Category Archives: aphorisms

Tufts Composers PractiCast #2: Keyboard Aphorisms

This week’s PractiCast #2 was livestreamed from Distler Hall on September 17, 2020.

A Production of Music 119: Composition Practicum, it featured a musical dialogue with Samuel Graber-Hahn & John McDonald.

Performed on piano by John McDonald

Watch PractiCast #2

Program

Some Fives (2020) by Samuel Graber-Hahn

Musical security comes and goes. – Walk; sketch. Discover a place. – Movement, stasis. Which is which? – Fall into place. Without force. (Text by J. McDonald)

High Fives, Op. 661, No. 48 (2020) by  John McDonald

Consider how same not same. – Use pick-ups; move on. – Hoodwinked; sick; time to compose. – Wait. Wait again. Keep waiting. – Consider how different not different. (Text by J. McDonald)

Nocturne (2020) by Samuel Graber-Hahn

Thank-You Fours, Op. 661, No. 46 (2020) by John McDonald

Let the back breathe. – No purpose in it. – Charily accumulated, patient mind. – Weeks, months, years, decades (puttering, procrastinating, preparing, piú puttering). (Text by J. McDonald)

Aphorisms For Composers – September 2019

September 4, 2019

As you hurry to complete work under pressure, consider that “the corn still grows overnight” as you sleep. Let the pace set itself naturally when possible…(pushing too hard inhibits growth) (paraphrasing Thoreau’s Walden, Chapter 4; 04.09.19)

Are we “awash in electronic hallucination?” (quoting Chris Hedges [born 1956; journalist])

Aphorisms For Composers – August 2019

August 26, 2019

Weed, walk, work

August 6 , 2019

NINE-TWOS
David Dovetails Domenico: Dynamic Deliberations. Downhearted Douceur. Despite Despondency: DETERMINED DASH. (August 26, 2019: program note for piano composition written as a tribute to composer David Macbride [1952-2018]; Domenico is Domenico Scarlatti [1685-1757])

August 22, 2019

More often than hoped, works in progress don’t progress. Stay calm.

Composers are content providers; yet provisions can be rough. User unfriendly?

August 19-20, 2019

REASONS FOR HAVING WRITTEN THINGS

It came out.

Didn’t hear it when playing or listening to things by others; thus had to supply it.

The hands fell there, went from there.

The atmosphere of the day yielded something; impulse can’t be further clarified.

Thought about people—wonderful performers, other composers, wonderful non-musicians—and writing something made otherwise silent or poorly-worded sentiments appear more fully expressed.

Someone asked.

A striking phrase in some else’s music takes hold; you re-shape it, and in so doing it gets out of control and lo(!) behold(!) a new piece has formed.

Pen was attracted to paper.

It couldn’t be helped.

Failed to quit.

August 19, 2019

‘Finished’ barely exists in composers’ vocabularies.

August 18, 2019

Why would you actually want to find what you’re looking for? Keep things provisional. Keep looking.

August 2-14, 2019

MORE FOURS
String fiber, porous boundaries. (August 14, 2019)
Composer resigns, music flows? ( August 13, 2019 )
Work safe, compose dangerously. ( August 7, 2019 )
Aged cheddar; aged composer. ( August 6, 2019 )
As though we know. ( August 2, 2019 )

August 2, 1019

Can there be TOO MUCH professional sheen to your scores? Can a piece be TOO well-crafted? When are mistakes advantages, rough edges more human and touching, and foibles welcome?

Aphorisms For Composers – July 2019

July 28, 2019

The yeast of your creativity grows new culture. [with thanks to Leon Forrest (1937-1997)]

July 23, 2019

FOURS
Encourage creation by omission.
Going back over things…
…what does one find?
Assignments are really commissions.

July 7, 2019

If you take it, be sure to re-make it.

July 3-7, 2019

TWO MORE EIGHTS
Get the most you can into your space. [July 7, 2019; after writer Leon Forrest (1937-97), speaking of the journalist’s space limits]
Let’s excise the word “genius” from the language. [July 3, 2019]

Aphorisms for Composers – June 2019

June 27-28, 2019

LONG/WORDY PIECE-TITLE POSSIBILITIES
Only Retained This After Rubbing Out Most Of What Was Here [June 28, 2019]

“Everyone’s sure what’s going on. I don’t know what’s going on. And do you really know what’s going on?” – Quote of the pP afternoon June 2019 [June 28, 2019]

Just Because One Feels There’s Nothing To Worry About Doesn’t Mean Worrisome Things Aren’t Happening [June 27, 2019]

June 28-19, 2019

SLASHES AND SEMICOLONS
Attack/release; equally vital
Duration/articulation; doing close work together
Texture/registers; we need constant care! [June 29, 2019]
Advance/retreat; Reverse/repeat. Sine Fine. [June 28, 2019]
Hand over/hand under; thumb under/turnover for cluster: backhand chord [June 28, 2019]
Iterate/switch; Transpose a while; Re-iterate/Re-switch/Repeat. [June 28, 2019]

June 19-18, 2019

EIGHTS
There’s a big difference between “minimal” and “spare.” [June 28, 2019]
Might you prefer not recognizing where you are? [June 26, 2019]
Don’t write it all. Next day, enjoy restarting. [June 25, 2019]
Many musical parameters benefit from moving as one. [June 25, 2019]
Now you know how. But why? What for? [June 24, 2019]
Got up; tried composing; went back to bed. [June 19, 2019]

June 17, 2019

Your music is generally better when it’s NOT a PDF.

June 10, 2019

How you finish a piece is as important as how you start it. And all the phases in between must contribute fiber and shape to the way it moves.

You produce yourself when you produce. So why the ‘originality’ worry for composers? Worry about craft—about the way things are realized—not about your own potential iconic sound-images.

June 1, 2019

What do I always do? If I’m going to do what I always do, how will I always do it? Can I always work with what I always do so that it’s always not (never) the same?

More Pedal-Bell!

Aphorisms for Composer – May 2019

May 22, 2019

What do you know you’ll always do, no matter what?

May 21, 2019

Just because you know a thing doesn’t mean you should use that thing automatically in your music. Balance the known thing with unknowns.

May 17, 2019

As composers, when we proceed from wherfe we are and how we are, WHO we are becomes less important. Things we might call ‘identity’ and ‘originality’ emerge from the awareness and acceptance of what we do habitually and aspirationally, not as much from who we think we are or wish we could be. Knowing our habits—knowing how we are—helps us notice how to move to new where’s and how’s.

Aphorisms for Composers – March 2019

March 12, 2019

Where there is idiom, there is also type-casting. Does the musician want to be transformed? In a particular piece, perhaps the violist wants to be a trumpet player, the percussionist wants to sing on the snare drum, or the horn player fades away like a vulnerable low piccolo phrase… Can the composer make this kind of transformation happen? What techniques do we need?

Aphorisms for Composers – February 2019

February 3, 2019

I think we (composers) should bring back hand manuscript for its viable professional advantages. Not because it is old, or tried and true, but because it is flexible, personal, and represents a tactile relationship with the page (with pencil and paper) that translates to touching the music.

Have I created a new genre: the Dinky Singspiel? (continue here…) After writing two series of “scenes” for working life in the offices of the Tufts University Music Department,

Dinky Singspiel:

New form?
Sing, play
Future way.

Quick fix?
Small thrall,
Concert hall?

A composer lives symbiotically through performers.