Discarded Poems, Part Three: Concert at the Chapel, 7-24-2010

Some wonderfully atmospheric pictures that my wife Arleen snapped of me practicing before the concert: the altered “Gust Burns” technique (see my 6/28 posting); one of the slab-gongs.


At the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center (Seattle), we (Neal Meyer and I) played “Discarded Poems” in concert last Saturday night… (So this blog update is a little late. Been busy lately…!) The concert came off pretty good, though it had a number of minor mishaps (perhaps “mishaps” is the wrong term for a concert of mostly aleatory music).

At the beginning Neal played a half-hour edit from his Gradus, a hyper- universal-length study of all the possible combinations of notes on the piano. This is a continuation of the “Gust Burns” type of music, with the silences and outside noises highlighted by the instrumental sounds on stage; the difference here is that this is a piano piece (for piano played in the “conventional” manner, on the keys) and it has some pretty extreme dynamics. It is rather startling to hear for the first time, however – since at least this section is a half-hour of all A’s and chords consisting of all A’s. At first one might think it’s nothing. And maybe that’s the point – listening to it over the course of the half-hour increases one’s awareness of the pitch A, and then the fact that all other pitches (including those filtering in from outside) are related to A. And, though this is only one note, the timbre of that note is infinitely varied; Neal used different techniques of duration, holding, releasing, half-releasing, pedaling, half-pedaling, and various combinations – to bring out the various harmonics of the note as he played it. Sometimes it was as loud and strident (figuratively) as a Hendrix guitar solo, completely drowning out the silence as it commented on it. At other times it was a quiet as the ambient sound from out the window: birds, distant voices, little bits of traffic sound, and a police siren at the end that went by in glorious stereo. That Neal accidentally played two G’s and one B shouldn’t worry us here – these notes could be considered part of the ambient sound surrounding the A’s, as they literally surround it on the piano keyboard.

The next couple of pieces were short, and the first of the mishaps started to occur. I played an improvisation on piano, with Neal playing electric guitar – I started with just A’s, spinning off of what I’d just heard, then threw in some G’s, while Neal went all over the pitch and effects range, then we went from there into other territories. Upon listening to a playback, however, I heard a problem: neither Neal nor I could tell how loud our respective instruments were to the audience (not the soundman's fault; neither of us were plugged in to the system), and throughout the performance, either the piano was too quiet or the guitar too loud. Not that this was necessarily a problem (electric guitar is known as a loud instrument, of course); one audience member commented on the piano part afterwards, noting that whatever I played, it was still “A” – so obviously the piano was audible to him. (And yes, I was generally basing everything off of that initial “A”.)

Next I played “Water”, the prologue to my set of compositions, “SoundScrolls”. Usually I play it as “Wind over Water” with an added part for (any) wind instrument; here, however, I played just the (prepared) piano. One of the pen-caps I’d stuck between the strings worked its way loose and popped out partway through, changing the timbre of the piano. It seems that the audience thought the change was on purpose so I won’t comment further (there’s another change later that is on purpose).

Then came “Discarded Poems”. This time we did destroy the slab-gongs intentionally, though not with as much élan as the first time. Right after that came the poems that give the piece its title: one about (an unpleasant memory of) childhood; one a stream-of-unconsciousness a la Finnegan’s Wake; and two satirical commentaries on modern culture. One of the latter contains, after a long description of the beauty in a given piece of experimental music, this:

“They listened, and decided.
This is not music.
It is not popular.
It is wrong.
It must not continue.”

Having had two record producers tell me more or less exactly that, I could have written it: "This is not music. It is not popular. It is wrong. We must prevent anyone from hearing it." The audience, however, definitely thought it was music, and they bought my CD’s to prove it.

I’m rambling, and I guess there’s a sort of conflict of interest here in reviewing my own concert, so I’ll leave it at that.

Open Mike, Tim Noah's Thumbnail Theater, Snohomish, WA, 7-16-2010

So the oft-asked question is, “What is an avant-gardist doing playing at an open mike?” The answer of course, is, “What are avant-gardists doing not playing at open mikes?” The music needs exposure. Open mikes are usually full of musicians playing various types of folk and traditional music (including acoustic versions of current and not too distant pop) but I’ve never known them to throw a classical, jazz, world music, or experimental musician off the stage (in fact they usually welcome these). …And I might add that most of the “traditional” musicians are really good.

I’ve been to the Thumbnail several times before. Though about a half-hour’s drive from where I live (if there’s no traffic), it’s well worth the slight inconvenience. It’s a quaint, intimate little performance space, with just enough room four or five people to play guitars or mandolins at one time, along with a baby grand piano and about twenty audience members. Or at least it was like this – on Friday I discovered (after not having been there for a couple of months) that it’s expanded. Now they’re holding it in the large hall of the same building (the building is a former church, so the large hall was the sanctuary). There’s room for about fifty people, and it seemed nearly full.

