Requiem

I wrote some music today.
I composed my thoughts in notes,
In harmonies, in suspensions,
In cadences,
In climaxes,
Expanding a piece I began in the eigth grade.
My own requiem.

My own mass for the dead.
Written for my funeral to be,
Like a bride in waiting.

Patiently waiting
For my surprise party.

So much has changed since then though.
It's almost silly to continue on with it,
But continue i do.

Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.

There will be a bass and a soprano,
Echoing one another.
Calling out but hearing no angels,
Just the callback of another person
Wondering the same thing.

Requiems are for the living,
Like funerals.
A way to express the beauty of life
Within a structure,
Within a design.

I doubt I will finish
Before life is finished with me.

Falling


He told me he was leaving
And then the rains came.
The leaves fell overnight.
Summer had turned to fall with no warning,
Just as his departing.

Would it have been easier in the spring?
The dead of winter?
Midsummer?
Who knows such things.
Nature would remind me
Whether through empathy or irony.

But time stops for no one.
Not the living, not the dying,
Not the mourning or rejoicing.
The days march on 'til the cold reality of winter sets in,
Followed by the forced cheeriness of spring,
The laziness of summer,
And finally back to here,
To the rain, to the leaves,
To where I stand now.
To the fall.

Back to the beginning.
Or is it the end.

I'm reading Running With Scissors
and identifying with it greatly.

Augusten Burroughs is my hero.
I hear myself in his thoughts.

I see myself in his neuroses
and admire his honesty.

I can relate to the absurdity
of his upbringing.

How in the face of some things so horrible
Laughing about it is the only way to stay sane.

Brutally honest.
Prematurely self-aware.

Gawd, my writing is so dry right now.
I sound like his pretentious, self-important mother.
Thrilled by the sound of my own voice.

Too many filters on right now.
Too much thought police-ing.

Going to bed.

QuadRant

I wrote a piece of free-form music on the piano this morning. Instead of specific notes, there's a super-structure that is completely flexible, but cohesive. After I wrote it, I realized that this same super-structure could be applied to other mediums to yield more from this simple universe I discovered, but that is yet to come.

I will attempt to convey the structure visually.

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It consists of alternating 4 note phrases in cycles of either ascending or descending pitch. So, with eyes closed and starting anywhere at the top of the piano, 1) a high note is played, 2) followed by a low note, 3) followed by a note closer to but not as high as the first note, and 4) finishing with a note closer to but not lower than the low note and not higher than the third note. The rhythm and tempo should be internally dictated and can change dramatically throughout the piece. There should be some variation of the space between the notes, meaning that the distance between the low note and the high note and the notes in between should not be the same from phrase to phrase, and in the descending cycle, the entire phrase should descend as well, meaning you do not skip from a lower phrase to a higher phrase.

It is not wrong if the distance between notes happens to be the same as you perform the piece, but that should not be a goal. If the piece is performed descending, start at the top of the piano and work your way down until you feel you have gone far enough. For ascending, you would start at the bottom and work your way up, keeping the original sequence of high to low etc. intact.

Keeping the eyes closed is important. You find a key by feeling for its edges and choosing it arbitrarily and striking it with purpose, to see what unique sound it will give you without prejudging.

This piece, while random in nature, should not sound purposeless. The execution (meaning the choice of notes, the emphasis of notes, the tempo and flow of the piece) should be informed by the artist's emotions at the moment, not striking in the dark without rhyme or reason. The notes will betray you, so don't have a vacant mind.

It's like creating 4 dots on a blank page. When there is only 1 dot, that dot is considered entirely and commands all the attention. When a second dot is introduced, a relationship albeit ambiguous is formed, not only between the dots themselves, but also to the space that is occupied, the frame. The third dot increases the texture and complexity, pulling all the dots in another direction and the fourth rounds it out by harmonically shifting the balance in a unique way.

There emerges a sophistication that belies its humble form, but that is what appeals to me most about this work.

It is freedom within structure. Random organization. Abstract expression. Simple sophisticate.

My mind is a comet trapped in a snail.

Hurtling at the speed of light on the shortest of leashes

in the smallest of confines.

These are volatile times.

Note: The expression of my emotions when I become upset or deep in thought tend to take form in words, metaphors, descriptions with evocative visuals. Yet I do not consider myself a poet per se. That is too limiting. What I am learning to do is channel my thoughts, ideas, and emotions and breathe another layer of life into them by reincarnating them into another aesthetic form whose medium and language serves to shed light on another angle of the subject heretofore unseen, unconsidered.

This is the work of an artist in whatever medium.

Too much energy is spent controlling the medium, which only causes a stifling and a dilution. This is not to say that technique is unimportant, but what is most important is that the energy put into the technique and application of the medium match the energy that conceived the work. Otherwise, the truth will have been misrepresented to such an extent to prove irrecognizable by the heart despite the best of intentions.

That is why so much of my art has failed in my own eyes.

Well-crafted dead things do not incite the spirit. But spirited work, work that has integrity being true to itself, however clumsy or imperfect, screams its own living-ness. Of course, the ideal being a balance of the two - spark and craft. But the spark is the most crucial element. This is what the soul responds to. This is nourishment for the mind, the heart, the imagination.

This is what makes artistic pursuits significant in a world of excess.

So artists, be true to yourself, and create truthful art.