April 15, 1999
Notes whilst reading:

"Media Hot and Cold" and "The Phonograph" by Marshal McLuhan (19??). Understanding Media
Various "High Fidelity" articles from 1958, 1961 and 1967.
"Perceptible Processes: Minimalism and the Baroque" by K. Schwarz (19??). Minimalism and the Baroque

    McLuhan talks about the effects of different media types--hot or cold--on different cultures--hot or cold. His concepts are hard to follow, but it all reminds me of something I once thought. Franz Fanon--the revolutionary Algerian who wrote The Wretched of the Earth--talks about the methods the settlers use to subdue the natives. The colonizers come into the system and make the natives completely dependent on the European system. The original culture is outlawed and replaced with the "civilized one"; the natives original "economic" system is replaced, the centers of power are moved, the natives put to work to make the settlers rich. Some natives are sent out of their country to be schooled in the European countries. They come back and reflect what it is to be native and civilized. Eventually the colonized lose the skills of subsistance and must buy the products they make from the settlers. Sometimes they can't even do that because all the cotton that is produced, or all the coffee picked, or vegetables grown on the most fertile land, is sent back to the mother country for the consumption by a clueless populace. The culture as a whole dwindles to a meger existence in servitude to the master--although they all remain within "thier" country.
    It may seem like a thing long past, but I will argue it is happening today in America. It is more abstract because it can't be reduced to two groups--the colonizers and the colonized. Our masters have no knowledge of what is occuring. From day one in a baby's life now, s/he will be surrounded by computers. Over the past 20 years we all have become colonized by the computer. Our culture has completely changed. Our economic system could collapse by glitches or viruses. Our center's of power are now defined in terms of computer power. (I spend much more time at CCRMA than home because there are fast computers and equipment there.) We are all becoming trained to use the computer; sometimes sent to special schools. We are all spending so much time in front of the computer ("in front" takes on a strange meaning now since we are really behind the computer) we are loosing abilities to fend for ourselves; becoming dependant on fast-food, on-line grocery deliverance, virtual communities, other on-line purchases. And then we work hard with the computer, and aid corporoglomerates to produce products that is then sold back to us.
    Yet we remain in our own country, somewhat clueless of our current situation, our masters before us. But who is the master since the computer is not? The computers only add fuel to the fire of our deliverance into slavery. It is no wonder I have so many mental problems.

    There I was sitting on the floor trying to listen to Mahler's 2nd symphony. My best friend Phil was standing above me sucking real hard on a DumDum just staring off into space working the hallucinatory effects into breathing walls and flowing wallpaper. Mahler with his horns; marching band out in the distance. Pure armageddeon, and not a good thing to be listening to in this state. I began to feel ashamed for listening to Mahler like this. "This music was not intended to be heard by a boy on acid." So I put in Glass' "Einstein on the Beach". I can't remember which part it was, but the music made a giant train barrel towards me with its iron heavy lights and horns. I turned it off becuase I felt ashamed again; I would draw instead. I thought "Next time I will only listen to my own music, becuase I can reassure myself that it is ok I listen in this state and then I will be listening in a state which will be fine with the listened intentions of the composer, myself, who is listening in a state of vulnerable grace."
    Now I think, I feel no shame when I do chores accompanied by Robert Ashley; when I drive to the music of Berio; when I work to the music of Reich. Before I was really listening, but when I do these things the music is there for color, like light. I hardly ever listen to music anymore because of my limited time, so I use these opportunities to do so. How well I can ingest a new piece however and get a feel for its composition is surely not as good as if I were a "professional listener".
    As a composer I become frightened when I find that for the past week I have not been listening. I would be a walking container absent of feeling; and then POP! I would be back in my body. It isn't like my mind is elsewhere. My mind just isn't. I am thinking, but I am not listening. And then I try and compose during these times and that is rough. "Where have my abilities disappeared to?" It is really like I wake up and find that some permanent damage has resulted in a permanant--and thus life-terminal--loss of musical creativity.

    In an old article from Stereo Review (1961) a jazz teacher is training a young, promising musician. He hears in his playing a confused language. The teacher believes in the detriment the LP is causing on people's abilities and asks the student to stop listening to any records and concentrate on his own language. I really identitify with this because I experienced this, and possibly still am, first hand as a composer. I created a lot of "dance music" in my college days until I came to odds with the scene. Overnight I completely changed and wanted nothing more to do with the scene. I stopped making techno, and starting making fun of it by creating sarcastic rendetions filled with animosity and regret. I looked for a new music to identify with and found world musics to be the thing. I started writing practces in various styles of the world. But at the same time I felt my own voice was coming into being. I was excited at this since it meant to me I was actually becoming a composer. But at somepoint a rush of confusion eroded my purpose and I saw my language to only be a wax conglomerate of all I had heard before.
    So powerful was this experience that I took "The Four Vows of Silence" and had "The Resulting Conversation" with myself. During this time I worked on music but let NO ONE hear it, critisize it, or even know I was composing. I wanted to return to composing just for myself, no matter what my language was. This period ended, and I came With In Visibiliti. I am still facing this schizophrenia of musical voices in my head. It was so strong last fall that I was going to explore "non-composition" as a compositional method. Since I couldn't compose, why not make a piece about my inability.
    I was going to be led on-stage by a "doctor" who has me sit in this chair. (He is constantly calling me Mr. Strum.) He places an electronic helmet on my head and tells me "we will be looking into why you can't compose. Try to find the blocked passageways of creativity. When you feel comfortable please go to the piano over there and try to write some music." He leaves and the machine starts up. The audience hears my thoughts, granulated because of the technology. I go to the piano and I can't hear anything in my head. But then something comes. A little fragment that I can't develop worth the life of me. I use fragments from a violin and piano piece I was trying to write last summer, but couldn't. It has all these nice ideas but I couldn't place them. Needlesstosay, I didn't do this, as a piece came rather quickly elsewhere.

"Endless Music", a word describing minimalism. But for me minimalism could only be endless with a limit. I glanced at a true unique endless music when I began going to raves. The entire night would be pounding with music so seamless, all pieces from many anonymous composers that worked so well together. It represents a true collective of music, and a leveling of sophistication. Every type of person would be in attendance. It wasn't usually a scene of cliques; everyone was in one clique and that was the community. And to be a part of that community you had to be willing to respect and love...at least on the surface.