Ginsberg Maya (2) Experimental American Music Dissertation

DOCUMENTING THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENTAL TRADITION:
A HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF SOURCE AND SOUNDINGS
_______________
A Thesis
Presented to the
Faculty of
San Diego State University
_______________
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
in
Music
_______________
by
Maya Lisa Ginsberg
Summer 2011
iii
Copyright 2011
by
Maya Lisa Ginsberg
All Rights Reserved

iv
DEDICATION
for my parents
v
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
Documenting the American Experimental Tradition:

A Historical Examination of SOURCE and Soundings
by
Maya Lisa Ginsberg
Master of Arts in Music
San Diego State University, 2011
In American music there has been a history of composers who lacked an appropriate
vehicle through which to disseminate their music, and several pioneering music journals
were founded to expose the music of these composers to a wider audience. In the early part
of the twentieth century, many of these journals championed uniquely American music that
appeared to break free from European influence. As the century progressed, new journals that
focused on modern music led to the recognition and establishment of the avant garde in
academia. The institutionalization of the avant garde resulted in the alienation of another
group of American composers who did not write neo-tonal music for mainstream audiences.
This group, often referred to as the American experimentalists, formed their own distinct
tradition, the lineage of which was largely defined and propagated by two journals,
SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde and Soundings. Throughout the twentieth century,
music journals like SOURCE, Soundings, and their predecessors presented musical
compositions and writings by contemporary composers who had been overlooked by the
musical establishment, thereby creating valuable documentation of new music in the United
States.
This thesis examines the journals SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde and Soundings
in a historical context of new music journals in American culture of the twentieth century.
This thesis also illustrates these two journals contribution to the repertoire and discourse of
the American experimental tradition.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
Review of Literature ..............................................................................................11
Purpose ...................................................................................................................14
Limitations .............................................................................................................14
Methodology ..........................................................................................................15
Organization of the Document ...............................................................................15
2 SOURCE: MUSIC OF THE AVANT GARDE .............................................................17
3 SOUNDINGS ...............................................................................................................35
4 AMERICAN EXPERIMENTALISM .........................................................................50
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................64
APPENDIX
A TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW WITH LARRY AUSTIN ...............................69
B PETER GARLAND QUESTIONS..............................................................................80
C PETER GARLAND RESPONSES..............................................................................82
D ANNOTATED INDEX OF SOUNDINGS ..................................................................89

vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the always supportive and encouraging faculty and staff of the School
of Music and Dance. Special thanks to Sandy Konar, whose dedication is matched by her
kindness; to Kevin Delgado and Richard Thompson for their kind words; and to Donna
Conaty for the invaluable teaching experience.
Thanks also to the staff of the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of
Texas at Austin for their patience and efficiency. I would also like to acknowledge William
Staninger from the San Diego State University Library for allowing me to spend quality time
with all the issues of SOURCE.
I am very grateful for the generous participation of Larry Austin and Peter Garland in
this project; their input was invaluable.
I deeply appreciate the work of my thesis committee: John Putman, may he live long
and prosper; and J. Mitzi Kolar whose attention to detail is second to none and whose
suggestions have always improved my work.
I have always been very lucky in my life when it comes to mentors and colleagues. I
am endlessly grateful for Eric Smigels unflagging guidance, support, and wit; I couldnt
have asked for anything more. Thanks to the Musicological Mongrels, especially office-mate
extraordinaire Alexandra Tea. I would not have made it through this process without the
love, encouragement, and humor of Lawrence Rizzuto and Pamela Narbona Jerezthank
you both so very, very much.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their patience, support, and love.
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
In American music there has been a history of composers who lacked an appropriate
vehicle through which to disseminate their music, and several pioneering music journals
were founded to expose the music of these composers to a wider audience. In the early part
of the twentieth century, many of these journals championed uniquely American music that
appeared to break free from European influence. As the century progressed, new journals that
focused on modern music led to the recognition and establishment of the avant garde in
academia. The institutionalization of the avant garde resulted in the alienation of another
group of American composers who did not write neo-tonal music for mainstream audiences.
This group, often referred to as the American experimentalists, formed their own distinct
tradition, the lineage of which was largely defined and propagated by two journals,
SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde and Soundings. Throughout the twentieth century,
music journals like SOURCE, Soundings, and their predecessors presented musical
compositions and writings by contemporary composers who had been overlooked by the
musical establishment, thereby creating valuable documentation of new music in the United
States.
In 1901 American composer Arthur Farwell went to New York to find a publisher for
his American Indian Melodies. He was unsuccessful in his quest; what he found instead, to
his dismay, were other young composers seeking publication opportunities:
My first sensation was astonishment at the great amount of original, imaginative,

characteristic work by American composers, in manuscript, and wholly unknown. My
astonishment was increased when I learned that the publishers would have none of this
2
music. Practically without exception, the composers, one and all, told me that the
publishers would take their insignificant and lighter works, but had no use for the music
in which they had succeeded in expressing their individuality, or into which they had put
their best work and thought.1
This newfound knowledge was the inspiration for Farwells creation of Wa-Wan Press, the
mission of which was to publish original music of American composers. Farwell felt strongly
about individuality: We shall ask of the composer, not that he submit to us work which is
likely to be in demand, but that he express himself. We shall do our utmost to foster
individuality.2 Farwell believed that these underrepresented composers simply needed
exposure, and was confident that they would be successful: All American composition
needs is publicity.3
Farwell was also motivated by his belief that American composers needed to forge a
uniquely American compositional identity. In his own compositions he included Native
American themes, cowboy tunes, and spirituals. This American-centric ideal of composition
was in opposition to the values and standards of the musical establishment in the United
States at that time, which Gilbert Chase describes as being dictated by the German
hegemony in American musical life.4 To further his goal of promoting American music,
Farwell formed the National Wa-Wan Society of America and the accompanying Wa-Wan
Press Monthly in 1907. The society organized concerts and promoted the study of American
1
Arthur Farwell, Wanderjahre of a Revolutionist and Other Essays on American Music, ed. Thomas
Stoner (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1995), 87.
2
Arthur Farwell, An Affirmation of American Music, in The American Composer Speaks: A
Historical Anthology, 17701965, ed. Gilbert Chase (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966), 89.
3
Ibid., 93.
4
Gilbert Chase, introduction to Vera Brodsky Lawrence, ed., The Wa-Wan Press, 19011911, Vol. 1,
(New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1970), ix.
3
compositions. Farwell provided a model for subsequent generations: the American composer
who organizes societies and establishes publishing venues for the exposure of new music. In
1912 Farwell gave the plates and stock of the Wa-Wan Press to G. Schirmer on a royalty
basis, ending a ten-year run during which the work of thirty-seven composers was
published.5
Despite Farwells efforts, European dominance of American music continued. Carol
Oja asserts that the decade between 1910 and 1920 was the mysterious Paleolithic period of
American modernist music. Occasional glints of activity were overshadowed by a near
single-minded focus on historic European repertoires.6 Edgard Varse came to the United
States in 1915 and made his conducting debut in 1917. Four years later, Varse, along with
Carlos Salzedo and Varses wife Louise, founded the International Composers Guild
(ICG). The guilds purpose, stated in a manifesto published in Musical America and also in
leaflet form, was to stage concerts of new music by American and European composers:
The present day composers refuse to die. They have realized the necessity of banding
together and fighting for the right of each individual to secure a fair and free presentation of
his work.7 During its short existence, the ICG organized performances of chamber pieces by
a variety of composers including Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Anton
Webern, Carl Ruggles, and Henry Cowell. The ICG also premiered several of Varses own
compositions. In 1923, for a number of reasons, including Varses insistence on not
5
Ibid., xii.
6
Carol Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press,
2000), 11.
7
Louise Varse, Varse: A Looking-glass Diary. Vol. 1: 18831928 (New York: Norton, 1972), 166
67.
4
repeating a previously performed work (Schoenbergs Pierrot Lunaire), some of the
members of the ICG split from the guild and formed a new group called the League of
Composers. The Leagues mission was to produce the performances of new music, to
champion American composers, and to introduce American audiences to new music. Modern
Music, the journal published by the League of Composers, was originally titled League of
Composers Review. Edited by Minna Lederman, Modern Music had an impressive run of
eighty-nine issues published over a twenty-two year period. Instead of articles written by
journalists, the pages of Modern Music were filled with writings by composers about
contemporary music, as Lederman explains:
Music of this century would be its subject, the past to be considered solely in relation to
the present. No school or dogma was to be championed; the whole range of modern
tendencies was to undergo a watchful surveillance. Writers were to be almost exclusively
composers and scholars. Portraits of interesting figures and other relevant illustrations
would be sought from celebrated artists. News of all important contemporary
developments would be printed.8
Modern Music did not focus solely on American musicmany of the early issues included
European reportsbut as Eric Salzman indicates, There is the sense that the initial impulse
for the publication grew out of a need to know what was going on; out of an urgent necessity
for American musical life to push out of provincial isolation.9
While the ICG and the League of Composers brought modernist music to New York
audiences, composer Henry Cowell staged concerts of modernist composers on the West
coast, where his New Music Society aimed to present the works of the most discussed
8
Minna Lederman, The Life and Death of a Small Magazine (Modern Music, 1924 1946) (New York:
Institute for Studies in American Music, 1983), 5.
9
Eric Salzman, Modern Music in Retrospect, Perspectives of New Music 2, no. 2 (Spring/Summer,
1964): 15.
5
composers of the so-called ultra-modernist tendencies.10 New Music Quarterly, first
published in 1927, was the official publication of the New Music Society. Like Farwell,
Cowell recognized the difficulty composers had in seeking publication:
There are very few opportunities at present for the modern American composer to publish
his works, as publishers cannot afford to risk losing money in such publications, with the
result that many of the finest works ever written in America remain unpublished. When
modern works are published in America, few copies are sold. The work is therefore not
distributed, and the composer gains no financial profit.11
Although the New Music Society and New Music Quarterly did not exclude European
composers, Cowells focus, like that of Farwell, was the promotion of American works:
American composition up to now has been tied to the apron-strings of European tradition.
To attain musical independence, more national consciousness is a present necessity for
American composers. The result of such an awakening should be the creation of works
capable of being accorded international standing. When this has been accomplished, self-
conscious nationalism will no longer be necessary.12
Cowells various endeavors with the New Music Societyconcerts, recordings, and
publicationswere vital in the shaping of the American musical landscape, as Rita Mead
explains:
The history of [the] New Music [Society] is part of the history of American musics rise
to prominence during the twentieth century. When New Music started, there was almost
no contemporary American music performed or published in the United States. When it
ended thirty-three years later, American music had not only taken its place in the world,
but the United States had become the center for contemporary music: the European exiles
had become established here, American electronic music was making its impact, and the
American avant-garde was becoming known throughout the world.13
10
Oja, Making Music Modern, 190.
11
In Rita Mead, Henry Cowells New Music 19251936: The Society, the Music Editions, and the
Recordings (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981), 76.
12
Henry Cowell, ed., American Composers on American Music, A Symposium (New York: Frederick
Ungar Publishing Co.,1962), 13.
13
Mead, Henry Cowells New Music, xv-xvi.
6
The influence of the New Music Quarterly as a document of new music cannot be
understated: from its inception until 1936, the thirty-five issues featured works by forty
composers, including Charles Ives and Arnold Schoenberg.
Modern Music and New Music Quarterly played a large role in the acceptance of
new music in the United States. But as these composers began pushing the boundaries further
and furtherabandoning tonality and expanding musical resourcestheir connection with
the audience became increasingly strained. The idea that the music of these composers was
too difficult for the layperson to understand inspired rhetoric calling for the avant-garde
composer to withdraw from the public sphere and gain support in an academic environment,
typified by Milton Babbitts infamous 1958 essay, Who Cares if You Listen.14 According
to Georgina Born:
During the 50s and 60s, the very period this rhetoric was being produced, and especially
in the United States, serialist composition did secure a home within the universities, as
Babbitt proposed. Thus the musical avant-garde gradually became legitimized by the
academy and gained increasing financial subsidy. It became, in other words,
established.15
One of the first music journals to emerge from this academic environment was Perspectives
of New Music, which was established in 1962 and published by Princeton University with
financial sponsorship of the Fromm Music Foundation. The stated goal of Perspectives of
New Music was:
to establish a forum of considerably broader scope, one which would draw together
American composers, their European colleagues, their fellows in the musical world, and
literate people in every field. The lack of such a journal for contemporary music in
14
In Gilbert Chase, ed., The American Composer Speaks: A Historical Anthology, 17701965 (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966), 235244.
15
Georgina Born, Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical
Avant-Garde (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 4.
7
America has deprived musicians as well as non-musicians of a means through which to

approach and understand new musical phenomena.16
In 1972, feeling that the journal had become a highly specialized theory journal for
contemporary music and after trying to convince the editorial board to broaden the scope of
the journal, Paul Fromm withdrew the foundations financial support for Perspectives of New
Music, which was thereafter sponsored by an independent corporation.17 This
institutionalization of the avant garde excluded many composers; the academic community
was comprised of a privileged elite composing music in serial or atonal idioms. Composers
writing in other idiomsespecially those employing different techniques such as alternate
tuning systems, graphic notation, and indeterminacybecame known as experimentalist
composers. Frank X. Mauceri asserts: Universities became a haven for composers in the
United States, but the composers considered experimental were exactly those not included
in academic music departments.18
By the late 1960s, although a few composers in the experimental tradition had made
their way into university faculty positions, there were many who remained alienated by
academia.19 On the West coast, there was a growing experimental music scene, most notably
16
Paul Fromm, Young Composers: Perspective and Prospect, Perspectives of New Music 1, no. 1
(Autumn 1962): 2.
17
David Carson Berry,Journal of Music Theory under Allen Forte's Editorship, Journal of Music
Theory 50, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 21.
18
Frank X. Mauceri, From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment, Perspectives of New Music
35, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 192.
19
Mauceri notes: Except for Cage's short residency at Wesleyan (196061), most experimental
composers began their first academic appointments in the late sixties: Cage's next appointment was University
of Cincinnati (1967); Gordon Mumma, Brandeis (196667); Earle Brown, Peabody Conservatory (1968);
Robert Ashley, Mills (1969); Lou Harrison, San Jose University (1967); Morton Feldman, SUNY-Buffalo
(1972); Christian Wolff, Dartmouth (1970). (Wolff taught classics at Harvard before 1970). The exception is
Alvin Lucier, Brandeis (1963).
8
the San Francisco Tape Music Center (SFTMC)founded by San Francisco Conservatory of
Music students Ramon Sender and Pauline Oliveros in 1961which provided a studio for
composers working with tape and electronic media. The SFTMC was a part of the growing
counterculture of the 1960s; SFTMC performances incorporated light shows and free
improvisations, and Ramon Sender went on to co-produce the Trips Festival in 1966. This is
the period during which the magazine SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde appears.
Dedicated to documenting the work of avant-garde composers, SOURCE was
founded by Larry Austin and was published by Composer/Performer Edition beginning in
1967.20 Eleven issues were published during the magazines 19671973 run, with Austin as
the primary editor for the first eight issues and Stanley Lunetta as the primary editor for the
last three. Born in Oklahoma in 1930, Austin studied composition with Violet Archer, Darius
Milhaud, and Andrew Imbrie, and was a member of the faculty at the University of
California at Davis when he founded SOURCE. In the first issue Austin wrote that,
SOURCE, a chronicle of the most recent and often the most controversial scores, serves as a
medium of communication for the composer, the performer, and the student of the avant
garde.21 In the first issue of SOURCE, Austin defined the avant garde as the area of
composition that thrives on constant conceptual and technical renewal, where new musical
discoveries are made, where controversial re-appraisal and refinement of the compositional
process is taking place.22 The works of over 120 composers appeared in the pages of
20
Larry Austin was the primary editor of SOURCE, with an editorial board that included Wayne
Johnson, Stanley Lunetta, John Mizelle, Paul Robert, and Arthur Woodbury.
21
In Larry Austin, ed., SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde 1 (Davis, CA: Composer/Performer
Edition, 19671973): 1.
22
Ibid.
9
SOURCE: in scores, essays (written and photographic), and six recordings. Publication of
SOURCE ceased in 1973 due to financial constraints as well as a lack of submitted material.
In a review of the first volume of SOURCE, Ellsworth Synder wrote,
Undoubtedly SOURCE will be of stimulating interest to musicians, but scholars,

