A NEW KIND OF AIR

This is not the project I wanted to make. I didn’t want to make it so I put it off for a year.

Here is the story

Part 1- The last couple of years I have been self producing concerts and presenting works for string quartets with a vocalist (tribunal and eight billion/one). Unfortunately classical music is extremely expensive to produce. My pieces required 5 musicians being paid for 5 hours of rehearsal and performance time. This really adds up and at the end of the day this is a one shot thing, and its super hard to get people to events. I did the math for a recent concert and it cost 46.29 for every min. of preformed music. More and more this was feeling financially unsustainable.

Part 2- My wife has struggled with on going health issues over the last couple of years. It made me ask the question, what type of music would serve her in this season. How could she connect with music in a meaningful way in the midst of challenging circumstances. How can you make music (which is a stimulant) to help calm overstimulation.

Part 3- I have a piano related hand injury that has lasted 3 or 4 years. I can still play the piano but I have to be carefull how much I play and how hard I play. A solution to this very practical problem was to write piano music specially for me to play (I am a composer after all). Knowing my abilities as a player and what causes hand strain, I could make music that was perfectly suited to my situation.

I put all these pieces together, embracing the challenge of the limitations, and wrote the music for a new kind of air. I think I was hesitant about this project at first for several reasons. I’ve realized more and more rhythm is becoming my main organization force in my music. The gas in the tank (for me) that makes the whole thing go is the rhythm. With my string quartet projects I could have five lines of independent rhythm which is pretty much all I would want, but with this project I was limited to two hands (and maybe even more importantly one brain). It was almost like, how do I even make music that’s interesting if I don’t have this. Secondly I am much more of a composer than a piano player and on top of that I’m a piano player who is injured. This put I lot of limits on what the music could be.

Several things surprised me as I worked on this project. I soon discovered hidden pockets in my head where different values were competing with each other. One value being making the best music I could, and the other value being I want to prove that I am good at playing the piano. This really surprised me, that unconsciously I could be making decisions that would be for value 2 and sacrificing value 1, when thats obviously a bad choice. Over and over for this project what served the piece was the simplest of solutions. For example, most of the pieces the left hand part is extremely pared down, often playing very slow half notes. To my logical mind this felt weak but to my listening self its what felt like served the piece the best. The whole project really felt like a practice in musical humility. The second thing I soon realized was all I really had to work with was melody. Which meant the melody had to be so pure and right. There was a lot of struggle getting this right, even though on the surface its not complicated. I recently heard a musican talk about the sweet spot, where the music is both simple and deep and that really sums up what I was going for.

As I evaluate the music now and listen though it, It feels like one huge deep breath. Its music that is introverted, slow to speak, delicate, venerable and extremely non exhibitionary. Its like a moment of pause where you are both remembering the things you should remember and forgetting those you should forget. It feels like music thats almost listening to you.

ANDREW HILL

Here is a poem that didn’t make the cut for my upcoming book. It just felt a little too obscure, but I still love it… and thats what blogs are for, the things that are not good enough for books.

The poem is based on this excerpt from the liner notes to Andrew Hill’s album point of departure.

“For the past year or so, Hill has not listend to jazz on the radio and he has retired his record player for the time being. “in listening to other people” Hill explains, “you absorb their thoughts, however unconsciously, and as I said, right now I have to concentrate on finding my own way””

I thought this was a really interesting, both for its musical implications, but even more so for every thing else in life. Its this idea that we are influenced by all the things we surround our selfs with, wether we want it to or not. This awareness brings a greater level of intentionality to what we let in our world.

Andrew Hill said

His record player is sleeping for now

Because he is building

his own world

And he knew

What you let in

Will change you

And start to build its own world

Inside of you

He didn’t trust his ability

To control a constricted sponge

In water

He didn’t trust his ability

To control an ocean storm

So he did his best

To navigate it

Every thing you let in

Will change you

Every thing has a cost

Every thing will take something from you

So he stayed home

With his books

with his piano and tape recorder

Alone

Suggested listening (Andrew Hill Albums)

Point of Departure

Dance With Death

Black Fire

Passing Ships

DUKE ELLINGTON VS. AARON COPLAND

I’ll just let you know now, Duke Ellington wins, and here is why

America was and continues to have an identity crisis when it comes to classical music. The tension is between mimicking European practices and creating something that is authentically American and different. For a long time most of Americas out put was the first option. Composers went to Europe for training (or we brought the European teacher over here) creating a steady stream of music that was essentially European in its DNA.

