Bote & Bock
Melate Binario (1995, revised 2009) for solo guitar is a composition aimed at resolving the dispute between dodecaphony and diatonicism, using the binary system and the popular lottery game Melate. Faced with the dilemma of being able to use the 12 notes beyond the limits of the scales, but having to stick to a strict order, as 12 tone system demands, or being able to choose the preferred order within a small set of notes, as tonal music allows, I found that both languages share the possibility of achieving equally affective music.
So, the odd pages, which when expressed in the binary system always end in 1, are almost identical of the even pages ending in 0, except that the odd ones are dodecaphonic (using 12 notes) and the even ones are diatonic (using only between 6 and 8).
Before starting the concert, a Melate Binario ticket is given out to people to fill out and place their names on. The ticket has 8 boxes that must be marked, either with a 0 or a 1. Each box implies the choice of one of two pages; 1 or 2, 3 or 4, 5 or 6, etc. The total pages to choose from is 8, so the number of possible versions of the work is: 28 =256
During the interval, the tickets must be collected in a transparent urn, so that right before the performance it will be brought onstage for the performer to take a ticket in plain view of the audience, read the resulting combination and announce the name of the winner, dedicating to him or her the performance of the chosen version. Afterwards, to be able to read the music, the score is organized selecting odd pages when the digit marked is 1 and even pages it is 0.
Example:
In this example, the digits 11100000 were marked, which indicates that, from 1 and 2, the odd pages was chosen, from 3 and 4, the odd one, from 5 and 6, the odd one, form 7 and 8, the even one, and so on.
Pages chosen = 11100000 (odd, odd, odd, even, even, even, even, and even)
Pages chosen = 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16.
To find out the version number, the resulting binary number has to be converted to a decimal system.
1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | (number in binary system) |
27 | 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | (powers of the base) |
128 | +64 | +32 | +0 | +0 | +0 | +0 | +0 | (sum of the powers selected) |
128 + 64 + 32 = 224th version
Gonzalo Salazar, guitar
CON005 "antagónica"