Philip Glass Lecture

Philip Glass, a pioneer in minimalism in music, gave a two-day lecture at the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. In musical composition, minimalism highlights the repetition of melodic fragments, harmonic progressions, rhythmic structures, etc. Glass’s music is often steady in terms of volume and tempo, then, when introducing slight alterations, the pattern changes become notably audible. This opens up possibilities for audiences to experience psychoacoustic phenomena such as perceiving undertones and overtones that are not normally heard in other harmony-based compositions.

In the lectures, Glass shared his ideas and introduced his recently composed music while regularly addressing audience questions. He first discussed the recording of Music in Similar Motion (1969) that employed two/three electric organs, two saxophones, piano, and a flute. The piece is an open score that allows instrumentations that fit. 

The accessibility of recording technology and sonic spatialization such as quadraphonic speakers, as Glass discussed, allows a different kind of sonic experience compared to live performance. Glass also discussed the conception of Music in Twelves Parts (1971–74), a set of twelve pieces that runs around four hours if played entirely. During his lecture, he played recording excerpts to demonstrate how modulation sounded dramatic with a steady tonality.

In the second lecture, Glass analyzed his work Two Pages for Piano or Electric Organ (1968) in terms of rhythmic structure and underlying architecture. He considered the piece as a prototype of his current signature style. In Two Pages, it starts with the five-note motif “m, l, t, d’, r’.” By repeating the motif and subtracting notes from the motif gradually, he created a progression based on the same fragment. He demonstrated this process by playing the whole piece on an electric organ to the attendees.

The camera operator experimented with the Sandin Image Processor from this point onward. Two cameras, one directed on hands at the keyboard and the other on Glass’s face behind the organ, are overlaid. Towards the end the images were solarized, heightening the contrast between black and white in the image.

Glass then discussed his work Music in Fifths (1969) which employs a similar composition process. Unlike Two Pages which plays a single-line melody, Music in Fifths utilizes parallel fifth motion, a motion that is generally avoided in classical music composition. In parallel fifths, an interval of perfect fifth between two independent notes proceeds to the next set of notes while maintaining the same interval–the motion often sounds like a reinforcement of the fundamental note and lacks movement or variation through harmony.

The camera operator engaged in other creative actions with the image processor: a tilted angle of the organ overlaid with the audiences’ faces. Taking video processing up a notch, the operator set the camera into a sea of feedback with audience close-ups. With solarization, the faces gradually turned into abstract patterns and geometrical shapes. The image processing touch reveals the laid-back and somewhat amateur atmosphere in the Video Area of SAIC, which would otherwise be impossible in commercial or formal production settings.

–Gordon Dic-Lun Fung

For more information, visit the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive page.