educators, students, amateurs, and librarians, too, will find it fascinating and provocative.
Once it finally dawns on performers and musicologists that the recent avant garde has not
been just on the fringe of music, this magazine will become historically important for its
primary source material.23
SOURCE, which was compared to New Music Quarterly in its first year of production, would
soon influence a composer newly transplanted to the West coast to begin publishing his own
music journal.
Peter Garland began publishing the journal Soundings while still a student at the
California Institute for the Arts. Garland, born in Maine in 1952, studied with Vladimir
Ussachevsky at Columbia University, but left after one semester. In 1970 Garland moved to
California, and became part of the founding class at Cal Arts, where he studied composition
with James Tenney and Harold Budd. Garlands interest in the composers of the American
experimental tradition and what he perceived as their exclusion from history were key
motivations for establishing Soundings:
By this point [the 1970s], all this had become a kind of lost history. Little or no
information was available about these composers; next to nothing was published or in
print, as scores or recordings. Since the 1940s and 1950s these people had been kept out
of the history books; and all one was taught in the schools was Webern, Boulez,
Stockhausenor worse even, Walter Piston or Roger Sessions! Outrage and disbelief
over this situation was one of the principal motivating factors for Soundings.24
23
Ellsworth Snyder, review of SOURCE, ed. by Larry Austin, Notes 24, no. 2 (December 1967): 349.
24
Peter Garland, In Search of Silvestre Revueltas: Essays 19781990 (Santa Fe, NM: Soundings Press,
1991), 15.
10
In addition to exposing the composers who Garland felt had been ignored, he hoped that
Soundings would reach an audience beyond composers and musicians: we hope to attract
a wider public, and bring new music to the attention of people working in the other arts.25
Soundings published scores and articles by composers of new music in the United
States. During the journals runfrom 1971 until 1990sixteen issues were released.
Garland initially received financial assistance from Cal Arts to produce the first issue of
Soundings, but he was adamant in making it known that the journal was not under the
auspices of the school. Later, Garland received financial support from philanthropist Betty
Freeman. After many earlier predictions of the journals demise, Garland ceased publication
of Soundings in 1990, by which time over 130 composers, writers, and artists had appeared in
its pages. Kyle Gann credits Garland with publishing some of Americas most significant
music in an era in which no conventional publisher would pay any attention.26
The editors of SOURCE and Soundings sought the exposure of the music of a
specific community of composersthe American experimentalistswho they felt had been
excluded from the avant garde community as it was recognized by the musical academy.
Peter Garland, ever vocal in his support of the composers of the American experimental
tradition, has always been unequivocal in his opinion that American music had been taken
over by universities: the domination of American music by one faction, based mostly on the
East coast, and the usurpation of our musical life by the university system, began. By the late
1950s, this was the status quo in American music. Composers of the so-called
25
Peter Garland, Comment draft, Soundings 1, Peter Garland Collection, Box 10, Folder 1, Harry
Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.
26
Kyle Gann, American Music in the Twentieth Century (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), 367.
11
experimental tradition were in a state of exile, even inside the United States.27 Although
Larry Austin did not specifically state that the academic environment excluded certain
composers, he did note that, as an independent magazine, SOURCE is free from the
inherent restrictions of foundations and universities (however enlightened), uncommitted to
inevitable factional interests of societies and composers groups.28 An advertisement for
SOURCE (included within the pages of its first issue) was more explicit: SOURCE presents
music of distinguished composers whose works, because of their advanced, controversial, or
esoteric nature, have been rarely published, effectively ignored and even derided.29 A study
of the contents of SOURCE and Soundings reveals a community of composers working
outside the musical academy whose work may have otherwise remained unheard.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Although there is almost no scholarly research on SOURCE and Soundings, there is
much information about the journals that preceded them. A complete edition of the entire
output of Wa-Wan Press, edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence, was published in 1970. This
edition includes a comprehensive index and Farwells introduction of each volume. These
introductions shed light on the progress of Farwells ideal enterprise.30
The contents of the journal Modern Music have been compiled in an analytic index by
Wayne D. Shirley. Equally valuable is Minna Ledermans book The Life and Death of a
Small Magazine (Modern Music 1924-1946). Lederman was the editor of Modern Music for
27
Garland, In Search of Silvestre Revueltas, 13.
28
In Austin, SOURCE 1, 1.
29
Ibid., 113.
30
Farwell, Wanderjahre of a Revolutionist, 87.
12
the entirety of its publication. The book includes reproductions of photographs, drawings,
manuscripts from Modern Music, as well as correspondence and unpublished photographs. In
his introduction to the book, H. Wiley Hitchcock writes, It tells, as she [Lederman] says,
the story behind the story of Modern Music.31
Henry Cowells New Music 1925-1936: The Society, the Music Editions, and the
Recordings by Rita Mead is a comprehensive history the journal New Music Quarterly. In
addition to indices of New Musics concerts, recordings and the contents of New Music
Quarterly, the book contains a detailed history of Cowells New Music Society, and places
New Music Quarterly in an historical context as a journal that documented new American
music.
The primary source materials for this study are the contents of the journals SOURCE
and Soundings. In addition to the scores that appear in these journals, there is a wealth of
information in the form of essays by and about contemporary composers. Larry Austin and
Peter Garland contribute information in essays as well as editors notes that clarify their
goals. Michael D. Williams also prepared an annotated list of the contents of SOURCE
organized by name, composition, and title. Two books published by Soundings Press,
Americas and The Return of Silvestre Revueltas, contain both reprinted essays (originally
published in Soundings) and previously unpublished essays by Peter Garland that document
his interest in the history of American experimentalism and his opinions about the neglect
and lack of recognition of American experimentalist composers by the musical academy.
The documents contained in the Peter Garland Collection provide information about
Garland himself and his undertaking of the publishing of his journal. The personal
31
Introduction to Lederman, The Life and Death of a Small Magazine, viii.
13
correspondence between Garland and many of the contributors to Soundings reveals
Garlands opinions about the American musical establishment, his feelings about the
relationship between Soundings and SOURCE, his personal relationships with many of the
composers whose works appear in the pages of Soundings, and his frequent predictions of the
end of the journal.
There are several excellent histories of the American experimental tradition that
provide key information for this study. Michael Nymans book Experimental Music: Cage
and Beyond tackles the task of defining experimental music by naming different aspects of
composition drawing from works by John Cage, Morton Feldman, La Monte Young, and
others. Nyman writes that although experimental music was not the culmination of a long
line of development, and was largely without a linear history, there were composers in the
early part of the twentieth century whose work influenced the mid-century experimentalists.32
In his book American Experimental Music: 18901940, David Nicholls provides
examples of some of the composers to which Nyman refers. Nicholls provides short
biographies of Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and others and
illustratesthrough specific compositionsexperimental techniques that these composers
employed.
In his book Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music, Michael Broyles
traces the path of the unconventional American composer from the eighteenth century
through the twentieth century. Broyles explores American individuality and community and
examines how these traits are made manifest in the context of American musical identity.
32
Michael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, Second Edition (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press: 1999), 31.
14
Broyles devotes a chapter to the serial wars describing the different directions American
composers of new music were taking in the post-World War II period and how these factions
were vying for recognition.
Stuart D. Hobbss book The End of the American Avant Garde examines the history
of the avant garde in American culture. The chapter entitled Institutional Enthrallment
describes the assimilation of the avant garde in academia after World War II and provides
information relevant to this study about the institutionalization of the avant garde.
PURPOSE
This thesis examines the journals SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde and Soundings
in a historical context of new music journals in American culture of the twentieth century.
This thesis also illustrates these two journals contribution to the repertoire and discourse of
the American experimental tradition.
LIMITATIONS
The focus of this thesis is the historical contribution of the journals SOURCE: Music
of the Avant Garde and Soundings. The contents of the journals are described in terms of
what format each item is, and compositions are identified in descriptive terms (e.g., notes for
realization, solo piano work, etc.), but this study does not include any musical analyses.
Although the focus of this study is SOURCE and Soundings, the journals Modern Music,
New Music Quarterly, and Perspectives of New Music are discussed in the context of their
historical significance as documentation of new music. This study does not include musical
analyses of works from Modern Music, New Music Quarterly, or Perspectives of New Music.
Archival material from the Peter Garland Collection was also be used for this thesis, but is
limited to unpublished material relating to the journal Soundings, such as unpublished

15
editorial commentary and private correspondence between Garland and contributors to
Soundings.
METHODOLOGY
A detailed description of the journals SOURCE and Soundings has been made. I have
created an annotated index of the contents of Soundings, including information about the
contributors and the format of each selection (e.g., essay, score, artwork, photograph). Using
this index and the annotated index by Michael D. Williams I have cross referenced the
overlap in contributors to each journal and the similarities and differences in the types of
compositions.
Interviews with Austin and Garland were conducted. I asked each of the editors to
elaborate on their motivations for founding their respective journals, what they hoped to
achieve with their journals, and what impact they think their journals had on the musical
community. (See Appendices A, B, and C for these interviews.)
Research based on bibliographic sources was also used, including material regarding
the history of twentieth-century American music, American experimentalism, and the history
of music journals in the United States to illustrate the circumstances that led to the founding
of both SOURCE and Soundings.
ORGANIZATION OF THE DOCUMENT

This thesis is organized into four chapters. The first chapter includes the introduction,
review of literature, purpose, limitations, and methodology. The second chapter consists of a
detailed examination of SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde, including an interview with the
founder of the journal, Larry Austin, and an examination of the contents of the journal. The
third chapter consists of a detailed examination of Soundings, including an interview with the
16
journals founder, Peter Garland, and an examination of the contents of the journal. The final
chapter reveals conclusions reached by the examination of the two journals, and suggestions
for further study.

17
CHAPTER 2
SOURCE: MUSIC OF THE AVANT GARDE
We wanted composers who wrote far out things.1

Larry Austin
Although the first issue of SOURCE was published in January 1967, the magazine
had its genesis a few years earlier. Larry Austin, founding editor of SOURCE, began a
teaching position at the University of California, Davis in 1958. Austin, having studied with
Violet Archer in Texas and serving a stint in the Army, moved to California to study at the
University of California, Berkeley and at Mills College with Andrew Imbrie and Darius
Milhaud, respectively. At Davis, Austin was active as a conductor, composer, and performer.
In the summer of 1963 Austin and some of his colleagues began playing together in a free
improvisation group, using experimental techniques and notations. The members of the
groupcalled the New Music Ensemblewere Austin, Richard Swift, Stanley Lunetta,
Dary John Mizelle, Wayne Johnson, Billie Alexander, and Arthur Woodbury.
In 196465 Larry Austin went to Rome, Italy, on a Creative Arts Institute grant from
the University of California and a sabbatical to compose music and perform. While in Rome,
he met many European and expatriate American avant-garde composers and collected scores.
Brimming with ideas and loaded with the scores he collected from composers Frederic
Rzewski, Guiseppe Chiari, Cornelius Cardew, Franco Evangelisti, Mario Bertoncini, Roger
Reynolds, and others, Austin returned from Rome, eager to share these new works with his
1
Larry Austin, interview by author, March 23, 2011.
18
colleagues. In his composition seminar with his students Lunetta and Mizelle, Austin
discussed the idea of putting together a catalog of new music. Their idea for the catalog
included not only the music Austin had collected, but also their own music and the music of
American avant-garde composers. As their discussion continued, they came to the conclusion
that a catalog was not enough. Austin recalls:
We wanted it to be more than a catalog; it would be a listing of pieces available. We

wanted it to have at least excerpts from these pieces and showing the different types of
notation that we encountered and were experimenting with. And so gradually we realized
that a catalog wasnt enough, we needed to see the scores and so we decided that we
2
would publish and put together a magazine which eventually became SOURCE.
By the spring of 1966 the editorial board of what would become SOURCEAustin, Lunetta,
Mizelle, Paul Robert, Arthur Woodbury, and Wayne Johnsonhad a name for their
publishing endeavor: Composer/Performer Edition. Paul Robert was the only member of the
original editorial board who was not a member of the New Music Ensemble. Robert, who
was a staff member of the university and a family friend of Austin and his wife, became the
business manager for SOURCE. Although four of the six board members were affiliated with
the music department at UC DavisAustin and Woodbury as faculty and Lunetta and
Mizelle as graduate studentsSOURCE was an independent entity. Austin states: There
was much synergy between the University and SOURCE, but becoming directly associated
was anathema to us. We sought to remain staunchly independent from departments of music,
foundations, establishment-oriented institutions, and so forth.3 Austin cites both Henry
2
Ibid.
3
Larry Austin, interview by Douglas Kahn, August 2324, 2007, from Source: Music of the Avant-
garde, 19661973, edited by Larry Austin and Douglas Kahn (forthcoming July 2011), http://www.ucpress.edu/
excerpt.php?isbn=9780520267459 (accessed March 23, 2011).
19
Cowells New Music Quarterly and Perspectives of New Music as influencing SOURCE in
very different ways:
I did have a model: the New Music Quarterly of Henry Cowell, which I had known as
an undergraduate student and avidly followed each issue and devoured it and so it was
mainly of scores with some articles and so it [SOURCE] was modeled after that, not after
any existing journal, and certainly not Perspectives of New Music which in fact we were
disappointed in at that time and thought it was too academic. SOURCE was kind of a
we called it an antidote to Perspectives, the other perspective.4
Austin notes that Davis was a center for new music in the late 1960s, with the performing
activities of the New Music Ensemble and residencies of composers and performers such as
John Cage, David Tudor, and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the university. Austin also cites Cage
as a mentor and influence, not only for himself and the magazine, but also for experimental
music in the 1960s in general. Cages most discussed work, 433, was featured in the
second issue of SOURCE and Austin takes some credit for exposing a younger audience to
Cage and Harry Partch through the printing of their work in SOURCE.5
Austin recalls that he and the board, being aware of and connected to some
composers around the country, began compiling a list of composers from whom to solicit
works:
We sent an invitation along with our first brochure about the upcoming SOURCE
magazine and invited them to submit works. I think we sent out 5,000 of these
fliers to any community that we could think of in the United States. We used a
shotgun method, knowing we were bound to hit something out there and, apparently, we
did. Of course, there were some organizations that we could tap, the American
Composers Alliance and the American Music Center, and so forth.6
4
Austin, interview, 2011.
5
433 was originally published by Henmar Press (Peters Edition), which gave permission for the
reprint of the score in SOURCE.
6
20
SOURCE also accepted unsolicited scores. Austin recalls receiving a score from Jerry Hunt,
a composer from Texas, after the first issue of SOURCE was released. Hunts piece, with its
nearly indecipherable notation, amazed both Austin and the editorial board and was included
in the second issue. Austin states:
So in a sense SOURCE, we were his first publisher and he became quite well-
known in his career for experimental music. The magazine itself attracted a great
deal of attention and then they said, Oh, I have a piece, I think Ill send it in to
SOURCE and see if it works. So we welcomed unsolicited scores, which we,
through the history of SOURCE, we prided ourselves on, as it were
discoveringunknown composers who were writing and composing these
experimental pieces.7
The initial funding for SOURCE came from the six board memberseach of them
put up two hundred to begin the magazine. Austin notes that they were very fortunate with a
local printer:
We had a very skilled printer locally in Davis, in fact he called himself The Printer,
and he was very generous with us and didnt call in the bills and his payments; he would
give us latitude in that respect, so we owed a lot to him. But we owed a lot to him not
only because he was capable of putting out a beautiful product, but also who was
enthusiastic about the whole idea of this magazine.8
Composer/Performer Edition had no paid staff at first; all the partners in the endeavor did all
the work along with their families assembling the issues for mailing to subscribers. With the
$1,200 in seed money and the hope for future funding based on advanced subscriptions, the
board sent out fliers to solicit compositions to include in upcoming issues. In addition to the
funds from advanced subscriptions, SOURCE received grants from Broadcast Music
Incorporated (BMI). Austin states that BMI was interested in the composers whose work
appeared in SOURCE and getting them licensed under BMI rather than ASCAP.
7
8
Ibid.
21
Composer/Performer also received money from Columbia Records to help produce the first
two recordings, which were included in the fourth issue.
The first issue was published in January 1967 with the editors intention to publish
two issues per year. The magazine was available by subscription only, although single issues
were also available. Subscriptions for the first year were nine dollars, and subscribers
consisted primarily of composers, teachers, and libraries. Austin, noting that they reached a
high point of two thousand subscribers, recalls:
We hoped that libraries would subscribe, and many did. We purposely kept the
prices low, so that it wouldnt be beyond students means to subscribe. Composers,
performers and teachers of composition subscribed, as well as enthusiasts of avant-garde
music, but we didnt target SOURCE to any particular group of potential subscribers.
There were a lot of anonymous people scattered about North America and Europe who
also subscribed.9
Austin was the primary editor for the first five issues of SOURCE and shared editorial credit
with Lunetta and Woodbury for Issue Six, and for Issue Seven/Eight, they were joined by
guest editor John Cage, who was in residence at Davis in 1969. In 1971, after Issue
Seven/Eight, Austin resigned as editor when he accepted a teaching position in Florida.
Lunetta and Woodbury served as primary editors for the last three issues, joined by Alvin
Lucier and Ken Friedman as guest editors for Issues Ten and Eleven respectively. In 1972,
after Issue Eleven (a twelfth remained unpublished due to lack of finances), SOURCE ceased
publication.
SOURCE, which featured scores, essays, interviews, articles, photo essays, and
occasional recordings, was physically impressive: it was a large-format, spiral-bound
magazine with a landscape orientation, 10 x 13 inches in dimension. Austin explains
9
22
that the spiral binding was attractive to them because it allowed for the magazine to be easily
opened and placed on a piano rack or music stand to aid in its use during musical
performances. The large landscape format also allowed for the inclusion of scores that could
be unfolded from within to exceed the size of the bound magazine. Issues of SOURCE
included color covers with metallic embossed printing, color graphics, photographs, and
beautifully rendered reproductions of scores. Occasionally unusual textures and materials
were employed to faithfully render a score, such as the score, published in Issue Nine, of
Nelson Howes Fur Music, a tactile piece that includes strips of actual fur with which to
realize the piece. Another example is the reproduction of John Cage and Calvin Sumsions
artwork Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel, Plexigram IV in Issue Seven/Eight. The
original piece consists of eight sheets of Plexiglas silkscreened with letters, numbers, and
images held by a wooden base. The piece was reproduced in SOURCE from photographs
using silkscreen on acetate sheets. Another unique physical rendering, published in Issue Six,
is the score for Dick Higginss piece The Thousand Symphonies, which consists of
manuscript paper shot through with bullet holes. Higginss performance direction for The
Thousand Symphonies states: Each copy of this issue of SOURCE contains one page of the
score of this symphony. To assemble the full score, all copies would have to be located and
documented. But for performance purposes, any four non-consecutive pages constitute a
movement and any two or more movements may be used to represent a whole.10 (Austin
notes that Issue Six is the only issue of which each copy is individually numbered as each
10
Edition, 19671973): 35.
23
copy is unique, with somewhat different placement of the bullet holes.)11 SOURCE was also
unusual for featuring recordingsa total of six albums were included: two in Issues Four and
Nine, and one each in Issues Six and Eight.
With a few exceptionsJohn Cage being the most notablemost of the contributors
to SOURCE were unknown at the time their work was published. Almost all of the
contributors were male, although there were a handful of women who contributed, including
Pauline Oliveros, Jocy de Oliveira, and Annea Lockwood. Austin acknowledges that the all-
male board was conscious of their responsibility to seek out the work of women, but that is
was difficult to find out who they were. Austin recalls: In my academic career beginning in
Davis, there werent many female students who took up composition, much less taking up
electronic music, computers, and advanced musical concepts. Declaring that youre a
composer as a female in the 1960s was quite a different, if not dangerous declaration. The
women simply werent there.12 Most of the composers who submitted works to SOURCE
were not associated with academic institutions.13 Even though Austin was affiliated with a
university, the board of SOURCE maintained an editorial stance directly opposed to anything
that seemed remotely academic. This included a rejection of the formality of the
performance hall and an embrace of experimentation. Austin notes that he and his colleagues
were of the opinion, based on the material being published in Perspectives of New Music,
that what was going on in composition on the West coast was decidedly different than on the
East coast: It [Perspectives of New Music] was based at Princeton University which was
11
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
24
very much into serial music and to the explication of serial music, mainly by Milton Babbitt
and his students and as West coast style composers, we thought that was really square.14
This attitude was reflected in the editorial comments contained in the magazine and
occasionally the cover art: the cover of Issue Four is a photo of Issues One, Two, and Three
of SOURCE burnt in a pile of leaves. Austin notes that this was a symbolic declaration to
demonstrate that we were uninterested in developing a model for SOURCE or building up a
series of masterpieces influenced by one another, and certainly not by SOURCE. It was a
way to proclaim our independence of the past and our embrace of new thinking about
music.15
When putting together the contents for the issue of SOURCE, the editors sought to
create continuity through a central piece or article. There was only one fully thematic issue of
SOURCEIssue Six, which was focused on politics. The issue was released in July 1969 at
the height of the Vietnam War, with a cover depicting the creation of the score for Higginss
The Thousand Symphonies: the rolled up manuscript paper with a machine gun lying across
it. After receiving Philip Corners piece with the direction One anti-personnel type CBU
bomb will be thrown into the audience, and other pieces that commented in some way about
the war, the editors decided that the material had determined the issues political theme:
Then we started making telephone calls, transcribing quite a number of them and
printing the transcripts in SOURCE. The question was, Have you, or has anyone, ever
used your music for political or social ends? That was the first time we actually got in
touch with composers before an issue came out, asking them their views on topics that
everyone was talking about. Then some composers sent us pieces of music to illustrate
their feelings.16
14
15
16
Ibid.
25
The composers responses to this question appear in the issue along with the scores. With
the exception of Issue Six, the contents of each issue of SOURCE were not planned around
any particular theme. Austin explains how the editors would form each issue:
For instance, the articles on groups in issue three came about because we observed and
wanted to chronicle that composers and performers were making avant-garde music,
some with scores, some without scores, but always in dynamic interaction. The issue has
several pieces by members of groups, and the core articles on the New Music Ensemble,
the ONCE Group, Musica Elettronica Viva, and the Sonic Arts Group. They were the
prominent avant-garde groups. Their members had careers as individual composers, of
course, every one of them did.17
Austin establishes the intent of SOURCE and a preview of what one might expect in
its pages in the editorial comment in Issue One, which acknowledges a broad notion of what
constitutes a score:
To us it is transcribed information about the composers music-making process and