I came early to sign up (once or twice before I hadn’t gotten there on time and wound up playing last), then realized how things had changed. The baby-grand piano is still in the smaller room, with the upright in the large hall – and I got a well-deserved chew-out from the MC for stupidly trying to “prepare” the upright and nearly demolishing it in the process. I’d planned to do the one prepared piano piece that I was going to play in the upcoming “Discarded Poems” concert (see my previous two postings), but thought better of it at this point. The upright piano had no damage once I got it back together.

Wandering out in the hallway, saying hello to some of the regulars that I recognized, and wondering what to play instead of what I’d planned, I came across a Harry-Partch contrivance sitting unobtrusively in a corner. A round column of wood, with two doughtnut-shaped wooden resonators, strung with piano wires and held together by a crescent moon sounding board – it looked like something I’d like to give a try. There was a bow sitting on one of the resonators. I drew it across several of the strings. It made a thin, quiet, but not inharmonious sound. Obviously it wasn’t in tune, but that didn’t seem to matter. I got more interesting sounds out of it when I took out my percussion mallets and hit the strings in the manner of a dulcimer or cimbalom. Then on a whim I decided to try playing it during the open mike.

I asked the MC about it. He called it a rondolin, and said that there had been several of them made by someone there in Snohomish some years back. The historical society had the rest of them. And yes, I could take a stab at it. So two of us hauled it up on stage (“Don’t grab it by the resonators!” the MC shouted protectively – apparently it’s not as sturdy as it looks) and left it there in the corner until it was my turn to go on.

I played the piano (the prepared piano piece with an “unprepared” piano) and then tried the rondolin. I’d met a Celtic harp player, Francois Pernel, before the open mike, and asked him if he wanted to improvise something – and then, at the last minute, I called for anyone who wanted to play the djembe drum that they had on the stage too. This made an improvising band, and (if I do say myself) we did a pretty good job of ad-libbing on something that at least I’d never played before. The drum started, with a vaguely African beat (that morphed into reggae, and then hip-hop, at least once); Francois added rhythmic sounds on the harp (mostly untuned, behind the bridge) and I played the rondolin with the percussion mallets. The result sounded raw, “primitive”, and unrehearsed; but it also had odd shades of Harry Partch (of course), Lou Harrison, Foday Musa Suso, and Stravinsky. I made a recording of it, and (on playback) heard lots of maracas and shakers from the audience. They loved it, at least if the wild applause at the end is any indication (or maybe they were just glad that we’d finished).

Anyway, the rondolin turns out to be an interesting instrument, and the question looms: is there any way to get one into the StormSound Cycle? It might work, still untuned, for those atmospheric drone and percussion passages in some of the pieces.

Discarded Poems, Part Two (Concert Review: Seattle Composers' Salon, 7-2-2010)

We didn’t destroy the slab gongs on purpose this time. But next time we will.

The event was the bi-monthly Seattle Composers’ Salon. On the program were four pieces: an electronic work by Nathaniel Evans, two chamber pieces by Kam Morrill, and my piece “Discarded Poems”, with the afore-mentioned slab gongs.

Nathaniel’s electronic piece, done originally for a runway fashion show in Berlin, was both what one would expect and what one would not expect from fashion-show music. He explained before playing that one usually thinks of “pounding techno music” for a runway show, and that this wasn’t that. He also said that most of his compositions were in the “West-Coast-can’t-play-slow-enough” style, and that this wasn’t that either. He was right; it was neither, but in a way, it was both. Ambient sounds from Berlin and Seattle (voices, traffic, rain) faded in and out of massive electronic chords and an understated “electronica” beat. This was ambient techno music, yes, but in a way that was somehow not ambient techno music at all. It reminded me of Robert Rich or Carl Stone, the quieter moments of effects-laden 70’s rock (think Pink Floyd or the intro to Rush’s “Xanadu”), and, oddly, some of the more percussive music by Hovhaness or Lou Harrison (if I could imagine the electronic chords as played by acoustic instruments). There was also a polyrhythm and an accelerando in the middle, both unexpected in this genre but quite effective. Near the end, there was what sounded like a sample from Pauline Oliveros on accordion. A beautiful piece, all the more so because this is a style that usually shuns the rarified world of “new music”.

In contrast, the two pieces by Kam Morrill, both duets, were decidedly “classical” in nature. The first, a brief (1-minute) violin and piano piece, had the German title “Stück an Gerhard Samuel” and used the late composer’s name as the basis for its melodic material (the letters A-G were used as notes – though oddly it didn’t use the German system of assigning the sharps and flats letters like “H” and “S”). This melody was repeated in several quick variations, culminating in a flashy unison coda. As a composer of sprawling pieces like the StormSound Cycle, I’m amazed at how Kam condensed his musical material into such a small space.

Kam’s second piece, “Elegy”, for viola and piano, was a little longer (about seven minutes). He said after the performance that he didn’t compose according to any particular formula, though in this piece it was obvious that end was the same as the beginning but with the piano and viola parts switched. To me it didn’t sound particularly elegiac, with its broad melodies, open chords based on fourths and fifths, and little hints of Scriabin – I heard it as a mostly tranquil meditation, perhaps in a pastoral setting.

