What transforms sounds into music? What does it mean to compose from the inside out or the outside in? Do recordings reshape our conceptions? In this series of essays, New York composer & musician partrick brennan probes a more inclusive, non-centricized, relational framework for understanding various ecologies of composing — and, most compellingly, how can we, as listeners, listen?
Ways & Sounds is a book that will reward repeated readings; it belongs in the permanent library of anyone thinking seriously about the possibilities of musical practice.
In a provocative opening move, brennan deflects the question—common not only to improvised music but to much contemporary composed music as well—of whether or not a given piece or type of music is structured. The question for brennan is one of “whether” rather than “if,” and so his question becomes one of what kind of structure the music exhibits. As he points out, musical structure encompasses not only the relationships between the musical materials internal to the work or the performance, but the human relationships—cooperative, conflicting, communicative—defining the interactions of the individuals generating the sounds.
