Onward!

Guillaume de Machaut :: of Ars Nova fame!
Onward is a cheer that I ofter heard from my teacher (and then some) Bob Cogan. I think he ended most every lesson with it and it makes more and more sense to me the further I make it through my time on this planet.

Today I was working in a garden pulling some weeds when I received a call from a good friend and a classmate at NEC Matthew left me a message that he just got a contract from Schirmer to the effect that they were picking him up and are going to function as his publisher. I am so happy for him. This is the perfect thing for him. If you know him you know that he is exactly what they want and it will help him to build his career.

As I spent my evening reading through a text on 16th century counterpoint I would intermittently consider this development and eventually I started to consider what it tells me about myself. First, I am very happy that a close friend is getting the recognition that he deserves. Then I began to toy with the idea of "what if this had been me?" Then it occured to me that this is not what I want, well not now at least. Logically this is something that I should want, but why is it not something that I am jealous of or desire? So I returned to Jeppeson's "16th Century Counterpoint."

As I read on I came across the statement below and I began to understand why I was not jealous after this milestone that my colleague had attained.

"The decisive factor really appeared at the beginning of the 16th century, when the need for making music serve the ends of poetic expression was first clearly manifested."

page 33 if you want to check out the context.

Throughout our time at NEC Matthew was busy cranking out score after score in a language that, while evolving, was not accounting for what I considered the zietgiest of 21st century America. (Please don't misconstrue that as a critique; I enjoy and appreciate what Matthew writes). What I find missing is the push forward to incorporate the multidisplinary digital age that is here. My goal is to combine my interest of cognition and my love of "pure sound" - what I like to think of the appreciation of music as a formal organization of sound, as an object and as a concept. Eventually the idea formed in my grey matter that I have not gotten to the level of fluidity in my particular musical quest that Matthew has.

His language is something that is more advanced in terms of maturity and fluidity than mine. This being the case, I have yet to arrive at a place where I have authentically articulated what is stirring in my head. That being said, I began to reflect in my compositional output and while I am thrilled with components of various compositions, they are in a sense, incomplete, in that they lack synthesis of expression and conceptual model. And thus, I continue onward, in an attempt to realize the full depth of what I imagine.