March 30, 2016

Do what it takes for your music to walk out of your head and into performance saying what it means.

Do we see/hear what is there, or only what we are? Is skewed perception OK if we believe what we write and manage to convince listeners?

March 25, 2016

It’s not so much work in the day-in, day-out sense; it’s involvement, engagement [can be applied to copying scores/parts by hand; performing one’s own work and others’; you name it].

March 8, 2016

Enduring low points and what’s-the-points in “working for the idea” [see Aphorisms in January, 2016] is to be expected.

November 30, 2015

Prepare to deeply understand what you want to hear when you write. [Does hearing begin when you forget the name of what you hear?—paraphrasing poet Paul Valéry (1871-1945)].

November 23, 2015

To be adequately simple, one must be fully aware, thinking and feeling everything experienced and imagined insofar as one is capable.

November 11, 2015

Development is overrated.

From a note to a student who asked about graduate school:

I think I understand where you’re coming from on the grad school thoughts. But keep in mind that even if you don’t like the styles your teachers write in, they may still have plenty of insight that can be helpful to you. Or not. Depends on who, of course.

Studying privately with someone you are sure to learn from a great deal is also a very good avenue–maybe the best when it comes to really zeroing in on your own motivations, cares, concerns, needs.

You are young and can take plenty of time to develop your musical personality. You need to be sure that whatever path you choose next will afford you opportunities to move forward; you can’t stagnate. But no need to rush. Working on craft can happen in many ways–you just have to find what is right and suitably inspirational for you.

Looking inward for what you really want is better than aligning with any school of thought–better but harder. 

***

I’m interested in capturing ideas within short forms/spans so that they loom larger in the memory than perhaps they did at first physical hearing. Distilling an essence, seizing a moment. I fancy that I do this by writing as clearly and concisely as I can. [shaped phrases, clearcut contrasts, strong rhythmic profiles]

October 22, 2015

Returns, as in:

Returning/mirroring cloud and land (cloud formations returned as rock formations–where does one end and the other begin?); return to solitude in vast space, separation from trappings (except for the rental car, which of course must be returned); day and night, different/transformed each time they return; rock rabbit wood bird wind sun scattering, scampering, disappearing, returning; the Santa Fe railroad keeps on returning with more trains, more cargo; in badlands on foot in the morning, my return to silence, texture, distance; returning on the same path, not realizing I’d “been there;” had enough, can’t take it, so at the desk again, returning to books, manuscript paper, directed thoughts, (ok, laptop), processing the overstimulation from looking, being, moving and that’s the whole thing; in the music, ideas returning, not really leaving; a return “home(?)” to integrate/understand, if possible (6:15 am departure; leave the place as you found it)…[21-22.10.15; program note for “Returns, Op. 569b,” for solo cello; composed in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona for cellist and artist-in-residence Rhonda Rider]

October 16, 2015

Everything is only something most of the time [i.e. don’t try to put “everything” in one piece].

Wei identity page-response. (Cleveland; black classical musicians; New England); core body—how is it dressed from day to day, intention to intention?

October 13, 2015

Get lost; stay lost. If we know too much, become too sure of ourselves, is not the point then…lost?

October 12, 2015

If you have fewer notes, do you pick them more carefully?

October 11, 2015

When dry, look back.

October 10, 2015

If you find an outlet for it and let it out enough times, will it go away?

October 8, 2015

Poem: Why My 2 Remaining Brain Cells Are Tired

Too many years
Of premieres

October 7, 2015

“Running”—as in despotic control—is uncomfortably close to “ruining.” The composer may do well to learn the right time to relinquish control.

October 6, 2015

When composers “go deep,” they must re-emerge to express the depth as shared experience.

September 24, 2015.

Aren’t routines crushing if they’re TOO strict?

September 23, 2015

“My” archivist told me today that pencil and pen scores are much easier to investigate and preserve. Further validation for handwritten manuscript! (while working in Tufts Digital Collections and Archives). [Digitize after the creative effort, not during!]

Do your hands fall where you want them? (for pianist/composers, I guess)

September 5, 2015

Let things brew enough so that they taste right.

January 31, 2015.

We need each other:
Composers and performers
Working together

Haiku “motto” for Tufts Composers Project with STEP [Boston String Education Progam/Triple Helix piano trio].

January 22, 2015

Interesting instrumentations: cello and two turntables; ocarina and alto saxophone; quartet of Baroque flute (traverso), flute, alto flute, shakuhachi; trio of cimbalom, harp, piano/celesta; French horn and cimbalom; please add.

January 19, 2015

Cairns. I like to build cairns (rock-pile structures; “a pile of stones that is used as a boundary/trail marker, a memorial, or a burial site”) in my back garden and driveway. The wind [or roving animals, or wandering people, or something/somebody] regularly knock(s) them down, and I rebuild them a little differently each time. For this writing, I take this as a metaphor for composing. One attends to musical ideas regularly, but they often fall apart or unravel/get out of control, and one re-addresses them—often with increasingly clear, satisfying results. Re-work, re-shape, rejuvenate, learn.

January 7, 2015

Time pressures provide direction and help things get finished, but do not encourage deep relationships. Similarly, rushing through material because one can or must develops facility, yet bypasses the fluency and flexibility that comes from abiding investigation (day in, day out).

When one cannot wander or daydream, ideas don’t breathe. Guard against clotting the brain by overfilling it; leave room for getting lost a lot.

January 4, 2015

It is what it is when you know what it is.

November 8, 2014

Good coffee is more important than a good website.

September 9, 2014

On Prolificacy (3): Write fast, pay attention.

March 23, 2014

Do we compose so we can create a microcosm we can control?

Composing: a method of control, or a method of ‘seeing/hearing,’ ‘reflecting?’

February 25, 2014

When we try too hard to innovate, our work becomes even more conservative.

Is the best composing the least composing possible (i.e. that which is absolutely necessary)?

February 17, 2014

Tom Johnson says “I want to find the music, not to compose it.” I want to compose what I find, and find more in what I’ve composed upon further time spent with it.

Bigger is almost never better. (After Dallas Opera work)

January 27, 2014

Everything is in progress.