Enter Aaron Copland.

Our first world class composer, who is created with creating our first American sound in classical music.

The problem is Copland made his American sound the European way. The way any European could have if they had chosen his particular American topic.

step 1:Pick an American theme (in this case cowboys)

step 2: Go get a book of cowboy melodies

step 3: Insert them into your symphonic work.

Though I love Copland I feel like his music is a bit costume-y. It dosent feel like it is a music that bubbles out of the ground of our continent. Its like he created this mythic American sound which he, nor many Americans (especially the ones listening to his music) really had experienced.

Enter Duke Ellington.

Though not strictly classical it is symphonic, highly organized, and harmonically advanced. This sounds like us. This is music that could not have be written in any other place in the world. This is American finding its musical identity. Here are several of the things that sets his music apart, and gives it that American sheen. Firstly he did not receive a classical European education, secondly he created a completely novel blend of written and improvised music, Third he created a new orchestral sound with his heavy use of brass and brilliant orchestration, and lastly a new rhythmic feel of syncopation and propulsion which are simply irresistible.

Duke Ellington Suggested Listening

Masterworks

Live at Newport

Blues in Orbit

Mood Indigos

Aaron Copland Suggested Listening

Appalachian Spring

Short Symphony

El Salon Mexico

VIKINGUR OLAFSSON’S GOLDBERG VARATIONS

I’ve been listening to this almost non stop and wanted to share some thoughts.

-The first thing that struck me when I started to listen was the sound of the piano it self. I have been listening to Glenn Gould’s 1955 version for years which I would define (sound/recording wise) as extremely dry. There is no sound room or space in the the recording its almost as if the microphones are in the piano it self. This on the other hand has a much broader and open sound. Which gives every thing a little more sweetness.

-Secondly (again in contrast to 1955 GG) I found the delivery a bit more smooth and legato, Though I always liked Gleen Goulds delivery (dry and unromantic) I found this recording again, to be a little bit richer and sweeter keeping the notes more connected. If you listen closely though the recording you can hear Olafsson use a really short and sharp left hand delivery which I think is a nice touch and can help create a little more contrast between the melodic lines.

-Over all I found the tempos to be a bit more relaxed than what I was use to. Even looking at the running time of these two records Olafsson’s is close to twice as long (I’m not sure if difference in repeats makes any difference in this). To my surprise I found I liked his tempos better than Gould’s. A number of the pieces are not super long to begin with, and then if you take them at break neck speed that makes them even shorter. For me this can make some of the transition for piece to piece feel a little abrupt in Goulds version.

-Probably my biggest complaint about Olafsson’s recording is in the aria (which is my favorite piece). The piece is broken in to two sections an, A and a B, and both of these sections are repeated twice (so it looks like this: AABB). I find repeat going into the second B section to be super clunky.

EIGHT BILLION/ONE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

As I did for my work tribunal, in preparation in writing the lyrics for eight billion/one I created a list of questions on the topic and had participants send me there responses. Here is a sample of those interviews.

Define objective reality

-Something that is true, regardless if it is known or people even believe it is true. It lives Totally independent from interaction or observation and is not defined by any one or any thing else. 

-Absolute truth

-expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations

-Truths that supercede people's perceptions of them

Define subjective reality

  -A way that they world is view through your particular perspective. Because we all have our own 

Unique lives we see the same things and experience the same things with drastically different reactions. 

Subjective reality leaves the plain of truth and right and wrong and enters the dominion of opinions, taste 

and perspectives

-An individual or group’s experience of reality.

-A state of existence that is at the mercy of personal perception and experience

-I would guess that's everything relating to opinions, feelings and everything we can't prove which is everything

Please list things that you believe fall in each of these categories? 

