Schillinger system

The Schillinger System or Schillinger System or Schillinger Composition System is a composition system that can be used in particular for compositions of electronic music as well as for film music and was designed by the Ukrainian-American music theorist and composer Joseph Schillinger . It is genre-independent and clearly differs from traditional composition methods. Schillinger developed this system in the 1920s and 1930s. The Schillinger system tries to build on the connections between music and number.

background

As early as the 1930s, Schillinger had advocated that it was up to science to get rid of old compositional practices. After his emigration to America in 1928, Schillinger's system quickly became popular in New York. Schillinger was a professor at the New School in New York City and was the composition teacher for such illustrious musicians as George Gershwin , Benny Goodman , Stan Kenton , Glenn Miller , Paul Lavalle , Oscar Levant , Tommy Dorsey , Earle Brown , Toshiko Akiyoshi , Vic Mizzy , John Barry , Leith Stevens , Charles Previn , Vernon Duke and Carmine Coppola . He publicly rejected large parts of the previous music history , composition theory and instrument making as faulty trial-and-error attempts that would have failed due to the lack of scientific standards of their makers. He did not exclude famous instrument makers or composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach or Ludwig van Beethoven from these judgments . For example, he accused Beethoven of not having strictly followed compositional guidelines. Gershwin studied the Schillinger system for four years. During this time he wrote Porgy and Bess and consulted Schillinger several times on questions about opera and orchestration.

The basic assumption behind Schillinger's system is that music (according to Eduard Hanslick's definition of 1854, which is widely recognized in musicology to this day) has "sound, moving form" as its content. For Schillinger this meant that every physical action, every physical process has an equivalent in musical expression. He considered movement and music understandable based on the scientific status of the time. Schillinger believed that certain motifs (patterns) could lay claim to universality and are laid out in music as well as in the human nervous system.

The preface to the reference work Schillinger System of Musical Composition , published posthumously in 1946, comes from Henry Cowell . He emphasizes there that the Schillinger system, in contrast to conventional schools of composition, does not establish any composition rules, but instead allows the composer a freedom of choice.

Identification of the system

Zofia Helman: " Based on the Aristotelian principle ars imitatae naturae , Schillinger developed the thesis that the aesthetic qualities of music can be brought back to the geometric relationships of their components and that music always implements the laws of mathematical logic." In 1953 Werner Meyer-Eppler propagated the concept of parameters (parameterization der Musik), which Schillinger wanted to bring to music in his posthumous publication The Mathematical Basis of Arts (1948), whereby the concept achieved some success in academic circles: “According to Schillinger, the pitch, time and sound continuum should be parameterized and the Parameters [should] now be transformed and varied using mathematical methods. "

The system contains theories on rhythm , harmonic and melodic design, counterpoint , form and also a semantics of the music (for example in relation to emotive, as they should be achieved in the order-dependent film music). The approach offers a systematic and genre-independent approach to musical analysis and composition. Schillinger's approach is more descriptive than prescriptive. Among other things, he developed a new system of music notation . Schillinger's system itself was not fully worked out. His theory of counterpoint, for example, only covers single and double counterpoint, but not multiple counterpoint. Students like Jerome Walman expanded the technique to a variety of melodic combinations, which led to Walman eventually devising his own system.

Schillinger rarely tries to make predictions about the aesthetic consequences of his system. Instead, he offers generalized pattern-making techniques that are free from stylistic preferences or prejudices. The techniques themselves are tools, especially as aids for planning and executing extensive musical structures. In terms of dealing with rhythm, in particular, the Schillinger system is largely elaborated in contrast to traditional composition theories, which deal mainly with details of pitch. Algorithmic composition techniques can be found here even before Iannis Xenakis ' compositions. In many cases, however, traditional composition techniques are simply incorporated into the terminology of the system under a different name. Schillinger also proposed a system of numerical analysis of pitches based on principles that found their way into general syntax before the works of Milton Babbitt and Allen Fortes .

