idea of music as a domestic practice
upright pianos
music as ritual/community practice; just a thing to do that doesn't need the typical trappings of formal presentation
in this sense music can be both divine and humble
sur prise
over taken
I want to read more about music but I find I get very bored when i sit down to do it. the most readable writing on music is also often the most purple-prose-ey and I don’t like that at all, it becomes this whole affectedly starry-eyed THING (or a cult of personality) that I just can’t stand. (Alex Ross, Tom Service, Paul Griffiths, no thank you.)
I find that I’m more interested in what other musicians are interested in; I don’t like Alex Ross’s writing but his taste is interesting and I’ve discovered a good amount of music this way. Thomas Adès and Stravinsky are two others whose tastes and inspirations are fascinating. making the connections between their inspiration and their own work teaches me more than whatever they’ve said about their own music.
despite everything I have come to learn about music in these past years, and how many strange and wonderful and forward-thinking things it can be and can do, whenever I sit down to write it is only ever to be Emotionally Expressive in the most wistful, millennial bedroom-pop sense. it's one of those things I guess I just can't shake, no matter how much I tell people that music doesn't have to be about anything, doesn't have to say anything, doesn't have to aim for your feelings to hit them.
rhythm as “elastic” dimension of music
if there is anything i’ve learned about music in the past two years it has been that music is so much more than what it sounds
this piece has been making the rounds lately; some of my friends have been variously angered, puzzled, and amused by it. it took me a while to really apprehend but I think it's wonderful.
"Marche fatale", a march of death. Lachenmann writes about avoiding banality as an artist's perennial struggle – where does one go when one's entire career-worth of music is now accepted as common currency, fodder for composition students in ivory towers? at the twilight of a career or a life, where now we can hear a new Lachenmann piece and "get what we expect"? is that not banal too?
Lachenmann writes too, in the program note, about a recourse to "utility music"; music written for use. and as we see, in quotations and in the glib face of this march, anything can be co-opted for "use", can be rendered banal by a culture that has learned to exploit it or capitalize upon it. "Marche fatale", a march of death – even Wagner's transcendent "Tristan und Isolde" is not safe from trivialization; music has a half-life just as people have lives, that must grow old, possibly irrelevant. "Marche fatale" has a cheeky surface but I think there is a real wistfulness, not in some kind of longing for the past, but for an exhausted present. I'm thankful that it's also a lot of fun.
On repeat a lot lately.
Thomas Adès references the late style of Billie Holiday as a model for his "Life Story". not being all that familiar with her music (I know, I am ashamed), this came as a bit of a revelation; also because "Life Story" is so often done as a bitter, kind of "bratty" piece. There is real resignation and melancholy in Lady in Satin that I'm curious and eager to pull out of "Life Story".
some short and extremely scattered thoughts on Thomas Adès
- opinion has always vacillated on his music but have generally found it to be dazzling and clever and attractive and indeed fun to play
- (playing Life Story right now and enjoying it quite a bit, so let that be a disclaimer that I'm not coming from the place of being a "hater")
- however, do feel like his music attracts a large number of fuccbois(tm) especially of the pretentious composition student type
- is it the wunderkind thing?
- is it the "complexity"/"precision" part? that ties into the "dazzling" effect of his music? (see similar influence of Ravel/Stravinsky on 14-year-olds?)
- something about being a juggernaut of white male refinement and erudition?
- and his music is erudite but, in much of my getting to know it, not much else... like there's plenty to like but I find not much to love
- friend of mine mentioned that he is a younger composer working rather solidly in the Classical Tradition and that is inspiring for people to uphold the status quo etc. also true.
- some of the instrumental works I find particularly hollow: Traced Overhead, Arcadiana, Living Toys
- Traced Overhead is florid and proliferate and precise and yet the impression, often, is so indistinct. also as a native English-speaker, marking "Quasi allontanandosi" is... well...
- perhaps the *most* over-notated piece of Adès's I know.. there are passages where I do feel markings are superfluous (while in many other pieces I see why the specificity is at least welcome).
- Arcadiana is becoming something of a staple and I think it's fun but it rings hollow to me (in comparison to something like, say, ainsi la nuit or Black Angels). the contrast of "O Albion" is so bald as to feel rather dialed in, even sentimental ("oh, here's the *emotional part*"!). there's no nuance in any emotionality the piece does have; I don't feel that any of the movements really shed meaningful light on any of the others (which, with a movement like O Albion so conspicuously/ostentatiously protruding, might have been nice).
