Page 132 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

Musicological perspectives on composing 121

electronic sounds, noises, sets of ordered sonic elements, granular or
continuous formations etc.);
3 Definition of the transformations which these sonic entities must undergo
in the course of the composition (macrocomposition: general choice of
logical framework […]);
4 Microcomposition (choice and detailed fixing of the functional or
stochastic relations of the elements of 2.), i.e., algebra outside-time, and
algebra in-time;
5 Sequential programming of 3. and 4. (the schema and pattern of the work
in its entirety);
6 Implementation of calculations, verifications, feedbacks, and definitive
modifications of the sequential program;
7 Final symbolic result of the programming (setting out the music on paper
in traditional notation, numerical expressions, graphs […]);
8 Sonic realization (direct orchestral performance, manipulations of the
type of electromagnetic music, computerized construction of the sonic
entities and their transformations).
(Quoted from the English publication, Xenakis 1992: 22)

Even though Xenakis repeatedly stated that any musical phenomenon only
had merit if it could be translated into rational structures, this should not be
taken to mean that he simply used mathematical procedures to extend sounds
into a work. Overall, in this and other texts, Xenakis always proceeded from
musical ideas, which could be inspired by all sorts of impressions, often
visual. He saw mathematical procedures as an “extension of intuition” and as
“tamed and subdued by musical thought” (quoted by Eichert 1994: 35, 3).
Like his initial ideas, the composing decisions he ultimately took were always
determined by genuinely musical thinking (as the phases 1, 2 and 8 of his
outline of the process of composing convincingly show). However, since
Xenakis also emphasised the interchangeable order of the eight phases, it is
generally not possible to determine, for instance, when or where he took
formal decisions, although the sketching out of the macro-structure mainly
occurred at an early stage (see Phase 3).
Since the 1990s, composers have been increasingly reflecting on the process
of composing as a whole, perhaps encouraged by a similar phenomenon in
musicology. For seven years (2000–2007), Robert H.P. Platz (2010) kept a
“Sketch Diary” that was initially intended to be limited to one suite (“TOP”
for orchestra), but ultimately far exceeded it. The American composer Roger
Reynolds (2002) has at length described his manner of composing, which is
extraordinarily methodical and encompasses manifold documentation objects.
His colleague Timothy U. Newman devised his dissertation as a qualitative
case study:

In this self-case-study, I examine creative processes that are operative
during my composition of a short musical work, and the personal and