Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 - February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and Pak Cokro. May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). ... 1917 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... February 2 is the 33rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ...

Harrison is particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of other cultures into his work, with a number of pieces featuring traditional Indonesian gamelan instruments, and several more featuring versions of them made out of tin cans and other materials. The majority of his works are written in just intonation rather than the more widespread equal temperament, making Harrison one of the most prominent composers to have worked with microtones. Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Look up Music in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikisource, as part of the 1911 Encyclopedia Wikiproject, has original text related to this article: Music Wikicities has a wiki about Music: Music Music City : a collaborative music database All Music Guide... A gamelan is a musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring metallophones, xylophone(s), drums, and gongs. ... A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... Just intonation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Equal temperament is a scheme of musical tuning in which the octave is divided into a series of equal steps (equal frequency ratios). ... Microtonal music is music using microtones -- intervals of less than a semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the notes between the cracks of the piano. ...

Biography

Harrison was born in Portland, Oregon, but moved with his family to a number of locations around the San Francisco Bay area as a child. The diverse music which he was to exposed to there, including Cantonese opera, Native American music, Mexican music and jazz as well as classical music, was to have a major influence on him. He also heard recordings of Indonesian music early in life. Portland skyline. ... San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and the Golden Gate The San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary in which water draining approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean. ... Cantonese opera (粵劇, pinyin: Yuèjù, yuet kek or 神功戲) is one of the major Chinese opera categories in southern China. ... There are hundreds of tribes of Native Americans (called the First Nations in Canada), each with diverse musical practices, spread across the United States and Canada (excluding Hawaiian music). ... Mariachi music is the most well-known regional music of Mexico. ... Jazz is a musical art form characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation. ... Classical music is music considered classical, as sophisticated and refined, in a regional tradition. ... Indonesia is culturally diverse and is home to hundreds of forms of music, with those from the islands of Java, Sumatra and Bali being the most frequently recorded. ...

Harrison took Henry Cowell's "Music of the Peoples of the World" course, and also studied counterpoint and composition with him. He later went to the University of California at Los Angeles to work at the dance department as a dancer and accompanist. While there, he took lessons from Arnold Schoenberg which led to an interest in Schoenberg's twelve tone technique. The pieces he was writing at this time, however, were largely percussive works using unconventional materials, such as car brake drums, as musical instruments. These pieces were similar to those being written by John Cage around the same time, and the two sometimes worked together. Henry Cowell (March 11, 1897 - December 10, 1965) was an American composer and teacher. ... Counterpoint is a very general feature of music (especially prominent in much Western music) whereby two or more melodic strands occur simultaneously – in separate voices, either literally or metaphorically (if the music is instrumental). ... Musical composition is: an original piece of music the structure of a musical piece the process of creating a new piece of music // A musical composition A piece of music exists in the form of a written composition in musical notation or as a single acoustic event (a live performance... The University of California, Los Angeles, popularly known as UCLA, is a public, coeducational university situated in the neighborhood of Westwood within the city of Los Angeles. ... A contemporary dancer rehearsing in a dance studio Dance (from Old French dance, further history unknown) generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression (see also body language) or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 For the American music critic and journalist, see Harold Charles Schonberg. ... Twelve-tone technique is a system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. ... Percussion instruments are music instruments played by being struck, shaken, rubbed or scraped, hence the percussive name. ... A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... John Cage John Milton Cage (September 5, 1912–August 12, 1992) was an American experimental music composer and writer. ...

In 1943, Harrison moved to New York City where he worked as a music critic for the Herald Tribune. While there he met Charles Ives, became his friend, and did a good deal in bringing him to the attention of the musical world, as he had largely been ignored up to that point. He prepared and conducted the premiere of Ives' Symphony No. 3, and in return received help from Ives financially. When Ives won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for that piece, he gave half of the money to Harrison. Harrison also edited a large number of Ives' pieces, receiving compensation often in excess of what he billed (Miller and Lieberman 1998). Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York) is the most populous city in the United States, and is at the center of American finance, politics, music, and culture. ... This photo from around 1913 shows Ives in his day job: he was the director of a successful insurance agency. ... The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. ...

As well as Ives, Harrison supported and promoted the music of other unconventional American composers, including Edgar Varèse and Carl Ruggles. Later during his time in New York, Harrison taught at Black Mountain College. In 1947, he suffered a nervous breakdown, and moved back to California. 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. ... 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. ... From the time of its founding by John Rice in 1933, Black Mountain College, located near Asheville, North Carolina, was known as one of the leading progressive schools of art in the United States. ... Although not a medical term, the phrase nervous breakdown is often used by laymen to describe a sudden and acute attack of mental illness—for instance, clinical depression or anxiety disorder—in a previously outwardly healthy person. ... State nickname: The Golden State Other U.S. States Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Official languages English Area 410,000 km² (3rd)  - Land 404,298 km²  - Water 20,047 km² (4. ...

