still mastering tracks for "the time canvas"

you know how summer go, go, goes...

time canvas, chinese medicine

production on "the time canvas" is almost completed.

still reading up on traditional chinese healing techniques using hand therapy, qi gong principles, etc,.. i would like to read more advanced books on the subject, but i cannot find where an appropriate starting place would be. the books i have found are either very basic or ones you need to be in a teaching certificate course to understand. i am not interested in acupuncture, just the qi gong and massage aspects of it.

i would also like to read a general history book on the origins and development of chinese medicine. i have not really been interested in this before other than a little qi gong, but my curiosity is now piqued.

Tropic of Cancer

"How few the days are that hold the mind in place; like a tapestry hanging on four or five hooks. Especially the day you stop becoming; the day you merely are. I suppose it's when the principles dissolve, and instead of the general gray of what ought to be, you begin to see what is. Even the bench by the park seems alive, having held so many actual men. The word NOW is like a bmb thrown through a window, and it ticks." -Henry Miller

Sorry for the book descriptions and author's quotes. I will get back to developing real posts again shortly.

uncanny valley

What I have been reading recently:

"Mortal Engines" by Stanislaw Lem.

Bits & pieces from the introduction:

"Artificial men have traditionally been monsters, in our literature and in our imagination."

"Possibly in the Romantic horror of the artificial man there also lay the submerged feeling that man himself was a being in whom great evil slept, evil which could be controlled only by a soul; without the soul, this evil would run rampant."

"As the 19th century wore on, the concept of natural man became more objectified; man was considered less a being of spirit and soul, more a material thing and subject to the Laws of Nature (Darwin, Marx); and some writers began to look upon the growing ascendancy of Science as a potential threat to man's humanity."

"The anti-rationalist narrator in Dostoevksy's Notes from the Underground sees the scientifically defined man as a soulless mechanism, a creature devoid of individuality and independence. Dostoevsky's idea that the eventual scientific analysis and definition of men would turn man into a machine was taken up in the early 20th century by two opposing groups of writers; those for and those against - often termed the Utopians and the anti-Utopians."

Yet another lovely short-story collection by Lem revolving around artificiality. His works remind me of an updated, sci-fi/scientific version of Rabelais. The most difficult concepts incorporated into flawless writing (even despite the translations) with appropriate comedic effects mixed in.

Also reading a book on hand therapy:

Little book I picked up while wandering around Philadelphia's Chinatown a few hours prior to playing. Appropriate timing because just the weekend prior, I was wondering how to diagnose potential future health issues with the use of pain felt in the hand. Still looking into that whenever I get a free moment, which unfortunately isn't often enough, but I have been referring to this nice little diagram:

time canvas track info

1 minute of happiness
2 minutes of war
3 minutes of birds
4 minutes running
5 minutes on solaris
6 minutes in a japanese tea garden
7 minutes of shiva chanting
8 minutes of possibilities
9 minutes in the dreamtime
10 minutes on earth

music as situation in time - part 1, the beginning

i have been trying to create my own interpretation of an idea inspired by antheil.

most notably this, which is still in my mind over a month later:

"ballet mecanique, while utilizing (subconsiously, for at the time this work was written, 12 tone-ism was unknown as such) both systems, concentrated on what i then called "the time canvas." rather than to consider musical form as a series of tonalities, atonalities with a tonal center, or a tonal center at all, it supposed that music actually takes place in time; and that, therefore, are merely his crayons, his colors. the 'time-space' principle." -from the preface of "ballet mecanique"

which leads to the following from the nordic journal of music therapy (webpage of source cited below):

"Music itself is a kind of situation, with is particular materiality, syntax and semiotics. We need a music-focused musicology to describe some of the sonic differences, which give rise to our musical cognitions. However, to understand the pragmatics of the situation, i.e. the special effects, functions or consequences of music, one has to go beyond the analysis and out into the world, into the specific situation and its concomitant experience."

for the latest cd i am working on (6 completely finished, a 7th i need to completely do over and 3 others which keep on changing in content) i have taken the title "the time canvas" as a way in which to musically the explore the idea of music as a situation in time. intellectually, i am trying to work out the idea on this page. i hope the beginning posts in this blog have laid a steady foundation for me to work on and for you to understand as i continue this process. at this point i even hesitate to consider them songs, because i hope they will be able to evocate a moment in time which one could experience fully.

i will go into examples in the next post. i was writing out the elements expressed in song #2, "2 minutes of war" as can be heard on my myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/adititahiti until i realized one problem with the piece. it can be heard distinctly as a moment in the past. perhaps the 1910s, but most certainly not what we are used to experiencing now. so what does it mean to "create" a situation only to find that it does fit within a past time period? should the musical situation fit within our known linear period of time or should it be a period of itself, existing outside of time? does it make a difference? is it enough to mimic life within one framework of reference, i.e. music? does it have to be purified, existing purely as its own as a universal element as opposed to an identifiable period of time? i will try to address these questions over the course of the next few posts.


