Cowell, Henry

In Cowell's earliest period (up to the 1930s) his music demonstrates his own self-taught technique and inventiveness. He began composing as a child and, as a teenager, was using experimental techniques such as tone clusters . For example, in The Tides of Manaunaun (1912) tone clusters with hand and forearm were used to evoke the sound of the waves. In 1914, he began his formal training with Charles Seeger (1886–1979), who encouraged him to develop a system of notation for...