How's it compare to watching an oscilloscope, Al?

Last week, I finally managed to procure a copy of Cardew's 'Treatise'. Though not a musician (and having absolutely zero experience in translating graphic scores) I do have a visual arts background and, being in the midst of a bunch of research on Rowe--and, tangentially, Cardew--I was very eager to both possess the score as an 'art object' of sorts and, more importantly, have it on hand to peruse at leisure (I'd thumbed through Keith's copy before and had studied what reproductions I could find on the web, including one pretty nifty animated page).

After leafing through the 193 pages a couple of times, I've spent much of the last week just looking at Page 1, trying to figure out how the hell I'd work with it, not only in the musical sense it was designed for, but even in other ways, including visual.

It's not easy. For me, anyway.

For those who haven't seen it, the one constant is two empty staves that run along the bottom of each page. There's also a thicker "mid-line" that more or less traverses each page at a point slightly above its center, though this line is regularly interrupted and sometimes vanishes entirely. The designs at the end of each page, reading right to left, often pick up on the following one but also might end abruptly, the next page beginning on an entirely different point. Within this framework there are all manner of vaguely calligraphic notations ranging from severely spare to a baroque elaborateness.

One of the "problems" immediately encountered is how one chooses to group images, ie how one recognizes "pattern", whether one sees things atomistically or holistically. I imagine this would be an issue in many graphic scores though some perhaps offer guidelines from the composer; Treatise comes with zero instructions.

So if we look at page 1, we see the mid-line go for an inch or so. Just above it is the hand-written number "34". Now, is it 34 or 3 and 4 closely placed? The "4" is at very slightly higher level than the "3"--maybe it's indicating a 3/4 time signature. Aside from a "10" that appears on page 191, I think it's the only two-digit number in the score (which is replete with many single-digit number along the way). Whereas you might take the subsequent small numbers as an indication of how many performers should be active at that point, you wouldn't think he meant for 34 to be playing here. Although, perhaps 'Treatise' as a whole is intended for that large an ensemble, its interior pages to be broken down by smaller combinations. So, we're 1/2 inch into the damn thing and already we're faced with many options.

At the one inch mark, the mid-line is interrupted by a thinner vertical one that extends from 1/4 inch below to 1/2 inch above. At its high point, an inch long straight line descends at about a 100 degree angle to the right, ending about 1/4 inch above the mid-line. Now, I visualize this as a unit but, of course, it could be read as two separate but similar lines that happen to meet at a point. In any case, what to do with it? The mid-line might, I suppose, be read as a drone or pedal point, some underlying constant. The vertical line implies an additive of some sort. If the mid-line has been decided upon as a G, would this line perhaps consist of a tutti with 1/3 of the notes below G, 2/3 above? Maybe then the ones "above" would perform a very gradually decrescedo to A (it ends above the mid-line, remember. OK, I guess that would be one interpretation. But what if, instead of a vertical with appendage, you see it as an acute angle of 80 degrees pointing NNW implying a thrust in that direction (what does "direction" mean here?)? What if, as is quite possible with many of the images here, you assign it some representational value as, say, a carport overhang and then attempt to deal musically with the implications therein? Would one be obliged to make this sort of basic decision at the outset and then stick with it?

A half inch on, there's a "3" at the same level as the "34", followed by four parallel lines below the mid-line that appear taken dirently from the staves below but which diminish in length as read down from 1/2 inch to 3/8 inch to 1/8 inch to a small dot, each ending at the same right margin. Beyond that a "1" similar and even with the "3". I tend to see these three elements as group and as possessing some quality of diminishment as represented both by the move from 3 to 1 as well as the receding stave. The 1 hovers over a section of mid-line occupying about two inches of page space, suggesting a relatively sustained period of...whatever one's doing at the time.

This takes us to about the halfway mark of Page 1 and this is where the "action" begins. Except, hold on. As througout the score, human pattern recognition throws us automatically into certain grouping modes, seizing on adjacent markings and ascribing "meaning" to them. It takes some degree of conscious effort to at least be open to the possibility that this needn't be the case. But it's real, real hard to do.

For brevity's sake, I'll just say that the remainder of the page is composed largely of a series of seven overlapping circles (and a rectangle) of varying sizes beginning on the mid-line and tumbling in a general downwards drift until the final, largest circle is only appended tangetially to the mid-line. Two of the circles, the smallest (about 3/8 inch in diameter) are identical and placed one above the other, giving us the first representation of a "repeat" marking (though obliquely) which will appear quite often throughout the score. Looked at "from afar", I get a rather lathery visual effect, of bubbles emerging from a source and gliding slowly downward. Circles and variations thereof show up with regularity in 'Treatise', open for the most part though filled in (black) in one several-page portion. How to interpret a circle?