contains a way of imparting this information to others who might recreate the
composition. This means that some scores might be taped sounds, while others may be
graphic or prose expressions of the sound process. Still others are complexes that
describe particular compositional procedures in a through-composed closed form, or open
forms with many possible realizations.18
For the purposes of this study, the term score has been applied to the works in SOURCE with
the criteria that Austin describes. These scores include pieces that utilize conventional
notation, experimental notation (including a wide variety of graphic notation), text
instructions, or some combination of these. Some of the works are simply descriptions of
realizations of the works with accompanying photographs. Because the editorial boards
primary criterion for choosing material to include in SOURCE was we wanted composers
who wrote far out things, the certain unifying characteristic among the pieces in SOURCE is
experimentation. This experimentation is manifested in different ways: the use of notation
17
Ibid.
18
26
conventional and otherwise; the use of electronics; and stretching the boundaries of what
constitutes music.
Pieces written with conventional notation are scarce within the pages of SOURCE.
Often when conventional notation appears, it is in conjunction with a performance direction
or action to be taken. For example, Nicolas Slonimskys Mbius Strip-Tease, with text
glorifying mathematician A.F. Mbius, is scored for two singers with a piano non-obbligato
and requires the score to be cut out then assembled as a Mbius strip. The piece is performed
as it rotates around the heads of the performers.19
Experimental notation is a broad term that encompasses any symbols outside the
realm of conventional notation which are used to indicate sounds, aspects of sounds, or
actions. Within the pages of SOURCE, the different types of experimental notation used by
the contributors are as diverse as the pieces themselves. Robert Ashley, in his pieces in
memoriumEsteben Gmez, in memoriumJohn Smith (concerto), and in
memoriumCrazy Horse, utilizes simple geometric shapes that represent different aspects of
performance, such as timbre, duration, and actions.20 An example of much more complex
experimental notation is Jerry Hunts use of notational symbols in his piece Sur (Doctor)
John Dee, which incorporates the Greek alphabet, the Roman alphabet, circular and
horizontal graphs, and circular figures.21 Although many scores included in SOURCE could
be realized by the reader, some of the pieces would have been impossible to recreate: Harry
Partchs And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma, the composers first published
19
20
21
27
score, is fully scored and provides tuning instructions, but also requires Partchs instruments
for performance.22 SOURCE also contains text piecesscores devoid of notationincluding
Giuseppe Chiaris piece Quel Che Volete (one of the scores Austin brought back from
Rome), which consists of text with the brief instruction:
Read the following text

Before acting
Read a fragment or several fragments of the text. it is better
Not to read the first sentences.23
Austin comments on the textual scores:
The textual scores in SOURCE were complementary to the new graphic scores. For
instance, we felt Giuseppe Chiari's piecewhich was really a poemwas an instance of
that. He describes in his very lyric instructions for the piece how you respond to the
situation: Make a sound. That was very close to our background as improvisers and
making music on the spot in the New Music Ensemble. We loved to see it in scores.24
As a reflection of the editors compositional interests, a large portion of the scores
published in SOURCE utilize electronic components as an integral part of the instrumentation
or realization of the piece. This prominence is apparent from the first issue, which includes
Austins The Maze, a piece requiring three different sets of taped sounds, light projections,
and machines (pinball or slot machines are suggested), along with percussionists. Also in
Issue One is David Recks piece Blues and Screamerscored for film and five performers
which requires, (along with conventional instruments), a transistor radio, a television set, and
rack of electric appliances. From the first to the fifth issue of SOURCE (issues edited by
Austin alone), there is a noticeable increase in the percentage of pieces that require
electronics: by the fifth issue half of the featured scores require electronics, and Issue Nine
22
23
24
28
features a circuit booka guide to constructing their own electronic equipment. The
prominence of electronics in composition reflects what Austin notes was in the air, the
development of electronic instruments and using the computer to make music.25
There is also an emphasis in SOURCE on the exploration of the social and the
performative aspects of music rather than the product of music. The prominence of the
exploration of these aspects of music is influenced by the editors activities with the New
Music Ensemble, which involved improvisation and experimental composition. Issue Three
included a feature about the New Music Ensemble and its relationship with similar groups
the ONCE Group, the Sonic Arts Group, and the Musica Elettronica Viva. In a discussion
between the members of the New Music Ensemble in which Austin identifies John Cage
especially his relationship with Earle Brown, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, and Morton
Feldman in the 1950sas the catalyst for this latest group movement, John Mizelle adds:
Since the Cage group, music has been, more and more, about group chemistry. The group
idea has evolved in the same way that music has evolved. Now, you find people composing
music together.26 In a conversation with Austin and Karlheinz Stockhausen, also in Issue
One, Robert Ashley describes how he was working at the time: Ive been trying to make
pieces which use the ensemble more completely, in which the ensemble determines what the
person does. You get together with an idea. You describe the idea, and everybody talks about
it, and then we try to work it out.27 Issue Ten features an article by Cornelius Cardew about
the Scratch Orchestra, which is defined as a large number of enthusiasts pooling their
25
Ibid.
26
27
29
resources (not primarily material resources) and assembling for action (music-making,
performance, edification).28 Frederic Rzewskis Plan for Spacecraft in Issue Three is also an
excellent example of a collaborative, social process: the direction for the piece begins with
Form for a music that has no form. We begin with a group of performers and an idea. The
idea concerns two kinds of space: occupied and created space. Each performer occupies a
part of the space, which can be a theater, concert hall, radio station, or whatever.29 There is
neither notation nor specific instrumentation for Plan for Spacecraft. The directions
continue:
Each performer begins by making his own music in his own way. The result is
chaos, a great tumult and confusion of sound, with occasional chance harmonies
which appear for a moment and then vanish, sometimes with clashing forces:
sounds battering each other and trying to push each other out of the way. Each
person is contained within his own labyrinth. The object of the music-making is to
escape from this labyrinth. The way out of the labyrinth is not forwards or backwards, to
the left or to the right, but up. To go up it is necessary to fly. The performer must enter
into someone elses labyrinth.30
Plan for Spacecraft is one example of the many pieces in SOURCE that explore action and
reaction among performers and the audience, regardless of the outcome of the activity. These
pieces intentionally blur the distinction among performer, composer, and audience. In an
editorial Austin suggests that the influence of musical forms and resources of the nineteenth
century had been exhausted and that the artist has a responsibility to innovate, not just
recreate.31 He goes on to note that: the concepts of what music is have broadened greatly in
28
29
30
Ibid.
31
In Austin, SOURCE 7/8, 56.
30
recent years: music as art, music as energy release, music as feeling, music as music as group
dynamism....32
That Mizelle and Austin refer to John Cage in their remarks reveal John Cages
strong presence in SOURCE, not only in a literal sensethe reprinting of 433, the articles
about his residency at Davis, his guest editorial, and the reproduction of his artworkbut
also as ideological model. Austin credits Cage with inspiring the entire 1960s era of
experimental music:
But experimental is very much in the tradition of John Cage started. I asked John
once, it was 1981, he came here and I visited him in his apartment in New York. I was
going to discuss a performance of his work HPSCHD, huge work, with Jerry Hiller, and I
asked him John, if you would describe yourself as a composer, what kind of composer
are you? He said, Oh, Im an experimental composer.And so, thats rhetorical in a
sense: how is it that you can be an experimental composer, well it can mean one who
experiments with composing and I thought it was beautiful that he described himself that
way. In a way that other people perceived him, as a matter of fact. And I think we owe a
great deal to John Cages leadership in the experimental music era.33
Cage also influenced the Fluxus movement, and many artists associated with Fluxussuch
as Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, and Ken Friedmanappear in the pages of
SOURCE. In 1963 Dick Higgins founded Something Else Press, which printed texts and
artwork, and in 1966 Higgins coined the term intermedia to describe the blending of
different artistic genres.34 Many of the works in SOURCE could be classified as intermedia
as Austin states in an editorial: But is it music? Its art. The happenings of Kaprow or the
films of Warhol arent considered paintings, are they? Today, artists can at last be free from
the strict academic, historical, and socio-economic limitations imposed on them by classical
32
Ibid.
33
34
Dick Higgins, Intermedia The Something Else Newsletter, 1 no. 1, (February 1966),
http://www.withoutborders fest.org /2010/SEP_Newsletter_V1N1.pdf (accessed April 1, 2011).
31
concepts of the fine arts.35 This close relationship between SOURCE and Fluxus comes to
full flower in the eleventh issue of SOURCE. The issue, subtitled International Sources,
was guest edited by Ken Friedman. This particular issue is noteworthy for its few scores; the
majority of the contents lean heavily towards art, including photo essays of art pieces and
performance art, diagrams for environmental art pieces, a description of the making of a
chromatic tree harp, and artworks. This issue of SOURCE is by far the least typical of what
the magazine has come to be about, Lunetta notes in his editorial comment.36
Acknowledging that the purely musical reader may be dismayed that the issue contains few
notes, Lunetta continues: Intermedia, mixed media, happenings and all other crossings
from one art to another have been an integral part of Avant Garde music.The definition of
music which has been stretched (as seen in earlier issues of SOURCE) to extreme length
finally snaps. The works in SOURCE #11 make this point quite clearly.37
Because the experimental nature of the compositions in SOURCE required more
explanation than traditional compositions, there are many essays about these compositions,
the composers, composing, and the current climate for new music, including the
academization and commodification of music. Included in the first issue is an article by
Bertram TuretzkyNotes on the Double Basswhich is a guide to new playing
techniques and a transcript of the conversation between Larry Austin, Robert Ashley, and
Karlheinz Stockhausen. In subsequent issues the editors pose questions to which composers
35
36
37
Ibid.
32
offer responses, such as: Is the composer anonymous?38 There is a transcript of a Harry
Partch lecture in Issue One and, by way of introduction to the score of And on the Seventh
Day Petals Fell in Petaluma, Arthur Woodbury offers a brief history of Harry Partchs
background and an explanation of his tuning system in Issue Two. Music and its relationship
with art were often addressed in the essays in SOURCE. Issue Seven/Eight includes an essay
by Morton Feldman Boola Boola, a stinging criticism of the music and composers coming
out of the academy: It becomes increasingly obvious that to these fellows, music is not an
art. It is a process of teaching teachers to teach teachers. In this process, it is only natural that
the music of the teacher will be no different from that of the teacher hes teaching. Academic
freedom seems to be the comfort of knowing one is free to be academic.39
The emphasis on freedom, experimentation, and opposition to tradition unify the
diverse compositions and essays in SOURCE. Although there is a call to abandon old ways of
thinking about music and making music, and a rejection of music as a commodity, Austin
wrote that there is still hope that the practitioners and potential audiences of art will
participate in art as creative self-alteration and that the experience will have fantasy and
reality, feeling and intellectual satisfaction, provocative change and staticity, even mysticism
and innocence.40
38
39
40
33
As a vehicle to expose and explore new music, SOURCE was a success and was well
received during its publication. Ellsworth Snyder wrote, It is exciting to have at last a
magazine publishing the scores of that music which is happening as we are happening. 41
The editors effort to provide the newest music that was happening outside of academia was
noted in reviews of SOURCE. In what can be construed as a calculated criticism of the East
coast academic avant garde, Gilbert Chase wrote:
While it is a fact that not everyoneleast of all among professional musicians and music
educatorswants to make an effort to gain true perspective, it is equally true that the
new music will advance and eventually take over even the most conservative citadels of
learningfor the simple reason that it always has, always does, and always will do so. As
Stravinsky recently remarked: the present moment is the most exciting in music
history. It always has been. Not the least quality of SOURCE is that its editors and
contributors manage to convey some of that excitement instead of making the new music
a pretext for exercises in semantics or higher mathematics.42
For the editors, creating and editing SOURCE was a learning experience. Austin recalls:
Looking back from the perspective of more than forty years, I think SOURCE was an
excellent impetus and learning experience, a perfectly legitimate way to learn our craft.
We needed models. We needed to know what the latest thing was in order to either reject
it or to incorporate it into our own work. We were excited about the pieces and articles
we received in the mail. It was a daily joy to see what discoveries we would experience.
We wanted to make SOURCE an artwork and I think we succeeded in that regard. At a
certain point we had become influential, as it were, and our learning experience also
became a teaching experience.43
SOURCE stands now as documentation of experimentalist composition of the late 1960s and
early 1970s. Austin notes that SOURCE became embedded in curricula at universities:
When teachers of new music would want to say Well back in the sixties, and into the
seventies, they were doing these things so go look at the SOURCE magazine44 The
41
Ellsworth Snyder, review of SOURCE, ed. by Larry Austin, Notes 24, no. 2 (December 1967): 348.
42
Gilbert Chase, New Sources for New Music, Anuario 3 (1967): 80.
43
44
34
eleven issues of SOURCE have historical significance as documents that represent the
creative output of a distinct group of composers. Austin believes that SOURCE played a role
in exposing the music of these composers to a wider audience and notes that the forthcoming
publication of the book is a testament of the importance it had and still has.45
45
Austin, interview, 2011. The book, Source: Music of the Avant-garde, 19661973, edited by Larry
Austin and Douglas Kahn will be published in July 2011.
35
CHAPTER 3
SOUNDINGS
We need space in our culture for eccentricity and non-conformity.1

