steven – Page 24 – Steven Yi

Towards a Different Kind of Unity

Having finished rereading Morton Feldman’s “Give My Regards to Eight Street” last week, I’ve now been engaged with Mark Rothko’s The Artist’s Reality : Philosophies of Art. The book is written in a very different than Feldman’s and I find I am taking a much slower approach to the text, but am finding it very thoughtful indeed. Today, in the section “Emotional and Dramatic Impressionism”, Rothko discusses individual and universal human experiences, and in discussing that which is a common binder of human experience, writes:

Suffice it to say that this is a trusim: that it is through the tragic element that we seem to achieve the generalization of human emotionality.

I had never thought of that really in such terms but can’t argue with it so much. We do tend to find ourselves uniting in experiences of the tragic, and less so otherwise. But what of the otherwise?

I remember a little more than a year ago, in writing “On the Sensations of Tone”, that I was (and am) very interested in much warmer colors. I was very much contemplating aspects of Messiaen’s colors and writings about him, thinking about a seriousness that could be warm, something akin to that review of Cage I read a while ago that mentioned him as “a happy existentialist”.

I think perhaps these ideas are part of a much larger shift in ways of thinking for me, of moving towards a different kind of unity than that offered in the tragic. It’s what attracts me to Scelsi, to later Feldman, to Scriabin’s music. It’s interesting to come across Rothko’s writing now as I’m at a point in this composition where there are many good moments but I’ve been waiting some days now, searching, wondering how it all works together, where it’s all going, listening on and on to understand its nature, its qualities. The sound world has cooled a bit since the initial brilliance of the opening moments of the piece, so now to experiment and see if these ideas aren’t what moves the piece, and myself, forward…

Internal Dialogue

Being in Krakow, when Lisa is either in class or researching at the librayr, I find that there will be long stretches of time where I simply do not speak, perhaps a few hours at a time. In this experience I’ve noticed that as external dialogue diminishes, the internal dialogue grows, and that this exercise has been quite good for me.

I remember back to when I was composing a lot in college: my schedule usually involved going to school and rehearsals until around 7:00pm, then a quick dinner at home before going to my favorite coffee shops to sit at for hours on end (it was not unusual to leave the coffee shop after midnight), before going home or to the studio to work on music for hours after that. (I drank alot of coffee in those days.) During the time I spent at the coffee shops I often read texts by composers, computer music books, novels, poetry, and various books of other types. I remember too in those nightly reading sessions I would spend a lot of time also not speaking, internalizing a dialogue, and I think that helped me very much to focus when I later went to work on music, late into the night.

I think perhaps in the time since school, since becoming a programmer and simply living life, that kind of internal dialogue and quiet observation has not been as exercised regularly. It is something now that I am thinking about very much and I hope this kind of focus can be maintained once I return to work life.

Organ Sounds and Pyramid Envelopes

I’ve always found that there was something to the weight of the sound of the Organ, yet, I rarely found myself engaged with much music that used it. More often than not, the more organ there was, the less engaged I was with the music. But that fascination…

Whenever I’ve tried to use organ-like sounds (additively built-up sine waves with Csound in my case), I never felt really at ease with the sound. In the piece I’ve been working on, I was at a point where I was interested to add more flavors into the dish, so to speak, and so went into my library of instruments and pulled out an additive synthesis organ I thought I would try. I had saved some presets from the last time I had tried using it in a piece but none of them really blended well with what was already there. So after adjusting the strengths of the partials to get a more hollow, square-wave-ish sound I found that it had started to blend in quite well… but something was still a little off.

I have been working with pyramid envelopes for quite some time now, where the sound starts from 0, rises to full value halfway through the note, then back to 0 at the end of the note. I’ve been using this in most of my electronic musical work for quite some time now as I find the sounds then to have a very gentle quality to it and that you can really taste the sound this way. This envelope type also has much more variety to it than a typical ADSR, as the rate of rise and decay in the pyramid envelope is really dependent on the duration of the note.

For the organ instrument I had been using, I had largely always been using a typical envelope for an organ, I guess what would be called an ASR (Attack, Sustain, Release). This envelope has a fixed attack time, then sustains for most of the note, then has a sharp release. This kind of amplitude envelope is very characteristic of real organs and how they work.

