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James Tenney (1934-2006) 1. Collage #1 (Blue Suede) (1961) As suggested by the title, Collage #1 ("Blue Suede") is assembled largely from preexisting sounds that are subjected to various transformations and alterations. The piece takes as its "source material" Elvis Presley's recording of "Blue Suede Shoes." Initially, however, Presley's crooning is hardly recognizable. Tiny snippets of the tune are rearranged, stretched, and modulated, creating busy sonic juxtapositions of indecipherably slowed vocal samples, blasts of broadband whistles, and high-speed squeaks and chatters. As the piece progresses, the spliced pieces gradually become more coherent. Key phrases from the song briefly come into focus before being obscured and submerged by heavy reverberation and subsequent splices; in a manner somewhat foreshadowing the later work of Paul Lansky (in, for example, the Idle Chatter series), the voice samples avoid manifesting themselves clearly enough to reveal syntax, drawing attention instead to their sheer sonic contours. - "Blue" Gene Tyranny 2. Spectral Canon for Conlon Nancarrow (1974) James Tenney was among the first, and arguably the most authoritative, champions of the player piano studies composed by Conlon Nancarrow, and Tenney's own Spectral Canon for Conlon Nancarrow, composed in 1974, reflects both his admiration for Nancarrow's work as well as the fascination with audible numeric processes that both composers share. Having more or less abandoned electronically produced sounds a few years before (the last electronic work being For Ann, Rising, in 1969), Tenney continued to utilize computer algorithms as compositional devices for creating works for acoustical instruments. The Spectral Canon seems to navigate the space between these two realms, drawing on computer-based methods for its compositional materials but being realized through a unique amalgam of human and mechanical forces: meant for "performance" by a mechanical instrument, the piece was punched painstakingly onto the roll (by Nancarrow, in fact, as a favor to Tenney) according to a pattern that Tenney developed with the aid of a computer. Spectral Canon counts among a number of Tenney's works that are based on the harmonic series (others include Saxony from 1978 and Voices from 1984). These works stray from standard tuning practices (namely, the 12-note equal-tempered system) and utilize instead tunings that mimic the way sounds occur in nature. All the pitches involved in these pieces have special harmonic and numeric relationships with each other, reflecting the mathematical relationships of pitches in the naturally occurring overtone series. In practice, these relationships create acoustical effects that the equal-tempered system suppresses; in concept, such methods hold a special kind of scientific intrigue. Indeed, James Pritchett notes that many of Tenney's pieces have a sense of "fact" about them, while Larry Polansky hears the Spectral Canon in particular "more as a fact of nature than as a composed piece." In the Canon, Tenney realizes the harmonic series by treating the low A on the piano as a fundamental pitch and tuning other keys on the piano to the first 24 overtones of that fundamental. He then maps the frequency relationships between the pitches onto a durational system in such a way that the rate of repetition of each note relates to its placement in the harmonic series; in general, then, the lower notes are repeated more slowly, while the upper pitches are reiterated very quickly. This hierarchy is not given all at once, however. Instead, as indicated by the term "canon" in the title, the pitches enter one at a time, and each one executes a careful contour of acceleration and deceleration. The entrances and rates of acceleration are calculated (with the help of computer algorithms) in such a way that at the climax of the piece, just as the fundamental pitch reaches its peak speed, the 24th pitch enters and completes the rich polyrhythmic web of natural harmony. This startling sonic effect is equally stunning in its visual realization: as an elegant and intricate pattern of holes on the piano roll. - "Blue" Gene Tyranny 3. Septet for Electric Guitars (5:25) from Tellus #14 'Just Intonation' (1986) Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College (B.A., 1958) and the University of Illinois (M.A., 1961). He studied piano with Eduard Steuermann and composition with Chou Wen-chung, Lionel Nowak, Paul Boepple, Henry Brant, Carl Ruggles, Kenneth Gaburo, Lejaren Hiller, John Cage, Harry Partch, and Edgard Varèse. He also studied information theory under Lejaren Hiller, and composed stochastic early computer music before turning almost completely to writing for instruments with the occasional tape delay, often using just intonation and alternative tunings. Tenney's notable students include John Luther Adams, Peter Garland, Larry Polansky, Charlemagne Palestine, and Marc Sabat. He performed with John Cage, as well as with the ensembles of Harry Partch (in a production of Partch's The Bewitched in 1959), Steve Reich, and Philip Glass (the latter two in the late 1960s). He lived in New York during much of the 60s, where a large part of his contribution to the music scene was funnelled through "Tone Roads", a group founded with Malcolm Goldstein and Philip Corner, and for which his partner Carolee Schneemann designed beautiful flyers and programs. He was exceptionally dedicated to his great New England forebear Charles Ives, many of whose compositions he conducted (including the first performance of "in re, con moto"); his interpretation of the "Concord" Sonata for piano was much praised. Tenney's work deals with perception (For Ann (rising) ), just intonation , stochastic elements (Music for Player Piano), information theory, and with what he called 'swell' , which is basically arch form. His earliest works show the influence of Webern, Ruggles and Varèse, whereas his music from 1961-64 was largely computer music, arguably the earliest significant body of such work in existence. A gradual assimilation of the ideas of John Cage considerably influenced the development of his music in the later 1960s. To this was added an interest in tuning and in the harmonic series, as first evident in the orchestral work Clang of 1972, an interest that continued to develop for the rest of his life. The majority of Tenney's mature works (post-1964) are instrumental pieces, often for unconventional instrumental combinations (e.g. Glissade for viola, cello, double bass and tape delay system (1982), Bridge for two pianos eight hands in a microtonal tuning system (1982-84), Changes for six harps tuned a sixth of a tone apart, 1985) or for variable instrumentation (Critical Band, 1988, In a Large Open Space, 1994). His pieces are most often tributes to other composers or colleagues and subtitled as such. As his friend Philip Corner says, For Ann (rising), "must be optimistic! (Imagine the depressing effectiveness of it - he could never be so cruel - downward)..." Tenney wrote the seminal Meta (+) Hodos (one of, if not the, earliest applications of gestalt theory and cognitive science to music), the later Hierarchical temporal gestalt perception in music : a metric space model with Larry Polansky, John Cage and the Theory of Harmony (1983, the fullest exposition of his theories of harmonic space), and other works. In 1987, nearly a quarter of a 657-page volume of the academic journal Perspectives of New Music was devoted to Tenney's music, and in 2008 the UK journal Contemporary Music Review devoted a whole issue to his work (vol. 27 part 1). Tenney was one of the four performers of the Steve Reich piece Pendulum Music on May 27, 1969 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The other three were: Michael Snow, Richard Serra and Bruce Nauman. Tenney also wrote the in-depth liner notes to Wergo's edition of Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano. (Nancarrow, as a favor, punched the roll for Tenney's Spectral Canon for Conlon Nancarrow). Tenney also starred nude in a 1965 silent film of collaged and painted sequences of lovemaking between him and his then partner, the kinetic-theater artist Carolee Schneemann, called Fuses; he did much other music for her, and participated in her events. He taught at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of California, and York University in Toronto. He died on 24 August 2006 of lung cancer in Valencia, California. from Wikipedia RELATED RESOURCES: James Tenney in UbuWeb Historical UbuWeb Sound | UbuWeb PennSound | CENTRO | EPC | WFMU