sound expanse

There are ebbs and flows at these festivals. At Donaueschingen it is all much more compressed, but the Huddersfield festival is a 10-day event. After a very strong start, the most recent string of concerts has not been as interesting to me overall. But if I can leave the whole festival with a few truly memorable concert experiences, new or enriched friendships, and some leads on interesting work that I have not yet known, I'm perfectly willing to endure a few sessions that test my patience or endurance. In fact, I don't know how I would mentally process a festival if I enjoyed everything. I can't imagine that it will ever happen. But I've had a wonderful time here so far, and I'm determined to keep these visits going as long as I can.

I've promised some posts about individual events, and they will come. But this much was on my mind this morning.

I have been stalled recently on the question of how to write these posts. Yesterday, a line from William James occurred to me that might just solve the issue. That keeps happening with him. This quote is from the first volume of his Principles of Psychology:

I know the color blue when I see it, and the flavor of a pear when I taste it; I know an inch when I move my finger through it; a second of time, when I feel it pass; an effort of attention when I make it; a difference between two things when I notice it; but about the inner nature of these facts or what makes them what they are, I can say nothing at all. I cannot impart acquaintance with them to any one who has not already made it himself. I cannot describe them, make a blind man guess what blue is like, define to a child a syllogism, or tell a philosopher in just what respect distance is just what it is, and differs from other forms of relation. At most, I can say to my friends, Go to certain places and act in certain ways, and these objects will probably come.

So what I am doing in every sense is going to many places--through travel, listening, conversation, library research, and internet research, along with a good dose of slow thinking. At best, I can hope to generate enough interest in the material I find most promising that you will seek out those experiences yourself. For one thing, I can cover more ground this way. And your perception of any piece will be different from mine. I might be able to say something about what a piece does, but I will never be able to say what it is.

And now that I've cleared the brush from this path, you can expect more regular posts again. As always, your input is welcome.

I read an essay over the weekend that dives straight into a mess and discovers things that can only emerge from a fearless dig. I admired the boldness of the piece, and started thinking about how much I love to find dirt in my music.

There are pieces that literally involve dirt. David Dunn directs a listener to ground level in Purposeful Listening In Complex States of Time. He also wrote Skydrift, described as "a large outdoor performance work for a large dry lake bed in the Anza-Borrego Desert, CA." The first installation of Richard Barrett's Opening of the Mouth included rusting machinery and decaying fish heads. Clay is the main component of one player's instruments in Georges Aperghis's Seul à Seuls. I was transfixed by the rough beauty of that performance last year at the Huddersfield festival.

Simon Steen-Andersen amplifies very quiet sounds to bring out their fragility.

This opens up a rich micro-world of new sounds, in which normally suppressed or hidden subordinated sounds are integrated into an intense imagery of sounds.

Steen-Andersen digs beneath the surface of individual sounds in the midst of a live event to see how they are composed.

Charles Ives loved messiness for its own sake. His childhood memory of hearing multiple bands at a parade stayed with him, and affected his future work. In my experience, the sound of a marching band is rarely clean in the first place.

In my own work, I especially enjoy the alchemical reactions that can occur between sounds, or between sounds and objects. Sounds that would be relatively clean alone react with each other to make a rich sound world. Here's one example from my enclosed set--a piece for euphonium and voice, played and sung by Jonathon Kirk.

Because I don't want to limit its potential.

The expanse is macrocosmic. We will be delving into the worldwide experimental music scene, and discovering just how vibrant it is. (Yes, that's an invitation to post links and news. More on that later.)

The expanse is also microcosmic. It is an invitation to you (musician or no) to engage with the sounds and silences that already show up in your life, to have a more full appreciation of sounds, their nature, and their potential.

A smaller world. A larger experience.

I'll write about my own experiences as a composer, listener, researcher, and planner of experimental music happenings. You'll see soon enough that I get excited about the connections between experimental music and other disciplines. But this site is no more about me than it is about you. There is a whole community of us, and we should be talking to each other. Here and now.