So, the natural thing for me to try was to use the organ sound with a pyramid envelope, and that ended up being what really brought it together with the rest of the sounds. Amazing! By applying that to the organ sounds, I really began to feel more understanding of the pyramid envelope and why and how it works very well for me, as well as understanding other aspects of instrument/sound design.

For a sound so pure as in additive synthesis, ADSR or ASR is not enough variety for my ear. Perhaps if the music has notes which change very quickly, or if the sound is mixed within a large variety of other sounds it would work for me, but as I’ve been very much into a much longer duration of note lately, this doesn’t work. On the other hand, if I should want to use that kind of envelope with this type of sound, I think I have a better idea of what the character of the music would have to be for it to work for me.

(Note to self: The pyramid envelope too doesn’t work in shorter durations unless short-enough to create a percussive sound, otherwise, it is too much change in sound.)

Again Lost in Feldman

When I was packing for my trip to Poland and was deciding which books to bring, looking at the many I had purchased but not yet read, I ended up bringing mostly those which I had read before but had wanted to read again. Amongst those were the collection of Feldman essays, Give My Regards to Eighth Street, an absolutely wonderful and deep collection of writings I return to every once in a while. It seems like every time I go through this book or the Zimmerman collection of Feldman’s Essays, it’s always exactly what I needed to read at that time. Never more than ever I think.

I came across this link from a website (perhaps the Sequenza21 wiki?) that is a search of archive.org for MP3’s of Feldman conversations. It is located
here and I have been enjoying listening to Feldman and Cage very, very much. After coming across these and putting them on my PDA to listen to, I put down the Tai-Chi book I was reading and picked up the Feldman book to read, and really haven’t put it down since.

Feldman has played an incredible part of my life–musical and otherwise–both in the sheer beauty of his music and also in his thoughts about music and the music world. I remember reading the Zimmerman collections of Feldman’s Essays in college and finding myself connecting very much with Feldman’s attitude on it all. Reading him now and listening to him speaking, I feel like a certain part of me has somehow really woken back up, as if I was just a little tired for a long while and now that I’ve yawned and wiped my eyes, I’m begining to wake up and see out into the world again.

So I’m lost in Feldman again, in his spirt for music, art, life… but don’t worry, I might be lost in Feldman, but I’m as here as ever, if not more so from it all.

Another Felman Interview I found, which I much rather enjoyed.

In Krakow

It’s been some 10 days now in Krakow… it feels very different here in the Summertime than when I was here a few years ago in the late-Fall, beginings of Winter. Many more people out and about in the main square. I think in some ways I very much preferred it in the colder times as the vastness of the main square was much more apparent then, the atmosphere much quieter. It is perhaps that I’m in a contemplative mood and the austerity of that time was so suitable for the mood I was in then and now.

The city though is as beautiful as I remember it. The warmer weather has been good for sitting in the park that surrounds the main square, and I’ve spent a number of hours there now reading, listening to drafts of music, and writing in my notebook thoughts on music and ideas to try out.

My schedule has largely been the same so far. On the mornings where the weather has been amenable and when I can wake up early enough, I’ve gone out in front of the dorm I am staying at (it doubles as a hotel in the Summer) and do some warmups and tai-chi. I’ve been enjoying that morning time very much, and since having missed doing so this morning, I found very much I’d like not to miss my morning session. I’ve tried to do so in the morning before seven as I find many of the people then are still asleep or just waking up, and that perhaps doing Tai-Chi at the time won’t be too much noticed. I still feel a little strange about working on sword form in the morning, so have tried to find a good place for that. There are still many days ahead here, so perhaps it’s all just a matter of finding a good place to do my practice in the morning.

The mornings so far have been spent in my room, working away on music, counterpoint exercises, programming blue, and reading. The work goes well at this time as the bulk of the students and hotel guests are gone to their classes or left for the day. The windows of my room face the East, so if the sun is out the room can get quite warm. The table I am sitting at and working is adjacent to the window, so if the sun is shining I close the curtains to work, which I’d much rather prefer not to have to do as I like to look outside to the green lawn and trees which are adjacent to the building. Otherwise, the quietness and situation has been very ideal for work.