Both pieces were played by Kam on piano with Gwen Franz on the stringed instruments.

Now we get to those slab gongs. Neal Meyer and I played them as part of the “live” music for excerpts from my piece “Discarded Poems”, which is related to the StormSound Cycle. Like the StormSound pieces, it uses “live” instruments over prerecorded electronics, and, like the StormSound pieces, it’s on the longish side (in fact, Tom Baker, MC at the Composers’ Salons, had to fade in the prerecorded sound partway through to make the piece fit the 20-minute time limit). At the beginning, Neal and I played the room, using the walls, doors, windows, etc., as percussion; then we moved to the slab gongs.

Improvising over prerecorded sound also derived from slab gongs, at first we played resonant metallic sounds. Then Neal began to damp the reverberations with his hands, an interesting effect, and I joined in – watching as Neal’s slab gong (a precarious contraption even in the best of circumstances) suddenly began to destabilize. I continued to play mine, perhaps helplessly, as his wobbled, collapsed, and sort of melted itself sideways onto the stage. He continued to play. All hint of “beautiful” reverberation was gone; after another minute I joined in by deliberately knocking mine over and scattering the pieces. Now we both hammered on the remaining metal slabs, making quite a racket – but it worked so well with the piece that we decided to do it next time we play it. “Discarded Poems” is not about destruction or death, but it is about moving from the “here and now” into the realm of the eternal, discarding worldly things along the way. Hence, destroying the slab gongs works perfectly (in the manner of the poems that later get “discarded” as metal pipes rolled across the floor).

In the last section we played “real” instruments (guitar and piano), not in the conventional way, but in a ringing style over a microtonal drone – a sound that is supposed to both break away from and fulfill the “noise” that we made earlier. Whether this works or not, I’ll leave up to the listener. I can say, however, that two sounds were very beautiful to my ear: jewel-like bell-tones from Neal’s prepared guitar (with paper clips inserted among the strings) and a sliding overtone effect on the piano strings that I adapted (not stole exactly) from Gust Burns.

Next performance of “Discarded Poems” (complete this time):

8:00 PM,
Saturday, July 24, 2010,
Chapel Performance Space at Good Shepherd Center (50th and Sunnyside, in Wallingford, Seattle).

Also on the program: an excerpt from Neal’s “Gradus: for Tesla, Fux, and Milo the Wrestler”, a vast supra-universal-length study of all the possible combinations of notes on the piano; a couple of shorter, more conventionally melodic, piano pieces by me (probably one with percussion played from the piano); and an improvised set (guitar and piano).

Discarded Poems, Part One

Last night I went to the music building at Seattle Pacific University to practice for the upcoming Seattle Composers’ Salon (7/2/2010). Neal Meyer, guitarist, and I are going to play part of a piece called “Discarded Poems”, which is related to (but not necessarily part of) the StormSound Cycle. It’s a performance art piece involving improvising on slab gongs, playing the walls and fixtures in the performance space, reading poems and “discarding” them as metal pipes rolled across the floor; and making unheard-of sounds with prepared guitar and piano strings – all over an accompaniment of prerecorded, computer-processed sounds originally derived from nature (but altered beyond recognition). More intense than most of the “StormSound” pieces, it belongs by itself in a concert, not as part of that gigantic opus – but nevertheless is derived from some of the same sources.

We talked originally about amplifying the slab-gongs; it turns out (after hearing Neal’s sonorous improvisation) that this won’t be necessary. Besides, there will be two slab-gongs in the concert. The second section is improvised on a graphic score over a microtonal drone. I tried some Gust Burns techniques with the dowels (actually mallets in my case) in the piano; these were beautiful but too quiet for this particular piece. I reverted to some of my usual “inside piano” techniques. Neal prepared his guitar with paper clips per my instructions; the result sounded somewhere between an electric pipa (!) and a gamelan. At first my instructions were to play seventh and ninth chords, which even with the paper clips had a film noir feel, as Neal succinctly pointed out – (strum) “I work in the rough part of town…”. We dropped the chords. There were two versions of the background drone: one is the drone played straight, the other has an extra layer of an out-of-sync hip-hop beat derived originally from a 2002 pop tune (I can picture it now, “…and now for something that you never thought you’d hear at a Composers’ Salon – a Stacie Orrico remix…!”) It didn’t work, however; the “beat” (even in a Steve Reich “phase” version) distracted from what we were playing – the interesting was covered up with the less interesting. So we’ll do the straight no-beat version.

Anyway, the practice went off well, and we’ll see how it turns out in the Salon. And, of course, the Salon is just a warm-up for playing the entire “Discarded Poems” in a full-length concert at the same performance space that I’ve been blogging about on this thing.

