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Process music is music that arises from a process. It may make that process audible to the listener, or the process may be concealed.

Primarily begun in the 1960s, diverse composers have employed divergent methods and styles of process. "A 'musical process' as Christensen defines it is a highly complex dynamic phenomenon involving audible structures that evolve in the course of the musical performance ... 2nd order audible developments, i.e., audible developments within audible developments".^[1] These processes may involve specific systems of choosing and arranging notes through pitch and time, often involving a long term change with a limited amount of musical material, or transformations of musical events that are already relatively complex in themselves.

Steve Reich defines process music not as, "the process of composition but rather pieces of music that are, literally, processes. The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall form simultaneously. (Think of a round or infinite canon.)"^[2]

History

Although today often used synonymously with minimalism, the term predates the appearance of this style by at least twenty years. Elliott Carter, for example, used the word "process" to describe the complex compositional shapes he began using around 1944,^[3]^[4] with works like the Piano Sonata and First String Quartet, and continued to use throughout his life. Carter came to his conception of music as process from Alfred North Whitehead's "principle of organism", and particularly from his 1929 book, Process and Reality.^[5]

Michael Nyman has stated that "the origins of this minimal process music lie in serialism".^[6] Kyle Gann also sees many similarities between serialism and minimalism,^[7] and Herman Sabbe has demonstrated how process music functions in the early serial works of the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts,^[8] especially in his electronic compositions Nr. 4, met dode tonen [with dead tones] (1952) and Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen [with pure tones] (1953). Elsewhere, Sabbe makes a similar demonstration for Kreuzspiel (1951) by Karlheinz Stockhausen.^[9]

Beginning in the early 1960s, Stockhausen composed several instrumental works which he called "process compositions", in which symbols including plus, minus, and equal signs are used to indicate successive transformations of sounds which are unspecified or unforeseeable by the composer. They specify "how sounds are to be changed or imitated rather than what they are to be".^[10] In these compositions, "structure is a system of invariants; these invariants are not substances but relations. ... Stockhausen's Process Planning is structural analysis in reversed time-direction. Composition as abstraction, as generalization. Analysis of reality before its entry into existence".^[11] These works include Plus-Minus (1963), Prozession (1967), Kurzwellen, and Spiral (both 1968), and led to the verbally described processes of the intuitive music compositions in the cycles Aus den sieben Tagen (1968) and Für kommende Zeiten (1968–70).^[12]^[13]^[14])

The term Process Music (in the minimalist sense) was coined by composer Steve Reich in his 1968 manifesto entitled "Music as a Gradual Process" in which he very carefully yet briefly described the entire concept including such definitions as phasing and the use of phrases in composing or creating this music, as well as his ideas as to its purpose and a brief history of his discovery of it.

For Steve Reich it was important that the processes be audible: "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music. ... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing".^[2] This has not necessarily been the case for other composers, however. Reich himself points to John Cage as an example of a composer who used compositional processes that could not be heard when the piece was performed.^[2] The postminimalist David Lang is another composer who does not want people to hear the process he uses to build a piece of music.^[15]

Theory

Michael Nyman has identified five types of process:^[16]

Chance determination processes, in which the material is not determined by the composer directly, but through a system he or she creates
People processes, in which performers are allowed to move through given or suggested material, each at his or her own speed
Contextual processes, in which actions depend on unpredictable conditions and on variables arising from the musical continuity
Repetition processes, in which movement is generated solely by extended repetition
Electronic processes, in which some or all aspects of the music are determined by the use of electronics. These processes take many forms.

The first type is not necessarily confined to what are normally recognised as "chance" compositions, however. For example, in Karel Goeyvaerts's Sonata for Two Pianos, "registral process created a form that depended neither on conventional models nor ... on the composer's taste and judgment. Given a few simple rules, the music did not need to be 'composed' at all: the notes would be at play of themselves".^[17]

Galen H. Brown acknowledges Nyman's five categories and proposes adding a sixth: mathematical process, which includes the manipulation of materials by means of permutation, addition, subtraction, multiplication, changes of rate, and so on.^[18]

Erik Christensen identifies six process categories:^[19]

Rule-determined transformation processes
goal-directed transformation processes
indeterminate transformation processes
Rule-determined generative processes
goal-directed, and generative processes
indeterminate generative processes

