Sueños Silenciosos.

En mis sueños no creo que suene música.  No creo que haya tocado nunca un instrumento en un sueño.  Mis sueños suelen llenarse de acción o fragmentos de conversación que enmarcan un panorama de lo sucedido de una manera vaga y clandestina en la conciencia.  Para una persona que suele pensar en notas y frases musicales, creo que el sueño puede que sea el único lugar donde para mi exista silencio.

Scriabin's scribbling

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was an innovative Russian composer and pianist. While in the later years of his life he developed an increasingly atonal musical language that preceded twelve-tone composition; his earlier compositions emulated more of a late-romantic idiom. In his later periods, Scriabin was driven by his spiritual mysticism. He developed synthetic chords like the Prometheus/mystic chord; he also claimed to have synesthesia and although he didn’t differentiate between major and minor tonalities, he developed a color wheel based on the circle of fifths, which assigned colors to different key areas. Heavily influenced by the polish composer Fredrick Chopin, Scriabin’s earlier work is very different from the complex harmonies and textures that later came to characterize his compositions. In these years he wrote in the Romantic musical idiom and also composed in forms frequently used by Chopin (preludes, nocturnes, etudes, mazurkas).

Scriabin’s Prelude Op. 9 for the left hand is a beautiful example of one of his earlier pieces. After injuring his hand at the age of 20, supposedly practicing Liszt’s Don Juan Fantasie, Scriabin wrote this Prelude and the Nocturne that follows it so he could play music with only his left hand. The piece begins with a two bar melodic motif that is then transposed directly down a half step in the consecutive phrase (m3-4). Because the piece is written to be played with a single hand, the melodic range is small, for the most part staying within an octave. For this same reason, the melody is mostly scalar with step-wise motion and very few leaps.

Teeth are the most existential of all bones

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,

 mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or

 say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles

exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop

and everybody goes "Awww!” - Jack Kerouac 

Today I was informed of a death.  The death of a gentle and mad soul.  “Angel Mark’ use to hang out in front of the coffee shop we frequented as misfit teens.  When we  would sit on the dirty pavement in tattered jeans smoking cigarettes and talking about books he would hand us newspaper to sit on.  He would tell us the angel’s spoke to him and told him things about us.  That they watched over us.  With that crazed look in his eye, his scruffy beard, and his clumsy shuffle he would stare at you for a few moments before one of his spiritual comments. “Teeth are the most existential of all bones”.

Que tinguem sort

Que tinguem sort,

que trobem tot el que ens 

va mancar ahir.

 It's hard to write sincere lyrics. Maybe it's just learning to train yourself to think in a specific way...in the way that people train themselves to dream lucidly...I'm not sure.

My grandmother spoke the lyrics of the song "Que tinguem sort" at my grandfathers funeral. The song starts with the words "If you say goodbye to me let it be on a clear and sunny day, let all the birds keep singing their harmonies". I guess I've been thinking about saying goodbye to people and the piece that you keep when you part ways with somebody and these words keep playing through my head. The emotionally profound tone and the lyrical simplicity are making me all sentimental and stuff.

Near, Far, Wherever You Are.

Titanic song interpretation.

What teleporting would sound like

"Hay épocas en que uno siente que se ha caído a pedazos y a la vez se ve a sí mismo en mitad de la carretera estudiando las piezas sueltas, preguntándose si será capaz de montarlas otra vez y qué especie de artefacto saldrá" -T.S. Eliot


Sometimes I feel like I am outside of my body looking at myself. It happens quite often when I feel completely despondent; watching my life pass before me without feeling like I'm actually participating. But then there are moments or phrases or songs or feelings that remind you of what is important and all of the sudden you're snapped back through the time warped abyss that so far removed you and placed back in the mess of it all. Maybe this curse of alternate realities doesn't plague everybody but every living thing can be affected by sound and everybody nostalgically ties certain memories to specific sounds.

AMADEUS for RockDoc Night

My friends have recently been holding a small gathering once in a while which they call "rockdoc night": a night in which we take turns picking a rock n' roll documentary to watch.  The inaugural night of rockdoc however had nothing to do with rock and roll.  The 1984 academy award-winning film Amadeus, which I hadn't seen since I was eight years old, is really well done! The way the music is incorporated in the movie fits perfectly and creates the dramatic tone that is maintained through out the film. The story line is captivating and although it is over 2 and a half hours long, the audience isn't allowed a moment to lose interest. Although the historical validity is somewhat questionable, the plot was entertaining and the music was great. While watching it I did start to wonder how it is that a type of movie like this impacts the general public. Most people don't know much about Mozart and this hollywood movie while historically inaccurate does expose the public to some knowledge about the composer. Is it better to have a slightly misinformed audience or a completely ignorant one? I'm not sure...

I guess it's hard to gauge the validity of most of the information we are exposed to in the first place. While it is constructive to approach sources critically, we are still susceptible to all sorts of intellectual typos and we are also impressionable creatures who retain information we are exposed to. That's why it is the responsibility of the people in charge of putting out the information to educate consciously. I'm not sure if the producers of Amadeus were aware of their moral obligation but it is still one of my favorite movies.

days of gray and nostalgia

Esta canción es que casi me hace llorar cada vez que la oigo. Me hace pensar en la distancia, la nostalgia que se acumula hasta formar un peso pequeño que siempre desequilibra.  Me hace pensar en todas esas personas que llevo conmigo aunque no lo sepan; personas que te cambian tan profundamente que después ya no eres lo mismo que eras antes de conocerlas.  A esas personas quiero dedicarles esta canción porque pienso en ellas cada vez que la oigo.  Para los traficantes de sueños y las caricias de morfeo, para las canciones al oido y las que se gritan demasiado fuerte, para el beso de despedida en el aeoropuerto y el abrazo que te espera al aterrizar.

The elephant that left an impression

Debussy’s piece “Jimbo’s Lullaby” opens with a left hand melody based on a d minor pentatonic scale whose oriental mood and slow tempo meant to be played “deux et un peu gauche” evoke the image of a playful elephant. At measure ten the mood begins to shift, and at mm.19-20 the piece moves away from the d minor tonal center and seems to focus more on the pitches F and G; these polychords seem to suggest at a feeling of bitonality which is reinforced by the secundal harmonies that move from V-I (F and G move to C and D). By highlighting F and G as tonal hubs, the listener feels aurally removed from the d minor key so that when the opening melodic motive is weaved in again at measure 28 accompanied by the secundal harmonies of F and G, it is harder to recognize and more dissonant; almost sinister. Through the use of the whole tone scale (beginning at measure 41) the tonal center is further obscured. This dissonance, created by unusual harmonies, the whole tone scale, and an obscured tonal center, saturates the overall mood of the piece; turning what would be simple French lullaby melodic motives into more interesting and eerie sounds.

opening bars

The 2/2 time signature, restrained tempo, and the dynamic marking which range from p to ppp give the piece a playfully relaxed feel further characterizing the elephant toy the piece was inspired by. The rhythmic and melodic motives that occur throughout the piece also create a sense of structure needed in a composition that lacks a clear tonal center and traditional harmonic cadence. One example is the rhythmic motive that occurs in the left hand in mm. 53-54 which is then repeated in the right hand in mm. 56-57. The opening melody also comes back a third time at measure 62 and in this reiteration it is clearly recognizable. Because of the clear return of the opening melodic motive toward the end and the more dissonant middle section, the piece almost feels like it has a ternary-type form and is then followed by a sort of coda which begins at measure 76 where Jimbo starts to slow down the slow pace of his clumsy step and the note values become longer and the melody seems to drift off ending on a final B flat.