Where are we at?

The work I am writing is going extremely well and as expected…very, very, slowly. It’s a peaceful place. Albeit, the transference of artistic R and D has proven somewhat alien since this new material is not something that has come directly from my past experience, or is in my hearing as of yet. Therefore, I have to invest hearing it, and being exposed to the elasticity of what it can actually do. Moreover, my approach is much more abstract and calculated than improvisational these days. That is taking time and patience, patience, patience, and practice. It’s like learning to walk again.

My first impulse, as you know, was to reject the materials completely and fall back to that free improvisational material and comfortable warm world of working. But, my exposure over these full moons has matured me to not jump to reactionary conclusions and to allow time for the schemas to form in the psyche. Get used to the relationship between myself and the new materials, and ask the right questions so the work can respond to those questions with its own needs and not mine – filling those needs with compositional actions.

The good side is I’m also finding surprising new discoveries if I don’t rush and allow some breaks between writing time, which encourages me even more to not rush the thing with my greedy impulses. With the mind tested all day long in other tasks, the “will” pool that is used to make decisions and control impulses is lowered, so one tends to rush or magentize into wrong decisions and immature shortcuts. By giving more time for the work to breath, the decision and discovery process is elongated and there is a better chance that will/energy liquid is available to make the right choice. I’m thankful I don’t have a recording or performance date to dictate those decisions for me and I’m strong enough to recognize the importance of this time in my life.

The work itself is an orchestral work of around 80 players (a2). I felt because the simultaneities I use in places are complex and resonant, I need a good body of instruments to project those harmonics and textures. The downside is that I also want intimacy in places, and I don’t believe this size of a band is going to pull off completely what I am intending.

I’m finding a need to have a closer relationship to the use of space. Not so much space in the music and sound, but the properties of physical performance space. This is something I feel I need to explore more of in the future, and the psychology of it’s use in the work itself. I’m not sure I can pull it off completely with this work, but there are definitive needs here for scarcity and acoustical reflection.

If I had to call a style for my work, I would name it Minimal-Connectionism and not group the work into Minimalist or Post-Minimalist or Maximalist schools. Minimalist in that the basis of the entire piece are a miniature set of materials. Yet, it is not entirely static in rhythm and pitch as Minimalist tends to be; nor does it try in any way to eliminate the human trace in it. There is progression – both short and long – and the rhythms in places can be asymmetrical and fresh in places. From the structuralist side, the counterpoint, harmony, and melody are mostly derived from pitch theory, but stripped bare of more complex and esoteric theoretics that are not proven to be psychologically transferable to the listener (at least in my ears). These new materials are extremely tight and a lot of effort went into finding them and simplifying them to the utmost clarity of idea. From a maximalist standpoint, large effort went into finding as much use out of these simple musical ideas and how to project them, yet I pulled back in the decision process to something much simpler and clear in presentation rather than writing down every possible connection and performance nuance. Unlike these styles, there are places where ambiguity becomes forefront to add breath and contrast to these choices, but these usages are either for balance or transitional in psychological meaning.

If I had to describe an analogy, I would say that Minimalism/Post-Minimalism is more like the hue of sky; Maximalism is more like a complex of earth and rocks. Minimal-Connectionism is more like a snowflake. Sometimes that snowflake can reflects part of the hue of the sky; sometimes it has grime along the edges; sometimes it becomes sleet.

Webern is more like broken glass, and Arvo Part mentions that his music is more like a prism.