heart pleasure

i just went through a huge electroacoustic improv, musique concrète, modern classical and field recording phase. it lasted about 6 months.

listening, studying, recording.

i came up with one field recording that combines several different days of walking around the campus. i used audacity, which is great but definitely not the best thing ever. the sine tones i used are notes i heard humming in the air one day while playing outside with my brother. it was a major third, middle C and the E four half steps above it. i am actually in love with this interval. i then modified it a little bit, adding and subtracting. i need a windguard to completely eliminate unwanted sounds, but i find them a little charming in their own way.

i was definitely influenced by Toshiya Tsunoda, whose 2014 work Detour (with Manfred Werder) was completely fascinating and perfect. one of the greatest things i have ever heard. my favorite experience listening to that was in bed with the windows open and the curtains rustling. it lasts for about an hour... and near the end some seemingly inorganic sounds come into play, which are actually the internal vibrations of the insects and other lifeforms of the forest floor. anyway, this is how it turned out. looking back i should have extended each section so that it lasted even longer, broadening the entire track. it is far too short as it is. i am too lazy to go back. i have a Tascam handheld recorder that i now use to record with all the time, but i have not actually compiled a completed track ever since. i do not seem to have the discipline. it has become merely something that gives me immense pleasure.



all i listened to was Michael Pisaro (Continuum Unbound), Toshiya Tsunoda (Detour with Manfred Werder), Morton Feldman (Two Pianos), and members of the collective Wandelweiser. read works of John Cage (Silence). the most important thing i have read in recent times is this: Time's Underground. became inspired then closed my eyes.

a very good friend of mine who has always been interested in field recordings and other things, Joshua Adam Acosta, is now on a private label that is releasing his and other talented artists' works in this style. the label is called speculations editions. one of my favorite releases of theirs so far is Joshua Adam Acosta & Matt Earnshaw - Exposed to Time (#002). it is up for free download at the link above.

one stereophony by two persons

the chords used in pisaro's monumental Continuum Unbound

right now, at this very moment, i am listening to Jesu. Heart Ache. a song from an allie from long ago.

/

think back to every moment of your entire life that you remember. those nights driving home from the beach with your family, tired and covered in dried sand, skin tight from the salt water and sun exposure, cramped from sitting in unusual positions. the look on your mom's face when you gave her flowers for mother's day. the snow angels you made with your little sister at age 6. walking down the aisle as a flower girl. hugging your grandparents. eating at a fancy chinese buffet. first days of school, last days of school.

it's so fucking insane to think those little moments are all a part of this very same life i am living as we speak. for the past couple months that i have been thinking more and more deeply on this issue i am coming to some sort of final observation about things. up until about age 15, which now is almost 7 years ago, i was completely asleep. dreaming. a constant stream of images was flashing in front of my eyes, with momentary breaks allowing me to rest in the darkness of sleep, and i was subjected to this for 15 years. i woke up one day, as if literally spiraled into being from a vast nothingness, and became aware of my being. of the fact that i am a person, a thinking feeling independent being in this great mess of a world in which i once was just meandered completely clueless.

now i am losing that awareness. with each year that passes i am losing that initial thrill of becoming anything, of experiencing failure and unknown pleasures, of discovering myself and feeling triumphant when things felt as they should. i looked around at this world for the first time with eyes that weren't glazed over, but were intelligent, sentient, absorbent. i was always absorbing as a child but this information was being stored in a folder deep in my brain and wasn't being put to use. i could have answered any history or science question you asked but i was merely pulling out files from information i had gathered at school or through another. once i began the stages of maturing, molting even, i was then able to use all of that information to form beliefs, values, identity, purpose, to think critically and then be completely confused about it all.

so now that i am neither a child basking in glorious nothingness or an adolescent learning about the actual shittiness of reality, i am fast becoming an adult who must now act on this large amount of gathered information and experiences. this, i am coming to find out, is the hard part.

I CONFRONT MY PAST, MY PRESENT, AND MY FUTURE WITH A SMILE

a smile that behind it exists no sense of longing, nor a sense of dread

i do not miss you, i do not miss me

i do not miss any part of the world that is not here now

it is gone forever and i am happy

what else is there to say?

/

i am seeing Swans tomorrow. it is pretty surreal to think about. a band whose name and music have been rattling around in my head for years and years is now going to become a tangible thing. i am going to look into their eyes and be quite sure that they are real. all of their words and convictions were not meaningless... and i am going with my sister, my favorite person in the universe. so i am excited to be able to do such a thing.



i need to be practicing piano and doing online exams but i don't waaaannnnaaa ...

i don't really listen to any of the same music i used to. almost zero of it to be honest. i am bored of it all.

it is spring but i know that this initial beauty is not going to last. white and pale pink buds frosting branches of trees all around the city. birds are extra loud in the mornings at dawn, but even though they wake me i somehow am not annoyed by them, and can usually fall back asleep. i played tennis at this beautiful court in the woods and my friend saw a deer. we stared into its eyes as more and more came into focus. the one we had seen was a fawn, a baby with clumsy stick-like legs. the mother or guardian was motioning with her head for it to follow her back into the woods, but it kept curiously sniffing around and investigating. seeing it was like seeing a rift in space and time; something i could only have ever seen if i had made all of the right decisions in my entire life. every choice anyone in history ever made led up to that moment, somehow, following some grand framework.

the deer from my dreams eventually crawled back into the increasing twilight. there were no insect sounds, only birds. i have a desire to take my recorder out there, set it on a pillow, and lie down next to it. drifting off into the space that contains some of the most lovely, spontaneous sounds. i almost can't stand listening to music through earbuds or radio frequencies or through any external sources. it pales in comparison to music made by the pure energy of life itself. i love this picture of Toshiya Tsunoda and some other musicians from the making of Manfred Werder's album 2006¹. instruments among nature. that is where i belong, mind body and soul.

