CONCERT MUSIC
1958
Music for Three Begins
audiotapes and mixing engineer
Four Chorales
sustaining keyboard and electronic sampling
How Things That Can’t Exist May Exist
ongoing collection of theater/street events:
The Yokonophone (with Phillip Krumm); Outdoors Music; A Singular Visit; Dramatis Personae; A Merry Overture; Second Merry Overture; Do Not Do What You Are Doing At This Very Moment (1958)
Inaugurations and Sainthoods (1960)
The All-American Serenade (1961)
Ballad 3, “ID of Stranded American Soldier Requiring Assistance” (1964)
Penniless Australian Is Crated, Flies Home In 63 Hours; Plan For An Auditory American (U.S.) Flag (1966)
Now That I Am 66 Years Old, A Retired Engineer, And At The End Of My Rope; Silent Sound; Silent Talk; Silent Sculpture; The News (1968)
“Blue” Gene Tyranny’s Genetic Transformations (#1, “Gay P.O.W. Returns from the War”; #2, “The Primeval Concert Pianist”); Random Arrest (circuit design) (1973)
The Margaret Mead Piece (1976)
1960
Ballad / The Road and Other Lines*
graph score for 1–40 instruments/voices
The Interior Distance
procedural score (acoustic/electronic/video)
realization for seven instruments/voices, 1990
1961
Piano Sonata on Expanding Thoughts*
1962
Meditation / The Reference Moves, The Form Remains
graph score
orchestration, 1963*
1963
Diotima
graph score*
tapes
Home Movie
film, tape, rock band
animated score on film
1965
Just Walk On In*
theater piece, graph score with pictures, clippings, etc.
1966
Closed Transmission
tape, IBM 7090 computer sound
1967
How to Make Music from the Sounds of Your Everyday Life
procedural score
Country Boy Country Dog
tape, double-mono tracks
The Bust
any kind of band, from music for Megan Terry’s Viet Rock
1968–71
The CBCD Transforms
mixes of electronic setups (natural sounds analyzed into electronic “intermediaries” or codes from which acoustic works are made)
1972
Music for Phil Harmonic’s Stars over San Francisco
lattice of melodies
How To Do It
intentionally incomplete procedural score
1974
Remembering
voice and electronics
procedural score
1976
A Letter from Home (cantata)
first version: voice, sampling chorus, harmonic/modal graphs, electronics (based on 1969 band piece)
final version: procedural score, 1986
No Job, No Warm, No Nothing
pop songs with sampling and phasing procedures
1976–83
Harmonic/melodic material and piano improvisations for Robert Ashley’s opera-for-TV Perfect Lives
1977
Archaeo-Acoustics (The Shining Net)
Harmonic Fields of Unknown Peoples and Mysterious Places
procedural score
taped demo
PALS / Action at a Distance
procedural score
The Telekinesis Tape
procedural score
videoscore
Taking out the Garbage
procedural score
videoscore
1978
Harvey Milk (Portrait)
Part 1: The Action, Part 2: The Feeling
tape
1979
The White Night Riot
tape
movement (dance)
1980
The Country Boy Country Dog Variations
for soloists and orchestra
The Country Boy Country Dog Concert
for improvisers and electronics
1981
The Intermediary
procedural score
realization for tapes (computer) and piano
1982
A Rendition of Stardust
tape
1984
The CBCD Intro
free canon (score)
realization for tape and piano
The More He Sings, The More He Cries, The Better He Feels – Tango
procedural score
realization for tape and piano
orchestration, 1985
1987
Somewhere in Arizona, 1970
procedural score with vocal lines
“Choral Ode 3” for Agamemnon
voice and electronics
Extreme Realizations Just Before Sunset (Mobile)
procedural score
realization for tape and piano
1988–89
The Forecaster
for orchestra and decoding choras with (optional) time-transporting keyboardist and solar response voice
Nocturne With and Without Memory
one or three pianos
1990
The Great Seal (Transmigration)
piano duo
My Language Is Me( Millennium)
voice and electronics
Vocal Responses During Transformation
voices with CBCD Transform mixes
Works-In-Progress:
Moments Before the Crash
music-theater work for five voices, orchestra, audio and video synthesis
The Keys (Keyboard Calculation Etudes)
Book I, Statements 1–64 (acoustic)
Book II, Statements 65–128 (electronic)
Parapsychological sound experiments (based on “live experiment” concerts in 1970s)
Re-creation of scores lost in 1975 fire (and marked * above)
Note: A procedural score for arrangers, improvisers, and composers contains essential materials and structures of the composition from which realizations are made for specific instruments / voices / theater, etc. A videoscore is a score “written” in a video format, with some accompanying printed material.
