Prologue to the End of Time

Gospel great Goldia Haynes performs Fire.

It seems a bit surreal to end this song about The Book of Revelations with a piano flourish and applause, and it makes me think of the audience reception to pieces like the Quartet for the End of Time. Is it appropriate to clap, really? Did they clap after the premier in Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz, Germany on January 15, 1941?

Improvised Laughter

My compositional style has turned largely towards improvisation in the past 3 years or so. Along with the influence of my buddy Sean, improvisation has revealed more depth to the music I've always loved, as well as the music I've wished to create. I have a catalog of improvised recordings on my computer that have been kept relatively private. I suppose that their spiritual connotations have kept these pieces close, without any attachment to the ambition that a composing career demands. And although this blog is public, I also consider it something of a private space.

Sean and I have been playing as a duo under the name Mad Man's Laughter. We began playing in what was once a tool shed - later a very redroom just big enough for one pieced together drum set and a large theater organ. The sound of the organ pumping through a lopsided but virile leslie speaker was a powerful sound, no doubt. So much that we were convinced that this music would be "ecstatic gospel" if anything at all.

A year has passed since this recording was made. The house was sold, the shed emptied. Our organ was too big to move, so it was put to sleep. Piece by piece, we took it apart - hoping to salvage the leslie. I've never felt nostalgia for an instrument before, but my feelings for that organ are pretty close. I'm sad that it's gone. I have since bought an old hammond, an old rhodes, but it's not the same. One day I will be an old man searching the internet, willing to pay any price for that same organ.

This track is called Mad Man's Laughter. Clearly one of our ecstatic improvisations. There are some mild hoots and hollers to prove it. More to come.

Virtually Bergson

nature movie
eco resort
elephant god

Here is a musing on the nature of abstraction or virtual reality. I think the question is: as nature is abstracted more and more, and children are raised without directly contacting the non-man-made world, will they mistake abstraction for truth? Or will intuition thirst for the unknown experience of realization? Is intuition truly a human connection to the absolute continuum of reality? Will branches always break through concrete?

Inotherwords:

Although it doesn't seem theoretically possible to recreate nature in fully realized virtual form with any fewer elements than what make up its actual form, is it possible that human senses are limited and will at some point not recognize the shortcomings of virtual form?

I guess my fundamental belief says no. Does that make me a Bergsonian?

The demonstrations of the relativity of our knowledge are contaminated by an original fault: like the dogmatism they attack, they suppose that all knowledge must necessarily start from concepts with a rigid contour in order to reach flowing reality with them. But to tell the truth, our intelligence can follow the opposite process. It can lower itself into moving reality, assume its ever-changing direction, and, in short, grasp it by means of that intellectual sympathy called intuition.
=Henri Bergson from Introduction a la Metaphysique

Embedded Music!

I have been moonlighting as a theater "sound designer" for the past year or so. I'm not sure what I think of the title "sound designer" since really I think a more accurate term is "mini-composer." I end up writing about 20-30 original pieces per show, each one between 30 seconds and 1.5 minutes. A sound designer can be mistaken for cuing doorbells, rain, and crickets. Ok, that's not true anyhow. The sound design to Stalker was one of the most brilliantly ticklish auditory experiences I've had in a long time.

Anyway, although it's not "serious" music, I try to bring compositional aesthetic to the table. Composing for theater can be a bit fun, particularly the bit of collaborating with non-musicians.* There are without a doubt countless obstacles and compromises in theatrical music, but I've found that I enjoy working within certain confines from time to time.

My first solo project was for The Wilma Theater's production of Brecht's Life of Galileo. The sets were bare wood and steel, evoking Galileo's story through the lens of an oppressed Eastern European 1940s society. Choosing the most obvious solution then, I decided to compose music using primarily percussive sounds on wood and steel. The result was interesting - a combination of Reich-like rhythmic effects with a certain rustic production quality. As an added bonus, the music was very well received. The production was reviewed by Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal but unfortunately there was no comment on music. Maybe next time an Alex Ross type should join the audience and offer a bit of perspective on the potential of a modern compositional element to today's live theater.

My second production was a US premier of Lisa Griffiths' Age of Arousal, also produced by the Wilma Theater. The play was inspired by George Gissing's progressive victorian novel The Odd Women. I read the set as a psychedelic Victorian parlor with its over-sized floral wallpaper and hints of eastern exoticism lining the lingerie. There was a sense of nature's urge for creation bubbling just below the surface as the modern women considered their intellectual, spiritual, and sexual roles in post-imperialist British society. Typewriters, commerce, and lesbianism abound, but the music was mostly inspired by a sensual undercurrent not least of which was highlighted visually by a giant floral arrangement that stretched over one-third of the stage.