Peter Garland
Peter Garland, born in 1952, had decided by the age of seventeen that he wanted to be
a composer. In the summer of 1969 Garland attended Harvard Summer School and studied
twentieth-century music, and in the fall of the same year he entered Columbia University
where he studied with Vladimir Ussachevsky. Garland dropped out of Columbia after one
semester and in the fall of 1970 he began studies at the California Institute of the Arts in
Burbank, California. (Cal Arts moved to its present campus, located in Valencia, California,
in 1971.)
Garland was familiar with the composers known as American experimentalists before
coming to Cal Arts and he recalls that his early exposure to their music was through
recordings. He recalls listening to the music of Harry Partch, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison,
and Edgard Varse on LPs, and notes that he also saw the score of Partchs And on the
Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma in SOURCE.2 Garlands interest in these composers was
nurtured and blossomed at Cal Arts, under the tutelage of James Tenney and Harold Budd.
As Tenneys piano student, Garland was introduced to the music of Dane Rudhyar and
Conlon Nancarrow, and he notes that his understanding of the music of Carl Ruggles
1
Peter Garland, Kalvos & Damians New Music Bazaar 231/232 October 23, 30, 1999. Radio show
discussion, http://www.kalvos.org/ shows-1999.html (accessed October 25, 2009).
2
Peter Garland, letter to author, March 27, 2011.
36
deepened through his performance study.3 Learning more about these composers and their
history would inform the content of his journal Soundings.
In addition to studying composition and piano, Garland had the opportunity at Cal
Arts to choose from an eclectic offering of classes. Soundings was born out of one of these
classesa workshop given by Dick Higgins:
It was the fall of 1970 at the brand new Cal Arts. There was a kind of wonderful
anarchy where you could choose any class that was offered. Dick Higgins offered a class
on Publishing. I already knew and very much admired his Something Else Press, so this
sounded interesting. Plus that time was the golden era of small press publishing in poetry
too. So artist-run publishing enterprises were very much in the air then.4
Garland and one of his fellow students, composer John Bischoff, signed up for the class.
Higgins had intended to teach all aspects of publishing, including the actual hands-on
production (setting type, making photo plates, printing, etc.), but between the fact that the
necessary equipment was not yet available and Garlands feeling that it would be too time
consuming, Garland did not continue with that aspect of production.5 Garland notes that his
and Bischoffs idea for a publication was modestto start an in-house Cal Arts journalbut
Higgins encouraged them to be ambitious. After Garland and Bischoff had solicited material
for the first two issues, Higgins left Cal Arts and Bischoff transferred to Mills College
leaving Garland holding the bag. Here I wasa nineteen year old, just starting-out
composerwhod made these commitments to all these composers that I really respected. So
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
37
I could either right from the start create a reputation for flakiness...or just go ahead and do it.
So I did it.6 Garlands intention for Soundings was clear:
To publish the work of young composers, alongside that of more established composers
(those, for example born in the 1930s and in some cases, were our teachers), and also the
work of the earlier generation of American composers, the so-called modernists, whose
work had been eclipsed by the success of Copland and his associates and the musical-
political silencing imposed by 1950s60s musical academia.7
Garland, who had solicited scores, committed to the journal with this clear intention in mind
and Henry Cowells New Music Quarterly as a model.
Garland cites several connections between Soundings and Cowells New Music
Quarterly: both journals were run by composers; neither journal had an academic affiliation;
and both journals published the work of young, currently active composers. The composers
from earlier generations whose music Garland wanted to revive were those Cowell had
published.8 Garland wanted not only to revive interest in these composers, but also to
establish continuity between these composers of Cowells era to those of his own.9 Garland
was also influenced by Austins journal SOURCE which served as a positive and negative
model for Soundings. Garland had known about SOURCE since 1968in fact, he had been
published in Issue Seven/Eight: the cover is a photograph of a realization of Garlands piece
Sea Fever (which Garland notes he sent in only half-seriously). He recalls:
Soundings also developed out of a growing dissatisfaction with SOURCE and a critique
of a certain kind of effete or academic experimentalism for its own sake (and the flashy
production values). SOURCE to me was very much a magazine of the sixties (I greatly
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Peter Garland, Soundings Press and the Tradition of Henry Cowell (speech presented at the Henry
Cowell Centennial Celebration, New York, New York, March 1997).
9
Ibid.
38
admire it to this day). Soundings was moving forward into the seventieshopefully with
less flash and more substance; and, again, perhaps with more of a historical perspective.10
Although Garland admired SOURCE, he wanted Soundings to be different. In an early draft
of the editorial comment for Issue One of Soundings, Garland wrote: While we recognized
the importance and quality of SOURCE, we felt that it had certain limitations which we hope
our magazine will be able to avoid.11 This was not meant as a criticism; Garland goes on to
write later that, We view our relationship to that magazine as complementary, not
competitive.12 However his tone was slightly different by the time the first issue of
Soundings was published in 1972, when the editorial comment read:
Soundings arose from a feeling that the work of musicians needed a much wider
circulation than that afforded by current publications. SOURCE, the only good magazine
out, is too expensive for many, appears too infrequently, and is available only from the
editors. Also its avant garde posture seems less important now than it did in 1967. Too
much that is important really has no place in SOURCE.13
The first issue of Soundings appeared in January 1972 with Garlands intention to publish the
journal on a quarterly basis.He initially expected to release a limited number of issues. In a
letter to Harry Partch, Garland wrote, I plan on doing eight issues (and stop before it does
become an institution), which will pretty thoroughly document the push, the force, that I
want the magazine to be.14 Garland published four issues in 1972, three in 1973, two in
10
Garland, letter, 2011.
11
Peter Garland, Comment draft, Soundings 1, Peter Garland Collection, Box 10, Folder 1, Harry
Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.
12
Ibid.
13
In Peter Garland, ed., Soundings 1 (Santa Fe, NM: Soundings Press, 19711991): 79.
14
Peter Garland, letter to Harry Partch, Peter Garland Collection, Box 16, Folder 8, Harry Ransom
Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.
39
1974, and one each in 1975, 1976, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1990.15 From 1972 to 1990
Garland published sixteen numbered issues of Soundings (three are double issues: Issues
Three/Four, Seven/Eight, and Fourteen/Fifteen). Two issues were devoted to specific
composers: Issue Two featured the work of Dane Rudhyar and Harry Partch, and Issue
Thirteen featured James Tenney. During the two decades that the numbered issues of
Soundings were published, Garland also published two books of his own essays, several
monographs, a book in honor of Lou Harrison, and a special edition of Soundings that
featured the work of Ives, Ruggles, and Varse.
As Garland states in the early draft of his first editorial, Soundings was operating on a
small budget. He did receive some funding from Cal Arts initially, but Soundings was
essentially funded by Garland, subscriptions, and donations. Garland notes that over the
twenty- year life span of Soundings Press, he worked at other jobs to support his publishing
endeavor and received financial donations from philanthropist Betty Freeman, composers
Lou Harrison, John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow, Philip Corner, and Dick Higgins, as well as
Garlands mother.16 Garland describes his consistently precarious financial situation: I
described my usual method of book publishing as being like jumping off a cliff. When I sent
a book to a printer (always with a small down payment), I never had the money to pay for it.
So it was like falling off a cliffI had two months to find a safety net before Soundings and I
hit the ground and went bankrupt yet again.17 This tenuous financial state is the reason
Garland sounded the death knell in many issues of Soundings, announcing that that particular
15
See Appendix D for a full listing of the numbered issues of Soundings.
16
In addition to the journal, Soundings Press published several books as well.
17
Garland, Soundings Press...
40
issue would be the last. To keep costs and subscription prices down, Soundings was
physically modest: the journal was 8 x 11 inches and mostly devoid of typesetting. Some of
the journal was handwritten or typed, and the scores and material were copied exactly the
way Garland received them. Also there were no color graphics or color photographs included
inside the journal. From 1981 to 1990, the issues of Soundings were typeset, bound, and had
printed cover artGarland notes that at that time he was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico and
was collaborating with two good friends who were a designer and a typesetter.18
Soundings featured essays, new works of contemporary composers and, unlike
SOURCE, a large body of work by composers from earlier in the twentieth century. As
Soundings was literally a one-man operation, Garlands personal tastes and interests as a
composer were his primary criteria for selecting the contents of the journal:
People sent me scores, but I actively solicited probably an equal amount or more. Length
was also an issue. I could simply not afford to publish certain pieces for that reason. Most
of the historical materials reflected my own personal research. I also had a personal
interest (and had done research and fieldwork) in Native American musics. World music
had been an important issue for composers of my generation and I felt that Native
American musics received relatively little attention compared to certain musics of Africa
and Asia.19
Garland indicates that he always put great care into rejection letters when not accepting
material: I felt it was important that they not be discouraged.20
Garland already appreciated composers such as Ruggles, Partch, and Cowell before
starting Soundings, but he credits James Tenney and Lou Harrison with making him aware of
18
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
41
the historical continuity between composers of previous generations:
In some ways, I felt that Soundings was a continuation in print of a concert series that
Tenney co-directed with Philip Corner and Malcolm Goldstein in New York in the 1960s
called, after the music of Charles Ives, Tone Roads. In this series, Tenney established
continuity between generationsconducting music by Ives, Ruggles, Varse, Cage,
Feldman and composers of his own generation.21
Garland viewed Harrison as a direct connection to Cowell and he credits Harrison and
Tenney with unlocking doors for him in terms of establishing relationships with Louise
Varse and Harry Partch. After publishing an essay by Partch in the first issue of Soundings,
Garland contacted Partch about featuring his music in the second issue, which he wanted to
dedicate to Partch and Rudhyars work. In a letter, Garland explained to Partch, who had
soured on SOURCE and was unsure of Garlands intentions for Soundings, why he wanted to
feature his work:
One thing I want to answer for you is why I am printing you. Its simply that you
have something to say, and which is very important, for a lot of younger musicians
(many of whom, admittedly, have strayed from sound, and are now finding their way
back to it). And your music is beautiful, many people listen to it a lot, and want to see a
score (and whos going to pay nine bucks, now, for SOURCE #2?). Im not
championing youyou dont need that; and Im not being a showcase for older,
neglected composers. Both those would be condescending and presumptuous of me.
You (and Rudhyar, and whoever else) have again, something valuablefrom your music,
writings, your examplethat a lot of people (a lot more than you might imagine) want
and need. And it has little to do with that simplistic he builds weird instruments bullshit
(like that way Columbia Records seems to publicize you); its a much deeper, a more
vital concern, something that you and a few others speak to.22
In addition to the Partch works in the second issue of Soundings, Garland had hoped to print
the score of Partchs The Bewitched in a later issue, but was unable to do so. Also featured
extensively is Rudhyar, whose work appears in five issues of Soundings. The music of
Conlon Nancarrow, another composer whose work Garland came to appreciate through
21
22
Peter Garland, letter to Harry Partch, Peter Garland Collection, Box 16, Folder 8, Harry Ransom
Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.
42
Tenneys influence, was featured in four issues of Soundingsfirst in Issue Six in 1973,
twenty years after Nancarrows last publication in New Music Quarterly.23 Lou Harrisons
work, elegantly rendered in the composers own calligraphy, appears in three issues of
Soundings. In 1987, Soundings Press published a tribute to Harrison, the Lou Harrison
Reader, in honor of Harrisons seventieth birthday. James Tenneys work appears in three
issues of Soundings, and in 1984 Garland dedicated the entire thirteenth issue to Tenney,
producing a 300-page issue that contains appreciations, scores, an essay about Tenneys work
by Larry Polansky, and an index of compositions by Tenney. Garland also published scores
by Henry Cowell, Charles Seeger, and George Antheil in Soundings.
Garlands interest in early twentieth-century music was not limited to the United
States; he viewed American music as being of the Americas: Other very important
musical currents were stirring in Latin America too, in the 1920s and 30s. Countries like
Mexico and Cuba were going through similar processes as the United States: shedding off the
academic strictures of an imposed European cultural value system, and discovering new
national identities and voices.24 Garland had conducted extensive study of the life and music
of Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas after Harold Budd had introduced Revueltass
music to Garland in a lecture at Cal Arts. Garland featured writings by and about Revueltas
in the fifth issue of Soundings, and in his editorial comment Garland remarks that he had
hoped to print scores as well, but was unable to secure permissions from the publisher.
(Garland was finally able to print scores of Revueltas in Issue Ten.) Also in Issue Five,
Garland featured the work of Mexican composer Julin Carrillo, including a translation of
23
Soundings Press published six volumes of the work of Conlon Nancarrow.
24
1991), 9.
43
The Thirteenth Sound, Carrillos 1948 theoretical treatise on microtonal music, and scores for
three pieces written in Carrillos brand of microtonal notation. Garlands interest in
Revueltas led to his trip Mexico in the latter part of the 1970s where he went to research the
indigenous music and compose. In Issue Fourteen/Fifteen Garland included scores by Cuban
composer Alejandro Garca Caturla as well as an article about Caturlas countryman Amadeo
Roldn. Garland sought to present the work of Revueltas, Roldn, and Caturlasall of whom
had died by 1940as true representations of the music of people of their countries, not
stylized imitations. Garland states about Revueltas: Much of his music reminds one of the
peoples music, not high culture like Chavez where folk melodies enter only as quotation
Revueltas had no need of that, his music reminds one more of a brass band in an Indian
village than a tuxeudoed symphony orchestra.25 Soundings also featured non-Western
music: Issue Six includes an introduction to gamelan composer and performer Wi
Wasitodipuro, along with an article about Javanese gamelan and three scores. One of the
Harrison works that appears in Issue Ten, Music for Kyai Hudan Mas is a piece written for
Javanese gamelan, and in Issue Fourteen/Fifteen there is an essay by Robert Erickson about
the tuning and timbre of Balinese gamelan.
Like SOURCE, the contributors to Soundings were predominantly male, but there are
some notable exceptions. In Issues Seven/Eight and Issue Ten, Garland published the work
of Johanna Beyer, who had studied with Dane Rudhyar, Ruth Crawford, Charles Seeger, and
Henry Cowell. Before Garland featured her work in Soundings, only one piece by Beyer had
25
In Garland, Soundings 10, non-paginated.
44
ever been published.26 The work of Ruth Crawford, who was Beyers contemporary, also
appeared in Soundings. Garland also published the work of some of his female
contemporaries, including Pauline Oliveros, Sarah Hopkins, and Joan La Barbara in
Soundings.
The scores in Soundings, like the works in SOURCE, feature conventional notation,
graphic notation, diagrams, performance directions, and text pieces. The graphic notation
scores vary widely. The score for Philip Corners Ink Marks from Performance is exactly
thatink marks that are meant to represent sound, dynamic suggestions of all the shades of
very black (and white, almost) The Whole also long or short.27 The materials and
instrumentation of Ingram Marshalls piece Vibrosuperballtambourine, hi-hat cymbals,
superballs, and vibratornecessitated a graphic score to illustrate the use of these unique
musical resources: pictures representing the cymbals, vibrator, and superballs are used in
combination with conventional percussion notation to illustrate the production of specific
timbres.
According to Garland, Soundings also reflected the early stirrings on the West coast
of what came to be called minimalism (a big influence there was Harold Budd) of which
Cal Arts was a hotbed of the time.28 Among the contributors to Soundings are numerous
composers associated with minimalism whose pieces are featured from the first issue. Issue
One includes Garlands own piece a song, which consists of ten notated fragments and the
26
John Kennedy and Larry Polansky Total Eclipse: The Music of Johanna Magdalena Beyer: An
Introduction and Preliminary Annotated Checklist, The Musical Quarterly 80, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 720.
27
In Garland, Soundings 3/4, 74.
28
45
performance direction to play them in any order, for any length of time, softly. Fragments
may be left out at the performers discretion. Budds work is featured in Issues One and
Seven/Eight. One example of Budds minimalist style is the piece Lirio, which consists of the
instruction: Under a blue light, roll very softly on a gong for a long duration.29 Part 1 of
Frederic Rzewskis piece Coming Together appears in Issue Three/Four. Other minimalist
composers whose work appeared in Soundings include Steve Reich, Gavin Bryars, Philip
Corner, and Tom Johnson.
Electronic and computer music make up only a small portion of the scores in
Soundings, because too much attention has been focused on machines to the detriment of
the social and physical ground of music,30 Garlands opinion of electronic music, expressed
in a paper he had written for Ussachevskys class at Columbia University, was that it was not
new:
Electronic music, as most of its practitioners realize, is not a step outside the musical
world as we know it, but rather is rooted in the concepts of the past. A seemingly
unlimited spectrum of sounds may have opened up in this so-called music revolution, but
no fundamental conceptual changes were implied save for the possibility of eliminating
the performer and doing away with all other elements of randomness in music. What has
resulted then from the introduction of electronic techniques is a new batch of musical
works, and potential masterpieces31
For the most part, microphones and electric instruments are the types of technology that are
required by the few pieces featured in Soundings that do include electronics that appear in
Soundings. One notable exception is Alvin Luciers Crossways, written for small orchestra
and slow-sweep pure wave oscillator.
29
30
In Garland, Soundings 1, 79.
31
Peter Garland, Concepts of Non-literate Music and the Western Musical Tradition, term paper,
Peter Garland Collection, Box 5, Folder 11, Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.
46
Soundings, like SOURCE, featured essays in addition to musical scores. Garlands
choice of essays for Soundings reflects his interest in new and world music, his
dissatisfaction with academia, and his admiration for the earlier generation of composers. In
the first issue of Soundings are essays by Richard Teitelbaum and Harry Partch. Teitelbaums
essay describes his experiments with World Band, a group of Western and Eastern
musicians that he organized while at Wesleyan University.32 The second essay, Show
Horses in the Concert Ring by Harry Partch, is a polemic about music and music education:
The initial evidence or lack of curiosity is our interpretive age in so-called serious
music. We learn to play music written by others, mostly long dead. We emphasize
perfection of digital control, polish of phrase, musical tone in the voice. We accept
without even a gesture of investigation any instrument, any scale, any asinine
nomenclature, any rulesstated or implied, found in the safety deposit boxes of
various eighteenth-century Germanic gentlemen whom we and our immediate
antecedents have been dragooned into idolizing.33
The content, if not the tone, of this essay is similar to the Feldman essay Boola Boola in
SOURCE. The difference, however, is that Partchs essay was written in 1946, twenty years
before Feldman wrote Boola Boola. Clearly Garland felt that the content of the Partchs
essay was just as valid in 1972. Essays by Dane Rudhyar, such as A New Philosophy of
Music, written in 1926, explore modern music:Whenever an old civilization dies and a new
one arises, a fundamental change occurs in the cultural life of a civilized earth, and a
complete re-evaluation of everything which pertains to art occurs. Such is occurring now,
very slowly and at first most hesitatingly. But it is occurring.34 Some essays by composers
introduce the work of other composers: Charles Amirkhanian wrote An Introduction to
32
33
34
47
George Antheil, and Ingram Marshall wrote Charlemagne Palestine, Proselyte of the New
Harmony (but where does he fit in?).35
Essays concerning music outside the United States include Paul Bowless Music in
Mekns, about recording throughout Morocco, and Alvin Currans A Guided Tour
Through Twelve Years of American Music in Rome, both of which appear in Issue Ten.36
In the final issue of Soundings Garland included an account of Varses time in New Mexico
that was excerpted from Louise Varses Varse: A Looking Glass Diary Vol. II, and an
essay by Peter Yates about the American experimental tradition of music.
Garland notes that he formed personal relationships with many of the older generation
of American composers whose work he presented in Soundings. The kinship Garland feels
with them, both as a composer and as an outsider, and his gratitude for these relationships
always come through in his writing:
I want to emphasize thisnot only was I the first composer in a generation to

search these composers out, I became their friend, and that is first and foremost
how I approached them. Not as a scholar or performer or critic eager to interrogate them
or greedy to get something from them for my own benefit. All through the years of
Soundings, I have always insisted that I am a composer first and foremost, and it was on
that basis that I will make my way in this worldnot from the work of anyone else. My
older friends sensed that, and because of that they always relaxed with me. Though what
Ive learned and gained from them is immeasurable to me, I always tried to give back as
much as I could. Perhaps all I could offer, being so young and inexperienced, was my
friendship and loyalty.37
There are poignant reminders throughout the issues of Soundings of the passing of several
composers whose work Garland had featuredthe first issue opens by noting the passing of
Carl Ruggles the year before. Subsequent issues feature tributes and remembrances of
35
In Garland, Soundings 7/8, 176181 and Soundings 6, 2829 respectively.
36
Although Bowless music did not appear in the numbered issues of Soundings, Soundings Press
published two Bowles monographs.
37
48
composers: there are four tributes to Harry Partchby Garland, Harrison, Tom Nixon, and
Laurence Weisbergin Issue Nine, and Garlands obituary of Dane Rudhyar appears in
Issue Fourteen/Fifteen.
Soundings and Garland received praise for the dissemination of new music and
the exposure of work by the previous generation of composers. Tenney called Soundings
surely the most important periodical in the field since Cowells New Music Quarterly.38
David Abel of the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio, for whom Garland wrote a piece, said of
Soundings, it was a major, major influence in contemporary music. He kind of picked up
where Henry Cowell left off, so to speak. You know, exposing and printing.39 H. Wiley
Hitchcock, the founder of the Institute for Studies in American Music, wrote a letter to the
Guggenheim Foundation on behalf of Garland:
Garland is one of a great tradition of maverick American individualists who have

