James Tenney (August 10, 1934 in Silver City, NM) is an American composer and influential music theorist. He studied piano with Eduard Steuermann and composition with Chou Wen-chung, Lionel Nowak, Paul Boepple, Henry Brant, Carl Ruggles, Kenneth Gaburo, Lejaren Hiller, John Cage, Harry Partch, and Edgard Varèse. His students include John Luther Adams. He also studied information theory under Lejaren Hiller, and composed stochastic early computer music before turning almost completely to writing for instruments with the occasional tape delay, often using just intonation and alternative tunings. His work deals simply and artfully with perception (For Ann (rising), see Shepard tone), just intonation (Clang, see gestalt), stochastic elements (Music for Player Piano), information theory (Ergodos, see Ergodic theory), and with what he calls 'swell' (Koan: Having Never Written A Note For Percussion (for John Bergamo)), which is basically arch form. His pieces are most often tributes and subtitled as such. As his friend Philip Corner says, For Ann (rising), "must be optimistic! (Imagine the depressing effectiveness of it -- he could never be so cruel -- downward)..." August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Music theory is a field of study that describes the elements of music and includes the development and application of methods for analyzing and composing music, and the interrelationship between the notation of music and performance practice. ... Eduard Steuermann (June 18, 1892 - November 11, 1964) was an American pianist and composer of Polish birth. ... Chou Wen-chung (surname Chou, b. ... Henry Brant (born September 15, 1913) is a highly significant California-based composer of art music based on spatialization and limited aleatory. ... American composer Charles Sprague Ruggles (March 11, 1876 - October 24, 1971), better known as Carl, wrote finely-crafted pieces using dissonant counterpoint, a term coined by Charles Seeger to describe Ruggles music. ... Kenneth Gaburo (July 5, 1926 in Somerville, New Jersey; - January 26, 1993 in Iowa City, Iowa) was an American composer. ... USA composer Lejaren Hiller (February 23, 1924, New York City - January 26, 1994, Buffalo, New York) founded the University of Illinois Experimental Music Studio in the late 1950s and collaborated on the first significant computer music composition, 1957s Illiac Suite, with Leonard Issacson. ... John Cage John Milton Cage (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American experimental music composer, writer and visual artist. ... Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer. ... Edgar (or Edgard) Varèse (December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer, who moved to the United States in 1915, and took American citizenship in 1926. ... John Luther Adams (born 1953) is a composer whose music embodies the landscapes of Alaska, his home since 1978. ... Information theory is the mathematical theory of data communication and storage, generally considered to have been founded in 1948 by Claude E. Shannon. ... USA composer Lejaren Hiller (February 23, 1924, New York City - January 26, 1994, Buffalo, New York) founded the University of Illinois Experimental Music Studio in the late 1950s and collaborated on the first significant computer music composition, 1957s Illiac Suite, with Leonard Issacson. ... Stochastic, from the Greek stochos or goal, means of, relating to, or characterized by conjecture; conjectural; random. ... A computer is a machine capable of undergoing complex calculations. ... Tape delay, also often referred to as analog delay, is an audio effect whereby an echo can be introduced to an audio signal by mixing it with a delayed version of itself. ... In music, Just intonation, also called rational intonation, is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by whole number ratios; that is, by positive rational numbers. ... In music, tuning is the process of producing or preparing to produce a certain pitch in relation to another, usually at the unison but often at some other interval. ... For Ann (rising) is a piece created by James Tenney in 1969. ... A Shepard tone is a sound consisting of a superposition of tones separated by octaves. ... In music, Just intonation, also called rational intonation, is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by whole number ratios; that is, by positive rational numbers. ... Gestalt is a German word meaning shape or form. ... Information theory is the mathematical theory of data communication and storage, generally considered to have been founded in 1948 by Claude E. Shannon. ... In mathematics, a measure-preserving transformation T on a probability space is said to be ergodic if the only measurable sets invariant under T have measure 0 or 1. ... The term musical form is used in two related ways: a generic type of composition such as the symphony or concerto the structure of a particular piece, how its parts are put together to make the whole; this too can be generic, such as binary form or sonata form Musical... A tribute (from Latin tribulum, contribution) is wealth one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often case in historical contests, of submission or allegiance. ... Philip (Lionel) Corner (April 10, 1933—) is a composer as well as trombonist, vocalist, and pianist. ...

Tenney is the author of the in depth liner notes to Wergo's edition of Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano (Nancarrow, as a favor, punched the roll for Tenney's Spectral Canon for Conlon Nancarrow), the seminal Meta (+) Hodos (one of, if not the, earliest applications of gestalt theory and cognitive science to music), the later Hierarchical temporal gestalt perception in music : a metric space model with Larry Polansky, and other works. He currently teaches at the California Institute of Arts. Conlon Nancarrow (October 27, 1912 - August 10, 1997) was an American composer who took Mexican citizenship in 1955. ... Gestalt is a German word meaning shape or form. ... Rendering of human brain based on MRI data Cognitive science is usually defined as the scientific study either of mind or of intelligence (e. ... Larry Polansky is a composer, guitarist, and a professor at Dartmouth. ... The California Institute of the Arts, commonly known as CalArts, and located in Valencia, California, grants degrees in visual and performing arts. ...

Further reading

• Garland, Peter (Ed.) (1984). Soundings Vol. 13: The Music of James Tenney. Santa Fe, N.M. : Soundings Press.
• Tenney, James (1988). Meta-Hodos and Meta Meta-Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th Century Musical Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form. Santa Fe, N.M.: Frog Peak Music. ISBN 0945996004.
• Tenney, James (1988). A History of 'Consonance and Dissonance'. NY: Excelsior Music Publishing Co. ISBN 0-935016-99-6.

External links

• The Living Composers Project: James Tenney
• CDeMUSIC: James Tenney
• Interview with Douglas Kahn on years at Bell Labs [1]
• Artifact: James Tenney: Selected Works
• The University of Akron Bierce Library: Smith Archives: Composer Profile: James Tenney
• CalArts: James Tenney
• James Tenney in conversation with Frank J. Oteri
• James Tenney interviewed by American Mavericks.
• James Tenney interviewed on Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar

Listening

• Art of the States: James Tenney Having Never Written a Note for Percussion (1971)