Canti Del Capricorno and Kagel’s work with his Cologne Ensemble for new Music, and devising practices in the works of Heiner Goebbels and Meredith Monk.

As a performer, I have been appreciating Michael’s research for several reasons: applied to musical composition, the devising practice throws extra light on a host of aspects of the performer’s position in music making, from experimental performer-composer practices to the way ensembles such as the Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza established and refined modes of collective improvisation, and from theoretical notions of co-authorship and -creativity, openness of musical form, theatricalities, authenticity (e.g. Peter Kivy’s “personal authenticity”), etc., to attitudes towards cultural practices, such as the music sector’s near-obsession with documenting performances vs. the appreciation in theatre and dance of an ephemeral nature of producing and experiencing art. Even if I grew up, professionally speaking, with and in an industry that is built on prioritizing “the perfect statement of an objective pattern”, which goes against “the beauty of a human condition in performance”, I like the idea of the latter especially because it provides potential to artistic development – mine as well as that of audiences.

On another level, I enjoy thinking of Michael’s project as a fine example of AR in composition. As a concept and as a practice, compositional research is far from unproblematic, and I really wish to go into this in a separate post. Suffice it to state that I have still witnessed painfully few compositional PhD projects that I would comfortably qualify as AR. Many are artistic endeavors (however valid, aesthetically speaking) with an analytical or even just a descriptive appendix that fails to demonstrate an impact on compositional practice, others consist of theorizing about philosophical concepts that are related to but that reveal more about the power of the concepts than about the composition or the practice behind it. Michael’s dissertation is also very descriptive, but it shows the huge potential of applying a method that has proven to generate artistic merit in theatre and dance to composition, with results that create both artistic value and promise for further exploration by other artists and/or researchers.

Repeat Indefinitely (picture from rehearsal)

The art of Jaso Sasaki’s method

At the 3rd ORCiM festival, I watched Finnish violinist Jaso Sasaki present a research project that looked at first sight as if in danger of being somewhat pointless but ended up fascinating me. For much of the presentation, “Historical recording projects” seemed to be merely about making recordings of early-20th century repertoire with the recording techniques and standards from that era. Jaso let the audience listen and look at the sounds and photographs of himself recording his playing on a stroh-violin into a funnel, using reconstructed fabrication processes and materials to effectively make 78rpm discs and Edison cylinders. But this was not the point. His real aim was to try and reconstruct the performance style of violinists from that period, an interest that is based in general on a wish to find out about the acclaimed ‘golden tone’ of masters like Heifetz and Kreisler (in contrast with the often-stated lack of personal color in present-day violin playing), and in particular on the frustrating lack of recordings of Ysaÿe’s solo violin sonatas, contemporary to the composing of these works. To truly understand what lies behind the old recordings’ typical  sound of frying fish, Jaso believes he must enter the original recording process to experience how its limitations may have been as much part of how we perceive the sweetly nostalgic sound than the actual performance techniques.

So far, so good, I’d say, even if understand how this is enough to make some (if not many) feel uncomfortable. As far as I am concerned, I do think it worthwhile to investigate this matter thoroughly, rather than getting stuck in the dismissal of any attempt at recreating bygone aesthetics and in the refusal to rethink the value of progress in the development of recording techniques. I’m anticipating how much more we will be able to deepen our understanding of playing post-early music repertoire by way of Jaso’s approach than e.g. the way Krystian Zimmerman had a go at the Chopin piano concertos in 1999. Those discs were revelatory to me when they came out, and I still revel in them, but they were essentially limited to more intuitive and superficial modes of reconstruction than what artistic research à la Jaso's can actually offer. And I am prone to believe that, at some time in the future, we will want to rediscover and reconstruct the clinical 1980’s playing and recording styles. So why not start filling the gaps?

But I felt the urge to post about Jaso for another reason than what’s above. To me, he is a researcher taking contextualization to a new level, one that perhaps only an artist would think of and estimate as being appropriate. Jaso’s publicity picture is styled in a period manner, the cars he likes to restore are classic, he enjoys archery and records in full concert dress. These aspects, put together with the interest in experiencing the old recording sessions, point to the idea that he in fact likes to live the context of his topic. This is the last straw to the academic, of course, and I would agree to a very large extent that living like Heifetz will not make one play like him. To be correct, I don’t even think Jaso likes Aston Martins, smokes cigars and shoots arrows to accomplish the best results in his research. Nevertheless, the general attitude of enjoying ‘live’ immersion in the past may just be what lead him to the best method for this project. Recording the old fashioned way, in all its aspects, is indeed an excellent method to learn about pre-war performance techniques.

More information on Jaso Sasaki and his project will be up soon at his website, including audio clips. At the festival, I found his Interbellum-type rendering of Gounod-Bach’s Ave Maria, normally considered excessive in every artistic aesthetic aspect, thoroughly enjoyable.