Page 146 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

Musicological perspectives on composing 135

David Hirschfelder – film music, David Cope – algorithmic music, Brigitte
Robindoré – electro-acoustic music, Paul Lansky – computer music). The
results showed that all participants moved between all sorts of combinations,
but that certain combinations were typical of certain phases (e.g. exploring
engagement and personal context at the start of the composing process).
Their study, with its markedly psychological orientation, remains largely
abstract, and while it may shine a light on composing processes, it is debatable
whether more specific knowledge can be derived from it.
To delve more deeply into the composing process from this abstract posi-
tion, I will be looking at the decisive juncture or hub to which the composer
Isabel Mundry refers:

Entering into a piece resembles a drawing of boundaries, the marking of a
moment, in which I choose one perspective over another perspective that
could possibly arise in the next moment. And the question of how I qualify
this moment is fundamental for the unfolding of the composition, whose
transcription I would describe as the structuring and interpreting of the ideas.
(Mundry 2004: 153; our translation and italics)

The composing process can also be understood as a chain of a large number of
choices and decisions that give it a direction. I understand the act of deciding as
a kind of hub in a field of practice, at which individual, collective and material
constituents come together. Every decision occurs in a possibility space, which
becomes apparent to the composers in the form of shared knowledge based on
previous practices. It can be assumed that much of this is located in the uncon-
scious realm. Nevertheless, a decision can be seen as an individual act to a cer-
tain degree since artists do not passively drift in a “practice current”, but rather
actively commit and develop agency. Thus, ideas are taken up, elaborated and
worked on while at the same time other variants are being eliminated. Whilst
it is not really possible to swim against the current – or only in well-defined and
limited areas – one can always orientate oneself towards one side: to the right
bank or to the left. But above all: the decision could always also have been
different. To that extent I distance myself both from theoretical conceptions
that regard the carrying out of a practice as sequences of dull routines and
from the idea that actions in composing stem from some kind of necessity.
Decisions are made on the basis of situative knowledge that is always accom-
panied by experiential knowledge and incorporated knowledge. Usually, this is
an incremental proceeding: decisions are taken step-by-step to suit the respec-
tive concrete situation, with many (or even most) possibilities not even pre-
senting themselves until the practice is being carried out. It is also important to
remember that the consequences of decisions are not always foreseeable,
meaning that processes can acquire a certain momentum of their own.
In the following section, I want to deal in more depth with these funda-
mental considerations on the central aspect of decision-making by conducting
a close analysis of the documented works of Wozny, Essl and Ciciliani. Given