I’m blogging on my tablet from the Caribbean, sitting above the beach, looking north to the water through the palms. My wife is napping in our room. It’s a new calendar year, the last month of my 44th year, and there’s hardly been time to reflect. I wanted to update in late December, but that… Continue reading Nina
Cadence Canon (On Eight Notes)
g’/d’ b♭’/d’ b♭’/f#’ b’/f#’ b’/e’ a♭’/e’ a♭’/c’ g’/c’ a♭/c g/c g/d b♭/d b♭/f# b/f# b/e a♭/e (2008)
Chord Canons (On Seven Notes)
I. g”/c” c”/f’ a’/f’ e”/a’ e”/b’ d”/b’ g”/d” a/f e’/a e’/b d’/b g’/d’ g’/c’ c’/f II. b’/e’ b’/g’ … Continue reading Chord Canons (On Seven Notes)
Superscription
“Sequence, symmetry & simplicity”–my composer’s motto, 1996. 15 years later, inspiration strikes and the same schemes still seem sparkly.
Canon on Six Notes
Musical symmetry in the eponymous string quartet I wrote for my grandmother Madra, who would’ve been 105 this year: a”/d’ d”/f’ f”/c’ c”/g’ g”/e’ e”/a’ (1998)
Canon on Four Notes
This is as close to a personal musical symbol as I get: c’/f f’/d d’/g g’/c (1994)
My papa talk, your papa talk
He’s my age, maybe a little older. We’re a few feet apart in a tightly packed subway car, 8:45. He’s aged a lot in appearance since the last time I saw him, at the sandbox with our infants. I’m looking at him and it doesn’t seem like he remembers that, nor certainly not the brief… Continue reading My papa talk, your papa talk
Mahboob
(2009/2011) When I was about 13, without any knowledge of my past beyond the fact that I was a black transracial adoptee, I decided to create an alter ego. In my mind he was a jazz musician, sometimes a cultural diplomat from the West who had reconnected with his own roots in Ethiopia—or depending on… Continue reading Mahboob
||: || :|| (on repeat)
We need you jazz and blues people, too. We need you jazz We need you jazz and We need you jazz We need you jazz We We need you We need you We need you jazz and you jazz and jazz and you jazz jazz and blues jazz blues jazz and blues and blues people, too.… Continue reading ||: || :|| (on repeat)
Everything’s coming up you, robots
You cannot schedule joy. When you do, it will inevitably be deferred by grief all the worse for what it supplanted. Joy has to come to you; you have to be open to its experience at the time it chooses, and while it may elude categorization or expression. Over the years, I’ve recast those words… Continue reading Everything’s coming up you, robots