Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

Listening to Uaxuctum for the first time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was too young to appreciate the film, but old enough to not be easily frightened by a movie.  That said, I remember being terrified during the first monolith scenes. There was something dark and inscrutable about the artifact that was amplified by Ligeti’s Requiem to frightening proportions. That same presence seemed to crystallize itself in Uaxuctum.  The latter half of the movement in particular used this weird sound, almost like a synthesized scream or cry, which represented its prophetic character. Contrary to my initial reaction to the monolith, I found Uaxuctum to be beautiful.  Knowing that it represents a Mayan city that destroyed itself, I find a sort of natural beauty in this piece, as if it represented a cycle of death and rebirth.  I get a similar feeling listening Ko-Tha, another of Scelsi’s pieces, which, conveniently, deals with Shiva.

I enjoyed the wide variety of songs that Chris chose to play for us on monday. Monday night I went out into the Lorain county farm and amish country and slaughtered some goats… Atleast I think, I was in a trance. It must have been the Five string blues that made me do it. But seriously, I respect norweigans for their forms of expression, we all have a spiky shrieking side that needs to come out every once in a while, they are just more comfortable about it I suppose. Like “look at how badass they are.” Maybe they aren’t messed up, maybe they are normal and the rest of us are weird. Who knows?

“Five String Blues,” Was good to hear at first, but it was complemented by Doug’s comments about the blues form, I think that made me appreciate it more. The rock solo, I mean if you can’t respect that shredding ability you must be some bitter 70-year-old who thinks that the young people have too much freedom, and that flappers should come back. I appreciated the obscurity and the perfectly executed rhythmic stops in the first heavy song we listened to, however I didn’t enjoy it necessarily. I would listen to it yes, many times, but it wouldn’t make my favorite songs list.

Uaxuctum: scary and beautiful. I think it’s because mystery and fear both are beautiful. We all love the sense of adventure, and “scary” songs like this make us think of places that would make our hearts beat fast, and make us feel alive. I like how this piece got my adrenaline going a little bit. I could see this whole world inside this piece that was full of fantasy. The quick changes allowed me to never get comfortable with a phrase of the song, it always kept going following that mystery. It was certainly a listening voyage that went somewhere dark and completely unknown. probably with ghosts.

It is, as Professor Alegant noted, truely terrifying at times.  I really enjoyed the surreal mixing of ominous syllables and tone in the voice with more longing strains, as well as very effectively placed percussion and brass. It’s the kind of piece that keeps building, but at no point comes to an ultimate climax; tension is retained throughout. What really got me was actually the breathing noise at the very beginning – as I drew in my timeline, I got the immediate impression of a gas mask, and a horrifying but somehow mysterious scene. The piece opens up into distinct sections for me: these sections are defined by a certain instrument and kind of tone. In the beginning, it is the breathing; next, the male voice, with a dark tone.  Later, the brass would define a section.  Outlining this piece was very hard for me – As you saw, I started out with noted times, and then basically just drew what i felt I was hearing in each section.  Although it seemed to work at the time, I don’t think that this was the most effective way of going about it – Looking back on the timeline, it was at the very least hard to follow. I should have been more specific…
But at any rate, I really enjoyed/was disturbed by this piece.