James Tenney

Composer James Tenney
James Tenney

James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal music, and tuning systems including extended just intonation. His theoretical writings variously concern musical form, texture, timbre, consonance and dissonance, and harmonic perception.[1]

Biography

James Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College (B.A., 1958) and the University of Illinois (M.A., 1961). He studied piano with Eduard Steuermann and composition with Chou Wen-chung, Lionel Nowak, Paul Boepple, Henry Brant, Carl Ruggles, Kenneth Gaburo, John Cage, Harry Partch, and Edgard Varèse. He also studied acoustics, information theory and tape music composition under Lejaren Hiller. In 1961, Tenney completed an influential Masters' thesis entitled Meta (+) Hodos that made one of the earliest applications, if not the earliest application, of gestalt theory and cognitive science to music.[2] His later writings include Tenney, J.; Polansky, P. (1980). "Temporal gestalt perception in music". Journal of Music Theory. 24 (2): 205–241. , Tenney, J. (1983). "John Cage and the Theory of Harmony". In Kostelanetz, R. Writings about John Cage. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press (published 1993). ISBN 9780472103485. , and Tenney, J. (1988). A History of Consonance and Dissonance. New York, NY: Excelsior. ISBN 0935016996. , among others.

Tenney's earliest works show the influence of Webern, Ruggles and Varèse, while a gradual assimilation of the ideas of John Cage influenced the development of his music in the 1960s. In 1961 he composed the early plunderphonic composition Collage No.1 (Blue Suede) (for tape) by sampling and manipulating a recording of Elvis Presley. His music from 1961 to 1964 was largely computer music completed at Bell Labs in New Jersey with Max Mathews. As such it constitutes one of the earliest significant bodies of algorithmically composed and computer synthesized music.[3] Examples include Analog #1 (Noise Study) (1961) for tape using computer synthesized noise, and Phases (1963).[4][5]

Tenney lived in or near New York City throughout the 1960s, where he was actively involved with Fluxus, the Judson Dance Theater, and the ensemble Tone Roads, which he co-founded with Malcolm Goldstein and Philip Corner. He was exceptionally dedicated to the music of American composer Charles Ives, many of whose compositions he conducted (including the first performance of "in re, con moto"); his interpretation of Ives' "Concord" Sonata for piano was much praised. Tenney collaborated closely as both musician and actor with his then-partner, kinetic-theater artist Carolee Schneemann, until their separation in 1968. With Schneemann he co-starred in Fuses, a 1965 silent film of collaged and painted sequences of lovemaking. (Haug 2007, 20 & 25–26). In 1967 he gave an influential FORTRAN workshop for a group of composers and Fluxus artists that included Steve Reich, Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low, Phil Corner, Alison Knowles and Max Neuhaus.[6] Tenney was one of four performers of Steve Reich's Pendulum Music (1967) on May 27, 1969, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, alongside Michael Snow, Richard Serra and Bruce Nauman. Tenney also performed with Harry Partch (in a production of Partch's The Bewitched in 1959), John Cage (in the mid-1960's), Steve Reich, and Philip Glass (the latter two in the late 1960s).

All of Tenney's compositions after 1970 are instrumental music (occasionally with tape-delay), and most since 1972 reflect an interest in harmonic perception and unconventional tuning systems. Significant works include Clang (1972) for orchestra, Quintext (1972) for string quintet, Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow (1974) for player piano, Glissade (1982) for viola, cello, double bass and tape delay system, Bridge (1982–84) for two pianos eight hands in a microtonal tuning system, Changes (1985) for six harps tuned a sixth of a semitone apart, Critical Band (1988) for variable instrumentation and In a Large Open Space (1994) for variable instrumentation. His pieces are often tributes to other composers or colleagues and subtitled as such.

Tenney taught at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Yale University, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of California, and York University in Toronto. His students include John Luther Adams, John Bischoff, Michael Byron, Allison Cameron, Raven Chacon, Eric de Visscher, Miguel Frasconi, Peter Garland, Douglas Kahn, Carson Kievman, Ingram Marshall, Andra McCartney, Larry Polansky, Carl Stone, Charlemagne Palestine, Marc Sabat, Chiyoko Slavnics, Catherine Lamb, Michael Winter and Daniel Corral. (See: List of music students by teacher: T to Z#James Tenney.)