POP SONGS
1968
Wooden Nickels (instrumental)
1976
Leading a Double Life
Next Time Might Be Your Time
David Kopay (Portrait) (instrumental)
1981
The World’s Greatest Piano Player (instrumental)
The Song of the Street of the Singing Chicken (instrumental)
1982
In memory of Wilbur Stump, Inventor of the Piano Bar
(Also harmonies for “X-ray of a Star” by Ana Perez; for “Good Woman” by Pat Bova)
Selected Theater / Dance Scores
1961
Music for Franklin Haar’s poem “Night of the Tranquil Star”
1967
Viet Rock
play by Megan Terry, Ann Arbor prod.
1980
All the World’s a Stooge
theater piece by Pat Oleszko
1983
Barn Fever
dance by Timothy Buckley
Lou’s Dream
ballet by Jill Kroesen
1984
How to Swing a Dog
Breakneck Hotel
Over My Dead Body
dances by Timothy Buckley
1985
Re Room
Lucky Strike
theater pieces by The Otrabanda Company
The Bewildered Man’s Guide to Death
The Tourist Trap
dance/theater pieces by Timothy Buckley
Man with an Idea
Do This
dance videos by Timothy Buckley
1986
Return
play by The Otrabanda Company
Proximology
Reckless Reason
dances by Timothy Buckley
Inflation: The Air Apparent
theater piece by Pat Oleszko
1987
Western Screams
dance by Joanne Jensen
Willpower
dance by Rocky Bornstein
Heimlich Variations
Brain Café
Orange Grove (text by Sidney Goldfarb)
theater pieces by The Otrabanda Company
A Leap in the Dark
dance/theater piece by Timothy Buckley
1988
The History of Collage
dance by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane
Labor of Love
dance by Rocky Bornstein
Endance
dance video by Timothy Buckley
Confined to the Earth
dance by Timothy Buckley
Revel Without Claus
theater piece by Pat Oleszko
1989
Vision Obscured: A Circular Story
Double Your Pleasure
dances by Rocky Bornstein
The Malady of Death
play by Marguerite Duras, The Talking Band prod.
Surface
Quasi-Kinetics
theater pieces by The Otrabanda Company
Bluebeard’s Hassle
theater piece by Pat Oleszko
Selected Film / Video Scores
1966
This Is My Body
film by Andrew Lugg
1968
Portraits
film by George Manupelli
1972
Cry Dr. Chicago
film by George Manupelli (one scene only)
1975
My Son
episode in the video series Klahoya by Mary Ashley
1976
27 Bullets
film by Kenn Beckman
33 Yoyo Tricks
film by David white
Black Forest Trading Post
L’invasion printaniere
films by Andrew Lugg
1977
Nudes Reel
film by Pat Oleszko
Rocky Road to Freedom
Restoration Rag
films by Kenn Beckman
1980
Condom Sense
Tamika’s Birth
educational shorts by Videograph, Inc., San Francisco
Footsie
film by Pat Oleszko
I Was a Teenage Assassin for the CIA
film by Sally Kellman
1981
The Song of the Street of the Singing Chicken
video by Kenn Beckman
1983
Perfect Lives
an opera-for-television by Robert Ashley in seven episodes; composition of harmonic/melodic structures and piano improvisations
Love Letters
arrangement of piano music by Ralph Jones; film by Amy Jones
The Crack of Dawn
computerized slideshow demo of film project by Philip Makanna
1985
Atalanta Strategy
computerized slideshow by Robert Ashley and Lawrence Brickman
1986
Tool Jest
film by Pat Oleszko
1987
Clean Machine
video by Kenn Beckman
Midnight Climax
film by Sally Kellman
Daylight Savings
computerized slideshow by Lawrence Brickman
1988
Timothy Buckley: All Over the Place, Excerpts 1984–87
video by Kenn Beckman and Timothy Buckley
Endance
dance video by Timothy Buckley and John Sanborn
1989
Little Red
Free Little Pig
films by Pat Oleszko
Links to:
SONIC TRANSPORTS: “Blue” Gene Tyranny Contents
SONIC TRANSPORTS: Contents
For more on “Blue” Gene Tyranny, see:
Music Book: Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, Second Edition
Music Book: Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers
Music Essay: You Can Always Go Downtown
Music Essay: 88 Keys to Freedom: Segues Through the History of American Piano Music by “Blue” Gene Tyranny
Music Lecture: “Intense Purity of Feeling”: Béla Bartók and American Music
Music: Radio Show #6, Postmodernism, part 3: Three Contemporary Masters
More Cool Sites To Visit! – Music
And be sure to read David Bernabo’s book Just for the Record: Conversations with and about “Blue” Gene Tyranny
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 