Dazzlepatterning.
Tessellations. Transformations and Tessellations. Camouflage. Sparkling Water. Tapestry. Wallpaper. The staring out the window at the glide of power lines in the family stationwagon on a long summer trip. These are a few of my favorite things! These are some of my favorite sounds and sites in nature.
My favorite parts to the symphony so far are where the patterns emerge and shift --
first in birdsong (at minute 2:15) and then the frog chorus (at 6:20).
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| Ace Basin, SC (Beverly Gaddy) |
I wonder if this is why the shore birds prefer mixed flocks: their colors and shapes complement and make interlocking patterns, obscuring one another. And now that I'm listening more to birdsong, the afternoon is full of momentary tessellations: mixed birds with interlocking song. So that's what I want to do more and better in Section B (minutes 2-4:30). In this section I want the birdsong to win out over the echos and tapestry of the orchestra . I'll have to do some trimming. (And Ray, the Timpanist with the HHI orchestra says less timpani here!) Also, I need the real birdsong to have the "last word" in the conversation. (Musically speaking, I suppose this section is like a concerto for birdsong and orchestra!)
Let me describe the sections of the work for you.
(--and for me! It's hard leaving my work for a few days and returning to it. If nothing else, this blog helps me to focus my thoughts and set my intentions. So I apologize again for all the detail.)
The work is descriptive of a (winter*) day in the LowCountry of South Carolina--Beaufort, Hilton Head, Charleston and even Savannah, Georgia. We start with the first daylight song: Cardinal. Then the Carolina Wren trumpets the morning and defines his territory. In Section B, other Carolina Wren songs are shared and at mid-day (Section C) all the birdsongs that I collected are shared and woven into a busy tapestry (Section D)-Cardinal, Chickadee, Woodpecker, Crow, Mockingbird. At sunset (Section E) the frogs emerge and close out the day. The ocean takes us off into sleep.
Click here to see a picture of the mixdown for Draft 16.
The A section (start to minute 1:30) is more like the competitive language of birdsong, especially at night or in the morning when each bird is laying out their territory. The bird with less of a song (quieter, slower, less rigorous) must leave. I didn't intend this, but in my symphony I let the orchestra win. The trumpets take over and the natural bird stops. So I'm thinking about whether to allow it or accept it. The fact is, I'm not simply using nature's music, as other artists have done. I'm trying to show nature in an artistic perspective: conform it to harmony and rhythms that humans can enjoy. And so it's true: orchestra wins out the territory over the birdsong. And I accept this.
How would it be if the birdsong had won? Other artists have simply added birdsong in with new age music. To me this is too non-committal. It's more like "co-existance" than cooperation and acceptance, or understanding. Or they have taken recordings of nature and used them as the raw material for digital sound processing and mixing. The listener is left to make artistic judgement about it; even so, it's still handled and manipulated by man.
Dr. Bernie Krause has just published a book on nature's tapestries:
The Great Animal Orchestra. Very interesting! Other composers have notated birdsong into symphonic works before me--Messian being the most prominent, Stravinsky being preferred by me and Vivaldi being the best at tessellations in Seasons/Spring--he actually does a metric modulation without writing it in. Phillip Glass I believe was fascinated with executing musical tessellations. At least, that's how I make my way through it. Ultimately, I think these dazzling patterns are a form of mind-alteration, mesmerization and meditation--some might say analgesic. When I meditate, I find the world slips into interlocking patterns. Activities and people in my life form a tide or current that moves and changes in "the cycle of existance." So this fascinates me, inspires me as a moment of moving beauty and I wish to express it here. So my work continues!
So I'm not alone in my musical or philosophic pursuit. Although I feel like a pioneer, as I attempt to study the birdsong and the intention of the communication (the purpose of the birdsong) and to use my analysis in determining my work. The birdsong and frog chorus are the key to the design of this symphony. I wish only to honor nature and understand and respect it. It's the language the human race has not learned yet.
The frog chorus (entering at the
Golden Mean--5 minutes out of the 8 total) is so beautiful in itself. I include the unaltered chorus in its full expression: swell and ebb (crescendo, diminuendo). The orchestra long-tones in winds and horns serve it on a platter. The strings are adding lightness in their pizzicato. This needs more work: the strings sound un-related to the frog chorus. Unless I can build up to this pattern from the frog chorus pattern. Then I have understood it and not simply copied it. (I haven't copied it exactly, as I have done the birdsongs because it is so continuous. It leaves no room for me, the orchestra. Instead, my role is to listen along with my trained ears, and I hope I have trained the ears of my audience by this time in the work.) So my intent here is to do with the strings what the frogs do: camouflage and confuse, create a dazzling pattern.
Another example of how the birdsong has determined the design is in my overarching musical harmony is the first Carolina Wren song we hear, using notes Eb, F, G. These are the keys for the modes (mostly a wholetone variation) and chords. Sections A-D are in Eb, Section E (the frogs) is in F (should be minor but I don't want it to get too dark) and I end with the ocean in G major.
The Golden Mean has been important to me as a composer ever since I started at
The Walden School at age 14. I mind it but I can't say I understand it or appreciate it. The actual sound that is the most inspiring, or elevating during this work is the solo cello at 4:56, just before the frogs enter. So it's just a tad early for an 8 minute work (where the golden mean is at 5:00). Well, with the work I'm about to do on extending the patterns of the mid-day, (3:45-4:00) and it may result in a few more seconds, pushing this moment into the 5th minute, and voila! just right!
So I am almost done. Now I want to make what I have done better by emphasizing the tessellations and patterns, build a tighter tapestry.
"Adventure is worthwhile in itself."
- Amelia Earhart
* Winter in South Carolina is very mild so the insects are absent. I really want the work to end with an owl song, but despite several night outings, I have not captured any usable owl songs. (OK, I have two recordings but the owl is too far away and they sound noisy and unusable.) Beverly and I are not giving up yet!
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| Sea Pines Nature Preserve Gate Locked us in! (Beverly Gaddy) |
One night Beverly and I went out to find some owls in the nature preserve and got locked in.
Yikes! Thanks to our friends we were able to contact the security office and find a second exit! We thought the owls would be more active in
the full moon (super moon!) but the cloud cover kept them away while we were out.