Usually very simple musical fragments, for example two or three notes, are used as basic material for permutation , geometric expansion, inversion, etc. in order to gain a multitude of variations and new material. In Schillinger's system, rhythmic interference resultants are used as the basis for the development of different layers for orchestral notations, in order to then develop them into a rhythmic set (a set) through permutations and thus to obtain more possibilities for specific compositions. For the melodic design, he favored a control tone ("boss tone"), which is supposed to monitor the tonal focus, and emotional connotations, roughly: upwards = happy, downwards = sad . Any decision that allows for a harmonious resolution is fully acceptable. The only forbidden are uncertainty and speculation.

rating

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An excellent characteristic of the Schillinger system is the accentuation of mathematics in music. Parts of the Schillinger composition system were later reconstructed and republished in literary compilations by Schillinger's widow. In academic circles, however, the system was not recognized to Schillinger's satisfaction, its level of awareness made him suspicious and his ideas were met with skepticism.

Schillinger's system is also inconsistent overall, at times neutral and objective in its preference for algebra and musical notation, then again vehemently and furiously subjective. In musicology , the system was initially completely rejected, although Schillinger's radicalism and personal furor were also applauded in many places. His methods remained difficult and obscure for the uninitiated, in part the text is simply provocative.

education

The fact that the comments on the organization of rhythmic conditions are at the beginning of his treatise and that the concept of rhythmic design has often been transferred to other areas of the composition (such as finding melodies) makes it necessary to understand the terminology at the very beginning of dealing with the system. As is usual for systems of all kinds and especially for compositional systems, the practical value of the Schillinger system lies in the methodological decision-making. The possibilities that Schillinger offers for decision-making aids, however, confront his students with a multitude of decision-making options, which resulted in the need not only to make the Schillinger system known in print publications, but also to promote a school system with appropriately trained teachers. who could support the students with current decision-making questions. By the 1980s, around 40 Schillinger schools were established around the world, before interest in the method stagnated and the Schillinger system was initially no longer taught at Berklee either.

Although the system is modern and visionary, it is also useful in clarifying traditional music theory by highlighting failures and conceptual contradictions in music history . There is a certain consensus that his methods allow any compositional style to be usefully expanded. The difficulties faced by students of the system also result from the largely renewed terminology. The system itself is not particularly complex, but it requires a high degree of willingness to learn to acquire the terminology and to cope with the abundance of possibilities for musical notation based on only a few equations.

The Schillinger System is an attempt to provide a definitive and understandable treatise on the relationship between music and number. The disadvantage of this is that it leads to a long treatise with well-elaborated terminology (this is confirmed by the scope of the publications concerned). By uncovering principles of the organization of sound through scientific analysis, Schillinger hoped to free budding composers from traditional standards of music theory. The system had a lot of influence on jazz education up to the present day. In the 1940s it was one of the central curricula at the renowned Westlake College of Music and was taught there by Dick Grove , who learned it himself for 9 years and developed it into his own system.

A reform of the Schillinger Society by Philip DiTullio in 2005 went hand in hand with increased attention on the Internet, especially through an online learning system that was shaped in the main by Schillinger and his most important students. You can get an impression of the company's online learning system by taking a free online trial course (see web links). Certification by the Schillinger Society is required for authorization to teach.

Advancements

The influential Berklee College of Music began its existence as the Schillinger House of Music (1945-1954) when it was founded in Boston by Schillinger's student Lawrence Berk after Schillinger's death (1943) . It was based on the Schillinger system; The so-called Berklee method emerged from the Schillinger system in the 1960s , which was taught there until the 1980s and finally became relevant again in the course of the discovery of digital music production (cf. Digital Audio Workstation ).

At the time of its founding, the institute was one of the few worldwide where not only classical music was taught, but also jazz, jingle writing for radio and television advertising, as well as theater and dance music.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

It can be assumed that the Schillinger system not only exerted a lasting influence on many jazz musicians, but also on the development of electronic music in the 20th century, although it is hardly mentioned in the public consciousness and in the opinions of musicians.