Objective: God, Morals, human worth, love temperature, measurement, laws of nature, Harms, needs, concretely observable truths, the experience of emotions

-God and his character setting the moral "way" of the universe

Subjective: art, the flavor of food, being drawn or repelled by certain personalities, at times the application of a moral truth, hot/cold, short/tall, high/low, clean/dirty

-my experience of almost every aspect of the world around me, relationships, emotions, preferences, opinions

-Can really list anything in objective as I can't prove anything. I could list my belief and the things I trust to be objective but in all honesty it could all be fake. 

-Everything would fall into subjective. But I think these are honestly very unhelpful definitions and terms really

-Language, personal preferences, cultural judgements, the truth claims made by emotions"

What is an area (or areas) of your life where you feel confused wither it is objective or subjective reality?

How we individually live out “truth” or even the clarity on what truth is. The moral line whether or not theirs a right way to live when

Its not written out or clearly immoral. 

-Beauty

-I’m coming to understand that many aspects of my childhood faith, and the faith of much of American Christianity is cultural rather than Biblical. I am trying to separate the two and it can be challenging

-I don't know if I feel confused about whether things are subjective or objective reality very much

-Religion

Are you open to the possibility that ultimately there is no objective reality, Please explain?

-I do not think I am open to this possibility (does that make me close minded?) I don’t think the world would be the

Way it is with out objective reality. If all that is left is subjective all we are left with is every ones option which is the 

Same as saying there is no truth, and that feels the same as no meaning. Firstly I don’t think the beings in that world 

Could have a capabilities to discover there own meaninglessness, and if they did even care. I find in the human heart,

We all ache for meaning and truth. I think that hunger exists because we have all experiences glimps of things that 

Were transcendet. Also if you actually applied and lived out the idea of no objective reality, I believe every thing would 

Totally fall apart. You could not longer teach your children not to do something or how to share, the court system would

Become irrelevant and the distinction between sane and insane would have to go away.

-Actually what is presently "observed" by human on earth in time and referred to as reality are but shadows of what is real and "objective", and those realities may themselves be shadows of what might be even more real. For what we know as human will need to be totally transformed from a shadow land to have a presence in the real

-I’m open to it but it would probably make me feel like nothing is worthwhile/significant. You'd have to question the credibility of humans' ability to reason, and of our five senses, and that would make nothing make sense anymore. Also, what would that mean, on a practical level? It's hard to imagine

-I would say no, because that would be a postmodern view of the world meaning truth, is what you make it, and I reject that view. I believe that there is objective truth certainly through the lens of God’s word through Scripture

What is something in your life you know is subjective reality, but it is still hard to believe, act, interpret like it is?

-For me the area of aesthetics I find very hard to remember is not objective. This includes interior design, visual art, and music. 

I find my self judging other people like there is an objective truth and they are on the wrong side. I know what is true I know what 

Is good and they do not and they are blind for it. I know this is wrong but it is really hard for me to stop.

-The love that someone has for me

-Anything that I strongly prefer in my pursuit of the "best" could fall into this category

-I don't think there are any. I've been thinking about this since childhood and I'm pretty at peace about it

Do you believe an objective reality could be  possible in a world that is only material (not spiritual) please explain?

No I do not. I feel like for objective truth to be possible there has to be something over all the exist, there has to be something

That is beyond the limits of perspective (you could call it a super perspective) that can really see something for what it truly is. 

So ultamitly what is objective reality is what this something (the thing that is over creation) how it views it, is its true reality

-I can’t even imagine an “only material” world! I guess there would be no humans and no imagination so there would probably ONLY be objective reality in such a world

-No. The nature of objective reality is contingent upon a spiritual state. I don't believe something strictly material is capable of being unchanging and independent of all other things

-Ehhhh I think the world is designed to always have a way in which you can say things aren't true and it's better that way

-I think that would make it more likely to exist. The material world is harder to play definition games with, and it's more objectively verifiable because all beings have it in common. The spiritual world, because we understand it so poorly, can often end up in definition games, which are subjective because language is subjective. AKA: "My negative circumstances are the work of demons." That claim can be understood to be objectively true or false only if you clearly define the term "demons." OR, if the circumstance was objectively the speaker's fault, the claim could still subjectively be true for one person, who simply defines "demons" as "the personification of the spiritual consequences of sin," while being subjectively false for another person, who defines "demons" in a hyper-specific way.