- in light of the rather charming program note for Living Toys, the piece has never registered to me as anything more than an illustration... there's a naïveté there that some might find endearing but it strikes me as v hackneyed
- Chamber Symphony and Asyla, in my memory of them, felt similarly forgettable, even.
- Traced Overhead is florid and proliferate and precise and yet the impression, often, is so indistinct. also as a native English-speaker, marking "Quasi allontanandosi" is... well...
- I like Life Story quite a bit for its text and I really do feel like the performer can "do something with it", i.e. there's something in it to love and that musicians can personalize and that is at best edifying for others to behold. I don't get that with a lot of his other music, which seems to me so dispassionate it in its expression and so much about execution of these fussy directions in pursuit of momentarily impressive effects ("just do what I tell you and people will love it/you") rather than any "necessary" utterance. need music do anything more than dazzle? I guess not, but it's often mistaken (and sold) as this whole "genius" THING.
- but also even with Life Story it's done as this nasty joke and I think there's a real melancholy in it that people kind of ignore. audiences often laugh at the end and I'd be curious to do/see a version that is more... devastating? rather than biting. otherwise the rest of the goddamn piece, and its lamentations about solipsism and loneliness and malaise, isn't worth hearing.
- it's this outward-facing music clearly assembled of fine materials by an assured and erudite hand. and yet so much just doesn't stick. like he knows (and probably loves) music and I'm fascinated by his tastes (anyone who can get into Couperin and Depeche Mode is a friend of mine), and have learned much from the things he has avowed to have learned from. wish I could feel any of his love for music through his own music.
On my radar today.
seeds (China) (2017)
solo piano
In writing these short pieces I wanted to rediscover how fun composing once was for me, before the weight of having to have "something to say", or even "knowing what you're doing". In many of my earliest compositions I was much more adventurous and curious, and I'm sure it was because I didn't think too much while I was writing; I just wrote, whether or not I knew what it would end up sounding like – musical doodling, if you will. Looking back on those early pieces I'm often surprised by how much more daring my ideas were, when there were no "stakes".
Over the winter holiday I took a short trip, and did my best to compose a complete page of music every day, as quick as possible, so as not to allow time for self-consciousness or doubt. It's a beautiful feeling to be able to surprise yourself; indeed most of these pieces turned out more interesting than I expected.
I learned a thing or two about myself too – what are my habits, tendencies, what do I do default to when I feel stuck? The title, "seeds", refers to the idea that these are each germs from which other music might one day grow, either as direct source material, or conceptual fragments to be more fully explored elsewhere.
(No recording exists as of yet, but perhaps sometime very soon!)
A playlist of tracks that kept me going in 2017.
Currently on my radar:
A recent recording of a piece I performed in November, and have come to love very dearly. This piano sounds particularly beautiful with the sostenuto pedal reverberation effects; I got really lucky that day!
I tend to have a lot of rosy thoughts about music; through the last years of my undergrad I held this belief that making music has to be redemptive somehow, that being the only way I could explain how so many deeply flawed personalities could be so good at it. This was never confirmed and perhaps never could be, and I vacillate on whether I find it to be true.
Another (perhaps related) road I kept trying to go down was the thought of composing as therapy, as if I could heal myself by writing the music I wanted to hear through all the shittiness that I was always losing sleep over. Some part of me wanted to explore the depths of suffering, even put it on display, but of course it was never my intention to share raw anguish than to conjure an antidote – I wanted something that felt like it understood pain but was a means of moving forward. As I type this I realize how ridiculous it sounds to ascribe any of this to abstract music, but there it is.
I laid awake last night with another iteration of this thought, that I might write a piece that would be a talisman, that in the writing of it and the experience of it I could feel safe, protected from harm. It's not far from the feeling I have when I practice, or am otherwise immersed in a piece of music that I feel very strongly about, that music is some kind of refuge.
Thinking about all the projects I want to start composing, I always treat music as some kind of analogue or object. Music as reliquary, music as memorial, music as act of protest, music as documentation. At this point I couldn't imagine writing a piece that is "just a piece".
Faded Songs (2014/2015/2016)
three palimpsests for mixed ensemble
- After F. Chopin
- 2 violins (1st with mute, 2nd with practice mute), viola (with practice mute), cello (with practice mute, contrabass (with practice mute)
- After J.S. Bach and R.R. Parry (has been performed separately as "each other")
- clarinet in B-flat, bass clarinet, crotales (bowed)
- After R. Schumann and J.-C. Risset)
- clarinet in B-flat, bass clarinet, block of wood (or other clock-like "ticking sound" – NOT a woodblock), 2 violins (with mutes), viola (with mute), cello, double bass, piano solo
I’ve long been fascinated by palimpsests in music – the subtle (and risky!) art of rewriting, deconstructing, even vandalizing an existing work, with the aim of recontextualizing the familiar. The present set of three movements is a compilation of my previous efforts with this technique, through the past two years, slightly revised.
