Compositional Thinking

Compositional Thinking includes Pellegrino's examples, essays, and recommendations that go well beyond the practice of compositional materialism and traditional music notation into the areas of real-time composition, systems design, and cultivating and living in a compositional attitude. The information in this section of the site is accessible through either of two lists, a Titles List and a Dated Annotated List (latest posts first). Via the description links of the sections called Ron Pellegrino's Music Samples and Ron Pellegrino's Video Excerpts, there's considerable information about the thought processes that led to the compositions.

Titles List

An Instrument's Voice
Animated Laser Visual Music Meditations

Book by Ron Pellegrino, THE ELECTRONIC ARTS OF SOUND AND LIGHT
Book by Hazrat Inayat Khan, THE MYSTICISM OF SOUND AND MUSIC
Book by the Swiss physicist Han Jenny, CYMATICS

Compositional Algorithms As Cyberspirit Attractors
Compositional Field-tests

Discovering, Cultivating, and Using Your Own Voice

Ephemeral Forms: Mother Musing's Flight Patterns

Graphical Groove: Memorium for a Visual Music System

The iota Exchanges - Set 1
The iota Exchanges - Set 2
The iota Exchanges - Set 3
The iota Exchanges - Set 4

Levels of Algorithmic Composition

Matrix Alignment
Metabiosis V : A Light, Sound, and Audience Environment
Metaesthetics issues, topic epi-centers, ideas, and attractors satellite page
Metaesthetics List

Omnimedia On The Road

Patterns of Nature: Rhythms of Life
Performance-multimedia
Playing Free of the Box
Principles for Learning to Compose with Sound and Light

Sample Residencies and Performance Events
Samples of Pellegrino's Music Compositions
Searching for a Balance of Sound and Silence
Study 6 - Keb, a video excerpt of one of the 10 studies included on the first two DVD volumes of the Visual Music Studies DVD Series.

The Crevices of Audio Compression
The Unison, a video excerpt from Visual Music Meditations

Video excerpts of Pellegrino's visual music compositions
Visual Music Studies DVD Series

Why the world should care about sonification.

