|
The following text incorporates collaged Feldman remarks with an original poemtext by the author. The first segment of the text is a piece crafted for the play MORT, co-written by Kip Fagan and the author, and first performed in 2006. The text is published here for the first time by kind permission of the author. * * *
Very important concept in my work. But again, it's a performance; I see it as I'm doing it. Or I could vary repetition. However, I might repeat things that, as it's going around, Very important concept in my work. Is varying itself on one aspect. What my work is, is a synthesis. But again, it's a performance, between variation and repetition. Reiterative. You can either do two things with music, Very important concept in my work. You could be involved with variation. But again, it's a performance, which in simple terms means only vary it, or you could be in repetition. Essentially a piece of almost three or four minutes is just orchestrating the four notes. In other words, I see it as I'm doing it. At least I have a little more texture if I want to isolate. And also in a sense give me a minor second, a major second, a minor third and a major third. After a few years I added another one...Or I could vary repetition. Because the four notes then would give me the relationship. However, I might repeat things of either two minor seconds or two major seconds. So then all I have to decide is what my work is, is a synthesis where I'm going to start on the three notes, chromatic, you know. But the other notes are like shadows of the basic notes. So essentially. Very important concept in my work. I am working with three notes. I see it as I'm doing it. And of course we have to use the other notes. a drift is here discorporate and moves away a tension toward recognition.
the object a mouth makes
the waves invite in a room waiting for a
feldman the frog and so
individual moments at
Let the music do what it wants to do. For me it's the instrument. I don't know what a flute is unless the person plays it for me. Any professional knows that the flute and the piano is a boring combination. A kind of typical gestural crap, right? You might agree, though you wouldn't call it gestural crap. If you think you might have secret information listening to me, you're lost. What am I gonna do? I wanna write a piece. I decide don't change the flute, stay with the C flute, because then I'm involved with an important strategy. No one has the Houdini school of composition. as soft as possible
inventing post minimalism
restoring intuition
moments toward conclusion
in not having coordination
results speak for themselves now compose something you
Do you think I don't know how to cadence? If I cadence I'm dead. An occasional celeste was added to give the music a more heightened (or brighter) surface. A recurring ostinato heard in all the pianos [is] another aspect of a "surface" appearing and dissolving into this almost flat, Byzantine canvas. You can't give compositional strategies. I have them, I have a lot of them. Compositionally I always wanted to be like Fred Astaire. sounds sound sounds out until it
not composing but projecting
flexibility about entering
a visual rhythmic structure
sound appears from silence "intermission 6" the final version
slow. soft. durations are free He was sent by his piano teacher who showed him how to make a page. I should write a little bit and then copy it and as I copy I get close to the material. It always works. I write for half a day and copy half the day. I was thrown out of Eden. What is glamorous music? Monteverdi is glamorous music. One of the first things I did was I took out the overview. All I want is serious work. Serious means work, work hard. By finding myself humming tones while improvising on the piano. The vocal or humming sounds were quite short, and as the piano sounds lingered, I began to hear other pianos, other humming. Two, three, four pianos were too transparent - the fifth piano became like the pedal blur needed to complete the overall sound I was after. the person doesn't abandon
the last America
an event. a pause. a vex emptiness without fear indefinite distances
mourning deaths of art
the drift is here The composer makes plans, music laughs. Especially if they're young and they're growing up, because everything is right. The confusion of a young artist growing up is not the confusion that everybody is wrong and I'm right, the confusion is that everybody is right. Something is being made. And to make something is to constrain it. I have found no answer to this dilemma. My whole creative life is simply an attempt to adjust to it.... It seems to me that, in spite of our efforts to trammel it, music has already flown the coop -- escaped. There is an old proverb: "Man makes plans, God laughs." The composer makes plans, music laughs. All those things, having the right pen, a comfortable chair...if I had the right chair, I'd be like Mozart. the reason it moves away
during elongation the ingredients
reflecting space to add more it
the soundtrack of disintegration how equations disrupt and
as slow as possible the halved way there
a secondary destination it's about sitting in a room
The new painting made me desirous of a sound world more direct, more immediate, more physical than anything that had existed before. In other words reinvestigating what the hell music is. Art is a life of small moves. I'm not suspicious, I'm just careful. I go ahead and write the piece with a very conscious yin yang aspect in its equilibrium. I never feel that my music is sparse or minimal; the way fat people never really think they're fat. I certainly don't consider myself a minimalist at all. This business about being flung out of paradise is his gift to me. I'm glad I got out; it was getting too hot in there. Let the music do what it wants to do.
* * * |