Page 101 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

90 Orchestrating different forms of knowledge

Katherine Balch describes her work processes as “very kinaesthetic, […]
very playful. When I work I like to move and touch things and be actively
involved, and that helps me think.” Javier Party also refers to this physical
and practical approach: “When I was writing an octet for eight violins, I
bought myself a really cheap violin. There were certain things I wanted to
feel, even though I already knew a lot about the violin. But feeling a bit is
helpful too.” Through trying-out, Party performed the playing sequence
with his own body. In other cases, composers ask musicians to show them
certain ways of playing. Christof Dienz gives an example of this: “If you
want to do a superfast trill on a clarinet, or a trill with a larger interval,
there are positions that work well and others that are torture. So you ask to
be shown what works well, so that you don’t end up torturing the musician.”
Katherine Balch confirms this: “The physical playing of the instrument is
the critical part of writing.” It is important to be able to re-enact “what it
feels like to be in the body of the instrumentalist”. Balch and Dienz here
refer to knowledge of the musicians’ physical processes and efforts during
playing. This knowledge is not only a form of “knowing that”,itisalso
anchored in practice: either the composers themselves play the instrument
for which they are composing, or else they discuss directly with instrumen-
talists what specific playing techniques are associated with what specific
physical endeavours.

3.1.4 Rules, criteria and the modus operandi
The physical feeling and physical certainties we discussed in the previous
section are neither arbitrary nor subjective sensu stricto, since the composers’
subjectivity develops within a shared musical tradition and rehearsed practices
of composing. Drawing on Etienne Wenger (2002: 86), we view practices of
composing as results of “shared histories of learning”. The direct judgements
and valuations that occur during composing –“it fits” or “it’s right”– are
seldom derived from abstract and explicit criteria. And while in some (but not
all) cases, composers can cite criteria for their decisions, such criteria are
not causally related to action. Rather, the criteria primarily refer to the fact
that practices are rule-bound (Winch 1958/1976: 52). However, rules and criteria
are not necessarily accessible to the composers’ reflection – they are inherent
in the practice and effective. This is comparable with learning one’s mother
tongue. Small children first learn to speak; they do not first learn the gram-
matical rules of their language. These rules are in fact inherent in the modus
operandi – in other words, in the speaking (see Albritton 1959/1970). As
Faust puts it, “In the beginning was the deed” (Goethe 1804/1974: 41), and
not the word or the rules, both of which require a practical world to make
sense. By rules and criteria in practices of composing, we mean an abstrac-
tion: something that we extrapolate by analysing practices of composing, but
which does not initiate actions. Bernhard Gander describes his composing
method as follows: