Mandala Music

Sara Stovall

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Miles, Stephen

Keywords

Experimental Music, Graphical Notation, Mandala, Yantra, Composition, Performance Theory

Area of Concentration

Music

Abstract

Mandala Music is a series of eight graphically-notated scores. Seven scores are thematically grounded in elements of traditional music notation; the last is intended to be purely abstract. The scores� circular forms reflect both compositional and performative processes that draw on the sacred and secular art form of the mandala. In Buddhist and Hindu traditions, mandalas were used as visual guides for meditation rituals. Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung brought the mandala into Western consciousness through his research with mandala-drawing as a tool for expressing, exploring, and potentially healing the human psyche.Performers from any background are invited to explore the scores of Mandala Music with any instrument or performance medium they choose. The composition does not include explicit instructions for performance, instead leaving it to the performer to determine what it means to "play" the image. One set of verbal directions guides �PhaseI� of the composition, which is the individual interpretation process. A second set of directions guides �Phase II,� a process by which groups of performers expand solo readings of a mandala-score through improvisatory performance. Mandala Music taps into a rich�albeit fairly new�practice of using unconventional notation to create indeterminate musical scores, which are meant for socially-conscious performances. Works such as December 1952 by Earle Brown, Treatise by Cornelius Cardew, and Sonic Meditations by Pauline Oliveros all inform this project. The composition focuses on the development of personally meaningful performances, the nature of individual artistry, and performance as a venue for social discourse.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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