8:00 PM
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Chapel Performance Space at Good Shepherd Center
50th and Sunnyside, in Wallingford (Seattle, WA)

Concert Review: Gust Burns (piano) & Tyler Wilcox (saxophone) with Seattle Improvisers; Chapel Performance Space, 6/25/2010

This was not so much a concert as it was the fulfillment of the possibilities presented in aleatory music and silence – the sounds presented (whether or not they were made by the musicians) perfectly fit with the time and place that they were made.

This was not so much a concert as a jam session – there were only about twelve chairs set out for the audience, and most of them were occupied by musicians who played in at least one piece in the concert.

They obviously weren’t expecting an audience, and it looks like they didn’t do much advertising. Pity, in a way; this kind of music needs to be moved out of “the fringe” and into the mainstream. Making more people aware of it would be a start.

On the other hand, too large of an audience would have sabotaged it. This is music that needs to be heard one-on-one; one or two musicians to one audience member. Direct communication, nothing held back by player or listener, with no outside interference.

Or actually, everything held back, with all outside interference. The music is one or two notes, understated, almost unsaid, against silence. The silence is part of the music. The outside is part of the silence. The outside is part of the music. The windows were open; sounds from outside of the performance space drifted in – mingled with, interpenetrated, commented on the sounds played on stage. And vice versa.

And always, there was that silence. Different kinds of silence, in fact, made different by the sounds that framed them.

They played, altogether, six pieces. The first was an “overlong” duet for saxophone (Tyler) and piano (Gust). Gust played the entire piece by rubbing his fingers quickly and repeatedly downward on rosined wooden dowels pressed against the piano’s sounding board, producing a sound that was basically white noise but included a hint of the blending of many dimly audible notes.

1. Silence. Airplanes pass over. Silence.
2. Rubbing dowel in piano. Breathing sounds from sax. Silence.
3. Traffic in the distance. Silence.
4. Rubbing dowel in different places in the piano. Quiet drone from sax; screeching overtones (barely audible) blend into airplane passing over. Silence.
5. Harley wolf-howls in the distance. Rubbing of dowel in piano again, letting it bump against the sounding board briefly. Silence.
6. Sax removes mouthpiece. Makes no sound for two minutes, then a short set of exhalations. Silence.
7. Footsteps outside, voices, birds. Silence.
8. Sax plays a set of overtones, with circular breathing. Dowel makes a short set of “hiccoughs”. Silence.
9. Sax and dowel sounds more frequent, fragmented, then scattered. Outside sounds continue: airplanes, traffic, birds, voices. Silence.

It was difficult to tell where it had ended (though it had been nearly an hour); the continuous faint outside sounds had become enough of the “performed” music that I got the impression that it was still continuing, would still continue, was, in fact, all of the continuing sounds and silence that were being made anywhere.

I didn’t want to applaud. It would destroy the silence.

There was a brief break; then they played the other five pieces. These were continuations in the same vein, always the sounds and the silence that were indistinguishable from each other (only one piece, a solo by Gust on the piano keys, had a couple sections of faster notes).

This was the other side of silence; these were sounds that were quieter than silence. This was a new form of silence. This was a new form of beauty.

These pieces were part of a series played by the same musicians. Gust told me afterwards that they play in an ongoing set, once a week, at Gallery 1412 in Seattle.

Concert Review: Bill Horist at the Chapel 6/11/2010

This was another amazing concert at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. Bill is an experimental guitarist, of the Fred Frith variety – the guitar, with various implements in and around the strings, becomes an electro-acoustic ensemble by itself.

Before the concert, an MC (turned out to be Bill’s fiancée) walked onto the stage: “The hush of everybody holding their breath in anticipation – He’s being fashionably late. He’ll be another ten minutes or so… – Breathe, people! Be loud!!”

A couple of minutes later Bill appeared, shuffling onto the stage quietly, deliberately acting sheepish as if sneaking into his own concert. As the audience started clapping, he sat down on a chair between his amp and a table holding cymbals, a waterphone, a violin bow, and other miscellaneous objects. He tuned his guitar, and talked briefly about thanking all of the Seattle musicians who’d helped him with his new CD. “…No, they’re not all here…” he muttered, “I wonder if they’re being dogged by volcanoes, as I was…” He explained that he had just been to two places where volcanoes had erupted, including being in Amsterdam when the one in Iceland went off. “Good to be home where I don’t have to worry. …Uh, anyone heard anything about Mt. Rainier…?”

He played two half-hour improvised sets. The first was mellow, a stream-of-consciousness with folk, rock and raga overtones. I began taking notes about what I heard: “E-bow high drone, e-bow chord (open 4th), minor third (triad), 4th above 3rd (do, sol, mi, la), chord kept reverberating as began conventional guitar picking. Jazz raga against drones. Pentatonic with accidentals. Began rock ground-bass, improv over top. Folk guitar, developed as minimalism. Drones fade. Some dissonance (minor 2nd). Change of style, “electro” birdcalls (prerecorded?); folk guitar resumes. Lets some overtones ring. Electro continues as other sounds fade. Manipulation of sounds: “old school” electronic music (Stockhausen, Subotnick). Return to the e-bow, now with dissonance (minor 2nds, flat 5ths, microtones). Hints of Niblock with microtonal vibrations, though faster (not drone-minimalism). Blues. Plucked harmonics (bell-tones) for next section. Slower folk guitar, “electro” reappears during quiet moments…”

I decided about ten minutes in that that kind of writing wasn’t that interesting, and it certainly didn’t tell about the feel of the piece (which was surprisingly mellow); so I began writing about it in a different way. I just let my pen wander across the paper, going up as the music went up, flowing as the music flowed, stopping as the music stopped. Each horizontal group of lines is a couple of minutes of music.


