combined composing and writing. (Best-known are William Billings in the 18th
century, Louis Moreau Gottschalk in the 19th, Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and
John Cage in the 20th.) Garland has himself been slugging it out on behalf of such
composers for a decade, producing and publishing his irregular (in all good senses)
periodical Soundings with the help of volunteers, accommodating composers and
authors, and occasional infusions of money from patrons like Betty Freeman. He has, not
quite single-handedly, raised our consciousness with respect to certain composers
belatedly recognized as first-rank.40
From 1972 to 1991, the music of contemporary composers was featured side-by-side with
work of an earlier generation within the pages of Soundings. After the last issue Garland
published a book of essays about the composers he had featured. In the preface he writes:
38
James Tenney, introduction to Peter Garland, Americas: Essays on American Music and Culture
197380 (Santa Fe, NM: Soundings Press, 1982), i.
39
Denise Young Peterson, The Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio: Reflections on Commissioning and
Performing New Chamber Music (D.M.A. diss., Florida State University, 2000), 142.
40
H. Wiley Hitchcock, letter to Guggenheim Foundation, Peter Garland Collection, Box 30, Folder 4,
Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.
49
This book is about historical and cultural roots. It is the culmination of twenty years work,
and is an expansion of the issues discussed in my first book....The theme is the American
musical identity; and in my view, the important composers who shaped that.41 The opening
essay, The American Experimental Tradition: A Personal Perspective, traces the lineage of
American experimental composers and is highly critical of the musical establishment that
ignored and dismissed them. Garland identified with these composers on a deeply personal
level, not only as a friend, but also as a professional composer who was experiencing similar
treatment. (Garland has never held an academic position and feels as though academia and
foundations that award grants are a closed group.) Although Garland did not want to be a
champion of these composers (as he wrote to Harry Partch), his work publishing their
scores and writings was a quest driven not only by his admiration for their music, but also by
his view of how the musical establishment in the United States had exiled these composers.
Although Garland still considers himself to be in an antagonistic relationship to
American musical culture, he notes that he is most proud of the contribution Soundings
made to the continuing ascendency of the IvesVarseCowellCage lineage in critical
esteem and scholarship. Also I am proud that Soundings was radical, subversive, substantive
and full of attitude: a focal point of energywhich is a sign of cultural vitality [sic].
SOURCE only lasted five or so years; Soundings kept going for almost twenty. That is itself
was a victory.42
41
Garland, In Search of Silvestre Revueltas, preface.
42
50
CHAPTER 4
AMERICAN EXPERIMENTALISM
The experimental tradition, it seems an anomaly: experimental means doing away

with tradition; but its a tradition of doing away with tradition.1
Larry Austin
One belongs to the American experimental tradition by not belonging.2

Peter Garland
The composers whose work appears within the pages of SOURCE and Soundings are
referred to as avant-garde and experimental, but what do these terms mean in this context?
Are these terms synonymous or is experimental a subset of avant-garde? As there is by
no means consensus on which labels apply to which composers, an exploration of the
multiple meanings and applications of these terms informs the discussion of these two
journals.
The term avant-garde has been used freely in a multitude of contextsincluding
fashion, art, musicoften to mean innovative or strikingly different from anything else.
Many allude to the military origins of the term avant-garde: the literal translationthe
advance guardrefers to the line of soldiers who advance first, clearing the way for those
who follow. Austin refers to this definition when describing his selection of a subtitle for
SOURCE: In terms of the subtitle, we were exploiting the original military usage of the term
1
Larry Austin, interview by author, March 23, 2011.
2
1991), 14.
51
avant-garde, as being out there in the front of the other troops and getting killed first.3
Austin conceived of his journal as a daring forerunner, ready to die if necessary, but he
qualifies his adoption of the term: Yet, the distinction between the avant-garde and
experimental is mainly in the usage. We could have used Music of the Experimentalists, but
that's not very sexy, is it?4
The term avant-garde in music is generally defined as denoting those who make a
radical departure from tradition.5 As this definition could easily define experimentalism as
well, it is no more than a starting point. John Cage offered one of the first definitions of
experimental as an act the outcome of which is unknown.6 Almost twenty years later
Michael Nyman uses Cages definition as a starting point for his definition of
experimentalism, adding: The distinctions between the experimental and the avant-garde
ultimately depend on purely musical considerations.7 Nyman lists some of these musical
elementsnotation, processes, and identitywhich he claims characterize experimental
music. Nyman also provides detailed description of how these elements are utilized by
composers. He then goes on to classify composers such as Cage, Morton Feldman, Terry
Riley, La Monte Young, and Philip Glass as experimentalists and Pierre Boulez, Iannis
3
Larry Austin, interview by Douglas Kahn, August 2324, 2007, from Source: Music of the Avant-
garde, 19661973, edited by Larry Austin and Douglas Kahn (forthcoming July 2011), http://www.ucpress.edu/
excerpt.php?isbn=9780520267459 (accessed March 23, 2011).
4
Ibid.
5
For this definition I refer to Avantgarde, in The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev., edited
by Michael Kennedy, Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber
/article/opr/t237/e682 (accessed May 2, 2011).
6
John Cage, Silence (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 13.
7
Michael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, Second Edition (Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press: 1999), 2.
52
Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Sylvano Bussotti as avant-garde composers. He
elaborates further on the distinction between avant-garde and experimental:
The identity of a composition is of paramount importance to Boulez and

Stockhausen, as to all composers of the post-Renaissance tradition. But identity
takes on a very different significance for the more open experimental work, where
indeterminacy in performance guarantees that two versions of the same piece will
have virtually no perceptible musical facts in common.8
David Cope defines experimental music as, music which represents a refusal to accept the
status quo, often poses radical contradictions to traditional definitions of music.9 Because
Cope is defining experimental music from a compositional standpoint, he includes specific
types of experimental music: conceptualism, in which one is able only to conceptualize the
score; soundscapes, in which composers articulate aural expression in terms of natural sound;
biomusic, music created by natural functions; and danger music, which Cope notes is rarely
sound, but rather philosophy.10 Leigh Landy takes issue with both Cage and Nymans
definition: The reason for this discontent is twofold: firstly, any good definition of
experiment shows that purposelessness is by no means an experimental goal. The word is
misused a bit perhaps. Secondly, the acceptance of the term for Cageian techniques has led to
isolating indeterminate works from other innovative forms of composition.11 Landy offers
an alternative definition of experimental music: Experimental music is music in which the
innovative component (not the sense of newness found in any artistic work, but instead
8
Ibid., 9.
9
David Cope, Techniques of the Contemporary Composer (New York: Schirmer, 1997), 222.
10
David Cope, New Directions in Music, Fifth Edition (Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 1989),
186196.
11
Leigh Landy, Whats the Matter with Todays Experimental Music? Organized Sound Too
Rarely Heard (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1991), 67.
53
substantial innovation as clearly intended by a composer) of any aspect of a given piece takes
priority above the more general technical craftsmanship expected of any art work.12 David
Nicholls cites multiple characteristics of experimental works, including graphic notation,
rhythmic complexity, the use of new or unconventional instruments, implied or actual
polytempo and or polymeter, and transethnicism.13 While these are all useful definitions for
experimental music, they do not address how experimentalism is differentiated from the
avant garde, as represented by a style of composition that became institutionalized in
academia in the years following World War II.
In the mid 1950s, three distinct compositional procedures were represented in
American music: neo-tonal, serial, and indeterminate. Of these three, serial and indeterminate
techniques were both considered avant-garde, but serialism, as promulgated by composers
such as Milton Babbitt at Princeton University, became dominant in academia.14 It is this
bifurcation that led to the use of the term experimental to distinguish composers writing
music using indeterminate procedures from those of the academic avant garde. Joaquim
Benitez and David Nicholls offer the following comparisons of avant-garde and
experimental, which help to develop a framework for describing the difference between the
two terms. Benitez, citing Cageian indeterminacy, asserts that notation is the difference
between avant-garde and experimental: The avant-gardes fixing its works in notation
highlights its most important characteristic, what we might call intentionality. Intentionality
12
Ibid.
13
David Nicholls, American Experimental Music, 18901940 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1990), 218.
14
Georgina Born, Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical
Avant-Garde (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 53.
54
refers to its desire to control the sound result and to its respect for the work of art. The
perspective of the avant-garde, of course, adapts these essentially traditional concepts.15 In
his essay Avant-garde and experimentalism, David Nicholls states:
These problems of definition are at least partly attributable to two linked paradoxes. First,
almost all forms of radicalism will, as a function of time, progressively degenerate into
normality and acceptability: todays novelty can become tomorrows clich. Second (and
more important), radicalism does not exist per se, but rather is a function of difference
when measured against contemporaneous norms. Thus, in the context of twentieth-
century musical modernism, it can push the boundaries of acceptance not only forward
(into advanced territory), but also backwards (into apparent conservatism) and outward
(into the exploration of musics other than those of the European art music tradition).16
Nicholls, rather than trying to define these terms, takes the position that the main factor
distinguishing avant garde and experimental is the extent to which the works derive from the
tradition of European art music. The most significant point that pertains to the discussion of
SOURCE and Soundings is this distinction: Thus, very generally, avant-garde music can be
viewed as occupying an extreme position within the tradition, while experimental music lies
outside it. The distinction may appear slight, but when applies to such areas as institutional
support, official recognition, and financial reward, the avant gardes links with tradition
however tenuouscarry enormous weight.17
Because these descriptions and delineations of experimental music were formulated
during (Nyman and Cope) and after (Landy and Nicholls) the existence of SOURCE and
Soundings, the journals played a critical role in defining the term experimental by providing
musical examples. Nyman cites graphic notation as one of the characteristics of experimental
15
Joaquim M. Benitez, Avant-Garde or Experimental? Classifying Contemporary Music
International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 9, no. 1 (June 1978), 66.
16
David Nicholls, Avant-garde and experimental music, in The Cambridge History of American
Music, ed. David Nicholls (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 517.
17
Ibid., 518.
55
music. There is a wide range of graphic notation throughout the eleven issues of SOURCE,
from dots on a graph to circuit diagrams to cartoons. Larry Austin states that the desire to
include scores that used graphic notation was inspired by Cage:
His practice was to create new notations for each new piece, for that matter. When he
was asked, What is art? he would respond that Art is self-alteration. So with each new
piece, unless it was part of a series of pieces like the Variations, he would invent new
notation and new ways to express the concept and realization of the piece. He felt that
such considerations were part and parcel of the creative processes involved in both
performance and the appreciation of his compositions. We followed that model.18
Nyman also refers to processes, which he differentiates into several sub-categories: chance
determination processes, people processes, contextual processes, repetition processes, and
electronic processes. Examples of these can be found within both SOURCE and Soundings.
An article about Cages HPSCHD, which features chance determination processes, appears
in the fourth issue of SOURCE. Nyman defines people processes as those that allow the
performers to move through given or suggested material, at his own speed.19 Two examples
of pieces with people processes are Arcanum (Part II) by Michael Byron in the sixth issue of
Soundings and The Great Learning by Cornelius Cardew in Issue Ten of SOURCE.
Contextual processes, like Robert Ashleys in memorium in the first issue if SOURCE, are
concerned with actions dependent on unpredictable conditions and variables which arise
from within the musical continuity.20 Repetition processes use extended repetition to
generate movement, as in Guy Klucevseks Oscillation #2 and Reciprocity #2, in the twelfth
issue of Soundings. Different types of electronic processes, all of which use electronic
components as part of a piece, are featured in almost every issue of SOURCE.

18
19
Nyman, Experimental Music, 6.
20
Ibid.
56
Both SOURCE and Soundings contain pieces that exemplify the four types of
experimental music Cope describes. Robert Morans piece Composition for Piano with
Pianist is a conceptual piece with the direction: A pianist comes onto the stage and goes
directly to the concert grand piano. He climbs into the piano, and sits on the strings. The
piano plays him.21 In SOURCE Issue Ten is Pauline Oliveross Sonic Meditations, an
example of a soundscape composition, which consists of eleven different directions of
varying lengthone of the simplest of the eleven is number five, which reads: Take a walk
at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.22 An example of
biomusic in SOURCE can be found in Issue Two: an essay by Gordon Mumma about Alvin
Luciers Music for Solo Performer in which Luciers brain waves are converted into sound.23
An example of danger music is Philip Corners piece with the instruction: One anti-
personnel type CBU bomb will be thrown into the audience.24
Peter Yates wrote, The American experimental tradition is not, therefore, a
concentrated tradition like the Germanic but a widely dispersed and weedlike growth of fresh
ideas in new soil.25 Although the tradition may have been widely dispersed, journals like
SOURCE and Soundings created a community among contemporary composers and links to
an older generation of composers by creating a forum for music and discourse. Because both
journals published new music, there are some similarities between the two journals, including
21
In Peter Garland, ed., Soundings 1 (Santa Fe, NM: Soundings Press, 19711991): 44.
22
Edition, 19671973): 104.
23
24
25
Peter Yates, Twentieth Century Music: Its Evolution from the End of the Harmonic Era into the
Present Era of Sound (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967), 273.
57
overlap in contributors.26 The editors of both SOURCE and Soundings regarded their journals
as firmly in opposition to academia. Austin was affiliated with a university, but
Composer/Edition was a separate entity; he maintains his and SOURCEs freedom from the
inherent restrictions of foundations and universities (however enlightened). For Austin,
the academy was represented by the musical activities of the East coast, and what was being
published in Perspectives of New Music. Garlands opposition to academia is more
pronounced, and he places SOURCE, by virtue of its editors affiliations, in the academy: I
might point out the main difference between the two journals was the fact that SOURCE
came out of a university, Soundings didnt.27 Garland notes not only his own lack of
academic support and credentials, but also those of the composers he championed:
To state it quite simply, in twenty years there was never any official or institutional
support, period. And there are a few glaring cases of denial. As a rebel scholar, I
discovered that what constitutes scholarship was not the work one did, but the little
initials one can append to ones name or resume as an academic pedigree after faithfully
going through the system. I would remind you that many of the composers I most
admire never received diplomas either: Henry Cowell, John Cage, Lou Harrison, Conlon
Nancarrow, Paul Bowles.
Garland is of the opinion that universities, specifically during the late 1950s and early 1960s,
began to take over American musical life. Whereas the previous generation of composers
had been largely freelance, or part-time teachers, the next became professors.28 It is
26
Pauline Oliveros, Harry Partch, Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, Jon Phetteplace, Frederic Rzewski,
Robert Ashley, Charles Amirkhanian, Harold Budd, Barney Childs, Philip Corner, Alvin Curran, John
Dinwiddie, Daniel Lentz, Alvin Lucier, Dary John Mizelle, Steve Reich, David Rosenboom, Howard
Skempton, Gordon Mumma, Robert Moran, Robert Erickson, and Peter Garland all appeared in both SOURCE
and Soundings.
27
28
Garland, In Search of Silvestre Revueltas, 13.
58
Garlands opinion that this domination had a negative political effect on American music,
exiling composers of the experimental tradition.
With very few exceptions, the scores in SOURCE were new music, whereas
Soundings published new music alongside the music of earlier generations of composers.
Soundings also featured more non-Western music than SOURCE. Because the editors of
SOURCE were also members of the New Music Ensemble, collaborative composition and
performance is featured throughout the eleven issues and is indicative of the editors group
aesthetic. The formation of SOURCE and the resulting editorial process was an extension of
this collaboration, as Austin states: Im quite proud to have participated in the editorial
decisions up through Issues Seven/Eight. I swallowed hard for some of the pieces that were
included, but my colleagues would say, No this is great, this ought to be in.29 Austins
initial interaction with other composers in Rome included playing in a group with Franco
Evangelisti called Il Gruppo Improvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, which Austin claims to
have inspired the formation of Musica Elettronica Viva and AMM.30 The members of these
groups were all composers whose scores Austin brought back to Davis and subsequently
published in SOURCE.31 In later issues SOURCE features articles about other groups,
including the English Scratch Orchestra and Portsmith Sinfonia in Issue Ten, and the
Swedish Fylkingen in Issue Eight. Group interaction is also represented by the many
intermedia pieces and the presence of Fluxus artists that can be found within the pages of
29
Larry Austin, interview, 2007.
30
Ibid.
31
Members of Musica Elettronica Viva whose work appears in SOURCE include Allan Bryant, Alvin
Curran, Frederic Rzewski, and Jon Phetteplace.
59
SOURCE. By contrast, Soundings was a solitary endeavor, and although Soundings does
feature some group pieces, they are not as prevalent as in SOURCE.
Editing their respective journals informed both Garland and Austins work as
composers. Austin notes he and the other board members were excited to receive scores in
the mail and learn from what other composers were doing.32 Austins personal aesthetic and
his exposure, as editor of SOURCE, to the work of other composers, led to Austins
definition of experimental music:
There is one thing that Ive maintained for my own music, I invent context for a piece to
exist. I approach it as a brand new experience every time I compose a piece or a series of
pieces, and so its inventing, being fascinated by the inventing of a context for the
existence of a piece. And so you try to make it fresh and innovative you do a lot of
experimentation so then it becomes experimental music.33
Garlands compositional aesthetic was influenced by the earlier experimentalists: I am
starting to think also that this return to smaller, miniature forms, in the work of Rudhyar,
Cowell, and others is significant. These pieces contain thematic development, but not
according to the rules. A complexity that was integral, not artificial.34
Both Austin and Garland are aware of the legacy of the experimental tradition. Austin
had avidly followed Cowells New Music Quarterly and had Cowells journal in mind when
creating SOURCE. Austin cites John Cage as a major influence in experimental music and is
proud to have featured Cage and Harry Partch in SOURCE. Austin states:
I think that the impetus came from such composers as Henry Cowell and Charles
Ives and those American legends and there is a history of experimental music in the
United States which is quite strong, I think probably stronger than in Europe or
32
33
34
60
elsewhere; though they have their experimentalists, we have, I think, the best
experimental music in the world today.35
Garland had come to appreciate Harrison, Partch, and Rudhyar first through their music.
Through further study of their history, Garlands awareness of their contribution to American
music grew:
The Cowell legacy was still alive in California in the early 1970s, and hence was
not something abstract or historical. Lou Harrison was in Aptos; Dane Rudhyar was
living in San Jacinto; and Partch was down in Encinitas (granted that Cowell never
warmed up to Partchs music). What was also apparent was the sense of isolation all
those composers felt at that time. In Lous first letter to me in December 1970, he had
written, I was delighted and charmed by your letter. I had begun to think the avant-garde
had forgotten about me!36
Garland is proud of Soundings, especially in the case of certain composers like James Tenney
who are no longer alive, because Their work is there, and it wont be forgotten.37
Austin believes SOURCE still has an impact forty years laterhe says he is still introduced
as the founder of SOURCE, and notes: I think we made a contribution both to that
contemporary scene then and even to the scene today, which is manifest with the
improvisation of electronic music, computer music all the things that were highly
experimental then are almost commonplace now.38 Austin also remarked on Soundings:
I think Peter did a good job, while it lasted. He lasted I think even less time than we did.
His was not as lavish as SOURCE, but certainly was respected and I think, still a valuable
resource for that era. He also, as I recall, liked to introduce his audience to older avant-
garde composers as well as newer, so he had that distinction he liked to do that and I
think it was a fine journal that he produced.39
35
36
Peter Garland, Soundings Press and the Tradition of Henry Cowell (speech presented at the Henry
Cowell Centennial Celebration, New York, New York, March 1997).
37
38
39
Ibid.
61
Austin and Garland exemplify the model that Arthur Farwell established at the
beginning of the century: the composer engaged in discourse about music as well as writing
music. When Arthur Farwell established the Wa-Wan Press and the National Wa-Wan
Society, he was working towards promoting new music by composers whom he hoped would
express their individuality. Farwell was concerned with the formation of a uniquely
American compositional style that was not governed by the European tradition. Both Modern
Music and Henry Cowells New Music Quarterly continued this discourse by featuring
writings by composers advocating new compositional styles. As a student Larry Austin
devoured issues of New Music Quarterly and in the late 1960s SOURCE was born from
Austins recognition of the need for a journal that would make new music available while
their concepts are fresh, not years after their composition.40 Austins experience as a
member of the improvisational group the New Music Ensemble and the counterculture of the
California Bay Area also contributed to the ideas and content included within the pages of
SOURCE. Peter Garland, who was interested from an early age in the composers of earlier
generations and being familiar with SOURCE, sought to create a journal that would promote
new music and stimulate interest in the music of these earlier composers.
SOURCE and Soundings served as a forum for new ideas and stand as documentation
of diverse composition. Larry Austin and Peter Garand represent the experimental tradition
as composers, but also as promoters and advocates of their fellow experimentalists. The
contents of SOURCE and Soundings are a rich resource for study of all facets of American
experimentalism: the various types of alternate notation, the use of electronics, different
indeterminate procedures, group improvisation, intermedia, and the tradition of composers

