HEXAGRAMS OF TRICHORDS [1985]

Numerical array for structuring time and sound, based on the I Ching and on a serialization of 3-note (trichord) groups.

VIEW INTERACTIVE HEXAGRAM/I CHING GENERATOR (108K, Shockwave)

Systems of Structure and Chaos:
Hexagrams of Trichords (1985)

Perhaps as a way of getting over or getting beyond preoccupations with structure in music, I came up with this idea of colliding the tradition of serialism - - and especially, the more sophisticated outgrowths of serial thought a la Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Boulez - - with the extreme other end of the “control” dynamic, which I saw at the time as John Cage (and maybe I still do). It’s certainly no big deal to throw an I Ching or two to determine, say, a set of pitches. What I wanted to make, though, was a system I could use to apply chance operations (like Cage) to all aspects of sonic structure (like Boulez did in his Second Piano Sonata, and even Messian played with this idea). The syncretic thing would be to have these two very enormously opposed worlds collude in a flexible structure that can have many, many implications. So what if this all happened 30 years after those two schools were at their zenith?

I've used this system in many pieces, but most notably in Tarot Cartoons(tm) (1992-6) and in Anatomy of Melancholy(tm) (2002-5), where the number series can determine pitches, durations, and instrument types. In some sections of Tarot Cartoons(tm), the system was even applied to articulation, phrasing, and dynamics. Currently, I'm applying the system to locations and RGB values of movie clips in Flash, so there are visual implications to this approach, too.