Harrison's style began to change, showing the influence of gamelan music more clearly if only in timbre, "It was the sound itself that attracted me. In New York, when I changed gears out of twelve tonalism, I explored this timbre. The gamelan movements in my Suite for Violing, Piano, and Small Orchestra [1951] are aural imitations of the generalized sounds of gamelan." (ibid, p.160) Virgil Thomson (with whom Harrison also studied) gave him a copy of Harry Partch's book on musical tuning, Genesis of a Music, which prompted Harrison to start writing music in just intonation. He did not abandon equal temperament altogether, but often expressed a desire to do so. One of his most often quoted comments on this is "I'd long thought that I would love a time when musicians were numerate as well as literate. I'd love to be a conductor and say, 'Now, cellos, you gave me 10/9 there, please give me a 9/8 instead,' I'd love to get that!", referring to the frequency ratios used in just intonation. A gamelan is a musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring metallophones, xylophone(s), drums, and gongs. ... In music, timbre is determined by its spectrum, which is a specific mix of keynote, overtones, noise, tune behaviour, and envelope, as well as the temporal change of the spectrum and the amplitude. ... Virgil Thomson, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1947 Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 - September 30, 1989) was an American composer from Missouri, whose rural background gave a sense of place in his compositions. ... Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer. ... This page is about musical systems of tuning, for the musical process of tuning see tuning. ... Just intonation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Equal temperament is a scheme of musical tuning in which the octave is divided into a series of equal steps (equal frequency ratios). ...

Although much influenced by Asian music, Harrison did not visit the continent until a 1961 trip to Japan and Korea and a 1962 trip to Taiwan (ibid, p.141). When he returned, he began to set about establishing gamelan orchestras in the United States, and constructed gamelan-type instruments tuned to just pentatonic scales from unusual materials such as tin cans and aluminium furniture tubing. He was helped in the construction of these by his partner, William Colvig. He did not abandon traditional classical instruments, however, placing them alongside his constructed instruments on a number of occasions. World map showing location of Asia Asia is the central and eastern part of the continent of Eurasia, defined by subtracting the European peninsula from Eurasia. ... General Name, Symbol, Number aluminium, Al, 13 Chemical series poor metals Group, Period, Block 13, 3, p Appearance silvery Atomic mass 26. ... The partner for thirty three years of composer Lou Harrison, William Colvig (1917-2000) was an electrician and amateur musician. ...

Like many other 20th century composers, Harrison found it hard to support himself with his music, and took a number of other jobs to earn a living, including record salesman, florist, animal nurse, and forestry firefighter. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...

Harrison was outspoken about his political views, such as his pacifism, and the fact that he was gay. He was also politically active and informed, including knowledge of gay history. He wrote many pieces with political texts or titles, writing, for instance, Homage to Pacifica for the opening of the Berkley Headquarters of the Pacifica Foundation, and accepting commissions from the Portland Gay Men's Chorus (1988 and 1985) and by the Seattle Gay Men's Chorus to arrange (1987) his Strict Songs, originally for eight baritones, for "a chorus of 120 male singing enthusiasts. Some of them good; some not so good. But the number is so fabulous" (ibid, p.98). Lawrence Mass (ibid, p.190) describes:

With Lou Harrison...being gay is something affirmative. He's proud to be a gay composer and interested in talking about what that might mean. He doesn't feel threatened that this means he won't be thought of as an American composer who is also great and timeless and universal.

Janice Giteck (ibid, p.194) describes Harrison as:

unabashedly androgynous in his way of approaching creativity. He has a vital connection to the feminine as well as to the masculine. The female part is apparent in the sense of beingness. But at the same time, Lou is very male, too, ferociously active and assertive, rhythmic, pulsing, and aggressive.

Harrison lived for many years with Colvig in Aptos, California, though he was long planning a straw-bale house in still rural desert. He died in Lafayette, Indiana from a heart attack while on his way to a festival of his music at Ohio State University. Aptos is a census-designated place located in Santa Cruz County, California. ... {{{{{2|{{{2}}}}}}|1{{{motto=void|2={{{3}}}}}}|City motto|{{{motto}}}}} Nickname: Star City Image:(map of location of city in state) Location in Tippecanoe, Indiana Founded  -Incorporated 1825 (date of incorporation)  County Tippecanoe Mayor Tony Roswarski Area  - Total  - Water 52 km² ( 20. ... A myocardial infarction occurs when an atherosclerotic plaque slowly builds up in the inner lining of a coronary artery and then suddenly ruptures, totally occluding the artery and preventing blood flow downstream. ... The Ohio State University (legal name), also known as Ohio State or OSU, is currently the largest public university in the United States. ...