Dated Annotated List

July 19, 2003. An essay entitled The Crevices of Audio Compression that examines the reality of musical values relative to audio compression algorithms.
July 11, 2003. The first installment of materials from a recent project called the Visual Music Studies DVD Series including descriptions and explanatory notes from the first two DVD volumes entitled Pythagoras & Pellegrino In Petaluma. A video excerpt, called Study 6 - Keb, of one of the 10 studies included on the first two DVD volumes of the Visual Music Studies DVD Series. An increase by a factory of 4 of the image size of the video excerpts available on this site.
March 7, 2002. A set of three expository posts to the Metaesthetics List on the subject of Matrix Alignment, an approach to systems analysis and communication in the electronic arts.
June 1, 2001. Two excerpts from music composed in 2001 - from The Unison and The Deb Fox Heterophonic Alchemical Tours.
April 24, 2001. The "Metaesthetics issues, topic epi-centers, ideas, and attractors" satellite page, a working list taken from posts by participants in the The Metaesthetics List.
April 12, 2001. Metaesthetics List devoted to the exploration, development, and articulation of metatheories of the electronic arts of sound and light that include an integrative approach to music, dynamic visual art, established technology, emerging technology, metaphysics, psychophysics, psychology, mathematics, sociology, communications theory, ancient knowledge, emerging knowledge, and any other related branch of human learning and searching.
March 26, 2001. The Unison, a video excerpt from Visual Music Meditations. An example of music and imagery derived from the same set of stereo wavetrains.
February 13, 2001. A set of three excerpts from a current visual music video project, The Deb Fox Heterophonic Alchemical Tours.
November 20, 2000. An essay on Compositional Field-tests.
November 14, 2000. Another video excerpt: Cynthia's Dream
September 16, 2000. Another video excerpt: Winter Reflections
September 12, 2000. A new section of the web site devoted to video excerpts of Pellegrino's visual music work. The first post is Feedback: Liquid Light.
August 28, 2000. Another set of iota exchanges covering the ideas of oscilloscopic imagery, atonality, non-linear behavior, Mickey Mouse sync, multimodal experience, nonsense, and tracking Glass and Reich..
August 14, 2000. An extension to the Discovering, Cultivating, and Using Your Own Voice essay called An Instrument's Voice.
July 19, 2000. Another set of iota exchanges covering the ideas of synesthesia, mapping, symbolic logic, THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES, and NTSC video.
July 17, 2000. A new set of performance-multimedia images from framegrabs of Pellegrino's video work in a University of Wisconsin performance in September of 1999. Thumbnail link sets are found on the Sample Program 1 - Collaborative Event page.
July 12, 2000. An essay entitled Omnimedia On The Road drawn from my experiences of taking my performance-multimedia shows on the road.
June 26, 2000. Another music sample - Laser Seraphim - Fast
June 24, 2000. Another music sample - Phoenix 73 Duet.
June 23, 2000. Another music sample - ETT/Y.
June 21, 2000. Another music sample - On-Seeing Figure from Markings.
June 8, 2000. Another music sample - Cymatic Sail.
June 1, 2000. Another music sample - HootNShake.
May 28, 2000. Another music sample - Windswept.
May 26, 2000. Another music sample - Cynthia's Dream.
May 19, 2000. Another music sample - Winter Reflections.
May 17, 2000. Another music sample - S&H Explorations for Bb Clarinet and ARP 2600 Synthesizer.
May 11, 2000. A new section of the web site devoted to samples of Pellegrino's music compositions.
October 12, 1999. Some Sample Residencies and Performance Events including a three-day residency, a five-day residency, a mostly solo concert, and a collaborative performance-multimedia event.
August 21, 1999. The iota Exchanges, a set of email exchanges from the iota discussion group on subjects that are related to the visual music and compositional thinking sections of this site. iota is an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the art of light and movement.
August 15, 1999. A follow-up exchange to Playing Free of the Box, my first response to some remarks by Stephen Malinowski in reference to issues that surfaced by way of my participation in a day long gathering of music visualizers on July 11, 1999.
July 21, 1999. Playing Free of the Box, my response to some remarks by Stephen Malinowski in reference to issues that surfaced by way of my participation in a day long gathering of music visualizers on July 11, 1999.
May 16, 1999. Principles for Learning to Compose with Sound and Light, an extension of the essay on Discovering, Cultivating, and Using Your Own Voice.
October 29, 1998. A link to Laurie Spiegel's essay - Graphical Groove: Memorium for a Visual Music System. She discusses her work with VAMPIRE (Video And Music Program for Interactive Realtime Exploration/Experimentation) as well as her approach to developing intelligent instruments and compositional algorithms.
October 26, 1998. The first installment of an extended essay on Compositional Algorithms As Cyberspirit Attractors.
October 12, 1998. A short statement on the Levels of Algorithmic Composition written in response to an email message.
September 16, 1998. Some thoughts on Why the world should care about sonification.
August 6, 1998. A recommendation for composers of sonic and visual music to study a book by the Swiss physicist Han Jenny, Cymatics.
June 29, 1998. A strong recommendation for composers of sonic and visual music to study a book by Hazrat Inayat Khan, THE MYSTICISM OF SOUND AND MUSIC.
March 5, 1998. An email message on Searching for a Balance of Sound and Silence originally posted to the quiet-list forum.
November 27, 1997. A description of the system and process used to create Animated Laser Visual Music Meditations, a recently completed set of performance-multimedia pieces.
May 27, 1997. An extensive set of excerpts from my book on The Electronic Arts of Sound and Light that cover the subjects of performance-multimedia, visual music, and real-time composition.
March 1997 - An essay on Discovering, Cultivating, and Using Your Own Voice. The principles apply to any creative work, including music composition.
November 1996 - An essay on Patterns of Nature: Rhythms of Life. Written for the January 1997 Ylem Newletter; appears there in a highly abbreviated version.
October 1996 - A composer's statement on real-time composition that I wrote for my participation in the New Music America: a festival organized by Walker Art Center, on June 7-15, 1980 in Minneapolis.
October 1996 - An essay on real-time composition, Ephemeral Forms: Mother Musing's Flight Patterns , from my second book, The Electronic Arts of Sound and Light (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983)
June 1996 - Real-time composition in Performance-multimedia, an integration of music, dance, and performance videography.
April 1996 - Metabiosis V : A Light, Sound, and Audience Environment. An example of a very early algorithmic composition.

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