2008 summer recap

Several major ideas were clarified in my mind this past summer. Perched on the verge of another academic season and gazing across the years I am struck by the profundity and simplicity of my realizations.

First and foremost I realized that any and all compositions that I have created in the past are monophonic. It occurred to me while listening to a piece I was working on and directly after a conversation with Natasha Barrett. I tend to think monophonicaly (single mindedness some might argue). In Canada (at Orford) I spent one night listening to every piece that I had ever written and oddly enough, I began to recognize that they were all solo violin pieces. By this I mean that the sound world, gestural language and the density of activity is the result of thinking as a violinist. This is my box as it were/is and knowing that (almost a month later) I am coming to the realization that there may be other ways of writing and hearing, but day in and day out, I stand in front of the proverbial mirror and there is one.

I have found an understanding of my artistic training. I spent a great deal of time contemplating how one could translate the way in which I understand photography into sound. Soon I found that I could no longer focus on this idea and I let it pass, some time later it occurred to me that reverb, sound recording and the such is way of approaching sound in the way that I approach light/photography. Photography has never been about the image, but rather how the subject matter reveals the light conditions, this is of course the magic o the moment. I began to notice that this is also what I find so interesting in recording sounds, they reveal a moment (in atmospheric pressure, in sound reflectivity in density of dispersion etc).

At the end of last summer I felt that I was entering the year with a great deal of work accomplished and ready to show off all that I had learned. Contrasting that with now I recognize (and hope that it is true) that I find myself with a greater mental state and less "work" accomplished. Indeed, I need to complete pieces and realize these ideas and notions in the realm of works, but I feel that this is simply inevitable, now that I see what it is that I am and what it is that I know.

Also and not accidentally, I got to see the waterfalls in NYC. A simple and obvious move for someone who was in the city this summer and interested in the arts. But.... there are many of these sorts of events and sights that I have missed over the years, I am only to thrilled that I made it happen (of course the company of good friends also wanting to see such things helps!)

Fun thought patterns...
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