This thesis has the purpose of demonstrating that to explore and investigate profoundly, and then to synthesise, a wide range of ideas leads to an enrichment of musical language. The more ideas are tested to their extremes, by extending them, opposing their preconditions, challenging them and transgressing predefined limits, the more extreme, and therefore profound, the investigations and explorations will be. The widest range of ideas reflects open-mindedness to the greatest number of possibilities. Synthesis represents coherence, the absorption and understanding of the ideas, and the potential for communication in a clear manner. This testing and then absorption, probing and then synthesising, is central to all human progress. By applying this method to music, and by possible implication to the other arts, the sciences and to other aspects of life (including politics), enrichment in the form of an extension of knowledge and awareness will be made possible.
I show in six recent compositions which are the results of this research complex networks of synthesised interrelationships. The compositions stand as statements and symbols of the attempt at open-minded questioning that led to their creation. I introduce several new techniques into musical composition, attempts at further enrichment and complexity. Finally I show that it is possible to extend such synthesis even further, through the input of ideas from elsewhere, in this case the visual arts, theatre and film.
