Gordon Mumma

with Vincent Plush

Santa Cruz, California

May 17, 1982

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side a                                                                                                                         pp. 1-24

Early family life, growing up in Framingham, Mass.--genealogy--music in the family--hearing Koussevitzky/BSO rehearsals--Archie  Mumma--hymms, and learning about Amy Beach--taking up the horn--studying with Kenneth Schultz in public school and at  Interlochen--Homer Keller, first composition and theory  teacher--trouble in high school for playing Stan Kenton--leaving high school early, and on to University of Michigan--composition seminars with Ross Lee Finney--interest in 20th century poetry.

Side b                                                                                                                                    pp. 24-49

First technological tinkerings--resources during WW II--neighbor's magnetic wire recorder--studying acoustics with Roderick Dean Gordon--early composing for theater--“the cultural periphery of Ann Arbor"--Milton Cohen and electronic music recordings--Stockhausen pieces--Ussachevsky's pieces-influence of Varèse's music--1960 Stratford Festival--Roberto Gerhard--music for Ionesco's The Bald Prima Donna--serial-chromatic counterpoint--Ruth Crawford Seeger--keyboard music--Vectors--Sound Blocks--Sinfonia--A Quarter of Fourpiece.

Side c                                                                                                                         pp. 49-72

Indeterminacies in compositions--Feldman's work as model--Percival Price, carillonneur, and Etude on Oxford Changes--Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music-- Robert Ashley--George Manupelli--film The Image in Time--Roger Reynolds, Bob James, Blue Gene Tyranny, Philip Crumb--Space Theater performances--Cohen's studio--ONCE Group--Venice Biennale, 1964--Luigi Nono--Music for the Venezia Space Theater (first recording)--audience reactions--article “The ONCE Festival and How It Happened,” origins of ONCE--Berio, Berberian, and Circles ensemble--Paul Jacobs playing Copland, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Boulez--Meanwhile, a Twopiece and Suite for piano--Gestures II--La Monte Young--University of Michigan's non-participation.

Side d                                                                                                                                    pp. 72-96

Offspring of ONCE--Lovely Music--collective pieces: Kitty Hawk and Unmarked Interchanges--job at Department of Acoustics and Seismics: earthquakes and nuclear explosions--wave patterns--Mographs--circuit diagram for Medium Size Mograph, 1962--notation--definition and explanation of cybersonic--Megaton, for William Burroughs--The Dresden Interleaf 13 February 1945--Peasant Boy and Bob James's Jazz Trio--Horn and Second Horn--Hornpipe; Burdock Festival, 1969--further cybersonics--Hornpipe recording; Mainstream records-Le Corbusier--Sequences from Galleries--composer with Merce Cunningham Dance Company--Cage and Tudor--Mesa-the bandoneon--Oliveros--Cunningham/Cage collaboration: Variations V.

Side e                                                                                                                         pp. 96-119

Mesa as music for Cunningham's Place--commissions and funding--Cunningham touring--Telepos--myoelectrics, telemetry belts, and accelerometers--Beam--composing for Cunningham’s T.V. Rerun--Cunningham's extraordinary metabolism--collaborations with Cage and Tudor: Signals and Land Rover, and a film soundtrack, Assemblage--Loops--Cybersonic Cantilevers and public participation--Sonic Arts Union: Ashley, Behrman, Lucier--Ben Patterson--Diastasis, as in Beer--Ambivex--Calm Death in Phu Quac-Vietnam--Consiracy 8--I Saw Her Dance--composing residencies, 1968-1974--Pepsi-Cola 1970 World's Fair Pavilion--Automation House--Theodore Kheel--Robert Rauschenberg--Darmstadt--Lecture: "Cybersonics, Witchcraft, and Folkloric Virtuosity"--Henderson.

Side f                                                                                                                         pp. 122-145

Interest in South American Music--Corso Latino Americano de Musica Contemporanea--Latin American students--technology, and the social, political, and historical circumstances--Conlon Nancarrow--collaboration: Music of Conlon Nancarrow--Nancarrow at the 1982 Cabrillo Festival--appointment as professor of Music, U.C., Santa Cruz-U.C., Santa Cruz Music Department faculty--students--Equale: Zero Crossing--keyboard writing--Eleven-Note Pieces--Decimal Passacaglia--Los Desaparecidos--Passenger Pigeon 1776-1976--Earheart, with Jan McCauley and Tom Robbins--Echo-BCD--Pontpoint (“one of my favorite pieces"), with Cirque Dance Company--recent work, recording older work, and Six-Pack Sonatas--Faustian relationship with academia.