This week, I listened to Rain Tree, which I really enjoyed. This piece has a number of techniques utilized which really impressed me and I thought would be really helpful for compositional study. If we were to graph out the timbral qualities and rhythmic density of this piece, I think we would find two noticeable features. We would see that the piece is comprised of sparse rhythmic activity at the start, that this then evolves in to a piece of great rhythmic density towards about three-quarters of the way through, before dissipating once again into rhythmic sparsity. In timbral terms, the piece starts with sounds that closely resemble sine waves, produced on the percussion instruments used with soft mallets. As time progresses, the arrangement utilizes instruments with more complex sound waves with harder mallets, before returning to an instrumentation that produces sine waves.
These features combine to create a musical form based on rhythm and timbre. You could almost mark these changes like a bell-curve. This demonstrates that musical form can be determined by rhythm and timbre as opposed to melody and harmony.
This solo piano work, composed in 1982, supposedly originated from a short story which describes a tree with countless tiny leaves that collect and hang on to water from morning rain showers. Throughout the day, after the showers have disappeared, rain continues to fall indeterminately from the tree.
The piece is made up of an ongoing series of short, dissonant motifs with breaks in between, where the clusters of notes are allowed to ring out. This patient style could be associated with the idea of the rain tree, which steadily, but not constantly, dislodges water from its leaves. The light, dissonant tones symbolise the water falling, while the gaps act as the space or time before the next rain begins.
This is not a particularly complex piece but one gets the feeling that each note is of absolute importance to Takemitsu. He has gone to the trouble of implementing three different types of accents (strong, moderate and soft) in order to achieve the most subtle of nuances. All pedals of the piano are employed in the piece, and although their effects are again delicate, they are of no less importance. This piece also displayed to me the significant role that space plays in music, particularly solo instrumental music. So far in my composing I have probably been inclined to fill up the score as much as possible (the one I showed in class the other day is a pretty good example!) and have a constant, ongoing source of sound. Much of the impact of Rain Tree comes from the space within the composition, along with the carefully chosen tone clusters and subtle changes in dynamics, accents, and pedalling techniques.
November Steps is just a piece that explores a number of musical modules through the use of traditional japanese instruments as well as parts of a western orchestra.
The piece begins with a eerie tone which sets the mood for the remainder of the piece. His dissonant use of strings is what gives this effect. There are also many other extended techniques explored here included a muted trombone/trumpet parts to illustrate an almost psychotic tone. The orchestration, in my opinion, has similarities to that of Debussy’s, in that it’s very rich and colourful, making extensive use of strings and woodwinds. Well, at least not in the japanese-y sections.
The use of silence throughout is interesting, as if it highlight bouts of seasonal depression. There is no centre of rhythm really, which is characteristic of Japanese gagaku music, musical ideas are presented as blocks which fade in and out. Here, the orchestra comes in and out. This juxtaposition of the orchestra vs ancient japanese instruments is particular interesting in that it’s extremely noticeable. Perhaps Takemitsu wasn’t going for a blend between the two sounds.
Sources have pointed out that Takemitsu at first intended to unite the Japanese and the western musical elements in this composition but later found they were too vast to overcome so went for a juxtaposition instead. lol, a bit n00b in my opinion, but it still works as a piece.
What did I learn from this piece? Not much to be honest, to get a Japanese sound, use a shakuhachi and crescendo/dimuendo in and out of a long note.
This is probably not a rain tree. The image name says it's a Japanese Maple tree.
I’ve been sitting on this study for a while now, trying to think of what to write about it. I decided I would cover the main compositional aspects and techniques.
First, an address on Takemitsu VS John Cage and serialism.