a place,natural light, where the performers like to be
a time
(sounds)

nothing is accomplished by writing a piece of music
nothing is accomplished by hearing a piece of music
nothing is accomplished by playing a piece of music
our ears are now in excellent condition

(the reason this quote is so utterly amazing and lifechanging is because it takes away any manmade predetermined meaning from music as i have known it for my whole life. it takes away rigidity, structure, it makes me feel free and as if music can be anything and everything instead of only a handful of things)

*

the world is always ready to deliver its beauty to you, it's just a matter of watching

verlies

i'm about to go home right now. i am in the library and i just spent a little bit of time looking through my old posts on here. i am listening to Stravinsky's Elegy for solo viola.

so much has changed. everything is always changing, and in my world i am changing the most. the way i see my parents, my friends, myself. i am forgetting essential beautiful things in return for newness and unfamiliarity and i'm not sure if i like it.

it is autumn and the leaves are finally changing their colors and falling onto the ground. i walk to school nearly every morning crunching all the leaves beneath my feet and it is one of the great joys of my life. i have only several articles of clothing that i wear to simplify everything. i try to clear my mind and my life from all that is unnecessary. i love laying on the floor listening to music through the dream machine. drifting away and blocking out all sound that i do not wish to hear. blah blah blah

i started playing some video games (nothing serious) but it really really doesn't come naturally to me. i have started drinking wine occasionally, but i don't really have a preference for white or red. it all tastes quite bad to me honestly. except this one new zealand wine i had that is called massimo i think and it tasted like the most exotic beautiful fruits in the world. i tried pho for the first time and it was pretty glorious. i play tennis and soccer and go on long walks and enjoy the beautiful town i live in. i try to call my parents frequently and tell them i am thinking about them.

i have one really amazing professor who has probably taught me the most in her little weekly 30-minute lessons out of any teacher i have ever had in my life. she knows exactly what is needed, what i need to give, and articulates it very clearly. for next week i have to learn perfectly an artsong by Strauss and be able to explain to her why i am making the artistic decisions i am with the shapes, the phrases. she wants me to prove to her that i can be an artist with any piece of music, that i can be inspired from the very beginning to create beauty with my work and my body. i become disconnected too easily and she can sense that.

/

exclusive limited listening

slint - spiderland
unwound - leaves turn inside you
lowercase - discography
aspidistrafly - a little fable
at the drive-in - relationship of command
la dispute - somewhere at the bottom of the river ...

listening on repeat during long bus rides

american football - "stay home"




béla bartók - four dirges, op. 9a



fishmans - long season



dmitri kabalevsky - cello concerto no. 1, II

morning sun rays

i have started to realize something :

HUMAN NATURE

IS

EVERYTHING

i am human, everyone is human, and we behave according to our desperate attempts to make life tolerable and meaningful. we would be cripplingly confused, otherwise. i want to be so angry at people for hurting me, for making me feel small. i want to be so angry at myself for disappointing myself on a regular basis, failing to do what i set out to do, making consistent mistakes, avoiding things out of fear. i cannot let myself. it would be utterly meaningless. those who have hurt me are no greater than i, no more enlightened, in the end ... so why villify them. we would all make the same mistakes and do the same terrible things but also wonderful things in a million different circumstances. we can only be alive for the unfolding of one historical line but there are infinite potential histories, decisions, thoughts that could influence centuries of progress down the road. i must allow for the mistakes of human nature, the blunders and the victories, the little ones too, of myself and those around me. i must accept myself, my actions. i am only me and this only LIFE, whatever that is. a long continuous process of growth, expansion, etc.

i want to forgive, ultimately

rain words

i want to make french toast for myself, coffee, berries and cheese and butter. place the simple objects on a simple placemat at a simple table on a porch. a porch that overlooks a landscape of the most basic earth design. grass, trees, sky. green green blue. some clouds, a little sunlight, a gentle breeze.

and animals.

birds of every color going about their unimaginable business, wanting to be left alone. their life cycles and behaviors are a complete mystery to me. little bugs living a life five thousand times smaller than me. i am the giant that haunts their dreams.

the taste of my food is similar to that of cardboard, with some sugar on top. closing my eyes i am reminded of all the places i have eaten this very same food before, in completely different lifetimes. my mind wanders.

i am wearing the most fundamental garments of humanity; shirt, shorts, socks, sneakers. all of an easily forgettable color. my hair and skin blend with each other, indistinguishable from one another. my eyes are slits in skin through which i am able to imbibe the world.

sounds and sounds and sounds fill my ears, holes in the side of my head that act as the miraculous entrances to a fleshy inner world. sounds as luxurious as silk, fine and grainy as sand, soft and bubbly like soap or gentle and sensual as rain drops on fine skin surface, warm and woolen like mittens, cold and icy as snow branches, sharp and piercing as broken glass, rough as a cat's tongue, hot as the candle with which i burned myself as a child. i dance to all of these sounds, these sensations, these beautiful feelings for which i am eternally indebted the world.

blue and goldyellow and hot orange and meadow green and flowers of pink and white and translucent non-colors, see-through satin buds and silver auras around embryos that tickle your eyelashes. dandelions and snowflakes mingle in summerwinter and the newfound firewater burns pleasure within me. this is the world. these mountains and hills and forests and oceans and rocks and blades of grass, dark sticky mud that absorbs all, white sand that invites me to it's depths until i suffocate and die.

.

no, you do not die.

you can never die.

you were always dead.

death is life and life is death.

the world cares not for this very human distinction