Pitch specificity in text scores

Word Event abstract

Richard Glover

Exact specificity of pitch is not a common aspect of many text scores, but my own interest in composing precise pitch processes – alongside a drive towards communicating a non-interventionist performative approach – has led to my recent scores incorporating the use of text alongside (or absorbing) specific pitch instructions in various notational formats.

The paper will consider this co-existence of indeterminacy and exactness (as Michael Pisaro describes it), and will outline two aspects of precision relating to pitch: the specifying of exact pitches (including various numerical and symbolic approaches towards microtonality), and that of specifying pitch relationships that are often without recourse to starting pitches. Both aspects are discussed in the light of my own music and that of others such as Pisaro, James Tenney, Chiyoko Slavnics, Phill Niblock and Joe Kudirka.