Grids
Over the few years, I’ve been working on a series of pieces investigating improvisation, text scores, and suggestive musical practices, while still remaining fixed to a specific framing or subject. At the time, I was searching for a way to move away from documentation/specificity as the primary element of composition, especially after realizing how limiting it can be to the creative process anyway. In a lot of ways, one’s method of score-making really effects the music that can be made in the first place, but personally, I think the affect of a piece is potentially more interesting and exciting than the individual moments or note-to-note relationships of a piece. I like to call this the “aura” of a piece; the thing that stays with you.
I was looking for what would give me the aura of a piece as well as the ability to capture the initiation of my creative impulse without being burdened by the translation of overly-specific “musical” ideas. The specifics don’t matter here, that’s not the point. Digging deeper, I found asemic writing (wordless, open semantic form of writing), and I started to really get into Agnes Martin’s paintings and writings, and this idea of “beauty in the mind” which I believe is completely adjacent to this idea of the aura of a piece.
This is where the idea of “the grid” comes in. To quote Martin: “When I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision.” I really like this story from Arne Glimcher: “Agnes had a tiny little garden of roses in front of her door. I remember once there was a very beautiful rose in a bud vase and my granddaughter Isabel was looking at it. Agnes took the rose out of the vase and she said to Isabel, ‘Is this rose beautiful?’ And then Agnes put the rose behind her back and said, ‘Is the rose still beautiful?’ So the beauty is not the rose, the beauty is within you and the rose just makes you recognize that beauty. She was a great philosopher, but not a mystic as people like to say. There was nothing mystical about the work; it was, in its own way, practical.”
This resonated so deeply with what I was trying to do, and sparked a creative outpouring that continues to this day. I’m a big believer in working in series, so I’ve dug-in hard and created many pieces in this vein. The 37 are available on Edition Wandelweiser, and the PDF pages therein. These are linked below. Additionally, I’ve recorded demos of several of them, two of which made it on my Love Songs/Duets (2019, EWR), and several which will be on upcoming releases in the coming years.
Recently, I’ve been writing a journal full of these pieces (one a day for 172 days) and will combing through this journal for the pieces that stand out to me to bring to life here as well, so watch this space!
Falling Blue (2020), for Brass Ensemble - score
The Field (2020) for Saxophone Quartet (SATB) - score
The Tree (2020), for piano trio - score
Night Sea (2019) for flute, bass clarinet, and piano - score
Duo
Folie à Deux I (2019) for two bass clarinets - score
Two Pages (2020), for two instruments - score
These Pauses (2021) for cello and piano - score
Solo
Balconies (2019) for solo harp - score
Untitled, 1959 (2020) for pitch-pipes - score
everything became clear (2022) for violin - score
Open
The Desert (2020), for ensemble - score
Morning (2019), for ensemble - score
Landscape Study (2021), for ensemble - score
Concerto (2021) for soloist and ensemble - score
and briefly stay (2021) for ensemble - score
After Satie (2021) for ensemble - score
Present Tense (2021) for ensemble - score
Field (2021) for ensemble - score
They tell each other stories (2021) for ensemble - score
Play (2022) for ensemble - score