During the intermission, I showed the resulting abstract to some other audience members, who commented that it was a beautiful graphic. Later, I showed it to Bill, and commented that, “Now it’s a graphic score…” “…And I could play it again!” he said.

Before starting the second half, Bill stated that he should have brought a change of clothes because now he’s an entirely different person. And he was right. The second set was much more abstract, less linear, less melodic and concerned with “real notes”, more freeform, more concerned with interesting sounds that were intrinsically beautiful. Bill inserted the waterphone and the cymbal between the strings of the guitar (not at the same time), and at various points played it with the bow or with an electric toothbrush. I described the sound later as “heavy metal Takemitsu”. The volume built, reaching a screaming climax, and then Bill abruptly turned off the amp, leaving a startling silence. The sudden cessation of sound actually made me dizzy for a second or two – a surprising effect. (For those who are reading this and wonder if there were any chemicals involved here, the answer is no, I don't do drugs.)

I did two graphics inspired by the feel of the music for this second half as well. Since the music was not linear, neither are the graphics (I actually seldom looked where my pen was going, though when I sensed that I was getting close to an edge, I started over on the left).



















And that was that. Some of the audience members hung around for a few minutes afterwards, talking about various things musical. Bill made an interesting comment that he had a friend, a percussionist, who used to play with Bill in a rock band and who said, “Forget all that experimental garbage – let’s just do straight-ahead rock, rock, rock!” and then started doing experimental music. I’ve switched styles like that several times too…

Origins of the "StormSound Cycle"

This is an excerpt from a journal I wrote seven years ago – just if anyone’s curious about how this nine-hour piece got started. I’ve added a couple of explanations [in brackets] where necessary; and note that I now have music-editing software on my own computer.

Went over to Seattle Pacific University [I was a grad student there] to do some recording. The idea was to try to get the Eco Slab Gong piece recorded, and try out another conceptual piece, Nature Lives in Motion.

Eco Slab Gong didn’t work. The nature sounds, courtesy of Randy Storm, were supposed to resonate the metal sheet, the sounds of which would be picked up by the engineer’s sensitive mikes as an interesting percussion sound. So, brought the metal slab in from the car, unwrapped it from its cardboard. Sliced my finger on the edge of the metal. No blood. Set up the metal on the balloons, allowing it to freely vibrate. Set the headphones on it, cranked up the volume of Randy’s nature recordings. Set up the mikes, a mere mm. from the metal slab. Everything was working but. Failed. Nature sounds too loud or reverberations too quiet. Tried another set of louder headphones, hanging from a mike stand and themselves only a mere mm. from the metal. Again everything was working but. Failed. Randy’s recordings too loud period. There wasn’t a way to even anything out. Oh well. “Experimental” music is just that: experimental. Some experiments don’t work.

So we [the engineer and I] tried the other concept. We loaded two of Randy’s completed CD’s which I’d always liked these because of their arrangements (the sounds are put together almost like music in themselves, complete with recurring motifs – types of birdcalls, etc. – and an interesting overall shape). The concept was to take these recordings – already masterpieces in themselves – and overlay them, one atop the other, and then stretch them out into at least double of their length by elongating the individual sounds (without lowering their pitch – possible with a computer – I may decide later to raise the pitch of selected sections.). The result should be a “spacey aural fabric” (old Miles Davis reviewer) that is suggestive of natural sounds but difficult to pin down exactly because of the altered time frame.

Some experimental music doesn’t work. This worked marvelously. The sounds stretched into a fantastic tapestry of sound, vaguely strange and alien, vaguely familiar, and (after the harsher sounds near the beginning, made from stretched wolf-howls) quite relaxing. There is a section of water running that’s particularly interesting – the individual “drops” in the flow are audible, almost as bamboo wind chimes and tiny voices muttering in an unknown language. Overlaid with this are a few deep wooden sounds of branches breaking under a heavy snowfall – slowed down, these become resonant percussion. Thunder slowed down shows definite “notes”; Tolkien’s “drums in the deep” but not as frightening. Frogs and crickets become a whole Latin percussion band with shakers and maracas – playing polyrhythms that the human mind can’t comprehend. I took the CD home and listened to it several times, loaded it into the computer, and listened to it several times again – I’m listening to it as I write this. Can’t stop listening to it.

