James Tenney's Poem

James Tenney 's "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion" felt calm and collected within the first few minutes. It reminded me of an electronic piece I composed for another class. However, about five minutes in, I became suddenly aware of the volume and sense of restlessness the composition was bestowing within me. There wasn 't much movement, pitch wise, and it felt like a wave of sound was crashing into me. The contrast between the barely audible beginning to the loud crescendo was so gradual and smooth, I almost didn 't realize the piece was getting louder until my ears couldn 't quite stand the sound anymore. A little past ten minutes, it began to decrescendo to a more comfortable volume, however it kept the same ocean wave like feel …show more content…
The different pieces were comprised of random sounds with no real time signature. I could hear what sound like people engaging in a multitude of activities. There were random sounds that seemed to gradually increase in volume, as if passing by the microphone. These pieces felt very relaxed yet busy with there being a huge collection of sounds in varying pitches and durations. Having listened to something similar to this in the past, I wasn 't too taken off guard by it and I found myself intrigued by the sounds of people talking near the microphone as well as others who seemed to be shouting from the distance. In the second component there was a constant ticking sound, sort of like grasshoppers, which sort of add a "musical" component to the piece. The grasshopper sound continued into the third one, which contrasted from the sound of rushing water in the first one. Honestly, I don 't know what any of sources for the sounds were, other than voices I can very easily identify as human. What I found the most interesting was how pieces such as Ferrari 's and Tenney 's, seem to open up a gate way in my mind that encouraged imagination. I felt compelled to imagine what was going on in those surroundings and what the sounds presented where meant to convey. Not being able to understand the languages in Ferrari 's pieces also aided in inspiring me to use my …show more content…
We also decided that what people consider noise is very personal, depends on intention and requires some context. In these terms, the Luc Ferrari 's pieces were more on the "noise side" as they seemed to be a random collection of sounds occurring in a public space. James Tenney 's piece was created intentionally using an instrument that is considered "musical" and thus created a sound that had a particular pulse to it. Organic sounds created by instruments and voices tend to have a distinct fluctuating wave like pulse to them, which I could clearly pick up from the percussion in his composition. Though there was no harmony, rhythm, melody, or scale in any traditional sense, I would consider it to be more on the "musical"