Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

This piece and the performance is really phenomenal. (it’s like I say this eveytime but I really mean it when I say it.)

I was tempted to write about the piece that Jesse brought on Monday, especially about the piece about the match girl. The texture was really interesting. The progression from the warm sound to the huge , intense hallucination sound was clear and natural. However, I think the piece I heard tonight was also great and somehow more approachable.

The piece overall was unpredictable, had a lot of contrast and was influenced by minimalism. The starting of the first movement was beautiful and solemn,with the cello and piano repeting the same line for a few minutes. Then, all of a sudden, the piece almost exploded with great intensity, the sound was so strong that my chair was vibrating crazily. And the whole movement felt like it was greatly influenced by minimalism, having some subtle shifts between the lines. Also, I can’t quite remember exactly the piece, however, there was some triangular relationships among the three intruments. Sometimes the cello and the piano were playing the same bar while sometime it was the clarinet and the piano were in sync.But the most interesting part was the ending where the intensity almost dropped immediately and then the movement went back to the starting point, give me a sense that the piece held itself together tightly.

The movement I liked the most was the second movement. It began with the beautiful clarinet sound that almost gave me a sense of the countryside. The piano in the background was stable, only playing chords with several (not so) subtle shifts. The intensity of the notes was also handled expertly that the first part of the movement was really fluid and gorgeous. Then the cello joined in,although soft and smooth at first, quickly lifted the piece into another peak. Then the cello and the clarinet were, like the first movement, playing the same line and went on to a point where I thought the piece was about to fall, but it went on, to a even more strong point, then beautifully spiralled with two beautifully arranged notes and the cello and the clarinet went on again. That was really a (long-ish) cool spot of the piece. The sound mass was strong and bright enough to blind me sonically.

The whole piece was really magnificent although there were only three instruments. I couldn’t remember more of the details, however, the rest of the piece was also great with some changes in piano notes, and ended in a peaceful way. The piece was just great. And great performance!

Just some thoughts about creativity.

What is creativity? Everything in this world can be seen as innovations, combinations of something else. I have been thinking about something that can not be traced, that is, something that comes from nowhere and that kind of thing is what I regard as original. However, everything seems to be product of revolutions. In fact, I think when people want to create something completely different, firstly they have to have an idea of what they want to achieve. Then they have to figure out the process of how they can achieve that. The process, however, actually consists of things they know. Like Douglas said how he plays music. People have to express ideas with some kind of language. And for me, everything ever exists comes from the human nature. The variety of food comes from hunger. In the process of fulfilling the need, people  discovered things with different tastes. That’s the language for food. People then try to combine different kind of raw materials and seasonings to create something “new”. But is that creativity? Isn’t it simply combinations? The same with music. Even when people using different kind of things to create sound, they get the sound from nature rather than “creating” something doesn’t exist. Then people experiment with different objects to find out what they sound like. Then to innovate the sound to get what they want. If creativity means something that is completely new, I don’t think there is any creativity. What people do is to build stairs using what they already have in hand to a place they want to go.  

If we just look at music, I think every listener tries to find their favorite kind of music.  However, not all people find everything satisfying. That makes them to seek new kind of music. For me, I’m somewhat between indie and emo. The motivation for me to listen is to find something that I really love. Although there are parts of songs which I like a lot , there’s not a single musician or band I find satisfying all my needs so far. So maybe I will make something myself. But since there are so many musicians in the world and we human share 99.9% of our genes. It’s still possible for a majority of people to find their “favorite” music which they can stick to. So they are not the ones to blame. They are just doing what is right for them. It’s the same that people just don’t understand why we are always not satisfied with what we already have. Fortunately, although we are the minority, we are always here. There are always people trying to innovate or to “create” new stuff to listen to. This makes perfect sense. The world will be worse if there’s just too many variable and even worse if the world is not moving anymore. We need surprises but too many surprises will just make surprises ordinary. So for me, the world is perfect. : P    

I don’t know if this makes any sense. I was so occupied with thinking and just couldn’t make a sound in class so I have to say this.~ 

Well, I really want to figure out something about the title of the piece. It’s really interesting and confusing. But I don’t know how to understand this title. So I’ll just leave it.. Maybe someday I’ll get an answer.