Best of all was that Blanka, the director of both shows, decided to choreograph the scene transitions with intricate ballets of characters and sets moving. The transitions were always exciting and gave the music a chance to fulfill a worthwhile lifecycle without any fade-outs(!).

I've discovered a way to embed music files to this blog - so this is a test to see if it works. Track 1 is from The Life of Galileo, serving as a segue from the industrialist, socialist sensibilities of Brecht's Galileo to the aristocratic ball scene where the Grand Inquisitor is first introduced.

The second track from Age of Arousal is the introduction of victorian psychedelic beauty as walls open up to reveal a young bachelor courting a beautiful debutante on a stroll through some London park. I bought a 1972 Fender Rhodes and an out of tune piano at the used furniture store to create the atmosphere. The tape delay was also a favorite post production tool of mine.

The third track introduces Act II of Age of Arousal. The scene is entitled Impressionism - the characters are walking through the first exhibit of this new art form in a London gallery.

The fourth is the final scene of Age of Arousal, titled Garden, when the cycle of death and re-birth come to full realization in a beautifully lit (slightly psychedelic) garden. The internet provided the birds - I guess I modeled the short track on Messiaen and some freejazz solos. Enjoy!

*except when everything outside of classic tonality is considered "creepy" or "sinister"

Folk

As our folk culture expands throughout the interwebs, google video maintains its massing snowball presence. Unofficial music videos made by music fans show up from time to time with something real to contribute. I've posted a fan-made video to Leaf House, one of my favorite songs by Animal Collective - the psych folk pop mod prog downtown indie boy band of the year (s).

Symbols of Enough

Now summer has passed,
As if it had never been.
It is warm in the sun.
But this isn't enough.

All that might have been,
Like a five-cornered leaf
Fell right into my hands,
But this isn't enough.

Neither evil nor good
Had vanished in vain,
It all burnt with white light,
But this isn't enough.

Life took me under its wing,
Preserved and protected,
Indeed I have been lucky.
But this isn't enough.

Not a leaf had been scorched,
Not a branch broken off. . .
The day wiped clean as clear glass,
But this isn't enough.

= Arseny Tarkovsky (as used by Andrei Tarkovsky in Stalker)

Projected Anger Makes Me Mad

I played the guess the composer game while listening to the last few minutes of an orchestral piece on the radio driving home from the grocery store.

A symphonic work
Sounds like the last movement of 4 movement form
Well, definitely a romantic - german sounds like
But i don't know it... kinda familiar.
No, don't know it - could this be a neo-romantic?
It's way too indulgent - how dare a neo-romantic demand this much empathy from me?
Oh man I'm pissed - this is ridiculous
If this is a Juilliard teacher...
What a sentimental asshole.
The academic scene is such bs.
Ok, that part was good - surprisingly -
What form is this anyway? It's like the transcendentalists.
What does this guy know about transcendentalism?
I am pissed off!
Ok that part was kind of interesting.
But it's mostly bad!
This is total shit and I'm tired of it. Who is it?

Final movement of Mahler 10.

for the record: Mahler 10 is mostly awesome.

Children of Parsifal

Really - how awesome are the handheld camera single shot-sequences in this Parsifal clip!? The lighting is pretty badass too. Alfonso Cuarón eat your heart out.

And is that The Seventh Seal mysteriously slipped in at the 7:07 mark?

Is it serious?

The video includes a lecture by Alan Watts on a number of wonderful subjects - but the subject that inspired me to post this video is not one he addresses (at least not directly). I was jogging when I first listened to this lecture as a podcast. The first minute went by and I had to stop running to catch my breath - I was laughing too much. Why was I laughing? Alan Watts wasn't making jokes, or ironic references, or anything "funny." But nevertheless, something was humorous.

Watts asks a simple question. Is existence serious? He also can't help but laugh after asking this question - as you hear in the video. What is so funny about this??

Henri Bergson wrote an interesting treatise called Laughter. Anyway, enjoy Mr. Watts - and I highly recommend downloading the Watts podcasts on itunes - They're Free!

Shamanistic Hunting

David Attenborough narrates a phenomenal documentation of traditional Kalahari hunting.

Considered one of the most ancient hunting techniques, this "persistence hunt" originated before weapons were invented. The hunter uses tracking skills and trance induced intuition to simply run down the animal until exhaustion finally forces the animal to surrender after 8 hours in the African heat. Once the animal has collapsed, the hunter begins a killing ritual which includes staying close and comforting the animal until it dies. This ritual ensures that the spirit returns safely to the desert so the cycle of reincarnation is properly maintained.

