Good Lovin' Messin' Up My Mind

Oooh woo woo weee?

Umm, those lyrics are the profound uttering of Grand Funk Railroad. Ok, so Rock-n-roll has its weak moments!

Lots going on, confirming tour dates, looking for holes to add more. More than likely this tour will involve two trips to Europe and several flights to the Right and to the Left Coasts of the US taking place over the course of the entire year. Well, idle hands are the devil's playthings.

I finished a draft of the documentary soundtrack and am waiting for comments and ultimately approval from the producer of the program before I finalize and master the tracks. There will be revisions and expansions, I am certain of it. I've heard most of the voice-over for the docu and it's really nicely done, very well conceived. I wanted to treat that with respect as I composed.

Initially my producer pointed me in the direction of the German band Console for inspiration. My producer is in her early 20s and perhaps didn't realize that Console are profoundly influenced by the pre-ambient work of Brian Eno (Before and After Science, for instance) and the collaborative work of Robyn Guthrie (Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd, a California composer who was at CalArts in the 70s and is noted for his ambient compositions - which include collaborations with Brian Eno. Knowing this, I went to the source and began work composing.

Well, weeks later, new software, new gear, and I had some really lovely recordings and some compositions that were composed on the piano. I haven't composed on the piano (and by this I mean by placing my hands on the keys and improvising) since 1998. I incorporated brief improvisations into the solo work Woad for Indigo in 2004, but only very brief moments, maybe a measure here and there. What have I learned since 1998? Well, the compositions are simultaneously more complex and simpler. More complex in my level of playing and in the nuances I eased out of the piano, but simpler in that, there is no proper score: instead, I sketched out an idea (see snaps this post), sometimes maybe as much as a melody with some suggestions for rhythm and structure, and then improvised around that.

My 'ensemble' then consisted of both live recordings of my performances on an old upright grand piano and midi-recordings that I translated into various instruments and sounds. After about two weeks I had roughly ten to twelve minutes of music and some decent demos.

My producer patiently waited; after initial review, she then firmly pointed me in the direction of her preference for glich/loop-oriented music. It was a logical step. I felt strongly that the original compositions were somehow old fashioned; the producer is looking for something new- she is 20-something, as I mentioned, but the subject of the documentary is the Buchenwald concentration camp, located only a few miles outside Weimar in eastern Germany. My producer interviewed the natives of Weimar, a town that boasts both fame and infamy in terms of who and what has come through - Bach and Wagner and Liszt (composers), Goethe, Schiller and Nietsche (writers), Feininger (painter) and Walter Gropius (architect) founded the Bauhaus University there before he moved it to Dessau under pressure from the Nazis. The question this documentary poses is "how could a concentration camp be situated so close to this small, thriving town, and go either un-noticed or un-challenged?" It's a tough subject and the people who are interviewed are all older and seem eager to elaborate on the personal angst they have suffered over the subject.

Musically, it seemed really important to support some fundamental concepts. I didn't want to make judgments about the interviewees with the music, so I intentionally composed modally, emphasizing the emotional ambiguity of the subject. Furthermore, although the interviewees are speaking from experience and really searching their memories, which was the foundation for my original compositions, the producer (who also acts as first-person narrator) presents the documentary from her personal perspective- a young person in a new century. So it made sense to translate all of these ideas into a contemporarily relevant musical style.

As a result, I used my original compositions as the source for a loop-based soundtrack that I hope supports the documentary successfully, drawing from the contemporary and the 'new,' while still conjuring up a sense of memory and poignancy. I plan to offer the soundtrack for resale on iTunes as soon as the tracks are finalized. In addition, I will post the broadcast dates of the documentary when they become available...

Listening: Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple, Eagles, Carly Simon, Amina.

未濟 (You Know How Men Are)

(Waiting for the flesh...)

In case anyone ever wonders, those odd lines of text are nearly always quotes from various songs, yes, out of context. If you follow the hints and clues, you might discover that they aren't very deep, but usually what's playing in the background as I type The above is from "How Men Are" by Heaven 17, in my estimation one of their absolute best albums: I always liked Heaven 17's lyrics, for instance: "My clothes are too big for my body / my body's too big for my mind / I don't like humiliation / I can change my clothes, but I don't think I'll change my mind!" Somehow this brings back images of David Byrne in his Noh-inspired 'Big Suit' in the fantastic Talking Heads concert-movie Stop Making Sense. I recently watched this film again, and I think it's an incredible piece of film-work, not just a simple concert recording. It reminds me that pop music can really stretch the boundaries of whatever discipline it touches - film, video, rock-n-roll, pop music, at least the stuff I like, strives to surprise and catch you off-guard. Some of these moments are worth revisiting, as in the case of Heaven 17 and the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense.