The piece is really(REALLY) interesting. At first there seems to be a theme which the flute just goes up and down(both the pitch and the sound intensity) and at the same time, the vibraphone does the same thing but with the same note. However, the sound doesn’t just stay that way, with every few repetitions, it gets something new in it. But the most unpredictable thing is the first silent moment. When I heard this, I thought there would be something going on soon. And at around 6:33, the second silent moment comes and the piece goes out of the original track. The piece accelerates and the sound mass begins to grow into a more colourful one. What I want to talk about is the part starting at 12:00 when the flute appears as a percussion instrument. It’s like the starting of a fight. The flute wants the vibraphone to follow it to be a percussion, however, firstly, both of them started as a negotiation. Vibraphone rejects the idea by doing what it did before. Don’t want to act rude, the flute answers politely with real notes. The negotiation just goes on. However, the vibraphone is apperantly not the strong side and always gives in. The flute uses more and more percussion notes and begins to scream at the vibraphone occasionally. At last , the vibraphone couldn’t stand it anymore, and after the flute screamed again in a unbearable way, the vibraphone obeyed.

This is a little funny but this is what comes to my mind as I listened to the piece for the second time with the score. But even in this, the cool spot for me is the part during which the flute and the vibraphone played alternatively. And both of them hint each other to go in by using some gestures. The sound played by the flute and the vibraphone were so different that I sense them as in different places but watching each other. There is the tacit understanding going on and it just feels great.

The piece is just interesting and I would definetely come back to this.

I didn’t expect DuYun to be a Chinese composer when I was listening to Gold ocean bounce3. The piece is really interesting and seemed to be influenced by a lot of western composers. She is extremely good at building scenes. How she makes the transition from the narrative part to actually the scene is really amazing.

But what I really want to talk about is the piece we listened to in class. (the longer wierd one.) When I said in class that that piece reminds me of the chinese movies descibing ancient chinese wars, I meant it. At first, I was still impressed that how she combined tranditional Chinese music and the western way of expressing sounds. However, as time goes on, I couldn’t help but kept thinking about those movies I saw back in China.  Those big, overwhelming scenes of hundreds of thousands of soldiers crashing into each other, fighting. However, that piece was too much. The percussin just wouldn’t stop, when I thought I could take a break, it just went on again, so strongly that I was almost out of my breath. Somewhere in the middle ( I think it’s more towards the end), the sound smoothed out, and the old, clear yet somehow rough chinese sound reminded me of a person sitting on a mountain with an old instrument made of wood, playing a tune with his eyes closed. The wind blew up the dirt, blurred the view. Slowly, in his mind the battle went on (as the sound begins to be really intense), he felt the soldiers fighting, bleeding, and moaning. Suddenly, the strings broke, and the battle was over. What was left was only the dirt that was blown up in the air.

I know this seems like a boring war film. But that’s what it sounds like to me. But anyway, I really wish I could listen to it once again to make things more clear since my imagination may just distort what was really going on in the piece. I really appreciate her ability to express the old chinese sound with a mordern way and it was perfect. The tension, the anger in the piece was intense for me yet still, the sound she created was great.

There’s no more equal sign between music and emotion anymore.

I used to try hard to correlate music with emotion and always found myself successful at it. However, I usually ignored the “something more” in music. Not this time. Reich’s  Double Sextet and Rzewski’s  Les Moutons de Panurge were no way to be concluded as mere expression of emotion. There was so much more that the emotion is actually a side product of these pieces. Just like what Ananda K.Coomaraswamy said, “in true art, self-expression may be an inevitable side effect, but should never be a goal.”

For Rzewski’s piece, it started in an ordinary way. Every instrument played the same note until (I think it’s the) cello began to fall out of the same beat. And things started to get complicated. If I took a broad view of the whole six instruments, they were distinct in tempo yet somehow connected(they play the same note and follow the same rule,of course). It’s like the underlying rule of chaos. However, as time goes on. The texture started to change. The cello and violin developed into more than just simple notes, but a continuous sonic clouds that was really smooth and beautiful. The best part for me was towards the end that everything fades out except the violin. Like clouds broke up and sunlight went through. The violin was so warm that it made me forget the cold outside. It was not intended for releasing emotions of course, but the colors of the texture and the warmth the piece carries reminded me of the transition from winter to spring. It was not strong, but smooth enough to make people smile.

For Reich’s piece, I really can’t write too much before I have the chance to listen to it again. It’s so beautiful both structually and textually. It’s even better listen to it live. The symmetry on stage was so great. (Matt said that.) The pianos gave great massiness to the piece, making it maginificent sonically. They are not that dynamic but provide a solid base upon which the whole piece constructed firmly. The interlocking of notes connected the two sextets togther. And the percussions were quite agile and jumping upon the pianos. The violins played not always in a flowing way, but always just in for a few bars then they came to a pause, then came in again. The pause was rather powerful and injected life into the piece. What is the best part, for me, is the ending. The sound mass escalated and escalated, and just exploded. I was so into the whole feeling that the piece was trying to convey and was not sure what exactly happened to each of the instruments. But the feeling was just so great. The explosion(actually it suddenly stopped, but to me, it was like the big bang, maybe it’s just because that the light was so intense that it actually blinded me.) was so sure to happen, but when it happened, it was still so amazing.

