Milton Babbitt’s Musical Tetris

ASSORTED SHOW NOTES/CORRECTIONS/ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: While there is not nearly enough character space to cite all of its constituent article names within the description, the volume "Playing (with) Babbitt in the 21st Century" (Contemporary Music Review, Volume 40, Issue 2-3) [ www.tandfonline.com/toc/gcmr20/40/2-3 ] was a significant source (especially for the first chapter of this video) and an excellent place for interested viewers to dive even deeper into Babbitt's music and cultural context. Of those articles, I especially recommend Joshua Banks Mailman's On Milton Babbitt: Progressive Artistic Research, Decorous Pranks, and Pig-Stand Jazz, Alison Maggart's Rethinking Babbitt’s ‘Serious’ Music as Play, Julia Glenn's The Private and Public Lives of a Lost Concerto: Milton Babbitt’s Concerti for Violin, Orchestra, and Synthesized Sound, and Joseph Dubiel's Pulling a Fast More-Than-One: Milton Babbitt’s Time-point Practice. For those interested in a one-stop shop of all of Babbitt's music, Erik Carlson's amazing album project, available to listen for free, has recently come to my attention: erikcarlson.bandcamp.com/album/slowly-expanding-mi… Those interested in exploring Babbitt's musical practices should definitely find a copy of Andrew Mead's book An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt. It's far more in-depth than this video, and even then only seems to scratch the surface of the stunning depth of Babbitt's work. If you're interested in the social politics of the early serial Babbitt, Martin Brody's article “‘Music for the Masses’: Milton Babbitt’s Cold War Music Theory is, again, a much more comprehensive look. I can't recommend all of these volumes enough. 0:26 – The support of patron Alice Wyan doubled the weight of this request! If you want to speed up the process of making certain videos, consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month. Patrons also cast tie breaking votes for equally-requested videos (which is why this one is on Babbitt and not Luciano Berio). 3:53 – Bauer taught at NYU starting in 1926, but 1930 was when she became a professor. 48:12 – No fewer, not no less. 52:40 – Non-superscript 7 or higher (i.e. any segment larger than a hexachord). 54:42 – Denis Smalley, not David. (Thanks to MJ L for pointing out this verbal typo.)

Babbitt's Intro to Contemporary Music proved him to be not just a musical genius but a comedic one as well. Babbitt was an incredibly funny lecturer and a true gentleman.

I always found it amazing that Stephen Sondheim studied with Babbitt.

i first came upon the music of milton babbitt when i was 14. i found it compelling. i also heard some of john cage's music, bach's music, and beethoven's music around the same time and found parts of their oeuvre very compelling as well. from my teen years through this day as i approach my sixty-first birthday, i find the value and aesthetic worth of all of these composers as being the same, i find that merzbow is equal in value to slipknot is equal in value to muse . . . as t.s. eliot said "the moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal duration." thank you for this description and discussion.

I saw Babbitt when he visited the University of Oregon in the early 1990s when soprano Susan Narucki sang one of his works for tape and voice. After his lecture, he happened over to the Mason and Hamlin piano in this room -- a building some distance from UO's School of Music -- and remarked "this is a really nice piano!" as he surprised us with a jazzy chord progression!

That Bach and forth between Babbitt and Bach tho had me laughing. Well put together.

There seems to be an ironic inverse effect in Babbitt's formation of his kind of musical environment: The more seemingly random the musical piece - the more thorough and intricate the codification is required to appropriately describe (or maybe decipher?) the piece.

Another excellent video waking my brain up in a way few YouTubers can match. We need people like you making this kind of educational content explaining things that are often times out of the way. It's very inspiring to me. Thank you.

18:15 just a quick correction, a huge bureaucratic system did invest in abstract expressionism in general and jackson pollock in particular

YAY!! Been looking forwrd to a new video!

Terrifically clear, thoroughly enjoyable presentation. Many thanks & bravo!

Thanks! I’m really impressed with your ability to express some pretty esoteric musical concepts in a clear and concise way. Your videos are my first choice for trying to share these ideas with others. Especially liked your video about dodecaphonic music and also the one about set theory, a subject that I wasn’t familiar with

I'm so happy to see someone give Babbitt a fair shake. If you ignore all the theory, his music is warm and humorous. Works like Aria da Capo, the Clarinet Quintet, Composition for Four Instruments are certainly NOT the cold idea of serialism we expect out of the style thanks to the misinterpretation of Webern as an aromantic (no doubt thanks to craft and boulez producing the driest interpretations ever)

Thanks man for the videos I really really really appreciate it.

Great lecture. Love Babbitt’s music. Performed several of his pieces. Well worth the effort to enter his musical world.

What a well-made and informative essay! Thank you.

Amazing video

Thank you for this!!

Milton Babbitt on Bandcamp. That’s really cool. And thanks for the video, of course! The last few sections especially

The best explanation of what's going on generally with modern classical music and in particular Babbitt's music I've ever heard. Superb. Many thanks for the effort you've put into this, Classical Nerd.