All of us create and destroy on a daily basis, for the most part unwittingly. It’s not possible for us to get through a day without having a thought pop into our heads, which on a very basic level is a moment of creation. Similarly, it’s not possible to get through a day without performing an act that puts an end to something, if only on a molecular level. At the other end of the spectrum … [Read more...]
Three Stages
I experience three distinct stages to the process of creating each composition, which I think of as head, body, tail: Head – initial ideas, which may consist of pitch material, structure, extra-musical impetus, rhythms, instrumentation, or any combination of those and other elements. In this initial stage, I have to have an open, accepting mindset, uncritical, willing to try anything. Body – … [Read more...]
Alignment
In my last post, I said that music is thought. First and foremost, of course, music is made of sound, but the way it is embedded in our consciousness and our being connects it readily with everything else that goes through our minds. Although music can connect with anything, many people experience strong connections with specific nonmusical corollaries. For some, music is a sonic embodiment of … [Read more...]
Music as Thought
Music is sound, of course, and that is an enormous universe to occupy. But for me, music is also thought, a way of thinking. Just as we can think of a flower, or a mathematical equation, or a relationship we have with someone, we can also – to coin a verb – music about those things. Not everyone will relate to what we are musicing about, but that’s okay: not everyone shares our way of thinking. In … [Read more...]
Saturn Dreams of Mercury
Friday night, members of the Beo String Quartet will perform Saturn Dreams of Mercury, a brief trio from 2012, at the Charlotte New Music Festival. It’s one of a set of responses I composed to Italo Calvino’s final work, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, in which he sets out his artistic principles. In the chapter on his second principle – quickness – he describes himself as a “Saturn who dreams … [Read more...]
Being the Sea
Baby boomers inherited a world that believed deeply in the value of the Western canon, and now inhabit a world that holds that canon responsible for many of our culture’s ills. One belief for childhood, the opposite for adulthood. Artists can create based on their beliefs. They can work within the assumptions laid out by the standards of the past in the belief that they are participating in … [Read more...]
Honey
Pianist Yael Manor has released a wonderful new disk of solo music that includes a piece of mine she premiered last winter at the Tenri Cultural Center in NYC. The disk is called Elixir, and it’s available everywhere stuff like that is available. Tomorrow night (Tues, June 9) she is performing a recital at Beethoven Pianos in NY featuring works on the recording: Lawrence Dillon Honey Frederick … [Read more...]
Multiplicity
Never been to Hot Springs, Arkansas, but I have a good excuse to go tomorrow night: the Hot Springs Music Festival is performing Multiplicity, a piece for six violins I wrote a few summers ago. Unfortunately, I can’t be there. Multiplicity was written for my longtime collaborator Danielle Belén to perform with five of her students at the Colburn School of Music. They premiered it in 2012; … [Read more...]
Undistorted
When I was a child, I had[1] a cassette player[2] of a type that would be immediately familiar to anyone over thirty, and possibly outside of the experience of anyone under 20. A flattish rectangular prism about half the size of a shoebox, it had a neat row of buttons that required some effort to depress: REC, REW, FF, PLAY, STOP, EJECT. For reasons I never questioned, the REC button would not … [Read more...]
spain tour
I am over here this week: http://uncsaspaintour.uncsa.edu/ … [Read more...]