I don’t know what else to add to this. If there’s another performance, I will be there and if this would be in a CD, I would buy it. And my demand curve is relatively inelastic. But anyway, it’s amazing, amazing and amazing.

This piece is beautiful. Instead of the totally white plain in Alaska I feel more like being in a helicopter flying over endless mountains covered with trees. However, the crazy volume of the harp cannot fit them into the scene as springs. But if I were to perceive this as plains covered with snow, both the strings and the harps sound a little too harsh. When I was listening to the piece in class, I was wishing that either the strings would be more smooth or the harps could be more clear. I appreciate the layer of the strings, but only technically, the complicatedness of the strings make me think otherwise than snow or other smooth surfaces. I also like the sound of the harps, but the volume makes the harps becomes abrupt rather than crystal clear. But when I listened to it for the second time, things started to change. Nothing is perfect, even the seemingly unchanging snow-covered plain in Alaska has changes in terrain and has rocks all over it. I remembered my hometown where the temperature can also sometimes get to -30C in winter. The texture of the piece precisely describe what is actually there. While the color does not change, we see hills, dead trees, rocks , soil, snowflakes and even the sun that is lingering over the horizon far far away.  

As for the piece itself, I really love the strings part.  The texture is rich and expressive. The layers are more than just harmony sounds. Actually the notes sound a little awkward sometimes. But they really give people some kind of in-depth perception. Unlike the kind of (2-dimensional) music usually in movies that is used to lead people into horrible scenes, this sound surface really make people feel the vastity of the environment that the piece is trying to show. Also, at around 4:2o and 9:20, the increased pitch of the strings lifted the emotion of the piece. The harps part which is more or less the snowfall part for me. However, the harps bring life into the piece. Especially at around 7:16, the harps come in in a different way, not just four notes sectors, but they the dominating sound. The two harps are not playing harmoniously. Instead, they are played in a somewhat random way which is rather interesting. Like the snowflakes are flying in the air, beating the window, and falling to the ground. 

It’s beautiful and it’s really hard to describe with words. But this is definitely the piece that I’m going to return to again and again. 

Well. I should say that this piece is absolutely amazing. Not only because of the technique the piece required but also the structure and the texture. When I first listen to it, I immediately thought about the article by Feldman “the anxiety of art”. I was holding my breath without even noticing during the whole piece. It was such a relief when the piece ended. I don’t know if everyone feels the same. However, although they have the same structure and notes, each of the three versions impressed me differently. Or to me, the piano version is different from the other two versions, and the organ version is definitely the best one.

The piano version of continuum has the most distinct notes. I can tell the difference between the notes. They are not really merged together. So this version is actually ” uncontinuous continuum”. It gave me the feeling of glass pearls falling on a iron tray, bouncing restlessly. But anyway, people can still see each of the pearls clearly. And at the “explosion” moment, it gives me an awkward feeling that it just abruptly turns up its volume rather than has a explosion-like process which is not only the moment that a balloon is pinched by a needle but it also should have a expansion of the air. Or put it in another way, it should be three dimensional but not two dimensional of just a louder sound. The piano version failed to capture me. “Continuum” should be a flow, a smooth and continuous sound texture, ( I thought it would be soft when I saw the title but it turned out to be really “anxious” which is rather cool.) that is what the organ version gives me. I really feel like that I’m inside of a supernova explosion where mist consists of little articles and rock-like objects and other things moving at a ridiculous speed, colliding with each other and getting out of control. And at 2:00, it exploded. Exactly the feeling of explosion, some sounds don’t just disappear immediately but they just linger there for a while, and then gradually decays.(although everything still happens in a relatively short period.)The texture is much more smooth than the piano version as the sound organ creates don’t immediately fade away. Since each note is “longer”, every note seems to blend into each other and the piece is more continuous. But we can still feel the distinct beats the player is playing which give people the feeling of anxiety.(so that’s why the piano piece also makes me anxious) I don’t know how to explain it but it should have some psychological meanings.

In general, I really appreciate the idea of the piece, I thought that long, smooth notes plus some unexpected short notes is the only way to make people tensioned, but “continuum” proves me wrong.