(Mostly paraphrased from the book Confronting Silence)
Toru Takemitsu was influenced by John Cage, and used indeterminacy in a number of pieces of music, but later drifted away from it. Cage also takes the view (there is a link to the video) that sound is just sound, and does seem to care much for extramusical meaning. Takemitsu, however, sources a lot of his musical inspiration from other artistic mediums, and from nature. Japanese gardens, a tree and the rain, etc. Takemitsu also does not much like the idea of musicians as scientists, rejecting on this basis, serialism. But I think he certainly would not reject what could be learned from serialism.
This particular piece is for 3 percussion players:
Player A: Left side, Marimba and 3 Crotales tuned F# Bb C
Player B: Right side, Marimba and 3 Crotales tuned A Ab and B
Player C: Centre, Vibraphone and 10 Crotales tuned B D Eb E F# G Ab A C# F(8va)
It is a very beautiful piece, certainly bringing to mind its extramusical imagery. It would be great to see performed live, as the composer has instructed lighting effets (on and off) to highlight each instrument at different times, or to plunge the stage into darkness with only sound but no visual element being observed by the audience.
Indeterminacy
In this piece, Takemitsu uses indeterminacy primarily through improvisation. There are two sections where the players are instructed to improvise with the crotales, imitating rain falling from the tree. This is often done with the players in the dark.
Form and development
This piece has no real form, in the traditional sense (ABA, Sonata, etc), but rather uses ongoing motivic development that gradually evolves and becomes more intricate. He contrasts this with quieter sections of different timbre, and uses the timbrel differences of the instruments with dynamic shifts to create movement. Right throughout the piece, a single motive can be heard recurring in different forms; his transformation of the idea is wonderful.
What’s interesting is that, given the pitch classes represented in the above information, they are not at all presented in a serial manner (row after row), but rather are used just like a scale form, so there may be a tonal center at times, but it is shifting and changing frequently, however, the piece does not have the potentially alienating effect of 12-tone music. (Personally, I don’t find 12-tone alienating, but it’s an interesting use of chromatic material).
“It has been named the ‘rain tree’; for its abundant folliage continues to let fall rain drops collected from last night’s shower until well after the following midday. Its hundreds of thousands of tiny leaves – finger like – store up moisture while other trees dry up all at once. What an ingenious tree, isn’t it?”
- quoted from “Atama no ii, Ame no Ki”, a novel by Kenzuburu Oe.
I’d steal Timothy’s image from his original post on this piece, but I can’t really be bothered.
This piece starts with a harmonic tonal center of B natural, the first motive (see diagram) begins on C but climaxes on B; I initially thought there would be more straight pentatonic pitch collections, however it seems that Takemitsu employs the pentatonics more subtly than I can detect. I actually remember reading about them in his book Confronting Silence, but can’t remember right now what they say. Never-the-less; the implication is that there are superimposed pentatonic modes with multiple tonalities. It seems that the total pitch collection is ten out of the twelve equal tempered notes.
Diagram:
Included in the above analyis is the motivic shape used by Takemitsu in the first couple of sections of the piece. The first motive is transformed and re-presented accross multiple instruments/groups of instruments for timral effect, as is the second motive. This re-presentation of material (with harmonic and melodic ornamentation) carries on until a new motive is presented in section C.
The new motive is simply: quaver, quaver, dotted-crotchet, quaver-rest, quaver, quaver (which if you divide into eighth notes is a palindromic or symmetrical rhythm of ten quavers; it is the same played forward or backward. However, because of the dotted crotchet, this symmetry is interrupted). This rhythmic material is transformed, elongated and re-presented timbrally and rhythmically accross multiple time signatures. This new material is also presented canonically in multiple instrument registers creating harmonic density (see cadences). We also hear a further interpreted presentation of the material from the first two sections, again transformed.
Cadences
A big feature of this piece is timbral and dynamic cadences. Rather than using the standard harmonic cadence sequences (V-I, IV-I etc), the composer has chosen to create tension through dynamics and relieve that tension with silence, this carries throughout the entire work. On this theme of silence, Takemitsu spaces his instruments intelligently, using the registeral differences to create silence between sounds; not just the obvious treatment of silence (rest, no playing), but silence between other sounds.
