11.08.09
The Last Phase
Work on my Nieuw Ensemble piece is in its last phase; roughly a quarter of the notation is complete. Pictured are two pages of an overall plan. Each box represents a single phrase, a small gestural compound characterised by a low dynamic and a slow but noticeable rate of change. This may be a soft tremolo beating on a muted glockenspiel, a focused strumming of an upper-register mandolin note, or a slowly sliding harmonic fingering on a bowed string. The highlighted boxes are those in which pitched material is present, with the uncoloured phrases contributing to the muffled darkness from which individual details emerge. The distribution of pitched material, in its gradual diffusion across the ensemble, mirrors the fragile unpredictability one finds within each phrase, the whole piece then becoming a slowly fluctuating, tense aggregate.
Inspired by:
James Saunders – #211007
Joanna Bailie – Five Famous Adagios
Evan Johnson – Colophons (“That other that ich not whenne”), reflecting pool / monument
Roland Barthes – The Pleasure of the Text
Mark Z. Danielewski – House of Leaves
Ben Isaacs
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