What reinforces your current beliefs (experiences, ideas, etc) on the existence (or non existence) of the objective reality?

-My Christan faith reinforces my belief of an objective reality. Ultimity being a Christian means I believe in God, I believe

He see the truth and I recognize that I don’t. I just see a tiny fraction of reality from my perspective. So it makes sense to

Listen to the person who you believe has the answers when it becomes clear to you that you don’t and never will.

-Existence, experience, faith

-I am in a physical body and so things that are also physically observed easily feel like they would fall into objective reality. If we were living in something similar to the matrix then everything that we can physically see and touch would not exist and not be real objects, but I think they would still fall under objective reality to us, since to all of us we can see and feel them and would not be aware that it was not real

-The way you can't disprove very vague and ethereal theories that would suggest you are already in them

-I think, probably, at the core of my belief in objective reality is my belief that if a person is measurably harmed by someone's behavior, that person has an objective responsibility to cease, make right, and prevent that behavior, regardless of how that person perceives their harm.

-The beauty, variety, and intricacy of creation leads me to believe in the objective reality of a creator God.

-A Tesla car has thousands of parts that were designed by creators on purpose to work together for this thing (the car) to work. Humans are a million times more complicated and it is unfathomable to me that we aren’t designed by a Creator

Do you believe our five sense are experiencing objective or subjective reality, Please explain?

-Yes and no. I do believe the physical reality is real. When we touch the table we really are touching something that exist. But

I believe we can’t help superimpose over the objective reality our personal subjective reality. The other filter that we experience

Life through is the limitations of our senses. Other animals experience color sights sounds differently because there sense

Can be more devoloped. So that takes you back to the question who is right, If I see the flower as red and some one else 

(A person or animal) sees it as blue, who as the authority to judge between the two.

-Both. Life can only be experienced as one whole, which is too integrated to differentiate one type of reality from the other

-Yes, but we experience subjective feeling about reality. Clearly apples are eatable, that’s objective reality, but they may not taste delicious to everyone. A person may say “apples are not eatable” because that person hates the taste or texture, but that is not reality, it is the person’s opinion

-Subjective. Not everyone maybe feelings the same things or at the same level

-I guess on a technical level, they subjectively interpret an objective reality. Because theoretically, we all have acess to the same sensory data, but it seems unlikely to me that we all interpret it the same (eg. I have aphantasia, so I imagine I don't experience visual input as objectively as others do).

-Largely subjective though They can totally come into alignment with a piece of truth but not entirely

TRIBUNAL RESEARCH PART 2

In addition to books I read in preparation for tribunal (see tribunal research part 1) I also conducted interviews. I ask participants a series of questions regarding the themes of emotions/logic/faith. The answers I received were vulnerable, insightful, and had a large impact on how I thought about these topics, thus effected the lyrics that became tribunal. Here are some selected excerpts from those interviews.

Is your commitment to faith (or worldview) more a logical or emotional decision. Please explain?

I am an emotional person, so I am going to say it is more emotional, BUT I also think it is in line with logic. It makes no logical sense to me that the world with all its complexity and intricate details came into being from something randomly exploding and logically it makes no sense to me that throwing millions of years into a mix would in any way help make intricate detailed things. Order produces order. Chaos does not produce order. 

However, I was raised religious and by people with a strong faith and so I do realize my faith was installed mostly through emotion (or heart and soul). 

I tend to feel things very strongly which would be emotion, but intertwines with faith. Faith does not mean anything to me without emotions though, I guess. Like, I could still logically believe and have faith, but without feeling you cannot really have hope. 

When your faith (or worldview) feels tested, does the testing come from a logical or emotional place? How do you respond to this?

When it is challenged from a logical perspective it tends not to bother me much because I assume the answer will become later on because the faith part of me knows the answer will align properly later on.

When it is challenged emotionally, then it is harder because even though I logically can still think the same the emotion can cloud my mind or feel overwhelming. The arguments that would most affect me would be emotional ones. (why God allows children to be molested or brutally murdered would affect me more then some new scientific find or discovery). However, I do feel like I am a tiny any bug with a minuscule brain and there is no possible way for me to comprehend or reason anything out properly from an all powerful God. So, I assume that when things don't make as much sense or feel confusing to me that it is because my logic is inferior and then I use faith to trust God and that He knows all the things I am incapable of knowing. 