Each of the three pieces I chose as a subject represents to me something very specific, which I’ve tried to elucidate through my erasure. For the Bach and Schumann pieces, especially, I’ve imposed programmatic suggestions: a scene of two sleepers dreaming of each other, and an evocation of the passing of youth and the inexorable procession of time.
Faded Songs was first performed in its entirety by Wild Up, conducted by Christopher Rountree, in April 2016. It was the winner of the 2016 Hugo Davise Composition Competition at UCLA.
Figments in Fracture (2015/16)
piano duo (four hands, one piano)
for the 2016 Yarn/Wire Institute
- Prelude and Fugue (to Howard Chen)
- Wallflower Interlude (to David Conte)
- Recitative and Aria
Figments in Fracture is a set of three short pieces, each an exploration into the conceit of “broken music” – rhythm, melody, and tonality are fractured throughout. They may be performed separately (perhaps as encores), or together as a set, in the printed order.
The first two movements were written for and first performed at the inaugural Yarn/Wire Institute, by Laura Barger (secondo) and the composer (primo). The third movement has not yet been performed, as of August 2017.
"of being a self in a song" (2017)
solo piano
for Mindy Cheng
For better or for worse, my acquaintance with Bach’s Goldberg Variations is inextricably tied to Glenn Gould’s relic 1981 recording. The slow tempos and incessant vocalizing that strike many others as eccentric have been, for me, part of my initial and lasting (and beloved) impression of this music, and not so eccentric at all.
While preparing to write this piece, I read somewhere that Gould habitually vocalized to make up for whatever he could not “get” out of the piano, like some kind of reflex. Apocryphal as it may be, I found this idea poetic (especially in light of his recording of Bach’s “Goldberg” aria – vocal music written for an instrument with no obvious vocal qualities); Gould’s recording (and indeed, his artistry) is marked by what he couldn’t hold back. And so, Gould’s humming, both in itself and as an icon of inescapable selfhood, provided the inspiration for this short piece.
The title is taken from Anne Carson’s novel-in-verse, Autobiography of Red: “Meanwhile, music pounded / across hearts opening every valve to the desperate drama of being / a self in a song”.
This piece was written at the kind request of Prof. Inna Faliks for the Dialogues and Re-imaginings Festival at UCLA. It was first performed by my friend, Mindy Cheng, in June 2017.
The score for this piece is available on IMSLP. Please let me know if you are interested in playing it.
A Flame Out of Focus (2014)
piano and cello
for Niall Ferguson
May 2016
In a lesson with Mario Garuti, I shared this piece, which was then quite new and a big step for me. He saw the first line and exclaimed in jest, "Modern music!"
We both laughed because I thought this was very funny. Then, as he scrolled down to the next line he looked at me again and joked, "Ah no, it's tonal music!"
I thought this was even funnier. Laughs aside, it does kind of illustrate how the piece operates. I had been given an assignment to respond to a character from a painting by Picasso (it was "the pleading woman", from Guernica) and felt quite detached from it. But I found this detachment, both from the artwork and from its grisly subject matter, interesting and troubling. And so I was able to respond to the prompt, by way of investigating my non-response to it.
The piece was first performed in November 2014 at UCLA, by my dear friend Niall Ferguson on cello, and myself at the piano. In 2015, it was a finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award.
The score for this piece is available on IMSLP. Please let me know if you are interested in performing it.
Fall 2014
In My Own Hands (2016/17)
solo piano
There are two versions of this piece – the first (2016) is a set of variations for right hand alone, followed by a coda, and the other (2017) is a slightly expanded set of variations for alternating left and right hands, followed by the same coda. (The recording above is of the 2017 version.)
Like many of my other works, In My Own Hands is suffused with an air of wistfulness, but I think to date it is the most intensely responsive to my own life. The first version of this piece was written for my undergraduate senior recital – coming at the end of my four years at school, it has a something of valedictory meaning to me. There were things I wanted to say to people that I could no longer reach (and so I sought to express a vulnerability of writing a letter, by having the pianist play with only the right hand until the music becomes so expansive as to require both), and I was about to embark on a whole host of uncertainties after graduation – as many graduates do.
I revised the piece sometime around the new year, extending the arc of the form and filling in where I thought there was any unnecessarily empty space. It's quite more dramatic, but otherwise stays faithful to the affect of the original.