Meaning, of course, what I’ve commented on before. Nature (sounds made by things made by God) is the best composer, and nothing is truly random. The overlaying of these sounds was done in an essentially aleatory manner (though the original length of each section was planned by Randy on the original CDs) – but it resulted in a large-scale composition that is far more than the sum of its parts.

The result gives me the idea for a lengthy piece of music in the manner of FTOFTS and SoundScrolls (thus it could form a huge trilogy with these two works). It is the first piece I will have written that doesn’t have a part for piano in it. [FTOFTS, “From the Oceans’ From the Stars” and “SoundScrolls” are two large-scale compositions for “live” instruments and prerecorded sounds. FTOFTS – which I don’t pronounce “eff-tofts” but just “f’tofts” – is the oldest, dating from a music class I took at the University of Washington in 1983.]

“First of all, let me explain that, if you’ve come here to listen to Mozart or Chopin, you will probably be disappointed. This piece is not classical in the narrow sense. But if you’ve come for a sound adventure, or if you like the music of John Cage, George Crumb, LaMonte Young, Toru Takemitsu, or Phill Niblock, then you’ll probably enjoy this. I will warn you in advance, though, as it says on your programs – this piece is nearly two and a half hours long. I you have to leave the auditorium, please try to do so return quietly.

"Now, the piece is titled ‘Nature Lives in Motion’. It is one of a series of three large-scale pieces using pre-recorded sounds and percussion, in addition to various other instruments. The other instrument is, in this case, a ‘cello. The percussion is divided into two groups, for two players: metal and wood. These are ‘natural’ materials representing the inorganic and the organic, respectively.

“The meaning of the piece is not only the ‘movement’ of nature, but the movement – the vibration – that produces sound. It is about sound – it is not just sound, but it is about sound. Specifically, it is about the meaning of sound. Nature is full of sound, and the ultimate purpose of that sound, I believe, is praising God. This music is, then, about nature praising its Creator. Much of what you will hear is either joyous (bird calls – exuberant) or meditative, as in prayer. But you will hear some other sounds too, particularly near the beginning – there are some harsh sounds in nature as there is harshness in nature. This world has become corrupted, and has violence and pain. Near the end of the piece, all the various sounds will come together harmoniously for a while – a yearning for the perfect world without its Darwinian elements – as this world was meant to be.

“So, with no further ado, sit back, and let’s enjoy a performance of ‘Nature Lives in Motion’. Thank you.”

The percussion and ‘cello parts will be graphically notated, in the manner of the Cage “number pieces”, with lengthy time-spans (up to three minutes) for each sound, which are single sounds that respond to the sounds on the tape, or drones that do not. The “harmonious” part near the end is merely an overlaying of two-note motives, in the manner of the repeated birds and frogs that are on the tape at this time. There are long silences in all of the parts, filled in by the pre-recorded sounds.

[After writing this, I started adding to it, and “Nature Lives in Motion” became just the first movement of an all-day piece. It grew without bounds, so to speak, until I finally put a limit on it by simply saying to myself, “The number of pieces in this cycle is now set. Any new pieces I write in a similar style will be by themselves, or be part of a ‘Second StormSound Cycle’ – which may at some point come into existence.” That’s where it is now. And there are a lot of other sounds that I added to the prerecorded part of “Nature Lives in Motion” as well.]

Concert Review: Piano Recital by Keith Eisenbrey, 6-5-2010

Two of the remarkable things about concerts in the Good Shepherd Center are the piano that they’ve got there, and the resonating space itself. The piano, of a brand I’ve not heard of before (and I can’t remember as I’m writing this), is a concert grand with such amazing tone that its voice leaps out of it like a living thing, with all of the overtones clearly audible. The space of the hall is just as remarkable; sounds seem to hang in there forever, but without covering up the next sounds. The perfect concert venue for Renaissance choral music, string quartets, or (as in this case) contemporary piano music where the silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.

I’ve heard Keith play before, in solo recitals and at the composers’ salons, so I wanted to make sure not to miss this concert. I was only there for a couple of minutes (I had gotten there slightly late) before he walked onto the stage, uncharacteristically dressed in tails, and proceeded to play six pieces.

Most were in a style vaguely reminiscent of Messiaen. The opening piece, “Keyboard Shortcuts”, by Richard Johnson, was actually a set of six short pieces with “charmingly evocative titles” such as “Opposable Toes” and “Related Sweepstakes Entities”. Most seemed (to my ear at least) to be serialist, though the program notes indicated that “at the core of each is a tautly dissonant four-part chorale”. Part of the interest in the music was how this chorale was worked into the fabric of each piece, with strikingly different results: some of the pieces were loud and dramatic, while others were elegiac and at least one seemed rather humorous.

After this first piece, Keith gave a brief talk about the music, and mentioned that all of the composers except one (Sean Osborn) were in the audience. Sean, he said, was out of town attending a wedding – his own. We (the audience) all agreed that this was a good reason to miss a concert of his own music.