Have you had an experience where all of these elements where in harmony? Please explain?

In general I feel like logic, emotions and faith fit perfectly together and that that is how they were intended. I think maybe the faith part is strongest and can pull the other things on line better. Also, you must take into consideration that I am on antidepressants and have been for probably fifteen years off and on? Mostly on. And that when I am not on them my emotion part is too overwhelming and messes with the other things too much and that I cannot see and think logically good without them. So that is going to affect things. Also, when I am on too high a dose of antidepressants then the logic part becomes too muffled or something in the other direction. So, it is a delicate balance and when I am not on them I do not feel like 'me' or normal. I feel very extreme with wildly crashing emotions and although my faith may still be intact the logic part is not intact hardly at all unless I am on these meds. 

 But, the way things are currently, I usually feel all three elements are working together and are harmonious. I do realize that some things emotional (death and other things like that) feel as if they don't fit in properly but the faith part covers and fixes that for me. 

Thoughts on Faith

Faith or worldviews are the chosen beliefs or theories one has about the world that extend beyond one's own certainty and knowing. If one has "faith" one is also acknowledging there is uncertainty and have chosen a response to that uncertainty with a decision of faith.

One cannot be in full certainty. Life is uncertain. Everyone exercises levels of faith to handle the inherent discomfort of a human experience of uncertainty in their own way. What they have faith "in" changes. Some have faith in others, themselves, God, ideas. Some try to deny their attempts to create certainty in the face of uncertainty, trying to embrace uncertainty completely...yet, by doing so, are still driven in the desire to create certainty even in that. Others also dive into complete meaningless and attempt to live with that - often at the cost of hope, purpose and meaning. 

Is your commitment to faith (or worldview) more a logical or emotional decision. Please explain? 

Any attempt to answer this is trying to conceptualize something that is deeper than concept. All decisions are both logical and emotional, and ideas that either can be measured or controlled are self delusion. For example, in one circumstance if one were to say "logical" as an answer, one could be fashioning an idea as a reaction to the concept that emotion is a threat to one's survival. They may believe themselves to be unemotional to be safe. Because to their mind/ego, emotionality would be death. But that FEAR of emotion, and the death they believe emotion brings to the ego/mind, is itself emotion. And is, itself, the biggest driver of this person's self concept of identity. Their fear is doing them. They are not doing their fear. The ones who claim logic are often the most emotional of us all - however stoic they seem on the surface. Because they do not know how to relate or feel their emotions - yet carry around the weight of the pressure of these emotions constantly and try to diffuse it with their mind.

Is your commitment to faith (or worldview) more a logical or emotional decision. Please explain?

Somewhere in-between. If you asked a devout religious person they’d probably tell you I’m logical. If you asked a committed atheist they’d probably tell you I’m more emotional. I thought I was very logical for a long time, most surprisingly enough when i was religious. I really wanted to back up my presupposition that there was a god. As of right now, with where science and religion are, I don’t think there’s anyway to really prove definitively where we came from, or what happens after we die. So I think most people base their ideas on a presupposition. And I think in a lot of ways those ideas are based on emotions. 

Can you talk about a time in your life where these elements were out of balance in your life? 

Yeah losing my faith was extremely scary, I didn’t feel like christianity was moral but i felt really guilty about that, I didn’t know what i believed in. So for a while i was a zombie follower not being super happy about it but feeling like i just needed to be more faithful or trusting, but feeling really bad about it. it was very destabilizing when i decided i felt more ethical deciding not to be christian, cause my whole worldview was anchored in it since birth.

Is your commitment to faith (or worldview) more a logical or emotional decision. Please explain?

Both. Logically you can't look at the intricacy of the natural world and think that it was random. Logically because every other religion requires some kind of good works to make to heaven and Christ offers himself as a free gift. Emotionally because I've experienced the presence of God and there is nothing better.

When your faith (or worldview) feels tested, does the testing come from a logical or emotional place? How do you respond to this?

