henry s said:
anyway, can somebody define "systems music" for me?
My understanding is that this means 'music that is composed (or composes itself)' according to some sort of system. To borrow a Stockhausen metaphor, it's a bit like building a clockwork mechanism and then letting it go; what happens is the music. The composer comes up with some sort of 'system' (this might be technological, or intellectual) for generating music, sets the system going, and the music creates itself
with little or no subsequent intervention from the composer.
Key examples:
Steve Reich, Pendulum Music, four microphones swing like pendulums over their speakers, making waves of feedback
Reich: Come Out and It's Gonna Rain: Identical tape loops are played simultaneously, but variations in machine mean that the loops slowly move in an out of phase. The idea was explored further in written-down instrumental music like Piano Phase
Philip Glass: Music in Similar Motion: A melodic idea is repeated over and over, and at every few repetitions it adds or substracts a note
Gyorgy Ligeti: Poeme Symphonique: 100 metronomes tick at slightly different speeds until the springs run down and they eventually stop
William Basinski: The Disintegration Loops. Musical loops are created on tape; the tape degenerates as it is played and looped; this degeneration is recorded and is the music.
Alvin Lucier: I am Sitting in a Room: Lucier records himself speaking a prewritten text (explaining what he is doing), the recording is played back, whilst the reverberation is re-recorded and re-played back, etc. etc. The original spoken word gets obliterated by increasing amounts of echo
Plus loads more besides.