1. “Gesture” means something

What does “gesture” mean? Google it.

What does “gesture” imply about a musical sound?

2. Effective gestures are simple but interesting

Simplicity and complexity in gestures

Mozart, Piano sonata No. 16, K. 545 (1788) (listen for the up/down scale runs—where are they going?)

In what quantifiable parameters can a musical gesture exist?

Rachmaninov, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Variation 8 (1934)

Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, mvt. 1 (1936) (skip along to points between 0:00 and 4:20)

Britten, Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, section H: Double basses (1946)

3. My favorite gesture

Stockhausen, Kontakte (1960)

• The score p. 19b
• The recording

1. Traditional ways: what’s vibrating? How does sound start?

Ways of classifying musical instruments

Hornbostel-Sachs classification system

2. Scientific classifications

Quantifiable ways of describing sound in terms of frequency, amplitude envelope, spectrum, etc.

More subjective, expressive ways of describing sound

A composition with a nice variety of isolated sounds to try describing: Varèse, Poème Électronique (1958)

3. Pictograms

Also called graphic scores or graphic notation. See examples here.

This tutorial by Blue Rooms shows how to make a pad pulse to the beat using a compressor with a bass drum as its sidechain input. This technique is pervasive in dance music and can be disorienting, hypnotic, or nauseating depending on how you use it. At the end of the video he shows how you can use a gate instead of a compressor to carve rhythms out of a sustained pad.

I mentioned some of Frank Zappa’s warped collages of recorded voice and instrumental passages. The piece I specifically mentioned was “Are You Hung Up?” from We’re Only In It for the Money (1968). In the context of the discussion, though, I was really thinking of so many of his recordings that are obscured because they’re awkwardly-miked live recordings, e.g. “The Old Curiosity Shoppe” on Finer Moments (1972/2012). The latter half of “Flower Punk” from We’re Only In It for the Moneyis an example of the extensive static-but-agitated moments he builds. Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music (1975) lends itself better to moment listening as I was discussing it.

I also mentioned Bill Frisell for his reputation for placid textures and recent use of loopers to build them. Here are a couple videos of him demonstrating some of his techniques:

• http://www.npr.org/event/music/146156479/bill-frisell-tiny-desk-concert
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQtZeNSyY4

“Years” (2012) by Alesso and Matthew Koma was brought up as an example of effectively using layers of narrative sounds overtop an already fully-featured musical passage with a strong structure of its own. In your work, you’ll of course need to focus on the listenability over danceability (i.e., music for ears and attention, not the dance floor), but this video includes several useful moments to serve as “case studies,” including multiple layers of independent musical passages laid over each other.