(http://www.njmt.no/artikkelruudnewmusic.html)

Utopia & The Way

"I have put belief in Utopias afar from me. Either this world is a sort of incubator out of which we hatch into some other better or worse state of being, or it is not." (48, Pound, Patria Mia and the Treatise on Harmony)

"One wants to find out what sort of things endure, and what sort of things are transient; what sort of things recur; what propagandas profit a man or his race; to learn upon what the forces, constructive and dispersive, of social order, move; to learn what rules and axioms hold firm, and what sort fade, and what sort are durable but permutable, what sort hold in letter, and what sort by analogy only, what sort by close analogy, and what sort by rough parallel alone." (48, Pound, Patria Mia and the Treatise on Harmony)

"The artist paints the thing as he sees it, real or unreal, he gives his interpretation or he makes his more fervent statement. He must be as free as the mathematician. If he is by chance a great artist he will want to present as much of life as he knows. He will have no time to make repetitions." (25, Pound, Patria Mia and the Treatise on Harmony)

If taken in combination with the above, the artist MUST make repetitions in order to show that he truly understands the workings of nature as he sees it. And let us not forget the mathematician. It must be both what endures and what is transient, and Pound's "Cantos" are a perfect combination of those two concepts. "Patria Mia" alone is a struggle between these two points, whether he should stay on focus with the writing of the America of his time or veer off into the transcendental.

And when he mentioned the mathematician, the first thought that popped up in my head was the geometer from "The Manuscript found in Saragossa" by Jan Potocki.

instrumentation for "ballet mecanique"

glockenspiel
small airplane propeller sound
large airplane propeller sound
gong
cymbal
woodblock
triangle
military drum
tambourine
small electric bell
large electric bell
tenor drum
bass drum
2 xylophones
4 pianos

"when this revised score of ballet mecanique was played on february 21, 1954 at the fifth composer's forum at columbia university, the reviewer for the new york times wrote: 'the work which caused riots in paris...and burst 'on startled ears' in carnegie hall, now sounds like an ebullient and lively piece that is actually pretty in places. instead of riots there was a three-minute ovation that necessitated many bows by the composer."

"ballet mecanique" by george antheil

this is what i am looking at this evening. "ballet mecanique" by george antheil. there is no way i am actually going to attempt to sight read ANY of it, but it's definitely fun to look through. plus, i get a kick out of the covers of these older music books (i have quite a large and varied collection of them and will be writing about them in the upcoming weeks when i have any available time).

from the biographical notes:

"george antheil was born in trenton, new jersey on june 8, 1900 and died in new york february 12, 1959. he began piano instruction at an early age and studied composition with von sternberg until 1919 when he began working with ernest bloch. in 1922 antheil won the guggenhein fellowship and went to europe as a concert pianist, performing his own compositions, works of other contemporary composers as well as the classics. this concert tour resulted in his being dubbed the "bad boy" composer-pianist of america. many years later (1945) he recalled his experiences in an autobiography "bad boy of music". during 1923 antheil lived in paris in order to devote his full time to composition. his first concert caused a riot when he introduced a group of his own piano pieces. in paris his friends included gerturde stein, ezra pound, mrs. james joyce and ernest hemingway."

the ezra pound connection is only one of many reasons why i am referring to this piece. more later. oh, and if anyone has a copy of "bad boy of music" by antheil that they wouldn't mind lending, please let me know. :)

more on the piece:

"ballet mecanique, written in 1924-25 was originally intended for a film by fernand leger, but actually the film and the music proceeded separately...this work was first performed at the theatre des champs elysees, in 1926 with golschmann on the podium. the american premiere at carnegie hall in 1927 was conducted by goossens. in addition to the initial performance at the champs elysees theatre, the work was performed several times in paris. all the concerts were riotous in some way; the paris performance resulting in actual first fights among the audience while the carnegie hall performance is said to have been as scandalous as any new york witnessed."

