Play Books

So I come from a family of sportaholics. The only part I inherited is the stubborn variety of the perseverence gene. I can run, I can play raquet sports fairly well -- I have a wicked backhand that will take you by surprise -- softball, horshoes, swimming, horseback riding, water polo...

I've tried on sports like most people try on jeans; and I've never found the right fit. Racquet sports come pretty close though.

I always took to music and poetry. I would write the most horrible stuff about this tree that I could see outside the window of my English classes. Each English classroom had a different view of the tree -- they were all spread across the left hand side of the second floor annex. I think the tree is gone now -- bulldozed when the high school sold its property to the college for the building of a bigger, badder library. And now all that is left of that tree is the fuzzy faded pencil lines of iambic pentameter.

Speaking of poetry, I have rediscovered the delight and joy I once found in the art form. The delicacy of line, the originality of thought in verse form...epic! Today I discovered a way that is most beneficial for me to capture the voice of my poems through chord cluster choral settings of my text. In a somewhat minimalist Arvo Part meets Eric Whitacre style, I am approaching my poems from the standpoint of a musical impressionist -- using chord clusters to suggest or embody *(emsound?)* the mood and memory of the work. I am going for less movement and more continual suggestive atmosphere through the use of sustained fourths and major second intervals within the clusters that never resolve. In theory, the "mood" of the poem or memory is not something that yearns for resolution -- it simply "is." Artistically, I see no need nor feel the desire to contradict this "is-ness" of mood in the text through musical resolution of the chord. The memory moves me, but the memory itself has little if any motion. From a compositional perspective, this makes the writing part much simpler and draws on my theater background to determine and choose the precise moments in the work which call for movement or a slight musical progression. Is it even correct, though, to use the word "progression" when the movement does not have an end goal? It is not functioning in a progressive manner so I am more inclined to call it a ripple in the sound pool I am creating through the five part voices. I can hear it all in my head -- 2 men and 3 women. It will be gorgeous and I just may be able to grab a quick recording of it in the next two weeks. It would complete my chlidhood set for this semester.

Amazing to me is the progression (regression actually in a psychological sense but progressive in that I am moving not backwards but forwards in my understanding of self) from exploring my own inner ecology and emotional landscape to the rediscovery of childhood. All of my work is very much based in the encounters with my inner child. I suspect my dreaming is reflecting this as well, although I have done a terrible job of keeping up with dream documentation and analysis. I think there is a deep rooted reason for this which I have decided to explore in the next two weeks -- my dreaming frustration, that is.

Alas, dear reader, I fear I may be approaching the level of boring you to death with my own inner constructs and journeys. Stay tuned for more sonnets, songbooks, and sonic maps and imagery.

Over and out,
MB Disco