Lunch–as most meals–are with Lisa, which is great to spend time daily with each other. ^_^

After lunch I have been spending time in and around the main center. I seem to have found myself a spot in the park that surrounds the main square that I am fond of, and I have been bringing books, music, notebooks, etc. there to do some contemplative work. Today, I listened to interviews with Feldman while sitting and enjoying the beautiful park, and finding myself with that rare opportunity (well, rare at least in how I’ve found my life as of late) just to sit and listen and to think. More on Feldman in another post…

Dinners with Lisa have been very enjoyable; at first we mainly stayed at the cafeteria, but after a week we started to explore some restaurants in town, mainly going to many which I had been to in my first time in Krakow, which I enjoyed every bit this time as last.

The evenings have been mostly filled with continuing the work from the morning, having had the afternoon’s time to review and consider. An electric kettle and tea or instant coffee usually accompanies the evening at some time, and work goes well. The students have been somewhat loud in the evenings when we first arrived, but that seems to have died down a bit. (I noticed signs today that “Quiet Hours” are now from 11:00pm to 6:00am as there have been complaints by people trying to sleep; I was very happy to see these signs. =) )

The evening turns into night, the day finishes and I fall asleep to start the cycle once again. Thus far it’s all gone mostly well, and a feeling of satisfaction greets each night and morning.

^_^

A Week of Tai Chi

This past week, Lisa and I spent a week at Walker Creek Ranch for our third Tai-Chi camp with our teacher Lenzie Williams, a camp every bit as valuable and memorable an experience as the past two.

As has been the case the past two years, the ranch has been an absolutely beautiful place to be. No television (we don’t have one anyways…), no radio, no computers, no cell phone signals: a wonderfully quiet, serene, and beautiful hilly, golden landscape. We saw many animals this year, from deer to sheep, from lizards to snakes, from all manner of birds. The air was fresh, the skies dynamic, and the wind was gentle but moving. The nights were lit with a full-moon, and sleep was easy with the cover of darkness and silence in the lodges we all stayed at.

I felt that this year there were many tai-chi gems of wisdom that I picked up, not only the many from Lenzie’s teachings and conversations, but also a great deal from the other participants who were so very generous in sharing their knowledge. (Some of the things I felt I had learned were not necessarily things that people gave so much as did, whether it be their character, their focus in posturing, the way they pushed, etc.) The push-hands experience this year was really great and getting to push with many different people was fantastic experience. The form classes were excellent, filled with solid work and great details.

It was really great to reconnect with a lot of people we had met the past couple of years, growing those relationships and sharing more of ourselves, as well getting to know new people at the camp. One thing that has always stood out to me after the past camps is how much I enjoy and respect Tai-Chi players, for their character and their humanity. Confucious discusses this somewhat, about surrounding yourself with good people, and I can’t think of a better group of people to be around than those I spent the last week with.

This camp had a different feel for me; the past two I felt were something of a peak for the year, while this year’s camp had a real feel of a beginning to the rest of the year. Hopefullly I will be able to keep focused and disciplined enough to take all of Lenzie’s teachings and continue on with what was established at camp.

There’s a lot more to think about in regards to last week, but it’s all things that will take time and practice to fully understand and experience (like how all the exercises we do in class have so much more depth to them than at first glance!). But just a final note: I am very lucky to have such a knowledgable, generous, and genuine teacher. Lenzie is a real treasure, a person gifted enough to not only understand tai-chi at the highest level but also be able to teach that information. I find that as time passes and I learn more and more about Tai-Chi from Lenzie, the more I realize how deep both the art and the teacher are.

^_^

A Walk to the End of the Pier

So I have been working at the same company for the past two and a half years, at the same office at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. In all that time, I had always thought to walk to the end of the pier which surrounds Aquatic Park, but had never gone and done so. This morning, before leaving the apartment, I had decided that today would be the day I would go.

After a longer than expected meeting during lunch, I took a little time back at my desk working on StaffPad before leaving the office for my small adventure. Going downstairs and getting a tall Americano, I proceeded to head towards the edge of the square and on to the pier. It was beautiful out today, a clear, wonderfully blue sky, the wind rustling, feeling fresh, alive. By the time I had gotten halfway down the pier my Americano was at a very good sipping temperature, a perfect foil to the cool gusts of wind that surrounded me.