Emotional first. It usually comes when your exhausted or life's circumstances aren't going the way you want. Then its easy to make a logical argument against faith.

Can you talk about a time in your life where these elements were out of balance in your life?

There have been times that God felt distant usually from an emotional standpoint. Faith is what holds it together. I know in my personal history that God has met me and no amount of negative emotional or logical argument can change that fact.

TRIBUNAL RESEARCH PART 1

Here are some of the books I read in preparation for writing tribunal and some of my thoughts on them

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins - This book clearly advocates a rationality/logical approach to creating our beliefs about the world. I was surprised how clear the author was in making the point that emotions and faith should not be apart of answering these type of questions. At one point in the book he makes the statement that he believes that every thing that there is to know, can and with enough time, will be knowable. Which makes sense as a prerequisite for a logic only built belief system. If not it means there would be things you would never have access to and would need a different kind of tool to get there. Reading this made me happy. I felt like a lawyer who had just found all the evidence I need.

Also reading this book with an emotional/logic/faith lens made for a very interesting experience. Every argument some one makes in a book can be put in one of these categories. I was shocked how much of what he was saying came from an emotional argument, not logical.

Making sense of God, The reason for God by Tim Keller - Tim Keller is a person of faith (he is a pastor) but most of his content comes from a logical perspective. You hear a lot of repackaged C. S. Lewis in his writings. One concept that really stood out to me was him talking about what the post modern belief system means. This idea rejects any meta narrative, any all encompassing story that explains everything (Albert Einstein was not a post modernist) The irony is the rejection of a meta narrative becomes the new meta narrative. This influenced part 2 “there is a new story there is a new mono explanation”

The Abolition of Man, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis - Lewis is another person of faith commitments, who mostly talks and writes in the realm of logic. In reading his books I sense Lewis perceives logic as a purer substance than I personally do. What ever is most logical is the truth kind of idea. I see logic as more fluid and even subjective. All that said, I love his books. The first half of Mere Christianity is this amazing point my point, if a is true, then b must also be then you get to c ect. In part two there is a section of axioms being built on one another in like manner. “number one I exist, number two I am myself, number three I know what I feel….

Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard - To be honest I did not finish this book. I don’t know if I had a wonky translation or it is just hard to follow. Probably some of both. The one bit I remember is it talked about Abrahams faith transcending ethical reasoning. Which to be honest, feels really uncomfortable.

DAILY RITUALS

I love Mason Curry’s book daily rituals. If I was in it this is what it would say.

7:00-8:00 wake up

8:00-9:00 breakfast and coffee

9:00-9:30 time with kids

9:30-10:00 prayer

10:00-12:00 compose/write

12:00-1:00 lunch

1:00-3:00 time with kids/practical/clean

3:00-4:00 Feka

4:00-8:00 teach piano lessons

8:00-10:00 eat/family time/read/tea/listen to music

YOU HAVE TO LIKE BACH!!!!!!

Bach is the only musician I honestly think every person should listen to. Its so rich, its so right and beautiful and logical. His music is dense and gentle, brainy and sweet, complex and approachable. When I listen, its a music I have to let wash over me, there is just so much melodic activity you cant sort it all out (strangely thats the same way to listen to ambient music which is almost its polar opposite) It just keeps coming and coming. Its music that feels healthy to listen to, like being in the sunshine, or talking a walk. He is the mother river that so much music has come from. His admires include Bill Evans, Bud Powell, Stravinsky, Schournberg, Steve Reich, Joe Harley (points if you know who this is), Dieter Rams (points if you know who this is) and Steve Jobs. For me his contrapuntal writing (melody on melody) I find hugely fascinating, and opens up a whole new worlds of musical possibilities. It seems to me an area in music that has largely been underdeveloped (especially out side of the world of classical music).

It blows my mind that in his life time Bach was only regionally famous and that mostly due to his keyboard and improvising abilities. Also in Bach’s lifetime the trends in music were already beginning to shift to a more pared down less cluttered texture and he was becoming out dated and out of fashion. But here we are 300 hundred years later still talking about and still listening to his music.

Suggested listening

Brandonburg concertos

Cello suites

The Goldburg variations