“Theme and Variations for Piano”, by the afore-mentioned Sean Osborn, was the next piece, and it began in sharp contrast. The theme, a series of individual note-heads to be played softly but without any discernible meter, sounded like a lazy river of notes, mostly in the mid-range but with an occasional resonant series in the bass. The three variations unfolded, each different in mood from the others, climaxing in the “Variation: Fast” – another set of note-heads without meter but here played as quickly and loudly as possible; then there was a return to the meandering ruminations of the opening.

The shortest piece (just over 6 minutes), “dear s.,” by Brian Cobb, was one of the highlights of the concert. This was an impressionistic love-ballad that somehow resisted all of the (by now) clichés of impressionism and ballads; a truly beautiful piece vaguely reminiscent of Takemitsu.

The remaining pieces all had something to do with composer Benjamin Boretz, who has been a frequent contributor to the journal “Perspectives of New Music” (http://www.perspectivesofnewmusic.org/). The first was “Liebeslied, amended”; Keith’s slight reworking of one of Boretz’s earlier pieces that had been left unfinished to head in a different musical direction. There were hints of various classical “Liebeslieder” here, in a double spiral of a piece that ascended to a dissonant climax, resolved into a series of arpeggios, hit a repeat sign, and then ended enigmatically without concluding. The position of this piece at the end of the first half of the concert was a masterstroke: it didn’t end, of course – so one needs to come back for the second half to find out what happens next…

The second half was dedicated to two long pieces, both in excess of twenty minutes. Benjamin Boretz, again, was the first composer – (“…my chart shines high where the blue milks upset…”) is the title; yes, that is the correct punctuation (complete with the parenthesis); and yes, that is a quote from James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”. That novel’s dream imagery, fractured language, and stream of consciousness narrative formed the basis for this piece: a dreamy, unfractured, stream of consciousness for piano. Notes presented themselves, almost always two at a time as chords, unfolding gradually, usually (but not always) quietly, flowing, like a river of thoughts… A meditative piece, yet not “meditation music” – it had way too much substance for that. If I were to put a label on it, I’d say it was roughly in the style of Morton Feldman – but only roughly. There was way too much “action” below the surface for that; not so much meditation on single phrases; more (and at the same time less) thematic development. My descriptions are perhaps rather vague, but that’s how this piece should be talked about. There was a CD available of the same piece played by another pianist – I bought it and plan to listen to it several times more.

Keith’s own “Sonata Liebeslied”, the last piece, was in complete contrast and yet somehow of the same ilk. It likewise unfolded slowly, meditatively (from the first few notes of Boretz’s “Liebeslied”, but seemed to contain fragments of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” as well). However, its progression, according to Keith, was “lumpy” – clusters of notes appeared, developed, vanished into silence (and the amazing reverberations of that piano, which seemed made for this kind of piece), reappeared in the same or different manner, were crosscut with other clusters and themes, etc. I had the feeling of being taken along in a musical labyrinth, encountering bits of musical “lumps” here, memories of other “lumps” there, meandering, but always heading towards the exit. Near the end there was an actual climax (a brief, loud, allegro section) – this was both a complete surprise and the fulfillment of where the piece had been wanting to go all along. In all, a very beautiful piece. It needs intense concentration on both the part of the listeners and the performer – but that concentration is rewarded with beauty and silence.

And so the concert ended. Quite the work, there; more extended than many piano recitals, and worth repeating. One of its strengths was that the pieces were chosen and arranged to fit together into a giant meta-composition in several movements. (“…my chart shines high…”) was the long slow movement, and the “Sonata Liebeslied”, with its longer development and recall of the earlier piece(s), was the grandest of finales. Stylistically the pieces all related to one another, yet there was enough variety within that style to keep me interested (which would have been the case even if Keith had arranged them in a different order).

The listeners were enthralled. I myself intend to hear Keith’s next concert, and I asked him to play one or more of the piano parts for the StormSound Cycle…

Concert review: Composers' Salon 5-7-2010

“The Seattle Composers’ Salon fosters the development, performance and appreciation of new music by regional composers and performers. At bi-monthly, informal presentations, the Salon features finished works, previews, and works in progress. Composers, performers, and audience members gather in a casual setting that allows for experimentation and discussion. Everyone is welcome!” For info at http://www.composersalon.com/

The concert began with its lengthiest piece, a set of four songs about spring, in Latin, by Gavin Borchert. Gavin played the piano and Hope Wechkin sang soprano for these remarkably lyrical numbers that take the song form back to its roots: folk material and the early Romanticists (think Schubert). Very pretty. The second song was particularly worth noting, with its strumming guitar-like accompaniment, long melodic line, and a series of unexpected (and transcendent) modulations at the end. The last two songs were shorter; the third used no sustain pedal, and the last brought in piano material from the first. Gavin had stated, before playing, that this was a work in progress, and that there will be two more songs, so probably they will bring the cycle to a more satisfying conclusion.

