Chapter Five Sample
A SECRET LIFE
Creativity never flows smoothly. Sometimes there is a barren state when nothing wants to come into being, no ideas, no images, nothing, and then normal daily life for me can continue unhindered. At other times too much is whirring around in my mind and I'm caught in a whirlpool of ideas struggling to get out. Before they get sucked back down I try to catch some of them and make them tangible.
Now is such a time for me, so I do a little brainstorming to see what comes down to earth when the mental storm settles. I'm buzzing with ideas as a result of last Saturday's concert when my new composition was played for the first time. The music worked well. Singing bowls and gongs created a mystical outer-space feel and the quartet, playing separately from the main orchestra continued that vein. When the full orchestra began to play, the piece became textured and alive. This was my experiment to find out what worked and what didn't and now I can develop some of the compositional ideas further.
I'll certainly incorporate the singing bowls and gongs into the music and the double bass added to a string quartet (two violins, viola and cello) will provide a deep voice to counter and balance the high pitched harmonies of the bowls. I've outlined how I see the structure of the music and I'm now thinking on the lines of an electric quartet, inspired by George Crumb's “Black Angels”, plus the double bass, or maybe even an electric bass guitar. Each member of this group can have some percussion instruments and will represent a constituent of the alchemical process, maybe with a colour of their own: black, white, red and yellow.
There are some more elements to add, too. The first of these might be a narrative. This could, for example, describe the medieval cosmology that accompanied the alchemical process and which includes in its philosophy the music of the spheres, the notion that the planetary bodies sound their own notes and sing to us though space. The second addition could be a backdrop behind the players of projected images or animation derived from the music, or paintings on canvas if animation proves to be impractical. I can see in my mind's eye the music notation on the page shimmering and shifting with coloured light. Images can point the listener to the inner life of the music and the fact that written notation is the means to realising that living quality. It needs a musician to bring the notation to life, but the visual stimulus would emphasise the music’s living content and help to break down the conception of written music as just marks on paper or in a computer's memory.
These two new elements lead on to another which would give the music a way to be performed. I imagine the piece lasting about an hour, maybe less if played continuously, but in performance it might last for as long as necessary, suggesting a proportion of improvisation. There would be no need for a formal audience, just casual onlookers and listeners, even stopping to chat with the players who can take a break when they feel like it. I’m impressed by Eno’s notion of dipping into and out of a piece of music. I’d like to apply the same principle in live performance and it might be possible to extend this notion of informality to the players as well as the listener.
I want to rethink the idea of the musician/audience relationship and convert it into something more like the relationship that a visitor to an art gallery has with the paintings, sculptures or installations. The objects on view can be approached from different directions, for different lengths of time, can be revisited.
This may well all be pie in the sky but we shall see what materialises. I’ll write my piece of music and invite others to add their contributions, the animation, the narrative, maybe even lighting and costumes to be really fanciful, to suggest the alchemists and their metals of lead, copper, silver and gold. It’s not only a concert hall that I’ll need but an art gallery.
For such an informal performance presentation, the whole thing would be at risk of falling apart so I have another notion which may solve that problem and incorporate a further means for bringing out the experience of an inner musical universe. Ritual has been used since our early beginnings to weld the mind to the realities that formal religions seek to address. Ritual defines boundaries to mark out a magical space, the temenos, within which the Work can proceed....
Creativity never flows smoothly. Sometimes there is a barren state when nothing wants to come into being, no ideas, no images, nothing, and then normal daily life for me can continue unhindered. At other times too much is whirring around in my mind and I'm caught in a whirlpool of ideas struggling to get out. Before they get sucked back down I try to catch some of them and make them tangible.
Now is such a time for me, so I do a little brainstorming to see what comes down to earth when the mental storm settles. I'm buzzing with ideas as a result of last Saturday's concert when my new composition was played for the first time. The music worked well. Singing bowls and gongs created a mystical outer-space feel and the quartet, playing separately from the main orchestra continued that vein. When the full orchestra began to play, the piece became textured and alive. This was my experiment to find out what worked and what didn't and now I can develop some of the compositional ideas further.
I'll certainly incorporate the singing bowls and gongs into the music and the double bass added to a string quartet (two violins, viola and cello) will provide a deep voice to counter and balance the high pitched harmonies of the bowls. I've outlined how I see the structure of the music and I'm now thinking on the lines of an electric quartet, inspired by George Crumb's “Black Angels”, plus the double bass, or maybe even an electric bass guitar. Each member of this group can have some percussion instruments and will represent a constituent of the alchemical process, maybe with a colour of their own: black, white, red and yellow.
There are some more elements to add, too. The first of these might be a narrative. This could, for example, describe the medieval cosmology that accompanied the alchemical process and which includes in its philosophy the music of the spheres, the notion that the planetary bodies sound their own notes and sing to us though space. The second addition could be a backdrop behind the players of projected images or animation derived from the music, or paintings on canvas if animation proves to be impractical. I can see in my mind's eye the music notation on the page shimmering and shifting with coloured light. Images can point the listener to the inner life of the music and the fact that written notation is the means to realising that living quality. It needs a musician to bring the notation to life, but the visual stimulus would emphasise the music’s living content and help to break down the conception of written music as just marks on paper or in a computer's memory.
These two new elements lead on to another which would give the music a way to be performed. I imagine the piece lasting about an hour, maybe less if played continuously, but in performance it might last for as long as necessary, suggesting a proportion of improvisation. There would be no need for a formal audience, just casual onlookers and listeners, even stopping to chat with the players who can take a break when they feel like it. I’m impressed by Eno’s notion of dipping into and out of a piece of music. I’d like to apply the same principle in live performance and it might be possible to extend this notion of informality to the players as well as the listener.
I want to rethink the idea of the musician/audience relationship and convert it into something more like the relationship that a visitor to an art gallery has with the paintings, sculptures or installations. The objects on view can be approached from different directions, for different lengths of time, can be revisited.
This may well all be pie in the sky but we shall see what materialises. I’ll write my piece of music and invite others to add their contributions, the animation, the narrative, maybe even lighting and costumes to be really fanciful, to suggest the alchemists and their metals of lead, copper, silver and gold. It’s not only a concert hall that I’ll need but an art gallery.
For such an informal performance presentation, the whole thing would be at risk of falling apart so I have another notion which may solve that problem and incorporate a further means for bringing out the experience of an inner musical universe. Ritual has been used since our early beginnings to weld the mind to the realities that formal religions seek to address. Ritual defines boundaries to mark out a magical space, the temenos, within which the Work can proceed....