40
62
themselves writing about music. As there were also journals that followed SOURCE and
Soundingssuch as Numus Westa study of journals published into the 1980s and 1990s
would add to the current scholarship of American music journals. The last issue of Soundings
was published in 1990 at the dawn of the Internet age. As more and more journals are
published online, the future of traditional paper publishing is uncertain, as Kerala J. Snyder
explains:
Why would anyone want to publish a music journal on paper, which can offer musical
sounds only to those readers who can conjure them up in their imaginations from printed
music examples? Paper is wonderful for holding and reading text, and a printed music
example can often convey an analytical point more quickly than ten hearings. I myself
print out nearly everything from the Web that I want to read. But paper cannot sing!41
Publishing electronically is less expensive and easier in many ways than traditional
publishing, but it is also more ephemeral. A study of what role present-day music journals
play in the exposure of new music in the current tenuous climate for paper publications
would be valuable.
SOURCE and Soundings helped define the tradition of American experimentalism
with the music and essays within their pages. They serve now as documents of the wide
variety of compositional styles, processes, and discourse in American music in the latter half
of the twentieth century. The American experimentalists recognize the legacy of composers
within their tradition without being inhibited by proscribed forms or styles. Austin views
experimentalism as tradition of doing away with tradition.42 Garland asserts that a composer
belongs to the experimental tradition by not belonging elsewhere.43 Frank X. Mauceri notes,
41
Kerala J. Synder, Electronic Journals and the Future of Scholarly Communication: A Case Study,
Notes, 58, no. 1 (September 2001): 34.
42
43
Garland, In Search of Silvestre Reveultas, 14.
63
The irony of this historical category is the attempt to construct a genre out of work that by
its own definition is radically different and highly individualistic.44 But the experimental
tradition is not defined solely by the music; it is also defined by the revered American ideals
of individuality, innovation, inclusion, and freedom.
44
Frank X. Mauceri, From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment, Perspectives of New Music
35, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 190.
64
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69
APPENDIX A
TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW WITH LARRY AUSTIN

70
INTERVIEW BY AUTHOR, MARCH 23, 2011

Larry Austin: Good morning.
Maya Lisa Ginsberg: How are you?
LA: Is this Maya?
MG: This is Maya. Hi.
LA: Its nice to hear your voice; youre calling right on time.
MG: Well, thank you. Im really excited to talk to you. Im really glad that we were able to
do this, so thank you. So I guess what I wanted to ask was some background information and
some other things so if any point you need to leave just let me know.
LA: All right
MG: So, SOURCE, you were at UC Davis when you started Source and was the college
involved at all or was it independent from the university?
LA: It was independent from the university.
MG: And what was the genesis, what led to you founding the journal?
LA: SOURCE began in the year 1966, however the idea for SOURCE was incubated while I
was on sabbatical in Rome, Italy the year 6465. It was there in Rome that I met many
avant-garde composers and performers, that year64, 65and collected quite a number of
scores from them and so that when I went back home to Davis I had all these scores which
were new to us and also Im sure were new, would have been new and turned out they were
new, to many U.S. composers. And so it was in my composition seminar that Stan Lunetta
and Dary John Mizelle, who were graduate students, and I dreamt up the idea of making a
catalog of new music including our own works and other works of American composers as
well as the works I had brought back from Europe. But we wanted it to be more than a
catalog, so it would be a listing of pieces available, we wanted it to be, it to have at least
excerpts from these pieces and showing the different types of notation that we encountered
and were experimenting with. And so gradually we realized that a catalog wasnt enough, we
needed to see the scores and so we decided that we would publish and put together a
magazine which eventually became SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde and those ideas
really came to fruition through the spring and summer of 1966 and into fall 1966 and our first
issue came out Issue Onein January of 1967. So, it began that way.
MG: Some of the scores that you brought back with you from Rome, which composers,
which of the scores were those?
71
LA: Well, Frederic Rzewski, you know that name?
MG: Um hmm.
LA: Mario Betuncini, Franco Evangelisti. Then there were expatriate Americans there,
including William O. Smith and John Eaton and Roger Reynolds who was later published in
SOURCE. Lets see, it was a long time ago. Those are good examples.
MG: So originally
LA: Guiseppe Chiari, he had a piece on the first issue, a word piece, its kind of a poem, Ive
kind of forgotten what the name was, but you can look through and all the ones that were
mainly from Italy in the first few issues were the ones I brought back.
MG: Did you have any sort ofyou didnt have any sort of model, any sort of journal that
you had in mind when you were thinking of doing this journal.
LA: Yes, I did.
MG: Which one?
LA: I did have a model, the New Music Quarterly of Henry Cowell,
MG: Right, okay.
LA: which I had known as an undergraduate student and avidly followed each issue and
devoured it and so it was mainly of scores with some articles and so it was modeled after
that, not after any existing journal, and certainly not Perspectives of New Music which in fact
we were disappointed in at that time and thought it was too academic.
MG: So that was the main complaint about Perspectives of New Music, that it was too
academic?
[technical difficulties]
MG: I was interested in what you said about Perspectives of New Musicbecause the idea
that it was too academic at the time
LA: It was based at Princeton University which was very much into serial music and to the
explication of serial music mainly by Milton Babbitt and his students and as a West coast
style composers and so forth, we thought that was really square, so SOURCE was kind of a
we called it an antidote to Perspectives, the other perspective
MG: So do you really think there was like an East coast do you think it really split down on
East coast, West coast line in terms of new music at that time period, the late sixties, early
seventies?
72
LA: Well, we became a kind of center of new music at Davis in the sixties and it was all part
of that initiative for me and my colleagues and others, we formed a free group improvisation
ensemble called the New Music Ensemble and we were using experimental scores and
schemes to improvise and to compose ourselves so we were doing that sort of thing and that
certainly wasnt an East coast phenomenon, it was a West coast phenomenon. So yes, we
were anti-Perspectives and pro-experimentation.
MG: Do you feel like that there was sort of a hierarchy that if you werent doing serialIve
read lots of articles, people are arguing about whether or not there was this so-called serial
tyranny in music during the sixties that if you werent doing serial music, you were sort of
outside. The way I see it, theres three things happening, theres serialism academic
serialism, there was the avant-garde experimental composers, and then there were
composers that were actually being performed on a regular basis in public performance. Do
you remember it being that way or was it more sort of everybodyjust freely their own thing
without any
LA: What do you mean, in terms of East and West coast?
MG: Yeah, or just in general, the climate for composition and composers.
LA: I think you could say that New York was less experimental, quite a bit less experimental
in those days than the West coast, than San Francisco for instance, but of course there was
John Cage who lived on Long Island at that time and he was very much a part of the
experimental music, in fact our mentor and he had also had a residency at Davis in the
sixties, for about six months along with David Tudor and Karlheinz Stockhausen, so we by
taking the initiative to bring experimental composers to us you could say that we were
different [laughs] than other parts of the country.
MG: How was it funded, SOURCE, originally?
LA: Oh, [laughs] I laugh because we had so little money. There were six partnersyoull see
their names in the first Issueall as co-editors, the board of directors. We each put up
$200.00; we had the grand total of $1200.00 to invest in this series of journals or magazines
of new music, new experimental music mainly. We had a very skilled printer locally in
Davis, in fact he called himself the printer, and he was very generous with us and didnt
call in the bills and his payments, he would give us latitude in that respect, so we owed a lot
to him, but we owed a lot to him not only because he was capable of putting out a beautiful
product, but also who was enthusiastic about the whole idea of this magazine.
MG: That is lucky.
LA: And so we had $1200.00 to start with and then we based our future income on
subscriptions, advance subscriptions so we were always in the hole, as it were, but we
managed to make it up finally after a few years to about 2000 subscribers. The annual, I think
73
the annual thing was, if I recall, the annual subscription of two issues per year was nine
dollars.
MG: Wow.
LA: If you can imagine, but if you multiple that by 2000, that amounts to quite a bit, and so
we were able to finance it that way. We did get grants from Broadcast Music Incorporated
because they were very interested in SOURCE and in its related offshoot publisher,
Composer/Performer Edition; thats what we called out publishing house, as it were. And
they were interested in all the composers and getting them licensed under BMI rather than
ASCAP.
MG: Ah, okay.
LA: So they gave us some grants each year which were fairly sizable. Then Columbia
Records gave us grants for the recordings, at least the first two recordings, so that helped, and
so various odd bits of income came in. We didnt really apply for big grants, there was no
NEA at that time, that came later, though Im not sure we would have been granted any even.
And our personal, of course we were all volunteers, we had no paid staff, until quite a bit
later, the six of us, did alland our families and our children did all the work[laughter].
My wifes sitting across the table from me. She knows all about SOURCE and the many
hours of packaging and so forth that went on to mail to our subscribers, the copies of the
magazine, and all the families took part in this as well as the children of the board of
directors.
MG: Well, youve got to put the kids to work for sure, you know.
LA: Yeah, we put the kids to work; they enjoyed it, it was like a party.
MG: Im sure. But the journal, its a beautiful journal. When you see, just physically, other
journals, SOURCE is just beautiful. Its really, really beautiful.
LA: Thank you, thats what John Cage said when he got the first issue, he sent a telegram
and said Its beautiful. Congratulations. We of course were very proud of that accolade.
We got good very good reviews of the magazine, the first couple of years.
MG: I see in the subsequent issues, I see the little review pages in the back of the issues. So it
was only available through subscription? Did it ever make it into any retail outlets or was it
only subscriptions?
LA: It was only subscriptions we also sold single issues, but it didn't seem to us to make
sense, for people to order single issues, so we made it pretty cheap so that people would
subscribe and then would be encouraged to get, they would get two issues and then be
encouraged to get more issues. This was especially true for the composers who were
involved with it and the composers out there whose libraries subscribed to it. Libraries liked
74
it too. They liked the idea of subscription. We liked the idea of renewing subscriptions. So
and that worked quite well.
MG: The contributors were initially were the scores you brought back. Im assuming, you
were talking about Stan Lunetta, there was a community of composers that you were all sort
of friendly with.
LA: Yes.
MG: So, was it amongst that group, and then did you contact other people for works, or did
they come to you? How did it work, in terms of later, as the print run went on?
LA: Well at first we solicited works from a list of composers that we compiled, which were
mostly avant-garde composers. And also included composers like Charles Wuorinen, who to
us was quite a conservative and he wrote back. We announced that we were making this
periodical, this journal and we were inviting scores and he wrote back to say, You cant do
this were already doing it. [laughs]
MG: Really?
LA: And he didnt submit a score, but he was quite militant against the idea, which we
applauded, we thought that was great. He didnt like it. But obviously you put out a magazine
of this sort and libraries subscribe and it becomes known as a kind of underground alternative
publication, then you attractcomposers start sending in things. For instance, Jerry Hunt, a
Texas composerhe died three or four years agohe sent in several pieces, which we were
amazed by because we couldnt make them out. He had amended notation procedures and so
forth, and they were mostly theater pieces with electronic music, but we were amazed by
these scores and so Jerry Hunt, we didnt know about, even though I was from Texas, I
hadnt heard of him and he amazed us. So in a sense SOURCE, we were his first publisher
and so forth and he became quite well-known in his career for experimental music. The
magazine itself attracted a great deal of attention and then they said, Oh! I have a piece, I
think Ill send it in to SOURCE and see if it works. So we welcomed unsolicited scores,
which we, through the history of SOURCE, we prided ourselves on, as it were
discoveringunknown composers who were writing and composing these experimental
pieces. So thats how it worked. There was no grand jury or anything like that.
MG: But when you made your original list of these composers that you thought to solicit
from, what was your criteria? Did you have any specific criteria?
LA: Yeah, we wanted composers who wrote far out things.
MG: Right [laughter]
LA: Thats what we wanted. Of course, I had already had performances in New York and
Europe and I knew the field quite well and people knew me, for instance my 1964
performance of a piece with the New York Philharmonic and the subsequent recording of
75
Columbia Masterworks, so there was that and also I had performances in New York,
chamber music performances of works of mine so I was reasonably well known in New York
and knew of composers there, I made it my business to know who was who there. They
appeared on our list and we knowledgeable about what was going on in the new music world
so we made our list from that. Id like to recover that list some day, but I dont know where it
is, but it would be interesting to get that list again.
MG: Im sure it would be very interesting. Eleven issues of SOURCE in the end
LA: Right.
MG: And so, what was the end, I mean everything comes to an end, what was the
LA: Why did it stop?
MG: Yes.
LA: Well, the original group began to break up, because we had other jobs, for instance, I
had an offer of a job in Florida to head up a department of music in South Florida, and I
decided to take it and take my family to Florida, well it makes it very difficult to produce the
magazine if Im not on the spot, so I also resigned as one of the editors, actually the main
editor, of SOURCE, and Stanley Lunetta took the reins, so that after Issue 7/8, Issue 9, 10,
and 11 were edited by Stanley Lunetta and whoever remained there in the area. So it kind of
broke off after I left and then finally, Issue 11there was an Issue 12 that was to be
published, but Stan and SOURCE didnt have enough money to do it. And so I guess the
printer had lost his willingness to carry the debt that he was owed and so it just kind of
stopped that way. Finally, though, we did pay off our debt. I remained, I still am, an owner
with Stan Lunetta of SOURCE, of the magazines, the back Issues of everything. There still
are some back Issues, brand new, practically that you can buy.
MG: Oh really?
LA: Theyre quite costly.
MG: I know. Im finding it difficult to get any libraries to, they wont let them go out of their
collections and they finally figured that out that they shouldnt let them travel. Its made it a
little difficult for me.
LA: Well it was spiral bound and that made it more vulnerable to damage, but we like the
spiral binding because you could open the pages quite wide and put it on your piano rack and
so forth, we liked that. But certain libraries like to bind the spiral binding and it makes it last
longer that way but was not necessarily approachable and so forth.
MG: Yes, my library has bound them together in big books. What impact do you think that
SOURCE had, not only on its contributors, but also on American musical culture, musical
76
culture in general? Can you assess, do you think at this point, what the impact has been? Or
was at the time?
LA: Well Im still known as editor of SOURCE, publisher and founder so apparently that
lives on through me and my colleagues with the magazine and Im almost always introduced
as the publisher/founder of SOURCE, everyone seems to know that. It became, in fact,
imbedded in many curricula at the universities. When teachers of new music would want to
say well back in the sixties, and into the seventies, they were doing these things so go look at
the SOURCE magazine, so actually there were generations after that were introduced to
SOURCE through the collections that were in libraries or the collections that individuals had.
So its quite a well-known publication even today and for that matter, the publication of the
SOURCE book by UC Press is a testament of the importance it had and still has. By the way,
I just got the word that the very final proofs on the manuscripts and the book have been
received and were in good shape, however, its going to be out before June or even July. It
seems that this process has been going on since 2003.
MG: Really?! Wow.
LA: So eight years, its taken for this to happen.
MG: Now I dont feel so bad that Ive been waiting since November to buy it.
[laughter]
MG: It could have been worse.
LA: I think youll be both delighted and disappointed in the book. I say that because we had
to be selective in choosing representative works, what we call representative works, articles,
scores and recordings out of the eleven Issues, so in order to make it into one book, a huge
book, we had to leave out many pieces that wereBut I think you will enjoy it when you
finally receive it.
MG: I do look forward to it. Soundings is the other journal that is part of this thesis that Im
doing.
LA: Peter Garland.
MG: Yes.
LA: We also published a piece by him.
MG: Yes. What did you think of Soundings? There was a slight overlap between Soundings
and SOURCE?
LA: Well, I guess it was inspired by SOURCE.

