{"id":3389,"date":"2023-05-08T20:10:28","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T20:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraryarchives.web.illinois.edu\/sousa\/?p=3389"},"modified":"2024-02-20T23:22:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T23:22:21","slug":"sound-sculptures-and-notation-outlaws-by-jonas-yela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/2023\/05\/08\/sound-sculptures-and-notation-outlaws-by-jonas-yela\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound Sculptures and Notation Outlaws by Jonas Yela"},"content":{"rendered":"

The music of Morgan Powell, a trombonist and composer who taught at the University of Illinois between 1966 and 1994, pushed the outer limits of music notation and performance.\u00a0 Like Sun Ra\u2019s music explorations, Powell\u2019s musical sound sculptures grew directly from his performer\u2019s interpretations of his graphic scores which often broke the rules of traditional music notation.<\/p>\n

Perhaps inspired by his background in jazz, Powell incorporated into his experimental music compositions free improvisation and extended performance techniques that produced unique sounds on various instruments.\u00a0 These included multi-phonics which is the simultaneous production of multiple pitches on a single instrument by singing and playing at the same time, playing on mouthpieces alone, producing percussive effects on the bodies of horns, and unconventional violin bowings.\u00a0 All these specialized performance techniques required unique graphic notations to visualize the desired sound affect sought by Powell.<\/p>\n

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Page 7 of Common Root, illustrating the visual representation of the origin of life. Note the instruction at the top of the page which reads \u201cprogress does not rule.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His 2003 work The Common Root of All Organisms<\/em> — written for soprano soloist and an 8-piece ensemble consisting of violin, bass flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, cello, and percussion — uses a five-line staff and specialized graphical notations that include scribbles, squiggles, circles, arrows, and jagged and branching lines. \u00a0In addition, the score includes written instructions for musicians to produce a particular sound like a written word on a page for someone to read out loud.\u00a0 These symbols and directions provide suggestive directions for how a musician might produce a certain feeling or musical expression through their performance much like showing someone a painting and asking them to express its meaning through sound.<\/p>\n

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Page 8 of Common Root shows the emergence of bacteria from the primordial soup.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Common Root\u2019s<\/em> text tells the story of the creation of the earth and life\u2019s subsequent evolution from single cells to complex organisms. The score illustrates this with chaotic scribbles and scratches in the early part of the piece when the earth is still forming.\u00a0 When the text portrays the development of new forms of life like birds and reptiles, Powell notates the musician\u2019s improvised accompaniment with lines that continually branch from one another.\u00a0 The final pages of the score become much more organized and portrays through its lyrics and sounds the eventual evolution of modern science\u2019s classification of life.<\/p>\n

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Page 17, where we can see the branching of the evolutionary tree as new forms of life develop from common ancestors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Powell\u2019s graphic score illustrates his careful attention to the intricate visual relationships between sound and human expression and challenges the traditional roles of composer and performer when creating new music.\u00a0 Traditional music notation lays out the composer\u2019s instructions for the performer to reproduce the work exactly, down to every note and rhythm. Like a jazz chart, Powell\u2019s score for Common Root<\/em> puts the performer in the role of co-composer.<\/p>\n

For further information about the Morgan Powell Music and Papers<\/a> either email schwrtzs@illinois.edu<\/a> or call 217-333-4577.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The music of Morgan Powell, a trombonist and composer who taught at the University of Illinois between 1966 and 1994, pushed the outer limits of music notation and performance.\u00a0 Like Sun Ra\u2019s music explorations, Powell\u2019s musical sound sculptures grew directly from his performer\u2019s interpretations of his graphic scores which often broke the rules of traditional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3728,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3389\/revisions\/3728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}