As I got to the end of the pier, I looked back at where I had come from, back to Ghirardelli Square, and thought to myself how much further it seemed away than I had thought it would be. Looking around I saw the Golden Gate Bridge from a view I had never taken, Alcatraz was closer than I had seen before, and I noticed details on the old sailing ship that I was never quite aware of.

Surrounded by water, the sun shining down, I noticed that the wind was so loud that it drowned out all the other sounds with its noise. A deafening silence, sips of warm coffee, a slow walk back down the pier. By the time I had gotten back to the beginning of the pier I had finished my Americano, ready now to return back to the office, a cool breeze and a warm smile.

So simple, how twenty minutes can make all the difference…

Feldman, Scelsi, Myself

I’ve been working in a different direction lately in my music. It’s been very interesting and exciting for me to explore this sound world as it’s really something I feel like I could only truly explore now as my tools –blue and my orchestral composition library–have recently developed to allow such work to even happen. (I don’t think I could use these musical techniques with any other musical tools, or at least, in a way that is as intuitive as it is with blue.)

I had been looking into music by Penderecki and thinking of Xenakis as well in trying to get some ideas, but yesterday I thought to start listening to Scelsi once again and immediately found myself incredibly drawn to his music. The sound of his music is absolutely fresh and alive, so rich in its motion, its undulations, its breathing… I remember reading something Xenakis said in regards to working with sounds that were alive, and yesterday reading Scelsi’s comments on sound in a similar spirit, makes me think a lot about the ideas and sounds in the music I’m working on now.

For a long time I’ve been very influenced by Feldman’s music, the sheer beauty of its delicate fabric of sound, as well as in the construction and technique of his pieces. A great deal of my thought has been invested in contemplating his music. Yet, I had always found a great deal in many other composers’ music, music of a very different nature, such as Crumb, or Scelsi, or Messiaen. I have drawn on many of these composers ideas, but I have felt that it was very difficult to get experience with a number of their techniques, and therefore, difficult to truly understand the taste and flavor of these techniques. I think now that it is possible, I will continue to explore this path and see what comes from it all, if these techniques will end up really becoming my own.

Healing Chi

Another story my father told me last week was one about his uncle(I’ll call him grand-uncle from here), who in his 50’s, was having problems with his stomach. After going to a Western doctor, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, something at the time some 20 or 30 years ago was almostly certainly fatal. After having heard the news, my grand-uncle went to go see a chi-kung master. When he went into the man’s office, the man was sitting there with his assistants around him. Before my grand-uncle even said anything, the healer, some 10 feet away, told him he had a problem with his stomach. The man then proceeded to concentrate with his hand up towards my grand-uncle, some 10 feet away. He said that he had felt a very warm, even hot sensation grow within his stomach. When had gotten home that day, he told the whole family about his experience, and that his stomach was feeling a lot better. After a few more times going back to him, my grand-uncle didn’t have any more problems with his stomach and never did again.

Handmade Dumplings by a Professional

While in Georgia last week, I stopped by the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market to shop for some food with my mother. While we were there, we stopped by a kiosk inside where handmade dumplings were made. Now, these were really something else, the quality of the dumpling really in a class of its own. The man who made them–a real professional, an artist really–explained to me quite a bit about his dumplings. He had been a dumpling maker in South Korea for years and had moved to America a few years ago. I had mentioned to him that I was a fan of Chinese dumplings, to which he mentioned that he used to make pork dumplings in Korea, but that the quality of pork in America was so bad that he wouldn’t make them anymore here. He also showed me one of his dumpling wrappers, stretching and stretching away without the slightest tear, and afterwards putting it on top of the back of my hand to show me how smooth it was. Amazing! I was invited to pull on the wrapper as well and was amazed at the quality of it.

The dumpling he did make had absolutely no fat in them as well as were made with three different types of mushrooms amongst other things. He cooked them in a very unique way of having boiled water put in a large bowl and dropping the dumplings within it, then after a little time getting them out with a strainer spoon.

The end result was an absolutely fantastic handmade dumpling! It was really something to experience, both the dumplings and the man. It’s really quite startling to see someone who really is a master of his or her craft doing their work, showing such an obvious mastery and passion at what they do. I was really humbled by it all. Perhaps one day, with many more compositions under my belt, that sort of mastery over musical material will manifest itself. I can only continue working and find out.

^_^