This past month I have started working on a project that has been a long time coming. Since my introduction to the analysis of 12-tone music I have been fascinated tremendously by it’s strangeness. Here’s a system that makes perfect sense, is incredibly intricate and well designed (though I could have had another double-check with a mathematician or physicist when deciding on name and notation) but doesn’t sound like it at all. Two questions: why would it, superficially spoken, sound so incoherent when there’s a clear structure hidden underneath? Is there no way to make this make sense from a listeners perspective? The first question I don’t dare answer (as no-one should) as can only explore the audible structure further before even thinking about coming up with a theory, but the second I have more grasp on. Motivic texture is something the human mind can grasp quite easily and this will form the basis for my research. I’m sure this path has been explored before but I hope to create a working and coherent approach to making a twelve tone composition sound (if possible) acceptable also to the untrained musicians ear. I’m looking forward to the strange works I’ll be producing from this and I hope you’ll enjoy the odd fruits of my labour.
the spirograph project
