A Book Of Disquiet

A Book Of Disquiet was written in response to Marco Lucchi’s piano patterns no 1

Let us absurdify life from east to west.
– Fernando Pessoa from The Book Of Disquiet

Marco Lucchi offered a set of piano patterns and allowed anyone to remix the piece. I saw these patterns as being organized into seven sections and decided to address each one individually, so these have been used, abused, stretched, repeated, and otherwise altered. I extracted meaning from each and offer accompaniment through traditional instrumental means.

Marco’s offering was accompanied by a picture of Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese poet. I have not read much of his work but what I have read appears to be quite surrealistic. In that vein the seven sections of the piece are tangentially related but are primarily on their own.

A Book Of Disquiet was written for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Gong, Temple Blocks, Cymbals, Violin, Viola, Cello and String Bass.

The score is available at https://bit.ly/3mUZ3Zk

Come To Me

Come To Me was inspired by the poem of the same name by yaskhan – yassy66.wordpress.com/2020/08/22/come-to-me

It is dedicated to my dear wife, Kathy, who is one of the few capable of putting up with me over a long period of time.

Come To Me

Come to me in the wild blue yonder
Come to me in the azure twilight
Come to me when the stars are bright
Come to me with passions thunder.

Come to me on wings of cupid’s dove
Come to me under a teal canopy
Come to me in a symphonic fantasy
Come to me with a potion of love.

Come to me in this rendezvous
Come to me, my shining knight
Come to me with loves’s allure.

Come to me till dawn flies on wings of colored light
Come to me, walk my destiny through
Come to me, beguile me, light me up like dynamite.

— yaskhan

yaskhan’s poetry blog can be found at yassy66.wordpress.com/.

Come To Me was written for Flute, Clarinet, Horn, Trombone, Violin, Viola, Cello and String Bass.

Come To Me – Score

Haiku Music – Volume 10

My tenth and final self-published haiku music album – ten musical interpretations inspired by ten haiku.

Full album here.

The Emptiness of My Mosquito Net 6:11 sleeping, waking the emptiness of my mosquito net … Chiyo-ni	The Heavy Leaf 7:33 See the heavy leaf on the silent windless day falls of its own will. … Nozawa Bonchō	The Last Kite 5:53 the last kite carries the setting sun in its wings … Aju Mukhopadhyay
Traveling Monk 7:42 the sun set behind a traveling monk tall in the withered field … Masaoka Shiki	Unknowable Blue 6:20 true tranquillity hiding underneath creased sheets – unknowable blue … Mark Morris	A White Feather Fell 9:22 A bird flew past very close a white feather fell … Mats Unden	A Wild Sea 9:27 A wild sea- In the distance over Sado The Milky Way. … Matsuo Bashō
Through the City 4:18 meandering through the city cars around infinite game … Bartosz Leszczyński	Peaks of Cloud 6:47 Peaks of cloud: The ship has crossed A windless sea. … Natsume Soseki	The Bell of Life Passing – For a Lucky Dawg 11:49 from evening mist the bell of life passing … Issa

All Creatures Have A Name

All Creatures Have A Name was written in response to Disquiet Junto Project 0451: Ursula’s Silences

     Step 1: In the classic fantasy novel A Wizard of Earthsea, its author, Ursula K. Le Guin, writes the following: “For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.” While the words are her own, of course, they are spoken not by the narrator, but by the book’s main character. The statement occurs toward the end of the book. For emphasis, Le Guin informs the reader that the character, whose name is Ged, speaks the words “slowly.”
     Step 2: Consider how the statement can be applied to music, to sound, to the linear unfolding of a composition.
     Step 3: Record a piece of music inspired by the Le Guin text: one sonic object at a time, with attention paid to the spaces, the silences, between those objects as they are introduced.

As it turns out I was working on a similar project so my mindset was already in the right place. For the music I looked toward the end of the book to draw out the intention.

All Creatures Have A Name was written for string quartet.

All Creatures Have A Name – Score

Persistently I Stare

This piece was written in response to Naviarhaiku343 – Persistently I stare

     Persistently I stare
     At the moon
     Still I cannot hear

This haiku is by Sugiyama Sanpu (1647-1732), who suffered from severe hearing problems for his whole life. Sanpu was a patron of Basho, helping him establish his school of haiku.

Persistently I Stare was written for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Cello and String Bass.

Persistently I Stare – Score

Seemless Transmissions

Seemless Transmissions was written in response to Disquiet Junto Project 0448: Seamless Bridge

     Step 1: Select any two tracks from the 20×20 Bandcamp page, either by ear or at random. Each track should be by a different artist in the 20×20 series. One track selected will open the piece and one will close the piece. This is where to find the tracks. They’re downloadable for free.
     https://20x20project.bandcamp.com/
     Step 2: Consider which of the two tracks you’ve selected in Step 1 should be used at the start (the opening 20 seconds) and which at the end (the final 20 seconds).
     Step 3: Create a piece of music that is 60 seconds long. It should have one track at the start (the first 20 seconds) and one at the end (the last 20 seconds).
     Create a third original piece of music for the middle section of 20 seconds that acts as a seamless bridge between the two pieces.

This was a quick, fun project. I selected the first two pieces from Simon McCorry’s 20 Transmissions From The 20th Century and used the ideas from each in my bridge.

Seemless Transmissions was written for two Violas.

Seemless Bridge – Score

A Fragrant Breeze

This piece was written in response to Naviarhaiku341 – A fragrant breeze

     A fragrant breeze
     Is blowing from China
     Over these seven strings

This haiku is by Tagami Kikusha (1753-1826), a Japanese multi-disciplinary artist and Buddhist nun, mostly known as a poet, painter, calligrapher and tea practitioner. The haiku was written when she visited the temple Hooryuuji in Nara, in 1812, and was allowed to play an ancient Chinese guqin.

A Fragrant Breeze was written for seven groups of strings – three Violins, two Violas, and two Cellos.

A Fragrant Breeze – Score https://bit.ly/3jlwJ0q

The Heavy Leaf

This piece was written in response to Naviarhaiku339 – The Heavy Leaf

     See the heavy leaf
     on the silent windless day
     falls of its own will.

This haiku is by Nozawa Bonchō, a haikai poet and disciple of Basho who worked as a doctor in Kyoto. Later in life Bonchō distanced himself from Basho’s school and was imprisoned for a crime. He died in 1714.

The Heavy Leaf was written for Flute, Clarinet, Horn, Trombone, Violin, Viola, and Cello.

The Heavy Leaf – Score

Broken Is The Golden Bowl

Broken Is The Golden Bowl was written in response to Disquiet Junto Project 0442: One Sentence

     Step 1: Choose a favorite single sentence. The sentence should be from prose or poetry, but not a song lyric.
     Step 2: Say the sentence out loud, slowly, several times in a row. Consider its shape, its tone, its cadence, and its content, and how these connect with each other.
     Step 3: In some way that you can understand, map the exploration of the sentence from Step 2.
     Step 4: Compose a piece of music that follows the map from Step 3. Note that the finished piece shouldn’t (or better yet: needn’t) include the spoken sentence (that is, it’s best if it’s purely instrumental), and it might last much longer than the sentence would take to say out loud.

Broken Is The Golden Bowl used the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe in his poem, Lenore.
     Ah, broken is the golden bowl!
     The spirit flown forever!
     Let the bell toll! — A saintly soul
     Glides down the Stygian river!

Broken Is The Golden Bowl was written for Clarinet, Trombone, Violin, Viola, Cello and String Bass.

Broken Is The Golden Bowl – Score