Harrison's music

Many of Harrison's early works are for percussion instruments, often made out of what would usually be regarded as junk such as garbage cans and steel brake pans. He also wrote a number of pieces using Schoenberg's twelve tone technique, including the opera Rapunzel and his Symphony No. 1 (1952). Several works feature the tack piano, a kind of prepared piano with small nails inserted into the hammers to give the instrument a more percussive sound. The foyer of Charles Garniers Opéra, Paris, opened 1875 Opera is an art form consisting of a dramatic stage performance set to music. ... A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects (preparations) between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers. ...

Harrison's mature musical style is based on "melodicles", short motifs which are turned backwards and upsidedown to create a musical mode the piece is based on. His music is typically spartan in texture but lyrical, and harmony usually simple or sometimes lacking altogether, with the focus instead being on rhythm and melody. Ned Rorem describes, "Lou Harrison's compositions demonstrate a variety of means and techniques. In general he is a melodist. Rhythm has a significant place in his work, too. Harmony is unimportant, although tonality is. He is one of the first American composers to successfully create a workable marriage between Eastern and Western forms." Nobody gives a fuck about musical modes. ... Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity and chords, actual or implied, in music. ... Rhythm (Greek ρυθμός = tempo) is the variation of the duration of sounds or other events over time. ... }} Wiktionary has a definition of: Melody In music, a melody is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord. ... Ned Rorem (born October 23, 1923) is a noted American composer and diarist. ...

Another component of Harrison's aesthetic is what Harry Partch would call corporeality, an emphasis on the physical and the sensual including live, human, performance and improvisation, timbre, rhythm, and the sense of space in his melodic lines, whether solo or in counterpoint, and most notably in his frequent dance collaborations.

Among Harrison's better known works are the Organ Concerto with Percussion (1973), which was given at the Proms in London in 1997; the Double Concerto (1981-82) for violin, cello and Javanese gamelan; the Piano Concerto (1983-85) for piano tuned in Kirnberger #2 (a form of well temperament) and orchestra, which was written for Keith Jarrett; and a number of symphonies. He also wrote a large number of works in non-traditional forms. Harrison spoke several languages including American Sign Language, Mandarin and Esperanto, and several of his pieces have Esperanto titles and (notably La Koro Sutro, 1973) texts. A Promenade concert in the Royal Albert Hall, 2004. ... St. ... Lou Harrisons Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan was composed in 1981-1982 upon the request of Kenneth Goldsmith of the Mirecourt Trio after the completion of Scenes from Cavafy. ... The violin is a stringed musical instrument that has four strings tuned a perfect fifth apart. ... A cropped image to show the relative size of a cello to a human (Uncropped Version) The violoncello, or as it is more commonly to refered to as the cello or cello (pronounced Cheh-loh), is a stringed instrument and a member of the violin family. ... Map of Java Java (Indonesian, Javanese, and Sundanese: Jawa) is an island of Indonesia, and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. ... Well temperaments are a form of musical tuning, also known as circular temperaments, or irregular temperaments. ... Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Orchestra at City Hall (Edmonton). ... Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is considered one of the most important living jazz piano players. ... A symphony is an extended piece of music for orchestra, especially one in the form of a sonata. ... American Sign Language (also ASL, Amslan obs. ... Mandarin   listen?(Traditional: 北方話, Simplified: 北方话, Hanyu Pinyin: BÄ›ifānghuà, lit. ... Esperanto flag Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international language. ...

Source

• Miller, Leta E. and Lieberman, Frederic (1998). Lou Harrison: Composing a World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195110226.

External links

• SJSU School of Music & Dance: Lou Harrison
• Obituary from the Musical Times
• Lou Harrison: Middle Period Works
• New Albion Artists: Lou Harrison
• Frog Peak Artist
• American Gamelan Institute: publishes all of Lou Harrison's music for gamelan
• NewMusicBox: Don Gillespie remembrance
• Other Minds: Lou Harrison
• Lou Harrison Documentary Project

Listening

• Art of the States: Lou Harrison three works by the composer
• Epitonic.com: Lou Harrison including tracks from Rhymes With Silver and La Kuro Sutro