Tenney died on 24 August 2006 of lung cancer in Valencia, California.

Influence

In 2015, techno artist Rrose released Rrose Plays James Tenney – Having Never Written a Note for Percussion on Further Records (FUR099).[7] The release consists of both a studio and live version of Rrose performing Tenney's piece, and includes a facsimile insert of Tenney's original hand-written post card score. The studio version was performed and recorded at Brookland Artspace Studios, Washington D.C., on September 20, 2012. The live version was performed and recorded in the Dupont Underground Train Tunnels Beneath Washington D.C. on September 22, 2012.

References

  1. ↑
    • Tenney, James. 2015. From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory, edited by Lauren Pratt, Robert Wannamaker, Michael Winter, and Larry Polansky. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252038-72-X.
  2. ↑ Daniel Barbiero, Fifty Years After the Way: James Tenney’s Meta+Hodos, Percorsi Musicali, (2014)
  3. ↑ Douglas Kahn, "James Tenney at Bell Labs" in Hannah Higgins, & Douglas Kahn (Eds.), Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts, University of California Press, 2012, p. 132
  4. ↑ Douglas Kahn, "James Tenney at Bell Labs" in Hannah Higgins, & Douglas Kahn (Eds.), Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts, University of California Press, 2012, pp. 131–146
  5. ↑ Paul Doornbusch, A Chronology / History of Electronic and Computer Music and Related Events 1906–2011
  6. ↑ Douglas Kahn, "James Tenney at Bell Labs" in Hannah Higgins, & Douglas Kahn (Eds.), Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts, University of California Press, 2012, p. 133
  7. ↑ Rrose Plays James Tenney – Having Never Written a Note for Percussion on Further Records (FUR099)

Further reading

  • Garland, Peter (ed.). 1984. Soundings Vol. 13: The Music of James Tenney. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Soundings Press.
  • Hasegawa, Robert (ed.). 2008. "The Music of James Tenney". Contemporary Music Review 27, no. 1 (February). Routledge (subscription access).
  • Kahn, Douglas. 2012. "James Tenney at Bell Labs". In Mainframe Experimentalism: Early Digital Computing in the Experimental Arts, edited by Hannah Higgins and Douglas Kahn, 131–46. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
  • Polansky, Larry, and David Rosenboom (eds.). 1987. "A Tribute to James Tenney". Perspectives of New Music 25, nos. 1 & 2 (Fall–Winter & Spring–Summer): 434–591.
  • Smigel, Eric. 2012. "Metaphors on Vision: James Tenney and Stan Brakhage, 1951–1964". American Music 30, no. 1 (Spring|: 61–100.
  • Smigel, Eric. 2017. "'To Behold with Wonder': Theory, Theater, and the Collaboration of James Tenney and Carolee Schneemann". Journal of the Society for American Music 11, no. 1:1–24.
  • Tenney, James. 2015. From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory, edited by Lauren Pratt, Robert Wannamaker, Michael Winter, and Larry Polansky. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252038-72-X.
  • Tenney, James. 1988. A History of 'Consonance' and 'Dissonance'. New York: Excelsior Music Publishing Co. ISBN 0-935016-99-6.

Listening

Groups who often perform Tenney's works:

Interviews

  • Interview with Tenney about his work in the 1960s by Douglas Kahn in 1999
  • James Tenney (May 8–11, 2005). "Postcards from the Edge". NewMusicBox (Interview). Interviewed by Frank J. Oteri (published June 1, 2005). (includes video)
  • Hermits of Re-Tuning (Show 115) James Tenney interviewed on Kalvos & Damian New Music Bazaar, August 2, 1997 (click to listen)
  • James Tenney interviewed by American Mavericks (click to listen)
  • Schneemann, Carolee with Robert Enright. 1998. "Notes on Fuseology: Carolee Schneemann Remembers James Tenney". Border Crossings 132 (December 2014).
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