Indeterminacy and conducted improvisation
Takemitsu, courtesy of his influence by John Cage, had an interest in indeterminate music (which was not used so much in his later works). A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden incorporates this theory by telling musicians to play their stated material at their own tempo until the conductor gives queue number 6, which is the queue to continue the written score. This creates a section somewhat akin to the “chorus” section in a jazz ensemble, but without the melodic improvisation. Rather, the melodic material is stated and the players interpret the tempo of this material. In this way, it could be seen as “conducted improvisation”, vaguely similar to minimalist music by Cage, Reich, Reilly, etc.
Final notes
The tempo throughout the piece is slow, this leads to the expressive performance of material that would otherwise be potentially too fast for the same effect. In this sense, the tempo is very important to the effect of the piece.
The piece itself (like a lot of Takemitsu’s work) is based on nature; in this case a Japanese garden in the shape of a pentagon (five sides – where the pentatonic scales should be coming from) and a flock of birds that he observed descending into this garden.
Takemitsu’s “Dreamtime” is a sonically beautiful piece, which, while it certainly has melodic content is a “colour” piece full of musical gestures. It almost feels as though it should be a film score and that actions should be taking place. This effect reminds me of what John Cage said (which is part of that clip David Reser played in the composition workshop on Thursday the 25th of March, 2010):
When I hear what we call “music”, it seems to me like someone is talking; and talking about his feelings or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic, here on sixth avenue for instance, I don’t have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting.*
Considering Takemitsu’s interest in and influence by John Cage, (though his interest in chance and indeterminacy diminished in time) it is of no surprise that this kind of thinking can permeate into composition.
Indeed, it is this lesson that I think is most valuable in studying this piece, at this point in time. Sound as action, or acting. But I’ll return to that in a moment.
A striking feature of this piece is the metering. Takemitsu has used a more modern form of meter, that is instead of writing a numerical value for each beat (ie, 4/4 – the bottom being a numerical value for a crotchet), he uses the musical symbol. If it is to be /4, he uses a crotchet, /8 he uses a quaver, /16 a semiquaver, etc. Added to this Takemitsu is using a lot of metering values that are unconventional, but extremely accurate in their instruction. The opening bar is 7.5/quaver (5.5+2) with “molto rubato entirely expressive” as the tempo marking (quaver=76-80bpm). Seven point five quavers to the measure! That is the equivalent of 15 semiquavers, unless I’m mistaken (and given that it’s 12:20am I may well be). Why do it like that? It seems to me that this relates to assigning divisional rhythmic values to each ‘cell’, like what Messiaen does frequently and also like a lot of non-western musics approach their method of counting. Indian talas, for example, are cyclic combinations of rhythmic values, generally divided into what we we would call 16th notes/semiquavers: five, two, three, four, FIVE, two, three, four etc. Counted exactly as it is, without the western division into twos and threes. In the case of Takemitsu he has divided what the double basses are doing into 2+2+1.5 (quavers) by writing crotchet, crotchet, dotted quaver, followed by a crotchet. This gives exactly 7.5 quavers in the bar.
This type of rhythmic cellular construction reinforces my conclusion that this piece is based on a series of musical gestures and tone colours that are each characteristic individually, but also when put together in form create a constantly moving piece of music, similar perhaps to musique concrete but using a live orchestra to create the effect.
I think this is a score that, like Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur le’Enfant Jesus is a year’s worth of learning by itself, so before this gets too long I’ll return to my other observations about music as action.
Worldwide music is a social action and has been, in some form, forever. In fact, this was also touched upon in the lecture on sound physiology given by David Reser. The idea touched on by John Cage though is that the sounds themselves act – not consciously, of course – and that this is the beauty of them. They are unique just as they are. Music has played a very important cultural role in society, it is used for both religious and secular reasons, it brings people together and allows for social interaction to take place. It seems though that Takemitsu is exploring the actions of the sounds themselves, rather than wrapping that in metaphor of sociology, though he may be doing that too.