77
MG: Most certainly
LA: So, if imitation is the highest form of flattery, I think Peter did a good job, while it
lasted. He lasted I think even less time than we did. His was not as lavish as SOURCE, but
certainly was respected and I think, still a valuable resource for that era. He also, as I recall,
liked to introduce his audience to older avant-garde composers as well as newer, so he had
that distinction. We introduced Harry Partch and John Cagein a sense, John Cagethat
older generation to our SOURCE readers as well so I suppose, I cant think of another older
composer that we introduced but at any rate, he liked to do that and I think it was a fine
journal that he produced, yes.
MG: I also wanted to ask you about, part of this whole project has been inspired by these
terms that we useavant garde, experimentaland I wondered if you had any thoughts or
opinions on what those terms meant then and what they mean now. Youve been involved
now for a long time, youve seen a lot of things happen in musical culture in the United
States and I wondered if you had any thoughts on those terms and what they mean and how
they help or dont help.
LA: I think we made a contribution both to that contemporary scene then and even to the
scene today, which is manifest with the improvisation of the electronic music, computer
music all the things that were highly experimental then are almost commonplace now. And I
think we owe a great deal to John Cages leadership in the experimental music era, which
continues today. His centennial year is next year, by the way, he was born in 1912 and so
hell have his hundredth birthday. Have you seen the new hundredth birthday website?
MG: No, I havent seen it.
LA: Look it up, its interesting. The John Cage Trust is sponsoring it. Today, well Im still
composing what I call experimental music, I guess you could say. Its experimental because
it doesnt make very much money [laughter] and its not a huge public audience for it, but Ill
be going to New York in June for a concert in my 80th year and its a retrospective of my
work over the last twenty years and so I was invited to do that by the ISSUE project room it
seems to be thriving in NY, I dont know about Los Angeles and about San Diego and La
Jolla. La Jolla is certainly a center for new musicUC San Diego. I think that the impetus
came from such composers as Henry Cowell and Charles Ives and those American legends
and there is a history of experimental music in the United States which is quite strong, I think
probably stronger than in Europe or elsewhere. Though they have their experimentalists, we
have, I think, the best experimental music in the world today.
MG: Do you happen to recall when that term experimental first started being used? Im
trying to sort of track that down, Cage wrote, he talked about music experiment at one point,
but this idea of putting in this class
LA: Well, you know, every aspect of the concert presentation of music is explored and
changed into something else, even the concert itself becomes a happening. The performers
themselves follow the piecesthe pieces that have radical notation techniques or they dont
78
use music at all. Theres the infusion of other music such as jazz, even popular music, rock
and so forth that becomes a part of experimenting with the context within which a piece
exists. Those are all part of the experimental tradition, which seems an anomaly:
experimental means doing away with tradition; but its a tradition of doing away with
tradition. [laughter]
MG: Thats why I think Im so fascinated by the term, because at a point it seemed like there
were composers that were, it went beyond what was considered avant-garde and went into
something else entirely. I think at some point it seemed like were now referring to a specific
group of composers from a specific period of time as the noun avant garde instead of as an
adjective descriptor.
LA: Yeah
MG: It seems like at some point this term experimental applied to composers who sort of
didnt fit in that relatively narrow framework so that they had to come up with yet another
term, and yet some people use the terms interchangeably.
LA: Well, its gone under a whole bunch of different names; new music for instance, but that
can mean anything; contemporary music that can mean anything too. But experimental is
very much in the tradition of John Cage started. I asked John once, it was 1981, he came here
and I visited him in his apartment in New York. I was going to discuss a performance of his
work HPSCHD, huge work, with Jerry Hiller and I asked him John, if you would describe
yourself as a composer, what kind of composer are you? He said, Oh, Im an experimental
composer.And so, thats rhetorical in a sense: how is it that you can be an experimental
composer, well it can mean one who experiments with composing and I thought it was
beautiful that he described himself that way. In a way that other people perceived him, as a
matter of fact. Thats as close as I can get to defining it.
MG: Its interesting to me, because trying to actually track that down, its sort of been in the
air, the way through the twentieth century, this idea
LA: Well, there is one thing that Ive maintained for my own music I invent context for a
piece to exist, I approach it as a brand new experience every time I compose a piece or a
series of pieces, and so its inventing and being fascinated by the inventing of a context for
the existence of a piece. And so you try to make it fresh and innovative you do a lot of
experimentation so then it becomes experimental music.
MG: Thank you, thats an excellent explanation. I guess thats all the questions I have for
you.
LA: Well, its been refreshing. Are going to make a transcript of this?
MG: I am going to make a transcript, yes.
LA: I wonder if you could send me a copy of that.

79
MG: I absolutely will and Id be happy, if youre interested in my final work. Id be happy to
send that as well.
LA: Are you a composer yourself?
MG: Im not, Im a violinist, but Im a musicology graduate student here at San Diego State
and my advisor is, his area of study is twentieth-century experimentalism and so Im
interested in the history of it, especially in the United States. Its very interesting, the little
bifurcations that have happened throughout the twentieth century.
LA: Well good for you.
MG: I really appreciate you talking to me and I look forward to seeing the book. Thank you
so much.
LA: Thank you for calling.
MG: Bye-bye.
LA: Good bye.

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APPENDIX B
PETER GARLAND QUESTIONS

81
QUESTIONS FOR PETER GARLAND

1. How and when were you first exposed to the work of composers Henry Cowell, Harry
Partch, Dane Rudyhar, Edgard Varse, Lou Harrison, and Carl Ruggles?
2. In the first issue of Soundings you write that the genesis of the journal was a workshop
given by Dick Higgins. Would you elaborate on the workshop and how you undertook such
at a project at such a young age.
3. What goals were you trying to achieve with Soundings?
4. By what criteria did you select the contents of Soundings?
5. What impact do you think Soundings had on American musical culture?
82
APPENDIX C
PETER GARLAND RESPONSES

83
CORRESPONDENCE WITH AUTHOR, MARCH 2011

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APPENDIX D
ANNOTATED INDEX OF SOUNDINGS

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ANNOTATED INDEX OF SOUNDINGS

Each entry gives the following information: composer (author), title, type of score,
instrumentation, issue number.
SOUNDINGS
Soundings 1 January 1972
Soundings 2 April 1972
Soundings 3/4 JulyOctober 1972
Soundings 5 February 1973
Soundings 6 May 1973
Soundings 7/8 January 1974
Soundings 9 June 1975
Soundings 10 Summer 1976
Soundings 11 1981
Soundings 12 1982
Soundings 13 1984
Soundings 14/15 1986
Soundings 16 1990
Adams, John Luther. Madrigal: One Rock on Another, notation, choir, vocal soloists, full
orchestra, Soundings14/15.
Amirkhanian, Charles. An Introduction to George Antheil, Soundings 7/8.
. Duet for Ratchets, Op. 30, notation, performance instructions, Soundings 7/8:
. His Anxious Hours, notation, performance instructions, winds, brass, strings, table
saw percussion, voices, piano and keyboards, tape, Soundings16.
. Metropolis San Francisco, recorded environmental sounds, description, sound chart,

Soundings 16.
Antheil, George. Sonata Sauvage, notation, piano, Soundings 7/8.
Ashley, Robert. Fancy Free or Its There, instructions for performers, for speaker (male),
four cassette-recorder operators, Soundings 1.
. String Quartet Describing the Motions of Large Real Bodies, string quartet,
electronics, circuit diagram, Soundings7/8.
Balcells, Eugenia. From the Center, installation photo essay, Soundings14/15.
Becker, Bob. Coming Together: a music game for two players, instructions, notation,
Soundings 7/8.
91
. Figure Ground, notations, performance instructions, claves, bells, marimbas,

Soundings7/8.
Bergamo, John. On the Edge, notation, percussion quintet, Soundings16.
Beyer, Johanna. Music of the Spheres, notation, for three electrical instruments or strings,
Soundings 7/8.
.Three Movements for Percussion, I. Restless; II. Endless; III. Tactless, notation,
percussion ensemble, Soundings 10.
Bischoff, John. Olives, notation, performance instructions, trombone, Soundings 1.
Bowen, Eugene. Chamomile, notation, piano, Soundings 6.
. Epistle to Karl Mikhail Bellman, notation, voice and guitar, Soundings 10.
. Jewelled Settings: Song No. 1, notation, soprano, piano, vibraphone, cello, and
electronics, Soundings11.
. Now Oh Friends, notation, female voice and piano, Soundings 6.
. Longbow Angels, notation, five basses, Soundings7/8.
Bowles, Paul. Music in Mekns, essay, Soundings 10.
. Silvestre Revueltas, essay, Soundings 5.
Briece, Jack. notes, instructions for realization, television receivers, wooden flute, stones,
bells, Soundings 7/8.
. Time Slice, notation, performance notes, tuba, trombone, horn, two trumpets,
Soundings 14/15.
Brown, Marion. Hiku, poem with notation, Soundings 10.
. Sweet Earth Flying, notation, piano, Soundings 10.
Bryars, Gavin, Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet, notation, for small orchestra, taped voice
and optional 16 mm film, Soundings 9.
. The Ride Cymbal and the band that caused the fire in the Sycamore Tree, notation
and directions for performance, for prepared piano(s) and 2 celli or other sustaining
instruments[added hand-written note: this piece may be played on any number of
pianos fulfilling the restrictions on preparation. The accompaniment may be
orchestrated fully.], Soundings 9.
. The Sinking of the Titanic, performance piece about the sinking of the Titanic,
Soundings 9.
92
Budd, Harold, Butterfly Sunday, notation, voice, piano, Soundings 7/8.
. The Dragonfly Cymbal, notation, piano, Soundings 7/8.
. Lirio, performance instruction, gong, Soundings 7/8.
. Madrigals of the Rose Angel, notation, voice, piano, Soundings 7/8.
. Pauline Spring Piece, performance directions, for accordion, Harmonium (or

electric organ), violoncelli, singers, Soundings 1.
. Sun Pieces, performance directions, for outdoor performance by any

number/kind/combination of sound sources and dancers, Soundings 1.
. Vittorio, performance instructions, chimes, flugelhorn, voices, gong, strings,

Soundings 1.
Buel, Charlie. Green is the Color of Thy Yellow Hair, Three or more amplified Chinese
gongs (28 or larger) are played in four ways and then the gongs are used to start
audio signal feedback through the electronic amplification system, for Chinese
gongs, microphones, Soundings 1.
Byron, Michael. Arcanum Part II, notation, performance instruction, strings, winds, chimes,
Soundings 6.
. Distant Light, notation with instructions, string orchestra, Soundings 3/4.
. Dragon Rite, notation, performance instructions, four basses, metal garbage can top,
bass, drum, Soundings 7/8.
. Ensembles, Part I, notation, two violins, viola, cello, bass, two pianos, electric
keyboard or organ, Soundings 12.
. Song of the Lifting up of the Head, notation, instructions, piano, Soundings 3/4.
. Morning-Glory, notation with performance instructions, three musicians playing a

small drum with wood sticks, drums tuned in unison, Soundings10.
. Starfields, notation with performance instructions, one piano, two musicians,

Soundings10.
Carillo, Julian. Ave Maria, microtonal notation system, flute, violin, guitar, cello, harp,
Soundings 5.
. Hoja de Album, microtonal notation system, voice, horn, cello, Soundings 5.
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. Preludio para violoncello en 4os de tonos y otros instrumentos, microtonal notation

system, violin, viola, cello, bass, harp, Soundings 5.
. Tepepan, microtonal notation system, SATB, harp, Soundings 5.
. The Thirteenth Sound (trans. Patricia Smith), Soundings 5.
Carpentier, Alejo. Afrocubanism, essay, Soundings 14/15.
. Amadeo RoldnAlejandro Garca Caturla, essay, Soundings 14/15.
Caturla, Alejandro Garca. Bercuese Campesina, notation, piano, Soundings 14/15.
. Fanfarra Para Despertar Espiritus Apolillados, notation, full orchestra, piano,

Soundings 14/15.
. Yamba-O (excerpt), notation, full orchestra, Soundings 14/15.
Childs, Barney, London Rice Wine, performance instructions, any woodwind instrument,
Soundings 10.
. of place, as altered, notation, 5 Bb clarinets, Soundings7/8.
Corner, Philip. Crash Actions, performance instructions, percussion, Soundings 3/4.
. For Ann, Rising FOR JIM RISING, essay, Soundings 13.
. in intimacypulsation, text directions, non-specified instrumentation, Soundings

3/4.
. Ink Marks for Performance, graphic notation, piano, Soundings 3/4.
. OM Entrance, performance instructions, notation, voice, Soundings 3/4.
. Peace be Still, text, notation , public meditation, Soundings 3/4.
. Rounds, notation, voice, Soundings 3/4.
Cowell, Henry. Trickster Coyote, notation, wind and percussion (Chinese flute and oboe,
Hungarian pipe, English recorder, low rattle, tom tom, drum, thunder stick, Soundings
11.
. The Universal Flute, notation, shakuhachi, Soundings 7/8.
Cox, Richard, mostly pretty down, notation, performance instructions, piano, Soundings
10.
94
Crawford, Ruth. Chinaman, Laundryman, notation, voice, piano, Soundings 7/8.
. Sacco, Vanzetti, notation, voice, piano, Soundings 7/8.
Curran, Alvin, A Guided Tour Through 12 Years of America Music in Rome, essay,
Soundings 10.
. For Cornelius (Part I), notation, piano, Soundings 12.
. From Grand Piano (Part II), notation, piano, Soundings 12.
Dinwiddie, John. eight pieces, text instructions, found objects, piano, orchestra, electronics,
Soundings 7/8.
Dresher, Paul. Two Excerpts from Night Songs: Variations; We Came Only, notation, flute,
trombone, piano, marimba, vibes, Soundings 11.
Eister, Garry. Danl Lentz: Words and Music, essay, Soundings 10.
Erickson, Robert. Timbre and the Tuning of the Balinese Gamelan, essay, Soundings
14/15.
Farley, Alice. Fortunate Light, dance piece (photographs), Soundings 9.
Feinstein, Alan. Introduction (to pieces by Ki Wasitodipuro), essay, Soundings 6.
Fontana, Bill. Distant Trains, sound sculpture, description and photos, Soundings 14/15.
Fox, Jim. As Always, notation, harp solo, Soundings 10.
. The City the Wind Swept Away, notation, trombone quartet, string quartet, piano,
Soundings 14/15.
. Not a Plenary Indulgence, notation, Bb clarinet and piano, Soundings 10.
. When the Birds from the Trees do Fall, notation, marimba solo, Soundings 10.
Franceschini, Romulus. Furniture Music, essay, Soundings 12.
. Omaggio a Satie, notation, per pianoforte, Soundings 12.
Fujieda, Mamoru. Doubles III, notation, clarinet, vibraphone, marimbas, piano, Soundings
16.
Fulkerson. James. Folio of Scores for the Composers Forum, text scores, Soundings 3/4.
95
Gann, Kyle. The University, the Marketplace and Compositional Technique, essay,
Soundings 14/15.
Garland, Peter. Arcanum Part I, notation, performance instructions 8 flutes, 4 oboes, 6

trumpets, 2 clarinets, 4 violins, Soundings 6.
. a song, notation, performance notes, piano, Soundings 1.
. The Conquest of Mexico, sketch of Garlands shadow puppet/mask drama,

Soundings 10.
. Dane Rudhyar, essay, Soundings14/15.
. James Tenney, essay, Soundings 13
. Revueltas, essay, Soundings 5.
. Three Songs of Mad Coyote, notation, performance instructions, percussion,

bullroarers, lions roar, Soundings 7/8.
. The Three Strange Angels, notation, performance instructions, bass drum, piano,
Soundings 6.
. Tribute to Harry Partch, essay, Soundings 9.
. Remembering Jack Briece, essay, Soundings16.
Glanville-Hicks, Peggy, Thomsonian, notation, soprano, flute, horn, piano, string quartet,
Soundings 14/15.
Goldstein, Malcolm. On the First Day of Spring There Were Forty Pianos, notation with
detailed performance instructions, for piano ensemble (2 or more), (also possible as
a solo~see addenda for instructions), Soundings11.
. Some Glimpses of James Tenney, essay, Soundings 13.
Goode, Daniel, Phrases of the Hermit Thrush, notation, performance instruction, clarinet and
string orchestra, Soundings14/15.
Harrison, Lou. France 1912 Spain 1937, notation, Soundings 3/4.
. Peace Piece One, notation, performance notes, Soundings 3/4.
. Peace Piece Three, notation, voice, viola, harp, two violins, Soundings 3/4.
96
. Peace Piece Two, notation, tenor, percussion, two harps, violins, viola, cello, bass,
Soundings 3/4.
. Peace Piece Three, notation, voice, viola, harp, two violins, Soundings 3/4.
. May Rain, notated score with directions for placement of screws to create specific
sounds, for voice and prepared piano, Soundings 1.
. Music for Kyai Huden Mas, notation for gamelan, commentary, gamelan, Soundings
10.
Hellerman, William. 3 letters to Philip Corner, Soundings 10.
. letter to Peter Garland 7-6-76, letter to Peter Garland 7-6-76, Soundings 10.
. nests, performance instructions, text to be read during performance, birdcalls,

sheets, Soundings 10.
Hellerman, William, Umbrella, performance instructions, diagram, superimposed over a

photograph of a realization, umbrella, electronics, rain water, Soundings 10.
Higgins, Dick. Henry CowellSome Personal Recollections, essay, Soundings 14/15.
. Review of Schooltime Compositions by Cardew, Soundings 1.
Hopkins, Sarah. Cello Chi, program and background notes; rehearsal and performance notes;
notation, for cello and cellists voice, Soundings 16.
Johnson, Tom. from Symmetries, graphic notation, performance notes, non-specified

instrumentation, Soundings 12.
Klucevsek, Guy. Depth of Field, notation, performance instructions, SAT voices, Soundings
7/8.
. Rain Piece, directions for performance, notation, any number of any kinds of
instruments.* *also very nice as solo piano, Soundings 6.
. Metathesis, notation, performance instruction, six or more instruments (unspecified),

Soundings 7/8.
. Oscillation No. 2, notation, piano, Soundings 12.
. Reciprocity No. 2, notation, piano, Soundings 12.

