Music
“The Eyeful” is a structural improvisation with my large glass bowl and computer accompaniment by Zachary Watkins. It was premiered at the Luggage Store’s Music by the Eyeful Series which features inventions in visual audio, exploring the moving boundaries between music, film, optics, graphics, loops and reels.
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“Hymn for Lou & Bill” is written for any two wind instruments. The notational system of this piece uses many qualities of the ancient Korean system called Chung-Kan-Po. This notation is composed of a chart where each rectangle represents one metric unit, and like the ancient Korean system, this piece is organized into six groups (Kang) of 3-2-3-3-2-3.
I hope Hymn for Lou & Bill will show that notation systems greatly influence the performance characteristics of a piece. Like ancient music notations, I have not added any dynamic, phrasing, or tempo markings. As a result of this, it is my hope that the performers will use this opportunity to create their own awareness of the piece, and hence add their own personal and stylistic interpretations.
This piece is written in memory of Lou Harrison and Bill Colvig.
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“Netori” is for two electric guitars with ebow and wah-wah pedal. The guitars are used as drone instruments and to create counterpoints using the overtone series that arises through the drowned tones.
Netori is a term used in Japanese Gagaku music. The word literally means “sound catcher†and is a prelude in free rhythm to set the tonality for the music to follow. This piece works much in the same way as a traditional netori, but instead uses the relationships between two different overtone series to set the tonality.
Netori was premiered on May 28, 2006 at The Now Music Festival in San Francisco, and the work is dedicated to Pauline Oliveros.
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“Edward Schocker’s Netori, which was played on 2 electric guitars by Nathan Clevenge and Wayne Grim. This slowly elongated pitch — 2 actually — which grew to almost ear-splitting intensity was meant to evoke the tuning of a gagaku – (Japanese court music ensemble), and its loudness was as loud or louder than Glenn Branca’s stuff which I caught once at, if memory serves, a performance space in Manhattan’s West Village. It did so superbly, and the fact that a lot of the audience swore they hated it was evidence of its power. Music should shake things up. This piece certainly did.” -
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Thursday March 14, 2002
The music for Thursday, March 14, 2002 came about after reading a poem by the same title. For me, it portrays “a day in the life†of anyone who lived at this time. Even I don’t know exactly what I did on this day, but I was able to reconstruct certain feelings and thoughts of this time through the text images of the poem. From these feelings and thoughts came the music. Thw piece was written in Tokyo for the opening of the Pacific Exchange Music Series, 2005. It is scored for Violin, Cello, and Piano. This is a live performance from the Japanese performance group TOV.
This piece is dedicated to the poet Ben Lyle Bedard. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Movement 1:
Movement 2:
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“Take, Lord, and Receive” was a commission through a residency with Johnathan Dimmock and the St. Ignatius Choir, San Francisco. This acapella piece is to be sung in a 7-Limit Just Intonation.
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Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
all I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.
-St. Ignatius
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“I Have Five Things To Say” was written for The Music For People And Thingamajiggs concert held on April 20th 1998 at Mills College. The piece incorporates nontraditional instruments with nontraditional notation in order to create its own musical language. This is done so that not only musicians can perform this piece, but also non-musicians who can not read traditional music notation. The piece calls for instruments that can be built by anyone with the proper tools and materials; and which, can be found at any blacksmith, hardware store, and/or junkyard. The piece calls for six players and one conductor to give cues.
The length of I Have Five Things To Say is to be determined by the conductor, but I recommend that the piece last between 10 to 15 minutes in length. I Have Five Things To Say is dedicated to Dylan Bolles.
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