for solo marimba (5 octave)
duration: 16 minutes
MOVEMENTS
I.
II.
III.
PROGRAM NOTE
Like many composers and artists I know, I didn’t do much creative work during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Getting through each day was enough of a challenge and accomplishment. But in late May, as a participant in the Yarn/Wire International Institute, the opportunity came up to write a piece for a percussionist using only the instruments she had in her home. One of those instruments was the marimba, which I had never written for and, in fact, had long told myself I didn’t like.
Somehow, in this strange pandemic time, writing for the marimba suddenly seemed like an opportunity to ask myself - what would happen if I embraced something I didn’t think I liked? Might it yield something more fruitful than simply making the same old choice? And do our thoughts always know best anyway? Don’t they sometimes push us into directions that aren’t always that good for us, especially if we aren’t paying close attention to them?
Following this line of thinking, I stumbled across a new writing process while beginning this piece, a way to remove my rational, thinking brain, with all of its desires and ideas, from the process of creating musical material and structure. To do that, I generated each of the three movements in a single focused session, following material wherever it led in the moment. I did no conscious planning, shaping or decision-making during this generative process. I simply made something and left it to my later self to understand it, tease out its implications, and figure out how to communicate it to a performer. I found that, when I took my conscious mind out of the process in this way, what was left was a deeper-felt, richer, and more surprising music.
Self-Portrait (You Are Not Your Thoughts) is different from anything else I’ve written. It’s fluid and free-flowing, constantly transforming, turning material over, introducing new ideas suddenly, and moving away from them just as quickly. It moves organically and unpredictably, like the perception of time in a dream. Above all else, it is built out of melody - everything in the piece comes from the melodic lines and their shapes, desires and implications.
This is not a piece that I would ever sit down and try to write, consciously. But that’s why it feels more deeply and eye-openingly ‘me.’ In John Kabat-Zinn’s seminal book about mindfulness, Wherever You Go, There You Are, he speaks about “doerless doing” in creative endeavors, a “capacity to let execution unfold beyond technique, beyond exertion, beyond thinking. Action then becomes a pure expression of art, of being, of letting go of all doing.”
Trusting my intuitive mind and ear and accepting whatever came out, no matter how different or strange it felt, totally changed my relationship to my creative process. And it started by realizing that my thoughts are not always right - and in fact, they aren’t really who you are. There is so much more to you than just what you think.
Self-Portrait (You Are Not Your Thoughts) is in three unnamed movements: the first is sparse and simple, moving from long spans of silence to a kind of blossoming of expression. The second movement is the shortest and quickest, moving through a few different ideas without looking back. The third and longest movement gently but persistently explores a simple melodic phrase, taking it through a series of transformations and detours before an unrelated, becalmed ending suddenly settles over the piece.
This piece would not exist without the invaluable input and support of four percussionists: I-Jen Fang, to whom the second and third movements are dedicated with friendship and gratitude; Jessie Otaiza, to whom the first movement is dedicated; and Russell Greenberg and Ian Antonio. Many, many thanks to all of them.
The first movement of Self-Portrait was written for Jessie Otaiza, percussion, as part of the 2020 Yarn/Wire International Institute, and premiered digitally on June 27, 2020. The 2nd and 3rd movements were written for percussionist I-Jen Fang. The premiere performance of the complete work by I-Jen Fang was released digitally on September 21, 2020 as part of the 2020 Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival.
PERFORMANCES
June 27, 2020 (1st movement), digitally, as part of the 2020 Yarn/Wire International Institute. Jessie Otaiza.
September 21, 2020 (complete piece), digitally, as part of the 2020 Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival. I-Jen Fang.