Joyce Maier wrote:

>Neither do I.  I wasn't the one who introduced the word [meta-composition]
>and that's why I put between "".  Maybe it's not the correct one.  Should
>we should change it into, yes, into what? The word plan seems too less.
>Concept perhaps? Frame-work? Maybe this is something for native English
>speakers (and I'm not) who are also composers, to ponder over and tell us
>their experiences.

Well, "what the heck" [Eng.  for "why not"], why don't we discuss this
term (I did not introduce it either).  You are right that "framework"
or "concept" might be better but we can start with "meta-composition".

If Beethoven, or any composer, had a meta-composition in mind prior to
composing, what form would it take?

THOUGHTS ON META-COMPOSITION

1) Chopin said "When composing one must always keep the entire composition
in mind, otherwise, instead of a beautiful pearl necklace, one will be left
with only a stupid handful of pearls".

2) Schumann (I think) said "Composing is easy, you just remember a song
that nobody has thought of"

3) I said, in my book "Issues in Composing Music" (available only with
the software) "When the mind hears (recognizes) something that it has
heard before, it causes the composition to fold back on itself and the
mind expects to be able to predict what will be heard next (very satisfing
to the mind as if its figured something out).  If this does not happen,
the mind can be pleasantly surprised but the unexpected thing must have
been inevitable (but not predictable), else the mind seems fooled - very
unsatisfying"

4) One gets the impression of "one thing" after seeing a movie - 120
minutes worth of serial input.

Can anyone supply more such thoughts? (BTW not to place myself in the
company of Chopin and Schumann)

MUSIC
I will define music as a concatenation of sound effects.  Limiting the
discussion to music that evokes emotion and assuming any meta-composition
would have to have some emotions in its elements, then a composition is
a concatenation of emotions driven by or defined by a meta-composition.
This fits nicely with the concept of tension and release in music and the
concept of finality (relief) as pronounced by a cadence.  To minimize the
constant introduction of new unrelated material, sound effects must be
produced from previously used sound effects, like using development
fragments from a theme(s), or must take such form as to leave no doubt that
this is not new material, but entertainment material like a chromatic or
diminished run.  Now we need some way, either spatially or linearly to
specify an emotion or emotions, a sound effect to use to produce them and
their ordering in the temporal flow of the composition.  Also, it would be
possible to sketch a composition in the meta-compositional language or
meta-compositional sketch.

My software uses what I call a "form string" which defines the order of
themes, developments, modulations, and ornamental passage work with > and
to represent repeats of passages like this I'm sure you can get the idea
from 1 greatly simplified example

intro, >,T1, T1, D1, D1, T2, T2, D2, D2, M+7 (modulate up 7 1/2 steps)
. M-7, D1, D2, D1, D2, T2, T1, O1, O2, O1, ending

This defines the passage ordering so that the mind hears 1) things similar
to the themes and 2) passages that its heard before which results in an
overall grasp of an entire structure but doesn't address emotion resulting
in the mind of the listener.

A better structure might be

% = tension
@ = relief
& = confusion
* = clarity
etc.

Resulting in a form of

% % % @ & & & * % % % @ & & & * ...

which defines the way the composition is toying with the mind of the
listener.

Does any of this look like a meta-composition?

Thoughts anyone?

Bill Pirkle