Slogans of Our Time

An old woman throws her crutches to the ground - "Change made me walk again!"

A billionaire swims in his pool of golden coins - "Change made me rich!"

A small child clutches her kitten to her chest - "Change brought Buttons down from the tree!"

Our contemporary political slogans have yet to achieve the true universality of phrases like "Uh huh" but at least campaigns of the future give us something to look forward to...

Harmony of Overwhelming and Collective Murder

Herzog riffs on nature in the jungle during a scene in the fine, fine Les Blank documentary: Burden of Dreams.

I thought it might be a fair balance to the articulation of life on Earth as sounded in the post below...

Kebyar

... is a Balinese word that roughly translates to "the process of flowering." What a wonderful concept; certainly a word to be used by a particularly creative civilization. Since my student days "the process of flowering" has been one of my favorite sounds in all music - so much so that I began to listen to flowering motifs as functional elements in their own rite.

Of course in Balinese music, Kebyar is one of the most popular styles of playing. Sudden flashes of metallophones begin and end with buzzings of nature oozing through cracks of the gamelan’s silence. I imagine the act of creation on a chemical level, full of explosions and violence and mystery. Organic compounds and pollen and fertilization and zygotes and sun and soil and overwhelming growth...
I think I need to post Herzog’s jungle fever after this one…

Century of the Self

I watched this BBC Adam Curtis series last year (along with his other tantalizing documentaries) and have since had much more sophisticated conspiracy fodder for those slow days at the office.

Basically Curtis identifies the history of what has become an outright science of commercialized psychology led by Freud's nephew - the handsome, charming Eddie Bernays. My favorite citations are Betty Crocker's egg scheme, and the "freedom sticks" otherwise known as ciggies. Sit back, grab yourself a box of Kix, and enjoy the show.

P.S. this is part 1 of 4. Check out the others on gvid

Those Poor Pidgeons

Sheldrake goes off on some homing pidgeons. If you have time, its not a bad Sunday afternoon spent watching the whole Glorious Accident posted on blip.tv.

SO who do we have here?

Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, Daniel Dennet, Freeman Dyson, Stephen Toulmin, and Rupert Sheldrake have a fine conversation over a meal and some hookah.

Check out the hilarious laughs of Dyson and Sacks. Oh man great time.

Stromatolites

sometime, to name a few,
we go back
oh, now i remember

that somewhere, in plain view,
a voice sustains
to whichever number

and if then, by some meager virtue
the havenots supplicate you

go back
go back
go back
go back
go back
go back
go back

hymn

insipid beguiling protest
in case of fire
repeatedly languishing selfish
form over style
having it sewn on
is seen to be trying
rather informally
time's underlying
lesson in taking our rhythms back home with you
listen to eating, aging, and dying

Cudamani

I'm about to trek out of the house to see Cudamani perform for the second time today. The first performance here in Philadelphia, around 2pm, was taken in with very high expectations. I've long claimed to my friends and peers that gamelan is among the highest of human arts. Let alone their responses, I mean to say that my feelings for gamelan encompass nearly every branch of my own artistic ideals. If I had to compare my discovery of gamelan to some other much desired western discovery, I would say it is the missing link in human evolution, or better yet, the unifying theory to the physical forces of nature. OK, slight exaggeration... slight. More accurately, I'm mystified and inspired by the spiritual, metaphysical, physical, practical, musical, natural, timelessness of the sounds. Doth I protest too much?

The effect of gamelan on the western composer has become something of mythical proportions. Debussy is of course the most famous example, especially the story of his exposure to Javanese gamelan in the 1889 Paris World's Fair. To my surprise, I couldn't find many of Debussy's thoughts on gamelan recorded, but I did find this ditty:

"There used to be-- indeed, despite the troubles that civilization has brought, there still are-- some wonderful peoples who learn music as easily as one learns to breathe. Their school consists of the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and a thousand other tiny noises, which they listen to with great care, without ever having consulted any of those dubious treatises." (Debussy on Music, trans. Richard Langham Smith, [New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977], quoted in Tamagawa, p. 22)

UPDATE:
I was awarded the Independence Foundation Fellowship. I'm going to Bali this summer --shhhh don't tell anyone yet. I have to figure out what to say at the old nine-to-fiver. Maybe it's time to move on, ya know. To really become an artist - leave the 40 hour week behind for an 80 hour week of composing, coffee shops, and bi-polarism. Anyway, I'm amazed that I have this opportunity. I'm going to study with Cudamani.