He describes Reich's Piano Phase (1966) as rule-determined transformation process, Cage's Variations II (1961) as an indeterminate generative process, Ligeti's In zart fliessender Bewegung (1976) as a goal-directed transformation process containing a number of evolution processes,^[20] and Per Nørgård's Second Symphony (1970) as containing a rule-determined generative process of a fractal nature.^[21]

Notable works

John Cage

As Slow as Possible (1987)^{[citation needed]}

Elliott Carter

Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948)^[22]

String Quartet No. 1 (1950–51)^[22]^[23]

String Quartet No. 2 (1959)^[24]

Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano with Two Chamber Orchestras (1959–61)^[25]

Piano Concerto (1964–65)^[22]

Duo for Violin and Piano (1974)^[26]

Morton Feldman

Piece for Four Pianos (1957)^[27]

Karel Goeyvaerts

Nr. 1, Sonata for Two Pianos (1950–51)^[17]

Nr. 4, met dode tonen (1952)^[28]

Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen (1953)^[29]

Annea Lockwood

Piano Transplant No. 1. Burning Piano^[30]

Alvin Lucier

I Am Sitting in a Room^[31]

Steve Reich

It's Gonna Rain (1965)^[32]

Come Out (1966)^[32]

Reed Phase (1966)

Violin Phase (1967)

Piano Phase (1967)^[33]

Phase Patterns (1970)^[34]

Drumming (1971)^[34]

Terry Riley

In C (1964)^[35]

Keyboard Studies^[35]

Frederic Rzewski

Les Moutons de Panurge (1969)^[27]

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Kreuzspiel (1951)^[36]^[9]

Kontakte^[37]

Plus-Minus (1963)^[38]

Mikrophonie I (1964)^[38]

Solo (1965–66)^[38]

Prozession (1967)^[39]^[38]

Kurzwellen (1968)^[40]^[41]^[42]

Aus den sieben Tagen (1968)^[43]

Spiral (1968)^[44]

Pole (1969–70)^[44]^[45]

Expo (1969–70)^[46]

Für kommende Zeiten (1968–70)^[47]

Ylem (1972)^[48]

Michaelion, scene 4 of Mittwoch aus Licht (1997)^[49]

James Tenney^[50]

For Ann (rising) (1969)

Postal Pieces (1965–71)

Clang (1972)

Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow (1974)

Three Pieces for Drum Quartet (1975)

Chromatic Canon (1980)

Glissade (1982)

Koan for String Quartet (1984)

La Monte Young

Poem (1960)^[27]

References

^ Seibt 2004, xiii.
^ ^a ^b ^c Reich 2002, 34.
^ Edwards 1971, 90–91.
^ Brandt 1974, 27–28.
^ Bernard 1995, 649–650.
^ Nyman 1974, 119.
^ Gann 1987.
^ Sabbe 1977, 68–73.
^ ^a ^b Sabbe 1981, 18–21.
^ Griffiths 2001.
^ Fritsch 1979, 114–115.
^ Kohl 1978.
^ Kohl 1981.
^ Hopp 1998.
^ Brown 2010, 181.
^ Nyman 1974, 5–8.
^ ^a ^b Griffiths 2011, 38.
^ Brown 2010, 186.
^ Christensen 2004, 97.
^ Christensen 2004, 116.
^ Christensen 2004, 107.
^ ^a ^b ^c Brandt 1974, 28.
^ Griffiths 2011, 62–63.
^ Schiff 1998, 73.
^ Bernard 1995, 668.
^ Schiff 1998, 117–119.
^ ^a ^b ^c Nyman 1974, 5.
^ Sabbe 1977, 68–70.
^ Sabbe 1977, 70–73.
^ Oteri 2004.
^ Nyman 1974, 92.
^ ^a ^b Nyman 1974, 134.
^ Nyman 1974, 133.
^ ^a ^b Nyman 1974, 132–133.
^ ^a ^b Nyman 1974, 7.
^ Griffiths 2011, 40–41.
^ Griffiths 2011, 160–162.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Kohl 1981, 192.
^ Fritsch 1979.
^ Hopp 1998, passim.
^ Kohl 1981, 192–226.
^ Kohl 2010, 137.
^ Kohl 1981, 227–252.
^ ^a ^b Kohl 1981, 192–193.
^ Kohl 2010, 138.
^ Kohl 1981, 192–93.
^ Kohl 1981, 227–232.
^ Kohl 1981, 232.
^ Kohl 2010, 139.
^ Wannamaker 2021, pp. 110–134.

