Interview with myself about the Fragments CD

Part Three

Q: Let's talk about one of the tunes on the CD Fragments called the Dream. Where did this tune come from?

A: My partner, Bridgette. We have been together for just over a year. The relationship has been wonderful and a struggle. When we first started dating there was a feeling, a dream like feeling, that took us over. I had dated from time to time, but I had not met a person in the life long sense of meeting a person. More centrally, there is the fact that I wasn't ready. I was romantic, in theory, but not in life. I chose love as something equivocal to Heaven, rather than Nature. Thus, what I sought in love was filled with desire, not love.

Q: You've talked about desire in other areas, I am thinking of music composition for instance. Is this desire the same?

A: Yes, it is predominately the same. There are distinctions, but yes, on the whole, they are the same.

Q: So the Dream , the tune, how did this come about?

A: Well it was interesting as I didn't want to write Bridgette a tune as such. Doing so felt too definite. I wanted to write for her, about her, and with her. I didn't want to write one tune or song, because I felt we had a life together and as such, that there would been so much I would want to musically express. The ironic thing was, Bridgette took note of the lack of Bridgette tunes and, I think - and rightly so - felt odd about such tunes as I had written in the title; in particular tunes with woman's name's for titles, like Rachel and Elizabeth for example.

Q: But in those case that was the one tune?

A: Yes. One tune, and that's all. As I said, with Bridgette I didn't think of or couldn't write one tune, it was a matter of a continuos relationship.

Q: Who is Angela Rose

A: Bridgette, it was her name at birth, prior to her adoption. The Dream expressed something I have always found so magical, so mysterious.

Q: Which is?

A: How people meet, how they live, and what they lived prior to meeting, this has always entered my mind. Thinking about two friends, for example, and how they have grown over the years, how the affects of their life has created a friendship and wondering how it is that they knew each other, if at all. In love, prior to meeting a person, we dream - or I dreamed - about who this person would be, where they were/are, what they were doing, are doing, and so on. This is the Dream. When I wrote the tune it started simply with middle C, the first note any one learns when they play piano, and it grew from there. Then the theme enters and I think each person has a theme, something from which their vision sees, something that conditions one's outlook and so on. Then, there is the improvisational performance, the soloing and
introduction of other's into this world.

Composition is very much an evolution; performance is very much an evolution. The singular state of a song or tune - when it is composed — transforms as it is introduced to the "other" - not unlike the experiences a child has, a human has, in life. We are constantly dealing with the recognition of the other. It may be naive to think there is no other, it may be sentimental, just as it may be naïve and or sentimental to believe that there is. This said, the confusion, methodology, insight, and so on, within our perceptions of what the other is - the reaction and actions, as it regards the other is — akin to the communal expression of a melody as a language. The melody separates from the composer and is introduced to those who play and hear the melody. They then integrate the melody — the language if you will - based upon their recognition which is based upon their reference points. This is a metaphoric relationship. Words and notes have metaphorical meanings; in other words, they mean other things. A good performer recognizes the metaphoric, like a good writer recognizes the metaphoric. With in the metaphoric there is a great unknown, an endless series of variables. That which is unknown and accepted is transcended, which is hope, openness and, in one way of looking at it, like parental love you
could say.

Q: Isn't this metaphoric?

A: It is. Parental love, in this sense, is metaphoric. What do you think of when you think of parental love? What do you believe this relationship to be? Belief and metaphor, there is a relationship between the two which is essential in composition and performance.

Q: How so?

A: You could say that there are, in this sense, two forms of belief? For example, naive and sentimental.

Q: What is the different between a naive belief and a sentimental belief?

A: The naive belief it is absolute, the sentimental it is a perspective, a chosen perspective. The naive belief in God is absolute, it is so. The sentimental belief in God is based upon how it makes you feel, it is to some extent convenient and or intended, regardless of its direction, regardless of whether it is considered positive or negative, good or bad, right or wrong, and so on. If it "does" something for you and you use it, it is sentimental. There is, too greater degree then that of the naive, a choice or selection involved in the sentimental.

Q: Doesn't this suppose that the naive is worse than the sentimental?

A: They are distinct, and quite different - a tree isn't better than a horse. In other words, when we compare two things, we utilize a series of reference points. Depending on how we understand these reference points we can bias one over the other. One side is assumed to be better than the other. This is a confusion and it is so within our biased understanding. Remember, a comparison has no moral or ethical or artistic stand, it is simply the comparison between two things, or more. A comparison compares, that is all.

A person can contrast things, they can compare and amend things, this does not mean, definitively, that one is better then the other. Choice is a choice, life is a life. In the process or time of our life we chose, compare, and decide. The decisions are based upon belief. How we investigate our metaphoric relationships - our comparisons - is the means by which we investigate our beliefs. And, as belief is the final act of our decision making process, we can investigate what we are applying to our decisions by usurping our beliefs.

Q: We have stepped away from the tune, The Dream, but I would like to explore this. What is the decision making process in music, what can this process involve?

A: Well let's take an example. If a person studies music -or, for that matter…anything - there is a perspective which is embraced or sanctioned. This acts as a medium, a common line or base from which a standard or a grading system or whatever is established. There are many ways in which this system is utilized, more to the point, there are many ways in which this system is ingrained, for instance, language. The system is largely left uninvestigated, however, metaphorical we believe we know.