Next up: six piano miniatures by David Paul Mesler. David played the piano for these, and he announced beforehand that they were based on numerology, were written specifically for this concert, and that each was based on the name of a person associated with the concert (i.e. the other composers) or the Composers Salon itself. Each name was turned into numbers, subjected to various mathematical formulae, then transformed into notes. Such mathematical music can be tricky to pull off: think serialism, which at its best produced scintillating webs of sound but at its worst was little more than so many annoying random notes. However difficult, these piano miniatures came off well: full of energy, intense rhythmic and harmonic interest, and a surprising amount of groove, they reminded me of the last twenty or so Mikrokosmos pieces of Bartok or the more up-tempo moments of Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis. David is also quite the pianist, easily capable of Lisz or Corea. A lesser technique would stumble all over these pieces, whereas David made them sound effortless, with a bravura finish (and a lot of staccato, often in an extremely fast tempo).

The last piece on this part of the concert was “Rondo on Ishmael’s Reveries” by Tim Huling. This is the Ishmael in Moby Dick; as Tim explained before the piece, much of Melville’s tale is the ruminations of this protagonist. The piece, another piano work, is reflections on these ruminations, and rather Impressionist in nature (interrupted by a humorous stop-and-start dance that represents Kweekweg). In general, a mellow piece, not plagued by Moby Dick’s sense of foreboding, and a suitable conclusion to the first half of the concert.

The second half was entirely different. The winners of a junior composers’ contest presented their works – all first place (for different age groups). Because these were minors (the oldest was fifteen) and I did not obtain permission from their teachers, I will not list their names here. I will, however, mention each piece briefly. “Lots of Things are Beautiful” was by a nine-year old; a lyrical song in a rather Broadway style. The boy played it on piano while his dad sung with a karaoke machine. Quite pretty, and surprisingly mature (though the singing did sound like singing with a karaoke machine). I composed when I was nine, but I don’t think it was nearly as good as this. “Suite in D Minor”, played by its twelve-year old composer, was a set of four short Baroque piano pieces. “Political Suite” was written (by a fifteen-year old) during the last political campaign and played (on a boom box) by a symphonic band – probably from the composer’s school – which couldn’t be booked for the concert. Fun piece, though. The particular use of dissonance against Souza-like marches was intended to represent disagreement in the political arena, but also reminded me of Ives, or, perhaps more accurately, what Mahler might have written had he born in the United States rather than in Germany. Lastly, there was a “String Quartet in E Minor”, by another fifteen-year old, and played (rather timidly) by a teenaged quartet. This was a lyrical piece with hints of minimalism (think Glass over Grieg). Before playing, Tom Baker (organizer of the Composers’ Salons and MC at the concert) mentioned that the title on the written score was “A String Quartet That I Wrote”, which the audience all agreed was a better title.

So that was the Composers’ Salon for May, 2010; all in all a pretty good concert (the pieces by the junior composers were gems in particular). Something that surprised me, however, was its unexpected lack of “contemporary” music. Every piece was tonal and most were lyrical, with very little dissonance, almost as if these composers were beginning the twenty-first century by rejecting most of the twentieth. This of course is a stylistic comment that has nothing to do with the quality of the music, but at previous Salons there have been a variety of styles and I would have preferred at least one piece that celebrates the spaces between the notes in the manner of Stockhausen or Takemitsu.

Overview

A MAD PROJECT?
This is a music blog. Specifically, it’s about the music that I’ll be performing next year in the summer, a nine-and-a-half-hour aleatory/improvisatory composition for various instruments and prerecorded sound. During the course of writing, I’ll review other concerts (some by me) at the same venue, and slip in some opinions about music in general and “new music” in particular – and believe me, I am opinionated about music…

Before going on, let me get this off my chest right away. I, too, had thought that a nine-hour composition was a ridiculous idea and I never intended (at first) to perform it all at one sitting. Then, gradually, feedback from others (who will be named over the course of this thing) convinced me otherwise. It is, after all, “new music”, and new music has always been about exploration and experimentation.

AS IT STANDS NOW
I’m starting this blog somewhere in the middle. The music is conceptually complete. The prerecorded sounds are all basically made, though a few minor tweeks will probably be needed right up until the day of performance. I’ll need to finish the notated parts (for the “live” players). The date is selected: Saturday, May 21, 2011. The venue is selected: the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center, in Wallingford, a district in Seattle. The place has incredible acoustics, and there are concerts in there at least twice a week – mostly classical and the afore-mentioned new music. Many of the new music concerts are sponsored by Nonsequitur, a new music promotional group in Seattle (www.waywardmusic.blogspot.com). I’m going to be playing the piano for some of the nine-and-a-half hours. Besides myself, probable participants are: a guitarist (who also plays piano), two percussionists, and one each for the clarient and trombone parts. All but one have played excerpts from the Cycle in concerts before, though until I get their permission, I won't post their names here.

So that’s where it stands now – I’ll need some more musicians and I’ll need to work out much of the logistics. There’s a concert at the Chapel tonight, the Seattle Composers’ Salon, so I’ll post a review of it here tomorrow.