97
. Spheres, performance instructions including diagram, graphic notation with key,

nine accordions (right hand only), bass accordion, string bass, and tape (optional),
Soundings 3/4.
. Toronto (Seventh), notation, performance instructions, for piano (with top

removed), Soundings 3/4.
La Barbara, Joan. Hear What I Feel, performance instructions, diagram, program notes,
performance dates, thoughts from the composer, notes, solo vocalist with assistant,
Soundings 10.
Leach, Mary Jane. 4BC, notation, four bass clarinets, Soundings16.
Lentz, Daniel. Aria with Parallel Organum, notation, voices, Soundings10
. LOVERISE, notation, An eclipse for singing pianistopt. 16mm film 4 track and
female choir; electric piano is best, Soundings 1.
. King Speech Song, text score, modified notation, speaker wine-drinker, fourteen
echoes, electronics, Soundings7/8.
. Missa Umbrarum, notation, electronics, performance instructions, mixed choir, solo

male performer, Soundings10.
. Music Lib, essay, Soundings 3/4.
. North American Eclipse, notation, graphic notation, instructions, in-motion

performers, bone rasps, drums, Soundings 10.
. Sun Tropes, notation, performance instructions, voices, kalimbas, recorders,

Soundings 10.
. You Cant See the Forestmusic, text score, modified notation, three drinkers, eight
echoes, electronics, Soundings7/8.
Lucier, Alvin, Crossings, description, performance notes, diagram, modified notation, small
orchestra with slow-sweep pure wave oscillator, Soundings 14/15.
Mahler, David. Children in the Grasses Without Knowing Colors, notation, piano,
Soundings 7/8.
. The Plateaux of Mirror (A Review), review, Soundings 11.
. La Ciudad de Nuestra Seora la Reina de Los Angeles, notation, piano, Soundings

11.
98
. Still Life: Michael Kaempf, notation, violin, viola, cello, bass, Soundings 7/8.
. Whitman Sampler, notation, tenor, Soundings, 7/8.
. Wild Mountain Thyme (transcription), notation, voice, Soundings 7/8.
. Very Much it Sleeps, poem, Soundings 3/4.
Marshall, Ingram. Addendum: In Aeternum, notation, flute, clarinet, violins, violas, cellos,
Soundings 11.
. Charlemagne Palestine, Proselyte of the New Harmony, essay, Soundings 6.
. Rice Bowl Thunder Sock, notation, graphics, performance instructions, piano,

percussionist, Soundings 7/8.
.Vibrosuperball, graphic notation, tambourines, hi-hats, superballs, vibrator,

Soundings 10.
. Modernism Forget It! essay, Soundings 11.
Miller, Thomas. Pines, notation, piano, Soundings 7/8.
. Saguaro, notation, string quintet (bass), flutes, clarinets, or violins, Soundings 6.
. Sentinel Night, notation, piano, Soundings 7/8.
. Thornapple Odes, notation, string quartet, Soundings 6.
Mizelle, Dary John. Mrdangam, performance instructions, symbol notation with key, three
small vocal groups (two to three persons per group) with drone (preferably tambura),
Soundings 3/4.
Monahan, Gordon. Piano Mechanics, graphic notation, actions and activities for piano,
Soundings 16.
Moran, Robert. Compositions on my Mind 1970, four directions for performance, text score,
Soundings 1.
Morrow, Charlie. 2 pages from chanting, pages from a working performance piece, notes,
Soundings 10.
Mosko, Steven. from the Tamara Settings, graphic notation, non-specified instrumentation
Soundings 1.
Mumma, Gordon. Commentary on five pieces for Soundings, Soundings 16.

99
. Eleven Notes Pieces & Decimal Passacaglia, notation, harpsichord, Soundings16.
. EqualeInternal Tempi, notation, performance instructions, three horns, three snare

drums, Soundings 16.
. Medium Sized Monograph 1964, notation, performance instructions, piano,

Soundings 16.
. Octal Waltz, notation, piano, Soundings 16.
. Seales Olivdadas, notation, instructions for performance, flute, piano, Soundings

16.
Nancarrow, Conlon. Study #1 for Player Piano, notation, player piano, Soundings 7/8.
. Study #15 for Player Piano, notation, player piano, Soundings 10.
. Study #25 for Player Piano, notation, player piano, Soundings 9.
. Study #24 for Player Piano (Canon 14/15/16), notation, player piano, Soundings 6.
. Study #32 for Player Piano, Soundings 10.
Neruda, Pablo. Mini-Oratorio on the Death of Silvestre Revueltas, essay, Soundings 10.
Nixon, Tom. Ce Acatl, graphic notation, Soundings 7/8.
. Four Modern Truisms I. Aburrimiento; II. 40tude; III. Digestive Music; IV. Die
Langeweile, notation, performance instructions, typewriter, Bb clarinet, non-specific
. letter, 6/24/76 (to PG), about musical performance, Soundings 10.
. Monnaie, notation, directions for performance, vibraphone, bells, piano, vocal, and
metal, Soundings 6.
. Scarhead, notation, b flat clarinet, Soundings 6.
. Two for Tuna, notation, performance instructions, one person, three glass
instruments, Soundings 7/8.
. You Were Warned, notation with performance directions, vocal, Soundings 7/8.
100
Noble, Ann. saved in prisms of honey, notation, soprano, Bb clarinet, piano,

Soundings 10.
Nyman, Michael. Gavin Bryars 1971Michael Nyman 1975, essay, Soundings 9.
OGorman, Juan. Cover art, part of a painting Liberty, Soundings 10.
Oliveros, Pauline. George Washington Slept Here Too, performance direction, for four
performers, one grand piano, one toy Sonic Blaster by Mattel or one real pistol with
blank, one slide projector, Soundings 1.
. Why Dont You Write a Short Piece?, performance directions, no specified

Orea, Charles. Evensong, notation, pianist/vocalist, speaker, Soundings 7/8.
Oreran, Khaleef. Fire, Water, Earth, and Aire, directions for performance, performance
diagram, percussionist, men and women, Soundings 6.
. In Case of Beer Call Jim Tenney, directions for realization, This piece demands
at least one case of beer (preferably pop-top aluminum), any number of persons,
stereo tape recorder w/two microphones, and a centrally located garbage can,
Soundings 6.
. Theres Hope, directions for performance, text-sound piece, two spokesmen or

spokeswomen, Soundings 6.
Paik, Nam June. WORLD BAND MUSIC, directions for performance, text piece, non
specified, Soundings 1.
Palestine, Charlemagne. Interview with Peter Garland, Soundings 6.
. Notes for an essay, Soundings 6.
Partch, Harry. A Somewhat Spoof, essay, Soundings 2.
. Barstow, voice, Partch instruments: Surrogate Kithara, Chromelodeon I, Diamond

Marimba, Boo, Soundings 2.
. Show Horses in the Concert Ring, essay, Soundings 1.
Pemberton-Florida, Nancy. Translations of the Texts of the Compositions of Ki

Wasitodipuro), text translations of Lagu Sopir Betjak, Lantjaran Gugur-gunung,
Ketawang Wedyasmara, Soundings 6.
101
Phetteplace, Jon. Time, Text, Woyzeck, description of a performance piece with tape to
represent the paly Woyzeck, Soundings 1.
Polansky, Larry. The Early Works of James Tenney, analysis of Tenneys works and
writings, Soundings 13.
. Fuging Tuning in G, notation, performance notes, flute, violin, viola, cello,

bass, percussion, Soundings 11.
Pomeroy, Jim. Confa$hion$ of a Benign Reactionary, collection of pieces, text scores,

photos, various instrumentation, electronics, Soundings 12.
. cover art, Soundings 12.
Posada, J. G. cover art, Soundings 5.
Reich, Steve. Slow Motion Sound, description of a tape piece, Soundings 7/8.
Reiniger, Lotte. from The Adventures of Prince Achmet (a shadow film), cover art,
Soundings 6.
Revueltas, Jos. essay, Soundings 10.
Revueltas, Silvestre. Autobiographical text, Soundings 10.
. Canto Ferrocarrilero (a) chorus, (b) excerpt for orchestra
. from Cartas Intimsa y Escritos de Silvestre Revueltas, essay (translated by

Benjamin Juarez), Soundings 5.
. from Cartas Intimsa y Escritos de Silvestre Revueltas, letterprinted in Spanish,

Soundings 5.
. Excerpt from a letter, Soundings 10.
. Notes and Writings (Fragments), essay, written by S.R., Soundings 5.
. from Psicobiografia de Silvestre Revueltas, essay (translated by Benjamin

Juarez), Soundings 5.
. Revueltas on his music, essay, from Nicloas Slonimskys Music of

Latin America, Soundings 5.
. Frente a Frente (a) chamber ensemble, (b) piano/voice, (c) manuscript notes,
Soundings 10.
102
. Un Canto de Guerra de los Frentes Lales, notation, piano, voices, brass, Soundings
10.
Richards, Eric. The Consent of Sound and Meaning, modified notation, spatial diagram,
performance instruction, tuning instructions, ten doubles basses, seven trumpets,
Soundings 14/15.
Rosenboom, David. In the Beginning III (Quintet), notation, flute, oboe, Bb clarinet,
bassoon, horn in F, Soundings 14/15.
Rosenfeld, Paul. Musical Chronicle (Dane Rudhyar) from The Dial, essay, Soundings 12.
Rudhyar, Dane. A New Philosophy of Music, essay, Soundings 6.
. Andante for Ten Instruments, notation, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn,
trumpet, piano, violin, alto [viola], cello, Soundings 2.
. Concerning My Music, essay, Soundings 6.
. The Music of Personality, Soundings 7/8.
. The Relativity of Our Musical Conceptions, essay, Soundings 2.
. Resonance and the Natural Order in Music, essay, Soundings 10.
. Rite of Transcendence, notation, piano, Soundings 12.
. Solitude for string quartet, notation, string quartet, Soundings 6.
. Tetagram #9, Third Series, Summer Nights, notation (1967), piano, Soundings
2.
. When Does Sound Become Music?, essay, Soundings 14/15.
Ruggles, Carl. Selected Letters of Carl Ruggles to James Tenney and Carolee Schneemann,
Soundings 13.
Rzewski, Frederic. Coming Together (Part I), notation with instructions, voice (bass) with
instrument, Soundings 3/4.
Schimdt, Daniel. Last Years Life, text score, Soundings 7/8.
Schneemann, Carolee.Portrait of Ruggles and Tenney, drawing, Soundings 13.
Schwarz, Richard. Brujo, notation, performance notes, solo percussionist, Soundings 14/15.
103
Scott, Stephen. Ta ta logy, notation, performance notes, ten unaccompanied voices,

Soundings 14/15.
Seeger, Charles. Slow Dance, notation, violin, piano, Soundings 10.
Seeger, Charles and Virginia Perlis. excerpt from an interview about Carl Ruggles,
Soundings 10.
Simon, David. Whether or Not to Die in Love, directions for performance, performance
diagram, ten musicians, (mixed male and female). Each instrument is different,
Soundings 6.
Skempton, Howard. Eirnicon, notation, piano, Soundings 10.
. Gentle Melody, notation, unspecified (treble clef and chord indications), Soundings
10.
. Lament, notation, piano, Soundings 10.
. prelude for horn, notation, Soundings 10.
. Three Shades for piano, notation, piano, Soundings 10.
Smith, Jeff. The Partch Reverberations, essay, Soundings 12.
Stein, Larry. Orfacape, notation, performance instructions, percussion ensemble, Soundings

7/8.
Stoerchle, Wolfgang. Untitled, photograph, Soundings 1.
. Untitled, photograph, Soundings 1.
. Untitled, photographs, Soundings 3/4.
Tcherepnin, Ivan. Silent Mix Night, notation, piano, Soundings 1.
. Silent Night Mix, notation, piano, Soundings 1.
Teitelbaum, Richard. World Band, essay, Soundings 1.
Tenney, James. Choreogram, directions for performance, for any number of players, using
any instruments or sound sources, dancers, Soundings 1.
. Clang, notation with instructions, orchestra, Soundings 3/4.

104
. John Cage and the Theory of Harmony, essay (including a chronological

bibliography of Cage writings), Soundings 13.
. Quintet (Five Textures for string quartet and bass), notation, directions for
performance, string quintet (bass), Soundings 6.
. Photos and documents, Soundings 13.
. Seeds, notation, flute, clarinet in A, horn in F, violin, cello, bassoon, Soundings 13.
. Three Indigenous Songs, based almost entirely on the acoustical properties of the
words in their texts, although these are not performed vocally. Vocal sounds
translated to the instruments acoustical properties, piccolos, alto flute, bassoon or
tuba, wood blocks, tom toms, suspended cymbals, Soundings 13.
Tilbury, John. Cornelius Cardew (19361981), essay, Soundings 12.
van Riper, Peter. Wire Sound, computer generated hexagrams, description of performance,
Soundings 6.
Varse, Edgard. Unpublished statements about music, composition, Soundings 10.
Varse, Louise.Varse Artaud (excerpts of letters from Louise Varse to Peter Garland),
about a collaboration between Artaud and Varse that never materialized, Soundings
10.
. Excerpt About Santa Fe, essay, Soundings 16.
Vierk, Lois V. GUITARS Go Guitars, notation with tuning instructions, five electric
guitars, Soundings 16.
Volans, Kevin. White Man Sleeps, notation, tuning instruction, performance instructions, two
harpsichords, viola de gamba, percussion, Soundings 14/15.
Wasitodipuro, Ki. Lagu Sopir Betjak, Kepatihan notation, gamelan, Soundings 6.
. Lantjaran Gugur-gunung, Kepatihan notation, gamelan, Soundings 6.
. Ketawang Wedyasmara, Kepatihan notation, gamelan, Soundings 6.
Weber, Joseph. Rota II: (Sixth Movement of Sinfonia), notation with brief instructions, for 3
or 4 keyboard instruments with optional drone, Soundings 11.
Weisberg, Lawrence. Tribute to Harry Partch, essay, Soundings 9.
Yates, Peter. The American Experimental Tradition, essay, Soundings 16.

105
Youdelman, Rachel. A Simple Strategy for Easy Entertaining, text piece, performance
instructions, Soundings 10.
Zimmerman, Walter. Sechs Frnkische Tnze (from Lokale Musik), notation, string quartet,
Soundings 12.
Zorn, John. Road Runner, notation, performance instructions, non-specified instrumentation,

Soundings 16.

Ginsberg Maya (2) Experimental American Music Dissertation

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Ginsberg Maya (2) Experimental American Music Dissertation

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DOCUMENTING THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENTAL TRADITION:

A HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF SOURCE AND SOUNDINGS

San Diego State University

of the Requirements for the Degree

Maya Lisa Ginsberg

Maya Lisa Ginsberg

All Rights Reserved

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Documenting the American Experimental Tradition:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii

Review of Literature ..............................................................................................11

Organization of the Document ...............................................................................15

2 SOURCE: MUSIC OF THE AVANT GARDE .............................................................17

4 AMERICAN EXPERIMENTALISM .........................................................................50

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................64

A TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW WITH LARRY AUSTIN ...............................69

B PETER GARLAND QUESTIONS..............................................................................80

C PETER GARLAND RESPONSES..............................................................................82

D ANNOTATED INDEX OF SOUNDINGS ..................................................................89

Conaty for the invaluable teaching experience.

with all the issues of SOURCE.

this project; their input was invaluable.

suggestions have always improved my work.

you both so very, very much.

his dismay, were other young composers seeking publication opportunities:

My first sensation was astonishment at the great amount of original, imaginative,

individuality.2 Farwell believed that these underrepresented composers simply needed

uniquely American compositional identity. In his own compositions he included Native

Despite Farwells efforts, European dominance of American music continued. Carol

American modernist music. Occasional glints of activity were overshadowed by a near

compositions. In 1923, for a number of reasons, including Varses insistence on not

repeating a previously performed work (Schoenbergs Pierrot Lunaire), some of the

contemporary music, as Lederman explains:

for American musical life to push out of provincial isolation.9

composers of the so-called ultra-modernist tendencies.10 New Music Quarterly, first

Cowell recognized the difficulty composers had in seeking publication:

composers, including Charles Ives and Arnold Schoenberg.

and furtherabandoning tonality and expanding musical resourcestheir connection with

New Music was:

America has deprived musicians as well as non-musicians of a means through which to

Music, which was thereafter sponsored by an independent corporation.17 This

writing in other idiomsespecially those employing different techniques such as alternate

tuning systems, graphic notation, and indeterminacybecame known as experimentalist

in academic music departments.18

Dedicated to documenting the work of avant-garde composers, SOURCE was

founded by Larry Austin and was published by Composer/Performer Edition beginning in

In a review of the first volume of SOURCE, Ellsworth Synder wrote,

Undoubtedly SOURCE will be of stimulating interest to musicians, but scholars,

motivations for establishing Soundings:

music in an era in which no conventional publisher would pay any attention.26

specific community of composersthe American experimentalistswho they felt had been

inherent restrictions of foundations and universities (however enlightened), uncommitted to

inevitable factional interests of societies and composers groups.28 An advertisement for

music of distinguished composers whose works, because of their advanced, controversial, or

of the contents of SOURCE and Soundings reveals a community of composers working

introductions shed light on the progress of Farwells ideal enterprise.30

manuscripts from Modern Music, as well as correspondence and unpublished photographs. In

the story behind the story of Modern Music.31

and lack of recognition of American experimentalist composers by the musical academy.

correspondence between Garland and many of the contributors to Soundings reveals

end of the journal.

In his book American Experimental Music: 18901940, David Nicholls provides

illustratesthrough specific compositionsexperimental techniques that these composers