Kyle Gann

A common Gann strategy is to set a rhythmic process in motion and use harmony (mostly triadic or seventh-chord-based, whether microtonal or conventional) to inflect the form and focus the listener's attention. Gann's microtonal music proceeds according to Harry Partch's technique of tonality flux, linking chords through tiny (less than a half-step) increments of voice-leading. In 2000, Gann studied jazz harmony with John Esposito, and began using bebop harmony as a basis for his non-microtonal music, even in contexts not reminiscent of jazz.

Afterward Gann worked as a journalist at the Chicago Reader, Tribune, Sun-Times, and New York Times. He was hired as music critic at The Village Voice in 1986, where he wrote a weekly column until 1997, and then less frequently until December 2005. Gann taught part-time at Bucknell University from 1989 to 1997. Since 1997, he has taught music theory, history, and composition at Bard College in upstate New York.

Starting in 1984 with his political piece The Black Hills Belong to the Sioux, Gann adopted a method of switching between different tempos (usually between quarter-notes, dotted eighths, triplet quarters, and other values) as a more performable alternative to the simultaneous layers at contrasting tempos that he had sought earlier under the influence of Charles Ives. Other composers had arrived at a similar technique via other routes, coalescing into a New York style of the 1980s and '90s called Totalism.

Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955 in Dallas, Texas) is an American professor of music, critic, analyst, and composer who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for The Village Voice (from November 1986 to December 2005) and other publications, he has supported progressive music, including such "downtown" movements as postminimalism and totalism.

Kyle Gann was born in 1955 and raised in a musical family. He began composing at the age of 13. After graduating in 1973 from Dallas' Skyline High School, he attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he obtained a B.Mus. in 1977 and Northwestern University, where he received his M.Mus. and D.Mus. in 1981 and 1983, respectively. As well as studying composition with Randolph Coleman at Oberlin, he also studied Renaissance counterpoint with Greg Proctor at the University of Texas at Austin. He studied composition primarily with Ben Johnston (1984–86) and Peter Gena (1977–81), and briefly with Morton Feldman (1975). In 1981-82 he worked for the New Music America festival.