and WHY this piece is so fascinating, from the composer's own words:

"interpretively speaking, ballet mecanique was never intended to demonstrate (as has been erronously said) "the beauty and precision of machines". rather it was to experiment with and thus, to demonstrate a new principle in music construction, that of "time-space", or in which the time principle, rather than the tonal principle, is held to be of main importance.

to demonstrate. up until strawinsky and schoenberg, most contemporary music had been constructed, architecturally speaking, on the tonal principle. a sonata allegro movement, for exmaple, spread out a tonality, departed from it in the development, returned again in the recapitulation - usually with a vengeance. it is still an excellent principle. but it neglects "time-space."

strawinsky attempted to move away from its iron grip by making his music "super-tonal" so to speak. schoenberg, going to the opposite pole, destroyed tonality entirely by removing all tonal centers in the 12 tone system.

ballet mecanique, while utilizing (subconsiously, for at the time this work was written, 12 tone-ism was unknown as such) both systems, concentrated on what i then called "the time canvas." rather than to consider musical form as a series of tonalities, atonalities with a tonal center, or a tonal center at all, it supposed that music actually takes place in time; and that, therefore, are merely his crayons, his colors. the 'time-space' principle, therefore, is an aesthetic of 'looking', so to speak, at a piece of music 'all at once.' one might propose, therefore, that it is a sort of 'fourth dimension' -al way of looking at music; its constructive principles may, or may not have been touched in this work, but they have been attempted."

wow. the only way i could ever come up with a response to that is to LISTEN (with EVERYTHING) in a way that requires my full attention. not to just the tones, the dissonance, the sounds, the airplanes, glockenspiels, pianos. not one fragment of it must escape. everything has to be as it is for the piece. only then, only when my full attention has been immersed within that18 minute period can i look up and even pretend i understood what his intention for it was. for him who composed it, for us as the listeners.

violin works of ezra pound

my list of goals for 2008 is increasing of its own accord. in addition to working on 3 new cdrs of original material, i will also record the sayyid & dervish music of gurdjieff/thomas de hartmann as well as the violin works of ezra pound. this journal is meant to house all of the background work that has gone into these pieces.

tonight i have been working on the violin works of ezra pound. i have been using the material from "complete violin works 1923-1933 of ezra pound" as edited by robert hughes. this evening i have also been reading "patria mia and the treatise on harmony" by ezra pound.

this has been my first attempt at playing anything by pound. though they are obviously meant for violin, the majority of pieces are perfectly suited for harmonium due to the ease of hand movements. from a quick glance, at least a quarter of the pieces appear suitable for harmonium. the ones i know i will definitely be working on:

"plainte pour la mort du roi richard coeur de lion"
"fiddle music first suite I, II, III, IV."
"folle e colui che vole amare altra dona a che gentile (incomplete)"
"homage froissart"
"sonate 'ghuidonis' pour violon seul I lirico, II larghetto, III allegro, IIII maestro"
"frottola"
"al poco giorno"

while sight reading for the 1st time "frottola"," i felt that there was something missing from the piece. perhaps the following will confirm that there are is indeed something awry:

"i discovered that a number of the pieces existed in multiple versions generated in an accrued creative process toward a definitive 'final version...establishing definitive versions (not always possible) was both aided and mystified by the profusion of sketches and minute fragments appearing everywhere-on the front and reverse sides of unrelated pieces of music, upside down on the corner of a completed page, interspersed on sheets of pound's vivaldi arrangements, on practice sheets devoted to improving his music script, on miscellaneous this and that." (hughes, iv)

"like most composers working with a personal shorthand under the impetus of inspiration, haste, or deadline, pound left an abundance of dilemmas for the editor. these included: ambiguous pitches, the correct application of 'floating' accidentals, rhythmic dichotomies (diverse rhythmic stems appended simultaneously above an below common note heads), and procedural process (does the accidental apply to a specific note or throughout the bar,...does it apply to the octave?). (huges, iv)

i have already determined that i will be allowing a bit of improvisation into the mix. this will only occur when playing segments i can feel are not at the place they are intended to be. if this will be within pound's framework or mine own i cannot say yet, but i will attempt to use it sparingly in order to bring out as much of the original intention of the pieces as possible.