Treating sounds as individual objects, even orchestral sounds like this, and composing with them, is a great lesson, perhaps revisited from Mahler and Berio…
Now the theme of Dreamtime, I have no idea about; but given the vague link between Takemitsu being Japanese and Australian Aboriginals having a dreamtime in their spiritual belief, I thought I’d point out that apparently one of the PhDs currently in progress at Monash is the examination of the possible link between the Shakuhachi and the Didjeridoo, which would be quite interesting. Just thought I’d throw that in there.
No funny picture, but I’ll add a youtube video of John Cage talking about silence.
*
Vin
(Apologies for the nearly 800 words of this post, but this piece begs to be talked about)
Toru Takemitsu explores a number of ideas in his piece November Steps, his main theme is the clash of traditional Japanese “sound” with the traditional western classical “sound”, he also explores his philosophy (shared in a way with John Cage) on silence.
According to the composer, the sound of the shakuhachi is timeless, resonating – as if it were coming from the earth itself. (This is a loose quote, from Confronting Silence by Toru Takemitsu).
The form of the piece itself is related to the shakuhachi, that is it lacks any form in the western sense of the word, but rather is an ongoing stream of sound, much like the effect of the shakuhachi. Each sound generated by the orchestra, biwa and shakuhachi is complete and beautiful on its own and should be listened to rather than performed: “here the role of the performer is not to produce sound but to listen to it, to strive constantly to discover sound in silence”, more on silence later.
To provide a sense of unity between Japanese music and western music where there might not be any, the composer uses mimicry between the Japanese instruments and the western orchestra, he achieves this through notated instructions to use the “pizzicato a la Bela Bartok” on the strings, which is to snap the string against the neck of the instrument the way rockabilly double bass players perform their “slap” technique (which is different to conventional electric bass slap technique), this ’causes a sound vaguely similar to the biwa. The mimicry of the shakuhachi is more subtle, usually achieved through musical gestures on the strings.
There is a marking of a giant fermata with an arrow saying “KEEP QUIET” during a biwa solo in the second half of the piece; this really highlights Takemitsu’s philosophy on silence: all art is an expression of self against the silence; all sound comes from silence and returns to silence. The metaphor applies to everything living, and embodying this idea into music is very beautiful.
The thing I got out of this piece when I first studied it sans-score last year was the treatment of instrument sections within the orchestra, and indeed the shakuhachi and biwa, as sound “modules”, expressing themselves when it is strategically the right time to be expressed in ornamentation, support or dissonance with the other instruments. Sound as sound rather than “music”, using an orchestra to achieve this.
Incidentally, I believe there is some research going on at Monash concerning the relationship between the shakuhachi and the didjeridoo.
From Wikipedia:
“He expressed his unusual stance toward compositional theory early on, his lack of respect for the “trite rules of music, rules that are [...] stifled by formulas and calculations”; for Takemitsu it was of far greater importance that “sounds have the freedom to breathe. [...] Just as one cannot plan his life, neither can he plan music”.
If that is not worth paying attention to, I’m not sure what is.
Isn’t it kinda appropriate that I should review a piece with “November” in its title in semester two? Anyway, following my discussion with you Peter this week I have decided to review this work.
And let me say that I am very glad that I did! “November Steps” is written for ochestra with shakuhachi (a Japanese end-blown flute) and Biwa (a Japanese plucked lute). this results in a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar sounds. Now, the reason why I was glad I listened to this was it helped me better understand how i listened to music. When I listen to music with a familiar instrumentation, I have a series of ideas in mind about what it should sound like. This means that if i listen to an orchestral piece, i often pay attention for the melody and harmony. if i listen to music with instruments that i am unfamiliar with, I don’t really have any set ideas about how it should sound. In fact, i listen for the sounds produced. This piece, with its mixture of familiar and unfamiliar, “opened my ears” to the possibilities of the orchestra, I think. Because i had to listen to instruments i had never heard before, I payed attention to colour rather than melody.