Computer implementation

For some time, inquiries in blogs and forums about how the Schillinger system can be implemented in computer applications and programming languages ​​have been increasing. So far there have been approaches for algorithmic and interactive composition, for example in Csound . Walter Birg from the Center for Electronic Music in Freiburg explicitly recommends composers who deal with algorithmic composition to deal with the Schillinger system. With Stratasynch , a GNU / Linux -based Schillinger composition tool with DAW implementation in ABC is also available as freeware. The chapters from Schillinger's publications on his system that played a role in the implementation of the tool are documented (see web links).

literature

• Joseph Schillinger (1946): Schillinger System of Musical Composition. (New York: C. Fischer, Inc.)
• Joseph Schillinger (1948): The Mathematical Basis of the Arts (New York: Philosophical Library)
• Jeremy Arden (1969): Focussing the musical imagination: exploring in composition the ideas and techniques of Joseph Schillinger (Diss.), PDF
• Jonathan Kramer (1973): The Fibonacci Series in Twentieth-Century Music (Journal of Music Theory)
• Zofia Helman (1982): Intellect and Imagination in the Music of Witold Lutosławski . (Muzikololki Zbornik)
• Charles Suber: Introduction , in: David Baker: Jazz Pedagogy. (New York: Alfred)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bruno Degazio The Schillinger System of Musical Composition and Contemporary Computer Music (PDF; 3.9 MB)
2. ↑ Schillinger, Joseph (1946): Schillinger System of Musical Composition , p. 21
3. ^ [1] Full text Hanslick, Eduard (1854): Vom Musikalisch-Schön. A contribution to the revision of the aesthetics of music.
4. ^ H. Cowell Overture to the Schillinger System (1941)
5. ^ Helman, Zofia (1982): Intellect and fantasy in the music of Witold Lutosławski , p. 18
6. ↑ ^{a b} [2] Birg, Walter: A trailblazer for algorithmic composition: Joseph Schillinger.
7. ↑ Much of the title music for TV series and soundtracks for films was created on the basis of the Schillinger system. So also was studying James Bond -Komponist John Barry , the Schillinger System, the theme music of the US television series The Addams Family both based thereon.
8. ↑ “Schillinger, inspired by the 'organic' nature of the golden section, recommends deriving melodic lines from the Fibonacci numbers (and also from other recursive sequences). He freely makes octave transpositions so that the proportional and additive properties or the Fibonacci source of the resulting melody are lost ... ”, from: Kramer, Jonathan (1973): The Fibonacci Series in Twentieth-Century Music (Journal of Music Theory)
9. ^ [3] Forum contributions with detailed discussions of the Schillinger system
10. ↑ SSMC, p. 1356
11. ↑ ^{a b} Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. All about jazz 
12. ^ Morgan, Bob: The Sankofa Tradition: A Reminder for the 21st Century
13. ↑ Based on the Schillinger system and just as rigid as the Schillinger system, the Berklee method disqualifies any music that violates mathematical principles as false music - as Branford Marsalis in: David Andrew Ake (2002): Jazz Cultures , University of California Press, P. 144
14. ↑ The low level of awareness of the system is not surprising, because compositional systems as such naturally arouse a certain skepticism among composers if they do not originate from themselves. In 2009, for example, Kim Cascone made such a statement that he dealt with the Schillinger system. It seems as if the system is enjoying new popularity in the course of digital music production, which is no wonder, given the often algorithmic, in any case data-centric way of composing and processing many contemporary electronic music. An acute question is whether Schillinger's system could or can prove itself in the processing of the digital revolution, especially by supporters of the post- digital .
15. ↑ [4] for example for Logic Pro

Web links

• [5] Schillinger Society (with the option of a free online course).
• [6] Extensive and thematically systematized collection of handwritten manuscripts by Lawrence Berk, created during the lessons with Schillinger, very nicely presented.
• [7] Jeremy Ardens Schillinger School of Music .
• [8] Jeremy Arden's YouTube channel with video lectures on the method of composition.
• [9] Table of contents Schillinger System of Musical Composition. Schillinger CHI Project. Discussion of Adapting the Schillinger System of Musical Composition for Computer Implementation.
• [10] Joseph Schillinger's publications with an overview of chapters.
• [11] a somewhat more complex representation in Kyle Gann: Downtownbeats for the 1990s , in David Froom (ed.): American Composers. The Emerging Generation , Contemporary Music Review 10/1 (Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994). Excerpts from Google Books.
• [12] Ted Pease: The Schillinger / Berklee Connection: A perusal of Lawrence Berk's notebooks sheds light on Berklee's early curriculum. (1966) Practical introduction with examples.
• [13] Graphic examples
• [14] Stratasynch software solution
• [15] US School of Commercial Music, Schillinger System & Line Writing. Experience with melodic design, songwriting and linear counterpoint is required for the course.
• [16] Spiegel article from May 1, 1948 with insights into the reception of the Schillinger system at the time.