I find myself alternating reading a page as a bird's eye view of a landscaping schematic or as a cut-away architectural view (sometimes the latter case seems almost unavoidable). If the former, I tend to read the circles as abstract representations of trees, leading me to read the entirety as a walk through a landscape (or cityscape). I find this an appealing approach though, again, how I'd translate this musically, I've no idea. Cardew wrote the piece from 1963-67 and disavowed it later on as he moved to more purely political constructs (although, before his untimely death in 1981, he reportedly had acceded to performing it once again). Given the direction he was moving (the Scratch Orchestra would be formed in short time), I don't have particular problems giving his designs "representational" content and having, somehow, to deal with their implications. A couple of pages (40-41) seem to obviously represent vehicles of some kind (cars or helicopters?) I'd expect to have to deal with the socio-technological issues surrounding them, especially given Cardew's vociferous political stance (maybe I'd argue with him!).

So, that's Page 1 of 192. You can see why Rowe rather resents 2CD sets that purport to play Treatise in its entirety. There's an enormous amount of richness in most every page (even the sparest, if one sits down and thinks about it). In the end, that may be its greatest value: simply forcing one to think about things, things beyong the score but subtly suggested therein.

"How's it compare to watching an oscilloscope, Al?"

Like looking upon a blind man's reproduction of a Monet. Listening to music intrepreted from a score that is wide open for inference is interesting enough, but there is no substitute for watching sound's visual counterpart dance across a display in a resolution of your choice.

wow, awesome post, Brian! Keith would be proud...

Where did you get the score of T from, Brian? Is it for sale anywhere (looks like I've missed Christmas this time round).

More to say on the subject, but y'all have to excuse me, I have a Christmas dinner for 5 to prepare

Thanks for sharing that, Brian. With any luck, I'll be checking your translation against my own copy, which will hopefully arrive some time in January. I'm assuming of course this is the same text being offered through the Matchless Records site.

Does Matchless carry it? Didn't know that.

Dan, I'd tried unsuccessfully to order it from the publisher, Peter's, for a while until eventually giving up. Then Herb Levy was auctioning off a couple of copies on e-bay, but the bids quickly topped $100 so I demurred. A few months ago, Forced Exposure (I think it was) claimed to have two copies--Jon ordered them but it turned out they only had one so he--rat bastard!--kept it. But then he got back into my good graces by referring me to another copy for sale--but I forget the site. Maybe Jon still has it. Ran me $45 I think.

I don't see it on the Matchless site, Al. what's the link? Brian, the first place was the now defunct Anomalous, not FE, but the place you got it from is here:

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/store/smp_detail.html?sku=PE.P07560&cart=32781157072253974&searchtitle=Sheet%20Music

Brian: Your dealings with Treatise are interesting. I think you're kind of the ideal audience for it, Cardew (I'm away from my photocopies now, I can dig up the reference if you want it) says that those people with visual arts training would be better candidates for his sort of music making than many of the traditionally trained musicians.

For me, one of the questions that the “Treatise” as a text, asks is about the mechanical processes through which music is interpreted. Graphic scores, Treatise, especially, seems to demand that one approach the object of the score in a way that’s different than that of traditional scores. As Rowe says in “Balance Beams” (the visual document of the Erstwhile Box), it shouldn’t even be taken for granted that you read the score from right to left, or that you turn the pages in that succession. In fact, given Cardew’s interest in classical Chinese -via Pound’s translation of “The Great Learning”- one might even turn the book 90 degrees and read it top to bottom, as one would Chinese characters. But, the validity of such an interpretation seems unlikely, in that “Treatise” retains that tie to written music in it’s being structured around a staff, but it also frustrates that connection, in that it doesn’t give you the intelligible signs that make the document interpretable to traditional methods.

So, in a way, “Treatise” almost demands extended technique. In that it reconfigures its relationship to the object of the score, one must in turn reconfigure one’s relation to the medium through which it is interpreted. He changes the zoning of the page, and in turn one would change the zoning of the instrument. Rowe is, in my mind, the sort of ideal interpreter, then for the score, in that he’s the one that kinda started a lot of this business.

I have more reservations than you with “giving his designs "representational" content and having, somehow, to deal with their implications.” This seems too “literary” for me, treating the text as if it has actual denotative content, in this way. It is too rigorous in its abstraction to treat in this way. One could attempt to describe mimesis when analyzing the music that is produced from the score, but in the actual process of interpreting the score, I’m not sure that would make sense. Cardew seems to be asking, via Wittgenstein, questions about the syntax and grammar of musical making. Someday, when I actually reading the dammed Tractatus, I’ll try to actually probe this relation a little deeper, but at the moment, I’m afraid that’s as deep as I can go.

I’m not one of those people that thinks that “Treatise” is an “open” text, that with it, anything goes, and that any interpretation is as valid, and as meritorious as another. There are probably readings of it that are more correct (there are certainly readings which are more interesting) than others, and that the score does lend itself to a set of interpretations, or, rather, a set of methods. Whether these methods correspond to more interesting music kind of remains to be seemed.

Oh, I got my copy from Anomalous (I believe that this is the one that you would have got with Jon’s order). Beauty before age, I guess (-:

Apologies if this seems specious, or overly speculative. I’m neither a musician nor a visual artist, “I just read a lot sometimes.”

bah. It's The Great Learning. So solly.