Q: So knowledge is an illusion?

A: No, not in the way you’re thinking. It is dialectical, and as such continuous. For instance, the way we speak about music, the words we use to describe what is good and true, right and wrong, etceteras, in music may act as a bias. The good and the true, for instance, can be seen in different ways, as such they are continuos. If we associate the good in music with complicated, then, all good music is complicated, if we associate good music as simple, then all good music is simple. Essential what we are talking about is a form of knowledge, that’s why it is not an illusion. To say a form of knowledge is an illusion is, I think, is misguided form of negation. When something isn’t understood, it is simply not understood. There is no illusion in ignorance, it’s ignorance.

Returning to language, if good music has certain linguistic associations then this music - and remember, we are talking about music - is biased by the way we speak about music. In other words, we haven't played a note, and the straps are tied.

Q: This has to do with association and metaphor and comparison.

A: Yes. Think about the good in life without reference, what then is
good?

Q: The fact that we associate?

A: Yes, and I think I know what you mean, it’s good to associate, but the fact that we associate is primary and the fact that we assume our associations are truth, are absolute, is naive. Our associations may reflect types of understanding, focuses and intentions of understanding, but what if we were to associate out of need, say of nostalgia? out of an attempt to experience something which certain remembered associations provoke? is that sentimental?

Q: Do you mean, is nostalgia sentimental? or is sentimental better than naive? is one better then the other.?

A: No. Notice that your question assumes a certain frame work, good and bad, this that. This is a function framework, no more no less. If there is something other than that of the framework, we are lost and the question becomes moot, because we have nothing to associate with. This illustrates the necessity of our associations, the need which is placed on us to associate, thus our frameworks must find the true or the correct.

Q: Why is this.

A: Well what is happening in you when you asked me: is one better than the other?

Q: I wanted to know which was the right one.

A: Right. Why?

Q: I didn’t like not knowing. I felt foolish.

A: And how you see yourself is important?

Q: Yes.

A: Why?

Q: I wanted to know, to be right? To associate with right, I guess.

A: But who defines right?

Q: I guess I do?

A: Why do you guess, is it something you know, or something you heard? and would like to know? Or do you need to know? Is it naive, or is it sentimental?

Q: I don't know.

A: It seems to me that what this comes down to is the association one has to their identity. This association is primary. How we see ourselves is affected by the systems that we employ to understand the world. It is the case that a person may have a system of belief that is destructive. This is tragically the case with a great many abused children. The way in which they have been taught to understand life is a damaging one. They are always stupid, wrong, dumb, and in the case of person’s who have been physically abused, they are faced with the destructive physical associations. These associations are our tacit knowledge, or information. This information has becomes habit, common, par the course and as such it is unquestioned. What this means is, we hold onto, defend, and use, a method that we don't know about, you could say. We have a program that defines us, sets the parameters, so to speak, and we don't realize it is our program.

Q: We are naive.

A: Yes. Understand, this is a heavily riddled issue. I don't want to say that this is the way, or the answer — understanding our motives and unconscious reasons, etceteras - I just want to say that this is a perspective, one that allows me to usurp my approaches to life and as such music. If it is use ful, great, if not, move on.

Q: Give me a personal example?

A: If I make a mistake, I study what it is that makes it a mistake. If I play something I hear, I ask myself why do I hear it, have I heard it before? If I play something I didn't hear I ask myself why I didn't hear it, something, or anything? If I play something that is physical, I ask myself what it was that felt so good, or awkward and so on.

Q: So you just ask questions, a lot of questions?

A: Yes. Knowing means I have a program. What program is in play?

Q: Is this bad to have programs?

A: I'll put it to you this way. You can't mix music on a computer in a word perfect program, no can you cook soup in an anvil. There are many ways of knowing, the more ways a person has of knowing the better. They may express that which is within them clearly and passionately. However, if this confusion is in place, a person is chaotic, or safe.

Another example of bias, is that of cultural bias ; where one culture dislikes, or dismisses, or simply doesn't like the other because that culture differs from this culture. This is an inability on the part of a person's identity to distinguish themselves form other's. For this reason, other's are threatening, in the same way the wrong answer is threatening. This is also the case for ideas, politics, commerce and economy and so on.

Q: I would like to ask you about Bridgette and the tune the Dream. I wonder, how do these associations play into this tune?

A: Bridgette is the dream, that which I imagined, and that which has come true. The fact that I return to this emotion, the time before we had met is sentimental. One of the ways that I know Bridgette, many of the ways is through various state of sentimentality. I also know her as a woman, as a friend, as intelligent, insightful, as cute, as funny, as a great cook, as... and on it goes. The fact that we can know each other in so many ways is, for me, the richness. Sure, there is tension, there is confusion, these is trouble from time to time - and so times we can seem like stranger's to one another. But even so, we are individuals who are recognizing the depth to which an individual can affect our lives, and are within their lives. This is, at times, frightening, and inspiring, it is hope and it is fear, it is everything and it is nothing and as such, our relationship is endless.

One of the things I look forward to in our lives, one of the things within our relationship that I look upon in the way I once did, before we met, is being old. The idea, the hope, of looking back over our lives, our experiences, our struggles, and celebrations, our... well, everything. This excites me.

Q: What will you call that tune?

A: I'll let you know. But I'm sure there will be more than one.

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