The piece is interesting.But not that absolutely amazing. When I heard the beginning of the piece, I can easily relate it to some southern Chinese music. Although the instruments are not the same, but the sound and the form is really similar. The sound is not that like those popular music, that piece uses much “wriggling” sounds, especially the saxphone. The melody is like a dancing person twisting his or her body all the time. However, the background is much more ordinary, the bass and the drums follow the common chords just like any rock song. Some southern Chinese music employs some flute like instrument made of bamboo and the players also use techniques that makes the sound wriggling a lot. I don’t know any specifically geographical facts the wedding piece has, but for the southern Chinese music, as they are developed by people live in the southern part of China which has a lot of mountains and winding rivers, it sounds exactly like the environment southern people live in. When I hear the southern chinese music, I can easily be dragged into a scene with small rivers twisting across villiages, houses surrounded by green bushes, little flowers blossom everywhere and with people dressed up with tranditional customs.Life is beautiful.However, in contrast to the southern music, the northern chinese music has a completely different style. The northern chinese music are not sophiscatedly designed or have any tiny,exquisite instruments, it usually has no accompaniment just voice or sometimes with some guitar like instrument but provides a much more harsh sound. The singer sings in a rather rough voice and the lyrics are all about the hard life in the north where what people got is only big but barren plains. People lead a much harder life there.

It is quite interesting to think about how certain life styles can affect the music people create. Maybe it’s because that life in America and Europe is becoming more and more easier that  a lot of music has gone beyond life and into an experimental age. But that brings both benefit and harm. It’s great that people can have a lot more different choices in music but we also see (sadly) that the tranditional music that based on certain lifestyles are becoming out of time to a lot of people.And the music is vanishing. It’s also sad that when we finally understands the importance of the “outfashioned” pieces, they might have already been extinct. They need more attention.

Northern China.

Scenes from southern china.

We are out of drones.( Finally )

I didn’t realize how much effort listening to Merbow’s and Niblock’s pieces required until I heard In C. Like Caroline said, we could ” sit back and let it come to us”. It isn’t that I hate Merzbow’s or Niblock’s pieces that much, I have already had some enjoyments in listening to these two composers’ pieces,especially Merzbow’s. Merzbow’s music provides such a dynamic nature that, if I try hard enough, I can catch up with it and feel the form and emotions in it. Niblock’s music as well gives people the sense of “moving the cloud with sound with manipulations”. But instead of the pieces themselves, the listening experience is the source we gain enjoyment from.

However, the whole thing changes for In C. The piece is dynamic yet has a strong sense of form. For the first version that we listened to, the piano in the background provided a ”ground” where the whole piece grows from. Every instrument starts at the same “root” and began to grow in a random way.It feels just like watching a flower growing in the spring.Shoots, offshots, buds and gradually they (will) blossom.Although it seems that every instrument moves in a random way, I still think the arrangement of the piece is brilliant. During the piece, I can always feel that there’s some background sounds (like violins play a continuous note for 8 beats or so) and figure sounds(like those lively and short vocal vowels or percussions). I would say that different versions are just the same flower grown from different seeds in the same variety. But still, as minimalism, it doesn’t have that much emotional content, or to say that the emotional content differs from person to person. There’s thousands of ways to perceive the piece for emotions. However, the experience of our listening while trying to find where the instruments have gone is great.

By the way, there are two things that I find interesting.

First, after listening to drones, does anybody get the special yet so good feeling of the environment around us? (such as the crack of the chair?)

Second, does the content seem to be different when we write when listening to the piece from write without listening?

It blows my mind away.

I think I’m becoming hysterical(to some people maybe) right now since this is the 7th time I’ve listened to this piece back to back. Its pace,its breath and its screaming still atonish me in such a way that I couldn’t even turn even a little bit of my thought away from it.Like what I have learned in my psychology class:We don’t choose to attend to these sounds, they just draw our minds towards them.

The soundmass was like a group of eyas struggling to fly. Dark clouds blocked the sunlight and it felt like a storm was coming close.They were so determined,so sure that they were going to fly over the trees, over the hills and over the clouds in search of the warm, bright sunlight. But it was so hard. Breathed in,breathed out, the first eyas gave it a try. It flapped its wings and tried to leave the ground. But it failed. However, it started the whole serious of endless trying.They went up, failed, went up again,higher, fell more heavily to the ground. It seemed they were never going to give up. When I was listening to this in class,it felt a little disapointing.  I was waiting and waiting for a time when the sirens just went up, like nothing could ever stop it, to an extreme when not one of us could even hear it. Like the eyas eventually broke through the dark clouds and the sunlight just blinded us. But they didn’t. At around 6:30, they went so close to the border of the clouds, so close that I could even smell the fresh air above the clouds. I wanted to scream with it,  wanted to give it a little more push to make it go beyond that line. However, no matter how hard I tried, it went down again. Like a dream been shattered into pieces. Like a marathon athlete felt down two meters before the finish line. Like the last soldier in an army got shot before he could put the flag of his motherland onto the land they were going to reclaim. He struggled, used his last strength to crawl to that place, but the scene just fade out, and I was left there, speechless.

 I’m still listening to it. Listening to the story what the four sirens are trying to say. Listening to the passion, the spirit and the taste of failure. But the piece is more than this. It blew my mind away and will always blow my mind away whenever I can’t help to press the play button.