Al, I'm normally far from politically correct, but for some reason, your "so solly" is sticking in my craw (the Great Learning being inspired by Confucian and Taoist texts as referenced above). ok, felt I had to share that...

Nirav, thanks for the excellent post. The main reason I'd argue that you'd have to consider figurative aspects of the score is that there are at least a couple of pages that (it seems to me) are clearly figurative (40-41) and others that (this is more subjective) evoke figurative thoughts. I'm not sure it's going too far to suggest that some seeds of his later socialist-realist work are germinating here.

I could be totally wrong, of course!

Brian: when I'm back in NY, I'll check those pages out, I honestly don't recall them, but that might be a repression motivated by the fact that it would kind of fuck up my argument (-:

There does seem to be some kind of "narrative" going on there, in the way that Barnett Newmann's "Stations of the Cross" has a narrative. Somewhere in the middle (dammit, I should bring my copy everywhere I go), there's a section in which the circles grow progressively bigger and bigger, until one point you're looking at a pretty serious amount of black ink on the page. It does lead you to think of the work in terms of some sort of linear movement, at least in terms of the page numbers.

One thing I like a lot about the score, is that the staff lines at the bottom aren't mechanically straight and even, they have little modulations in tone and direction. Despite the precision, the intervention of the Hand makes it a little less imposing, and a touch more inviting.

Does anyone know if there's been much scholarly work done on Cardew? It would make sense that there would be, but the fact that I haven't come across much probably says more about the fact that I'm not privy to much of the academic discourse about music, than it reflects that status of music scholarship.

There are several astute analyses on his work in Michael Nyman's book "Experimental Music Cage & Beyond"; aside of pro Music Theory publications like PNM and JMT, which may have done something on him, that's about all I know of. We await Tilbury's biography with interest.
Personally, I'd like to see the discussion get off "Treatise" and perhaps tackle the graphic and textual work of other composers: Cage, Earle Brown, Feldman, Wolff, Bussotti, Haubenstock-Ramati, Stockhausen. To name but a few.

"Al, I'm normally far from politically correct, but for some reason, your "so solly" is sticking in my craw..."

I'd hate for that to be my sole contribution to this discussion, aside from starting it. My foul. Been hanging out with family for the past few days and that phrase has been flung around I guess enough times for it to catch me unawares. No harm or insensitivity intended, I can fully assure you.

Dan, of those you named, whose scores would you say are the most "architectural"? I'm thinking in terms of the precision of the strokes, rather than structural integrity.

Don't understand what you mean, I'm afraid.

There I go trying to be cryptic again. I mean the artistry of the score itself, rather than the music.

I don't see much of an alignment 'twixt EP's particular translation and the intrinsic motion of 'Treatise.' Those implications were superimposed subsequent to composition, anyhow. I'd look at Olson's later non-Maximus works which stretch fields a great deal (I wish I had them at hand) as a coefficient. One must keep before him, listener and interpreter, Rowe's notions of debunking linear progression, i.e. left to right, up to down. I'm curious, if at all, whether Guy's 'Witch Gong Game' would come anywhere close to this discussion?

An unimportant door is never locked.

The visually impaired are that way for a reason.

Long after folk have stopped discussing this, I know; but I thought I'fd mention the xistence of Cardew's TREATISE HANDBOOK of 1971, which contains his working notes made while writing the score, which help a lot; plus acccounts of early performances plus programme notes -which make it clear, for example, that TREATISE *is read left-to-right - and examples of two transcriptions by Cardew of TREATISE into conventional musical notation - the whole thing for single-voiced melody instruemnt and a batch of pages for full orchestra. lso a very nifty piece by CC on performing indetterminatley-notated pieces; and an essay on the ethics and virues of improvising. I wish those boys and girls at UbuWeb would put this up for a wider readership...

Harry gilonis

Hello Harry & welcome to the Bagorama,
Yep it would be nice to see the Treatise Handbook up there at Ubu, for sure. Certainly a more entertaining read than Stockhausen Serves Imperialism (!) which I think is still up there for free download. On a totally unrelated (nearly) tack, I hope you enjoyed the Derek Bailey biography more than I did..

i know this is waaaay old (by internet), but i'm currently in the process of getting some of "treatise handbook" on ubu.com. they have an online submission form.

I managed to find a copy of the Treatise Handbook a couple of months ago. Very much worth having and reading. Cost about $50, though.

"Personally, I'd like to see the discussion get off "Treatise" and perhaps tackle the graphic and textual work of other composers: Cage, Earle Brown, Feldman, Wolff, Bussotti, Haubenstock-Ramati, Stockhausen. To name but a few."

- Haubenstock-Ramati's music is amazing. I really love the 2 disc solo piano on hat art. Both his graphic and traditionally notated work have a really special quality.

Great post Brian. Matt Hannafin from Sachimay Records and I are working on putting together a performance of Treatise sometime in the near future.