July 29, 2018
Can’t Compose Just Now
Must need space
Can’t
Get it going
Can’t
Imagine writing.
July 27, 2018
Composers necessarily live the saying “don’t stop starting.” The empty page beckons; the open mind and ear crave new input; the imagined realization lets performers spring into action…
July 26, 2018
Lunes* About Composing At Night
*[The “lune” is a three-line, syllabic poem-form (“the American Haiku”) created by Robert Kelly, with a variant created by Jack Collom; Kelly Lune is 5-3-5, Collom Lune is 3-5-3.]
Lamplight by window;
Keyboard sounds
New adventure starts
House quiet; cat out;
Sketchbook page
To be filled again.
Putting this to that
With other.
Dark while it happens.
Sundown calm
Internal unrest
Keyboard balm.
Cloud cover.
Moon lurks there somewhere
Keyboard closed.
Humid night
Upper register
Cools front room.
July 24, 2018
Fib* As Instruction for a Composition
*[A “Fib” is a form of syllabic poetry based on the Fibonacci sequence. Most common seems to be the six-line, twenty-syllable Fib: 1-1-2-3-5-8.]
This
That
Other Thing
This That Together
Other Thing, This, That: These
Three things in interplay make plenty of material. (at Apple Hill Fidelio Trio concert)
Sample Questions About Sensation
What is a ‘sharp’ vibration?
How can a ‘touch’ be ‘rounded,’ ‘pointed,’ etc.?
What does ‘unison’ mean? Hands together, people together, sung together, united effort?
How is ‘unison’ different from ‘solo?’
July 21, 2018
While enjoying where you are in the process of forming musical thoughts, you face difficulties with enhanced awareness. “Play with it,” as a colleague just told me. The sense of play will last; you will come back for more.
July 19-20, 2018
Five Fives
Walk; sketch. Discover a place. (July 20, 2018)
Tense spot. Delve further in. (July 20, 2018)
Blank page; think, fill, repeat. (quick description of composing continually; July 19, 2018)
Conceptualize, improvise, solidify, improvise more. (July 19, 2018)
Musical security comes and goes. (July 19, 2018)
July 18, 2018
Composing can be a vibrant illustration of your own never-ending story of trying to get it together (for Rebecca Sacks)
July 17, 2018
Maybe you never met, or only met fleetingly. Yet the time spent composing your memorial music, now that they are gone, is still time spent with the admired person.
July 11, 2018
How about writing preludes to the preludes?
July 9, 2018
The difference between many notes and too many notes is often incredibly small.
Sometimes the piece you’re writing feels like it’s all you’ve got.
July 8, 2018
Things just play themselves in my hands—I don’t know why [variant of an excerpt from A. Platanov’s Soul spoken by the girl Aidym; New York Review Books Classics; 2007]
June 6, 2018
To continually shape a particular rock, you chip away…To grow a plant next to the rock, you water, prune, add or subtract soil and sediment…An attention to texture and consistency rather like involvement in writing music (stacking chords, nurturing melodic shapes, removing excess, and so forth)
July 4, 2018
One gets at the center of a musical notion by hand; on foot; with lungs, back, arms, shoulders. Not as much with extensions like laptops, loudspeakers.
The crunch of a particular chord; the size/shape/sentiment of a melodic curve; a pianist’s varied touch or turn of phrase; the instrumentalist’s restraint or ability to cut loose while exciting the string, gauging airflow through reed or mouthpiece, rumbling or flam-ing with hand or mallet. Do we consider these subtle, everyday musical actions when we think of the vitality of “the arts?” What constitutes the nature of our education as musicians? Keep fine-tuning this question as you continue to ask it.
July 1, 2018
If chords thicken, can they still leave light footprints?