Since June, I’ve been composing a piece for two female voices, flute, bass clarinet, marimba, electric bass, violin, cello and piano. The piece is titled torture memos (a survivor from guantánamo) and is one of three works I’ve written with a political/social action title (the others being darfur pogrommen and zichron (in memory of bisan, maye, aya and nur abu al-aish)). As mentioned in an earlier post, I had considered setting poetry by torture victims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo, but the source poems didn’t grab me. Besides, I’m not sure the music would have done the poems justice.
So tonight I managed to put the final edits into the piece, so it’s completed. A few comments:
- The piece is a bit of a departure from my recent music. At the same time, it’s also an evolution and natural progression. In other words, it still sounds like me, but it’s not a rehash of a lot of earlier works. So I suspect people will either love it or really hate it; there’s no middle ground. If you’re disappointed, no worries.
- Don’t expect doom and gloom despite the title. This isn’t “program music.” In most ways, the title has nothing to do with the music.
- While the wind and vocal parts are far easier than some I’ve written, in that there are rests and intentional spots to breathe, in some areas the performers are on their own; when they need to grab a breath, they can, since many of the parts are doubled.
- No matter what I did, Finale 2010’s playback put in some unwritten and unwanted accents in some of the repeated eighth note sections. I gave up trying to solve this problem, since it seems unsolvable. It might be related to the ambience plugin, but without adding in resonance the audio file sounds worse than with ambience + accents, so I’m learning to live with it. Same thing happened in the final measures of ushabti, and it still drives me crazy.
- The audio level is higher than it should be-the entire piece is actually p throughout, so feel free to listen at a low volume
The duration clocks in at just over 40 minutes. The audio file, such as it is, is here. The score (bass clarinet is written as it sounds) is here.







Composer JC Combs commented on my Facebook page, “Your works are not easy to play. Only an idiot would think that.” He’s right. But what’s interesting is my music would probably be taken as the work of an idiot by folks who feel that nearly every note has to have a dynamic, articulation or some other marking specified. The above is from the piano work Mists by Iannis Xenakis. Not a bad work, and certainly looks more complicated than this:


Ouch-scary stuff. Now, I love all the music I’ve just referenced, complex or “simple” on the face of it. What matters in the end is the music itself, not how many nuances are communicated to the performers or how difficult the notation appears. Anyone who has performed my “idiot pieces” knows how incredibly bitchy they can be to play, both technically and interpretively. My personal bias is that I don’t need to give a huge Rosetta Stone to performers in order for them to figure out how to play my music. They’ll figure it out, and place their own stamps on the music in the process. And many of my rhythms even within an “idiot piece” can be extremely difficult to pull off:
Any of a number of new music composers are writing “idiot pieces” on a daily basis, music that looks unrefined, “simple” and akin to the work of a novice. These folks include Steve Reich, Philip Glass and predecessors like Cage (particularly some of his early piano works like In a Landscape) and Satie (pretty much everything he wrote was “unrefined”). My point is that you don’t have to, and even shouldn’t, write music that is designed for the academic complexity crowd. Been there, done that. My music is difficult enough, and the world doesn’t need another Xenakis, Ferneyhough or Boulez (I can barely follow some of his scores, and after awhile I think to myself “why bother?” and go do something else).
boga 3:43 pm on Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 3:43 pm Permalink
i have heard some of your pieces.There is no concept….This is typical copy past minimal music.One bar could be a new piece.It seems that you write without thinking what you’ve wrote at the beginning of your piece…….But it is fun to listen it sometimes.
I have one suggestion.Have you ever thought how nice would sound your pieces all together played at the same time????….try it!
Best regards
boga 3:54 pm on Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 3:54 pm Permalink
and something more.
I really like your harmonies and the mood of your pieces or the character.I just don’t like repetitions.
I liked the memo piece i ve heard today.
I am curious to listen something before your minimal crisis.
dtoub 7:10 pm on Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 7:10 pm Permalink
Aren’t you that crazy Orly Taitz birther person? Look, Orly, I can live with the thought of you not liking my music. Really. But thanks for writing in. Again, if it’s so easy, please feel free to write some music yourself.