Sources

Bernard, Jonathan. 1995. "Carter and the Modern Meaning of Time". The Musical Quarterly 79, no. 4 (Winter): 644–682.
Brandt, William E. 1974. "The Music of Elliott Carter: Simultaneity and Complexity". Music Educators Journal 60, no. 9 (May): 24–32.
Brown, Galen H. 2010. "Process as Means and Ends in Minimalist and Postminimalist Music". Perspectives of New Music 48, no. 2 (Summer): 180–192.
Christensen, Erik. 2004. "Overt and Hidden Processes in 20th Century Music", in Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories, edited by Johanna Seibt, 97–117. Dordrecht and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 1-4020-1751-0.
Edwards, Allen. 1971. Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds: A Conversation with Elliott Carter. New York: W. W. Norton.
Fritsch, Johannes. 1979. "Prozeßplanung". In Improvisation und neue Musik, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung Darmstadt 20, edited by Reinhold Brinkmann, 108–117. Mainz: B. Schott's Söhne.
Gann, Kyle. 1987. "Let X = X: Minimalism vs. Serialism". The Village Voice (24 February): 76.
Griffiths, Paul. 2001. "Aleatory". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Griffiths, Paul. 2011. Modern Music and After, 3rd edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-974050-5.
Hopp, Winrich. 1998. Kurzwellen von Karlheinz Stockhausen: Konzeption und musikalische Poiesis. Kölner Schriften zur neuen Musik 6. Mainz; New York: Schott.
Kohl, Jerome. 1978. "Intuitive Music and Serial Determinism: An Analysis of Stockhausen's Aus den sieben Tagen." In Theory Only 3, no. 2 (March): 7–19.
Kohl, Jerome. 1981. Serial and Non-Serial Techniques in the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1962–1968. Ph.D. diss., Seattle: University of Washington.
Kohl, Jerome. 2010. "A Child of the Radio Age". In Cut & Splice: Transmission, edited by Daniela Cascella and Lucia Farinati, 135–139. London: Sound and Music. ISBN 978-1-907378-03-4.
Annea Lockwood (November 11, 2003). "Annea Lockwood Beside the Hudson River". NewMusicBox (Interview). Interviewed by Oteri, Frank J. (published January 1, 2004). Piano Transplants
Nyman, Michael. 1974. Experimental Music. Cage and Beyond. London: Studio Vista. ISBN 0-289-70182-1 (2nd Edition, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-65297-9 (cloth); ISBN 0-521-65383-5 (pbk)).
Reich, Steve. 2002. "Music as a Gradual Process (1968)". In his Writings about Music, 1965–2000, edited with an introduction by Paul Hillier, 9–11. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-511171-2 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-19-515115-2 (pbk).
Sabbe, Herman [nl]. 1977. Het muzikale serialisme als techniek en als denkmethode: Een onderzoek naar de logische en historische samenhang van de onderscheiden toepassingen van het seriërend beginsel in de muziek van de periode 1950–1975 [Musical Serialism as a Technique and as a Method of Thinking: A Study of the Logical and Historical Interconnections Between the Different Applications of the Serial Principle from the Period 1950–1975]. Ghent: Rijksuniversiteit te Gent.
Sabbe, Herman. 1981. "Die Einheit der Stockhausen-Zeit ...: Neue Erkenntnismöglichkeiten der seriellen Entwicklung anhand des frühen Wirkens von Stockhausen und Goeyvaerts. Dargestellt aufgrund der Briefe Stockhausens an Goeyvaerts". In Musik-Konzepte 19: Karlheinz Stockhausen: ... wie die Zeit verging ..., edited by Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, 5–96. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik.
Schiff, David. 1998. The Music of Elliott Carter, second edition. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Seibt, Johanna (ed.). 2004. Process Theories: Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories. Dordrecht and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4020-1751-3.
Wannamaker, Robert (2021). The Music of James Tenney. Vol. 1: Contexts and Paradigms. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-04367-3.