Roi Nachshon

Organic principles in music composition: contemporary ideas of organicism in contemporary composition

Terms such as "Organicism", "Organic unity" and "Organic growth" have been used in reference to art since the days of ancient Greece. In music, such ideas have developed to form complete theoretical systems, most common in the 19th and early 20th century, which were designed mainly for tonal music or the tonal system, such as "thematicisim" by E.T.A Hoffman and Schenkerian Analysis by Heinrich Schenker.

Even though in the base of this research lie some major disagreements with many of the claims and ideas promoted by the aforementioned theories, it will share the main assumption of classical organicism that "...a work of art may be compared to a living organism, so that the relation between the parts of a work is neither arbitrary nor factitious, but as close and intimate as that between the organs of a living body." (from "New dictionary of the history of ideas" / Horowitz Maryanne Cline / Detroit, Mich. / Charles Scribner´s Sons / [2004] ). In agreement with that, it will also be claimed that such comparability is the result of human creativity following the logic of the physical environment, as they perceive it, due to the desire and tendency to use, manipulate, and emulate the logic of nature, being a major part of human mentality. Such perception, however is constantly subject to change, through modern science, technology, religion, mysticism and so on, and so will change the emulation.

The research therefore, will accept classical organicism as its traditional philosophical background, and will move forward with some major distinctions:
- References to organic ideas will be laid upon a solid understanding of relevant studies in modern science.
- Rather than on "organic unity" or "organic growth" the research will focus on one aspect of organic behavior, frequently encountered in "post-tonal" composition - the equilibrium between the integrity of a system and the independence of its members, or between "systematic obedience" and "free choice".
- In regards to the above distinction, organic references will not be applied only to the compositional result as most commonly done in classical organicism, but also, and more so, to the compositional process itself, as ideas such as the equilibrium mentioned above as well as many others will be most apparent there. The main goal of the research will be to eventually establish a compositional system or/and an array of compositional tools, aimed at supporting an organic-like compositional process and compositional output, backed up by solid understanding of contemporary scientific and theoretical ideas of organicism, and tried
out by practical compositional applications throughout its conduct.

*Keywords - compositional process, balance, interdependence, system´s integrity, differentiation.