More thoughts on the vocal piece and time

On Thursday, I had another composition lesson and my teacher (this is another teacher, I think I forgot to mention that at the Royal Conservatoire, bachelor students work with two teachers) commented a lot on my way of notating the piece. 

In order to have a greater sense of rhythmic freedom in the piece (i.e. in order to avoid a sense of "pulse"), I decided to notate it as a succession of time lapses with some pitches and dynamics inside. So, for instance, you would get a "bar" that lasts for 1'10" where the pianist has to play a low C, then some pizz on the strings, then a chord, another low C, another low C and then another chord or something like that. So the distribution of the sound events is free to be determined by the performer. At the same time, I divided the piece into very precise time lapses, dividing the 7 minutes that we have as maximum (420 seconds) into sections using a 5:3:1 proportion, and then subdividing these sections using the same proportions. 

What my teacher pointed out was the contradiction between wanting a pulse-free sound and dividing the time so precisely. He concluded that, in performance, it would not sound very different from a fully notated score, and he showed me the score of Berio's Concerto for 2 pianos, which begins with a time-lapse, "free," notation and continues, once the orchestra enters, with fully notated rhythms. The difference between the two sections is barely noticeable, if at all. 

Terry Riley

What he suggested was to look at the examples of some American composers, who worked with "programs" instead of fully notating their scores. Christian Wolff came back to mind, with his pieces that are mainly sets of suggestions that can result in performances that vary greatly between each other. I was interested in this idea, but I feel that this kind of notation can very much result in music that does not have any drammatic element, which is fine, but it's not what I wanted to do with this piece. Then he also mentioned Terry Riley's piece in C, where he gives a number of melodic patterns to be played in order, but with a free amount of repetitions, free dynamics and free tempo. I think that this can be more suitable for what I want to do, because it gives me the chance of writing melodic lines and harmonies that can convey the atmosphere I wanted for this piece, while at the same time making the piece less "stable," by also giving the performers much more freedom of interpretation.

I leave you with a quote by Jorge Luis Borges (my favorite writer of all), from his essay A New Refutation of Time:

Time is the substance of which I am made. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.

Also, here is a recording of Terry Riley's in C.

P.D.: I apologize for my carelessness. Terry Riley's piece does have a very definite pulse and tempo. What I meant (but was obviously very unclear about) was that the concept utilized in this piece (id est the free repetition of patterns, which can be extended or reduced as well) is a very useful idea for me to use in a different way in my piece.