Page 10 - Ray Complete

DO IT YOURSELF MUSIC FOR CONCERT BAND

By Ray B. Johnson, 1969

What direction will future serious music take—electronic, twelve-tone, aleatoric, or a fusion of these
elements with traditional, or something brand new? One possibility is being explored by the Vashon High

School Band. This new music might be called an improvisational aleatoric sound painting and can be
abstract or programmatic.

Today’s students are aware of the fact that good rock musicians and jazz artists are capable of improvising
on a given piece of music. The organization used by these musicians is based on a given chord progression

which unifies group response and gives continuity to musical ideas. It was reviewed that many historical
composers and musicians also relied on improvisation as an outlet of their musical expressions. Why not
add the element of improvisation to our music, allowing us more room for freedom and originality?

One of the first problems encountered by the band was to determine an accurate and overall concept of
what the auditory experience we call music really is. The full range of musical experiences was recalled

from primitive drums to avante guard electronic sounds. It was decided that any sound could be used in a
musical context and be included in the broad area we call music. Only one factor seemed to distinguish
noise from music: It was narrowed down to the concept that music is organized sound, and noise is not. It

was also thought that music should be an attempt on the part of the composer to communicate to others,
where noise does not exist to communicate.

Our problem in creating new music was then a problem of organization. We knew that all tones could be
written down and spread over a time lapse pictorial reminder in the form of traditional written music.
This then could be rehearsed and reproduced approximately the same for every performance. Somehow,

the idea of just being a complicated record player striving for the ideal of perfectly reproducing a given
piece of music was not enough. The instincts and drives of todays students are suppressed by the system
which allows them only to recreate music themselves and being original only in how they flaw the ideal of
perfectly playing what is on the written page.

By taking the idea of improvising on a given chord, as do jazz musicians, it was discovered that many
individual sounds involving arpeggios, chord extensions and scales could be played effectively over a
given chord. However, when the entire band improvised at the same time (even though they were using
the same chord as a unifying factor) the total effect was noise. By experimenting, it was found that a
maximum of four or five musical ideas at the same time could offer sufficient linear interest to keep even

the most discriminating listener busy.