Teatro Comunale di Città della Pieve

Well tomorrow I'm off for Italia. Citta' della Pieve (or as we affectionately call it "shitabowlopubes") to be exact. My chamber opera, La Tempesta (ummm... The Tempest) will be gloriously performed thrice in a gorgeous multi-hundred year old opera theater. It was a rush job, as these things often are, and it was a radical break from my more experimental musics, but it has been a time of worthy trial up to this point. I orchestrated two hours of music in two weeks. Nothing like deadlines to show a man what he's made of...

Commissions are strange that way. Fulfilling a commission, a specific goal, can be quite fun. I got to write in all the languages I'm not 'allowed' to write in. I find the whole process quite fascinating... at least fascinating enough to do it this time. Yeah, this time it was okay. After this, I'm prepared to drown myself in uncompromising duende inspired art-making. For the people!

What a strange strange time its been. I've been expected by other people... many other people... to write performable music. So strange. I've been fortunate enough not to think too much about it, but in my brief moment of reflection, I recognize how obsessive my mind has been to simply complete a job. Expectation creates a very unique atmosphere that I never really anticipated before. Sure, I should have reasoned this dynamic as likely, but it never really occurred to me.

Blah. I'm off. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. I haven't slept in months. Time to reap what I've sown.

Wow. What great friends I have. I'm not about to do a public banter on each of you, the three or four who read this thing, but I am completely humble to each and every person who has been so understanding through this crazy composing time. I'm very very fortunate. It is clear that what I have attempted would not have been possible without support from amazing people. yikes, i'm so cheesy. well, you know me. i'm a sincere cheesy guy. Thanks everyone.

Well, that's all for now. Poof...

Reflection - Negation

IndieWire interview with Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Naqoyqatsi director: Godfrey Reggio

iW: Do you see benefits from technological progress?

Reggio: There are obvious benefits -- medical or educational. Buckminster Fuller, one of the prophets of the technological order, used all the metaphors like "spaceship earth" and it was his basic point of view that prevailed that said technology is neutral. It's use or misuse that you make of it. So, of course America makes good use of it, Saddam Hussein makes bad use or the Al-Qaeda makes bad use, and the UK makes good use, well that to me is ridiculous. Technology is not neutral. All tools have intrinsic politics and technology is the tool of now. It's not just the effect of technology on the environment, on religion, on the economic structure, on society, on politics, etc. It's that everything now exists in technology to the point where technology is the new and comprehensive host of nature of life. We are now cyborged, that's not the future, that is the present. Now, that's a hard sell, believe me. It's not a popular point of view.

iW: Well perhaps because there's a sense of inevitability in your films, and I think people don't want to accept that. Because what you're telling me is that we're already there, it's not a warning.

Reggio: That's what I meant about holding a mirror up to society. I think there's an enormous value to being negative. The world we live in today, negativity is not permitted.

iW: No, it's medicated away.

Reggio: Yeah, we want to have the shiny view on everything. But in fact if you look at film as a metaphor, only through the negative can you have the positive print. What I'm trying to get to is the positive value of negation. I think it's the tragedy of our time that we're not aware of the affect of the manner in which we've adopted tools. Those tools have become who we are.

iW: Do people call you a doomsday prophet?

Reggio: I've been called that or a very negative person: "You better take a pill if you go see Godfrey's films, they're pretty dark." What I'm trying to do is to at least raise a flag to the blinding light of technology. Homer said, "Ah, fire, their brilliance, their flaw. Is this the moment of the sunset or the moment of the dawn?" They weren't shrinking from tragedy or from humor. If it could help you sense the moment you were in, it had a very positive value. It wasn't to depress, it was to purge. Now, this all heavy stuff you realize isn't stuff I demand from my crew. [laughs]

iW: Because the theme of "Naqoyqatsi" is civilized violence or a life of war, I'd like to ask you to comment about the time we're in right now, with eminent war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and your own studio having been located south of Canal.

Reggio: Right on the ninth ring outside the bull's eye. As hard as this is going to be to say, I think the events of 9/11, the events that are happening in Israel right now, in Palestine, the events in the Middle East, in South East Asia, in Africa, which we all neglect, and Latin America, and now coming to our shores are the ongoing, logical conclusions of the way of life based on power.

For me, nation-states are the first technology. They homogenize language, develop mother-tongues, become father-lands. They think only of their own interest. And power becomes the arbitrator of what is good and bad. It's curious to me that the gods of the conquered become the demons of the conquerors. History has been the history of warfare.