Now I thinks it’s time to talk about the piece, and not myself! I like how Takemitsu “spacialised” the music by separating the strings into two groups across the soundstage. I think this could be useful by demonstrating that their are two focal points of the music – especially as the strings are the most fundamental section of an orchestra – namely, these points are the two Japanese instruments. By placing the woodwinds and brass at the furthest end of the stage and having them engage in an almost background role Takemitsu appears to conjure a sense layering – and I enjoyed hearing sounds produce others. Layering also occurs between the strings, so that the music appears to gain a sort of “dimension.” And finally, i liked the contrast between the harps and the soloists – the Shakuhachi has a rather airy tone, whilst the biwa is quite percussive. The harps effectively were the “leaders” of the orchestral interludes, which seemed like a beautiful choice as there sound is somewhere between a Shakuhacandhi and a biwa.
And now I will write about sounds that are not from a jar…!
The notes within the CD casing described Takemitsu’s use of silence in this piece as “dramatic.” I agree with this interpretation. I thought the silences, besides providing a contrast to the typically dynamically ascending phrases, gave the listener a chance to ponder on what they have just heard. This construction made the piece appear somewhat like an essay (to my mind), equating segments of the music with individual paragraphs; like a series of important arguments that each merited consideration. This is what those silences did to me – I thought, in the absence of sound, about the sounds that I had heard before.
Besides silence, Takemitsu also presented what was for me a new way of thinking about dissonance. He would create these broad crescendos based on chords built around small intervals, and I would notice that the character of these chords would change depending on the dynamics.
What I also wished to mention was his use of rhythmic modulation. I noticed that all written sounds had some sense of formality; it was as if they were somehow robotic. I really enjoyed the moment in the piece where Takemitsu removes a sense of meter because it gave the performance the sort of spontaneity that i think the composer was trying to achieve in his writing, yet the textural build up somehow sounded more natural.
I originally planned to study this for my very first listening study, but was put off by it so I instead did ‘Rain Tree Sketch.’ I figured I’d give this a second chance.
The conception for this piece was a transitional period for Takemitsu, as in the past he was reluctant to compose traditional Japanese instruments because he felt their sound “always recalled the bitter memories of war.” Throughout the early 60′s upwards however he began to incorporate such instruments into his pieces. The instruments used here include the shakuhachi (end blown flute), biwa (a short neck lute) and your typical Western orchestra.
The overall intention was to portray the contrasting differences between both traditional Japanese instruments and Western instruments. Tokemitsu’s arrangement seems to indicate that the shakuhachi be considered the dominant instrument, with the orchestra and biwa acting as an accompaniment, though the two groups often alternate, portraying the contrasting timbre qualities of the western orchestra and traditional Japanese instruments.
Listening to this, the difficulty of composing this piece becomes more prevealant and is what I most learned from. The frustration Takemitsu must’ve experienced in terms of combining these instruments together, which relates directly to when composers began to categorize the role of instruments in the Baroque period (or Renaissance) according to their sound colour. This fusion of cultures defies that and tries something unique, which is what I appreciate most about this piece.
This is a blog for staff and students in the Composition Program at Monash University.
We intend to keep a record of our study, thinking and compositional projects to document our work, show the world outside what we do and invite comment. We hope that over time the blog will provide useful hints and ideas about the creative processes of composition.
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en sounds had some sense of formality; it was as if they were somehow robotic. I really enjoyed the moment in the piece where Takemitsu removes a sense of meter because it gave the performance the sort of spontaneity that i think the composer was trying to achieve in his writing, yet the textural build up somehow sounded more natural.
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