I did it again, I disappeared. I simply submerged into whatever it was I was working on. I think last I wrote I was working on an animated sequence for N-L and I made headway, then discovered that some of what I want to do is profoundly detail oriented; not that I don't have the patience to do it, there are larger parts of the thing that need taking care of, for instance, the fourth movement needs finishing. Actually, needs creating! Yes, I have sketches, but I haven't executed a single note. Shucks.

Then there's the ongoing battle with Considering Light which is really challenging me, largely because I've been working with electronics and solo instruments for the last few compositions. I have to constantly remind myself that this is an acoustic piece and of the many, really incredibly wonderful things that 'regular' instruments can do. It's coming along and, although I like much of what I've done, I don't love, at least not yet. I was advised by compatriot Michael Finnissy at one point to "love every note to death" - this follows the line of thinking that I learned from Lucky Mosko, who taught me to really look at the detail of what I'm creating: you can make a quilt - or you can make an incredible piece of lace. Certainly a quilt gets the job done, but the lace... that's refined. I'm in the early stages yet, so it looks like a quilt, but when I'm done it will be lace. Of course, Lucky always talked in cooking terms, so maybe I should too: it will be like an incredible seviche, with many, many layers. Right now, I'm just getting the ingredients ready. Lucky made me seviche on my birthday once and I haven't tasted anything that compares since. So I have a standard, cooking or composing, to live up to!

So where did I disappear to? I have been sketching the 3rd movement of Considering LIght and revising the first movement. I was gifted a Reiki alignment, and wow, the very next day I had a pretty successfully revised first movement; I can't emphasize the effects of that session enough. All those who don't believe, fine, but I'm telling you, I didn't expect the floodgates to open quite like that. And the Reiki-ist (?) immediately pointed out that I had blockage in Chakras 2 and 5. Well, 2 is procreative and creative - it is the energy point where ideas, passion and creativity are generated from. Color: orange, also the sex center, but that's pro-creative, correct? And what is the 5th - it is the throat chakra, baby blue in color and is the energy center for self-expression. When we are upset we say, "I'm choked up" because we can't talk, we can't express ourselves. Have you ever been in a situation where you have something you need to say, but for whatever reason it's inappropriate - and you start coughing? You don't have to believe anything I'm saying, but just consider it for a moment, not in an esoteric sense, but in a practical sense. There is energy flowing all through our bodies, physical energy, kinetic energy, heat carried by blood - and certainly the muscular constriction of the throat could be the physical manifestation or unconscious response to psychological discomfort. Next time you're in a quiet room, notice who coughs and who doesn't - how is it that we can go entire days without thinking about our throats but the minute the lights go down in a concert hall and we're not supposed to talk, that's when we feel the urge to cough. Hmmm... as a composer, it's something I've really thought about - and even considered offering pre-concert meditations prior to performances for audience members who are uncomfortable in silence! Wouldn't that be a hoot!

I've also been more deeply involved in my yoga practice of late. I have a strenuous Autumn up ahead and I want to greet it with tremendous strength and deep health so that I can put my absolute best foot forward. I attended a yoga workshop with some friends and was amazed at how far I've progressed since I began about a year ago; the instructors were supportive and encouraged me to try a hand stand - and I was successful (with help, but have been able to achieve it since at home in my own practice). This progress has given me incentive to really up the anti and challenge myself more - I see these instructors wrapping their various limbs around their necks and, where last year I thought, "wow, that's just not possible, I'm perfectly happy with my arm outstretched over here..." now I think, "that's a beautiful pose... I look forward to doing that!" Nothing is impossible.

I also disappeared into the sketches for the soundtrack I'm working on for a German radio broadcast. It's a docu about the Buchenwald Concentration Camp outside of Weimar, Germany, in what was Eastern Germany. I won't go into details now, but that has been a rough experience - the subject matter calls for a lot of consideration for a lot of different things. I feel the director is taking a unique and interesting approach and we are agreed on many aspects of the music. I composed and recorded some sketches- I got the director's feedback and I've been waiting for some new gear and software to arrive in order to begin refining my work. Snaps are of the old, upright grand piano I recorded for this soundtrack.

Listening: Ryoji Ikeda, Heaven 17, The Luxury Gap (Original US Release), How Men Are, Japanese traditional Gagaku music (wow, this stuff is simply fantastic!)