- For Ann (rising)
For Ann (rising) is a piece of
electronic music created byJames Tenney in1969 .Tenney is the author of "Meta (+) Hodos", one of, if not the, earliest applications of gestalt theory and
cognitive science to music, and later "Hierarchical temporal gestalt perception in music: a metric space model" with Larry Polansky, and other works, the influence of may be seen in many of his pieces including the twelve minute "For Ann (rising)".The piece is based upon the
Shepard scale concept, named after Tenney's colleague atBell Labs psychologistRoger Shepard , though the technique which the piece uses is more properly described as a continuous Risset scale or Shepard-Rissetglissando . (Polansky, 2003)Each rising
sine-wave -like glissando, between twelve and fifteen rising at any time, fades in and out, all entering aminor sixth below their predecessors, rising from theinfrasonic toultrasonic range, from below to above the ability to perceive pitch. (Polansky, 2003)While the original experiments were intended to illustrate a property of human perception, Tenney's piece problematizes it:
One simultaneously perceives the lines as forming one continuously rising line, yet one is constantly aware of shifts in perception from line to line or lines. According to reviewer Jeremy Grimshaw, "there emerges at the upper frequency threshold a crystalline conglomeration of extremely high pitches, which glimmer as an indistinguishable mass even as glissandi continually enter the top range and fade" According to his friend
Philip Corner "For Ann (rising)", "must be optimistic! (Imagine the depressing effectiveness of it -- he could never be so cruel -- downward)..." (Grimshaw)Tenney has suggested the piece be "regenerated" with the distance between successive voices, the
minor sixth (1.6 injust intonation , 1.587 inequal temperament ), being tuned togolden ratio phi (1.618). This is desirable because then all first-order difference tones between adjacent voices would be present in lower voices.(Polansky, 2003)ources
*"James Tenney: Selected Works 1961-1969" (2003). New World Records 805702. Liner notes by Larry Polansky, regenerated by Tom Erbe using Barry Vercoe's CSound according to Tenney's specifications
*http://www.allclassical.com/cg/acg.dll?p=acg&sql=2:477209 by Jeremy GrimshawExternal links
* [http://www.artifact.com/release.php?id=1007 "James Tenney: Selected Works 1961-1969" at Artifact Records]
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