Two weeks out from the concert, and the piece is (basically) done and in rehearsal, so i guess now i get to the always exciting task of writing program notes. This actually is a bit more interesting for me than is typical for my pieces, in that the piece actually requires some 'notes', or rather a 'User's Manual' describing how the score is to be used. i use the term 'used' rather than 'read' or 'interpreted' with some care, since the score requires a somewhat greater level of explanation than is usual; the work, Study for Etude, is in someways an expansion and clarification of some of the work that i've been doing on other pieces (in particular in Forks of Buffalo which was just premiered up at the ever filled Tenri Cultural Institute by the dynamite new outfit The Irving Lippel Project)and in may ways a sketch for a work A Book of Etudes, the fist form (or choir) of which will be performed by the Contemporary Music Forum in DC in November.Study is a mobile form in the classic sense, a piece of music (for want of a better term) which in different performances will consist of significantly different sounds. Speaking broadly, there are there sections of the work, and the order of many events in the 1st and 3rd sections of the work can happen in a variety of orders, and some 'sound events' may happen in one performance and not another. i will be posting more detailed descriptions of the structure of the piece, and perhaps copies of the score, if i manage to get it pretty enough.One thing that is fun about these kind of pieces for me is that they are difficult to write in very different ways from the ways in which more "closed" (stable might be a better word) pieces are difficult to write. For me, the question of proportion, and the relationship of proportion to form is always something to carefully consider, and i often simply audiate through a score to judge the balance (or imbalance) of things. Audiating through scores like Study is far more difficult, since there are quite literally hundreds of different possible proportions, and so making assessments as the success or failure of a particular draft of the work is tricky.I think that one thing that has drawn me to this approach to composition in the last few years is the extent to which these scores makes one think about musical "material" in a different light. When order of events (in particular), and temporal relationships (in general) are put into play, then the criteria for evaluating material change quite drastically. Given CMZ's interest in Adorno's theory of aesthetics and his consideration and reconsideration of what constitutes material, it's seems relevant to bring up in the context of this concert, in which the temporal relationship between material, whatever definition you use, are clearly in flux. Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and for me, an essential question about any technique or compositional strategy is what impact might it have on an audience. As further entries will explore (and as Study itself, hopefully, will demonstrate) my goal in music with these kinds of open structures in them is to make apparent the act of decision makers, to focus attention on the chain of interpersonal exchanges which we call performance, to allow people to listen not just to music, but to music being made.