call me trite, but this is wonderful. I love to see stars of my generation grow up with me, it's inspiring. and sometimes we need to be reminded that despite being Established as a child star, children are still people who have a life ahead of them to develop and evolve and become who they want to be, on their own terms.

the Janet Jackson (original!) version of this song is of course totally stunning, too – I heard it for the first time this week (can you believe it?!) and was totally floored.

wanting to "say something" or "express an idea" or even write a piece "about something" – these impulses continue to lead me to dead ends before the piece (or any material) even takes any shape. everyone is trying to tell me something in their art, everyone is trying to say something and trying to change my mind or make me outraged or get me to sympathize or reveal some truth or some beauty and while it is my habit to want to have some kind of interface with that I'm just so tired and feel like anything I could "say" would ultimately not be adequate. I just want to be free and when I encounter art that is free, despite the (sometimes adverse) circumstances of its creation, I feel free. I don't want art to tell me how to feel, at this point I don't want art to tell me anything at all...

Kate Briggs writes in This Little Art  (a lyrical essay about translation and its nature as a personal, relational art)  that sometimes our misinterpretation/misunderstandings of text mean more to us than what they “actually” mean or say.

there is a fragment of “The last rose of summer” which (in Britten’s arrangement) I first registered as “The lovely are the sleeping” (the second “the” is extraneous). this misunderstanding has since been cleared but I must say I prefer my distortion. 

recent obsessions include:

Heartleap, an album by Vashti Bunyan on Spotify

Variations on the Right to be Silent (Anne Carson)

*this version of the essay does not include the stunning epilogue found in the version included as part of Float. she "translates" a poem by Ibykos in a handful of increasingly absurd ways and calls it a "catastrophe of translation". this version is astonishing nonetheless.

have long been fascinated by the idea of notation as a personal, expressive, and highly psychological art

Martino, "Fantasies and Interludes"

Martino, "Fantasies and Interludes"

Mikhashoff, "Elemental Figures"

Mikhashoff, "Elemental Figures"

Silvestrov, "Kitsch-Musik"

Silvestrov, "Kitsch-Musik"

Monk, Suite from Atlas

Monk, Suite from Atlas

Ustvolskaya, "Sonata No. 6"

Ustvolskaya, "Sonata No. 6"

Miller, "Philip the Wanderer"

Miller, "Philip the Wanderer"

Kurtág, "Jatékók"

Kurtág, "Jatékók"

Ligeti, 10 Pieces for Wind Quintet

Ligeti, 10 Pieces for Wind Quintet

Reich, "Piano Phase"

Reich, "Piano Phase"

Soper, "Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say"

Soper, "Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say"

Adès, "Mazurkas"

Adès, "Mazurkas"

Aperghis, "14 Récitations"

Aperghis, "14 Récitations"

Schubert, "Piano Sonata in A minor"

Schubert, "Piano Sonata in A minor"

the most meaningful compliment I received these past two semesters accompanying precollege came from a mother who told me she remembered my accompanying her son on Debussy's "Première rhapsodie" – she described my playing as "so supportive", which is perhaps all I could ever really hope to be as a musician who likes to play with others

paid a visit to La Monte Young + Marian Zazeela's DREAM HOUSE a few days ago. stayed for about a half hour. it's a special experience, and psychological – move your head the slightest bit and the sound seems to shift with you. saturation/immersion that didn't feel too controlling. room is beautifully dark, with understated light installations (the entry way has a wonderful neon sign). incense was lovely. a moment to remember.

a friend of mine had her percussion sextet played at school tonight. stunning piece and very solid, graceful performance. I enjoyed every second of it.

in hearing a piece of music I'm always hoping to have an experience about which I have no questions, no second-guesses and no challenges. sometimes I have to work harder to listen to a piece than what I end up getting out of it, or I'll be unsure whether I "understood" what the artist intended for their work to express. when I hear a piece of music I'm always hoping that it meets me where I am, and listening to it does not become a conscious act of discrimination; I crave that experience of having questions and doubt washed away, where meaning is both complex but ultimately arresting, ultimately sufficient/coherent on its own terms, that holds my attention in its unwavering clarity.

love love love this first Debussy étude. I've always been struck by how funny it is (and I always find it strange, for some reason, when I find things funny that also happen to be old, as if only things happening in the present can be funny).

it's really effective in its "breaking-the-fourth-wall" humor, a reductionism that is almost crude (a mockery of Czerny). but it also lays down the harmonic dialectic of the piece (half-step relationships between modes, diatonicism etc). in this way the "joke" is more than a detached comic moment; it is woven into the music as an integral part of its construction. to me it is funny but also so much more; dignified, breezy, witty, noble, wise, insouciant. just wonderful music.

is it just me? is it just my neighborhood? or have flags really been flying at half-mast much more often, lately? memento mori? 

call me by your name

  • fly motif?
  • use of piano music (Elio’s instrument), use of music specifically for variants of piano duet (4 hands, 2 pianos)
  • Elio, a musician? Bach, Liszt, Busoni, Schoenberg? Ravel? 
  • love as open secret, unfamiliar, yet not a thing to be afraid of
  • love and self-identity; “call me by your name”, who we love is such a part of who we are and who we become
  • first love, unfamiliar, perhaps feels forbidden but “right” and unstoppable. several factors emphasized here. problematic? perhaps. poetic? also perhaps.
  • Une barque sur l’ocean, Hallelujah Junction, Ma mère l’oye, Wachet auf... pieces of fairytale comportment (except Bach). 
  • politics? vote signs? 5-party government? sociopolitical backdrop of “innocent” love story? 
  • evocation of antiquity (pederasty – but not pedophilia!) casts a mythical, "Dionysian" light

never have i ever

  • played a solo recital
  • performed or even learned a concerto
  • performed a piece from memory in at least 15 years

I have many “holes” in my knowledge and practice, and though I hope continually to mature I also have become less self conscious about my “weaknesses”.

there are artists that do not let a lack or lacuna of technique stop them from doing beautiful work; in fact, sometimes recognizing and working with them can be illuminating indeed. technique can thusly become highly idiosyncratic; you don’t have to know how to do everything to do SOMETHING as you dream it.