Reading Notes

15-17 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Digital communication services are symbols of real life and reality. Addictive experiential design in symbol delivery. Plato's Allegory of the Cave applied to the modern digital era.

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A very close friend of mine is the kind of man who notices and observes other people. He doesn’t often share what he thinks. He keeps his opinions to himself, unless asked. When asked, he is both diplomatic and tactful. He is one of the few persons I know who will give me a brutally honest opinion and make me feel better for it, at the same time. Recently, I asked him what he thought my blind spots were. It was a dandy, firecracker of a conversation.

He told me a couple of mildly discomforting truths followed by a real whopper: I tend to act aloof in groups of people (100% true), I am too willing to stay silent when other people are talking (spot on), and that my desire to keep a firm distance from most social media and communicative technology has spilled over into the real world by not allowing myself to experience wider reality at large (disconcertingly correct).

It came screamingly clear: I finally saw that I keep a firm distance from most social media and communicative technology, and that has led to me being more sheltered and less willing to venture out and meet new people. I should mention my friend describes himself as a hopeless romantic, and he very much wants me to find a girlfriend. That thought aside, he was 100% right that I keep a firm distance from most communication technology, and I doubt that will change. I don’t appreciate communicating through a phone, messaging app, email, platform, direct message, ping, whathaveyou. This has always felt sort of cheap, uninteresting, and uninspired. I preferred a hang out or a meeting, or nothing at all. The thing is that I haven’t ever truly been able to pin down quite why it bothered me until recently. It happened after I read the following books, in order: The World Beyond Your Head, Against The Machine, and The Passion of The Western Mind.

Each book covers a great deal more than what I will share here. What follows are short, bite-sized pieces of information I gleaned and synthesized towards this point I want to make about digital communication feeling cheap and uninspired:

The World Beyond Your Head. For better or for worse, the digital world is symbol-rich, and symbols can be designed to keep us away from a real and authentic experience of living. Symbols, such as receiving a text from a friend, is a facsimile of hanging out with that friend. Sure, symbols can help destroy ambiguity (a stop sign should be 100% unequivocal). The other point of the book really got my attention: Many digital symbols are designed to be addictive, similar to machine gambling. It’s easy to posit that this is the case, that they have have suckered us into engaging impulsively and doom scrolling rather than living our story as human beings in the physical realm.

Against the Machine. The technology that made these symbols, as well as the addictive design of the experiences of the symbols, is now much more universally available to everyone regardless of location, language, culture, or economic means. For better or for worse, the democratization of technology has led to a widespread adoption of these symbols as the easiest way to experience a faux-reality. The chances of becoming addicted to these symbols is far greater.

The Passion of the Western Mind. This book is about the history and evolution of western thought. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a conversation between Socrates and Plato’s older brother Glaucon, is likely one of the most influential passages in his canon: Imagine being chained inside a cave at birth, unable to move or turn around, and the only exposure you have to what’s going on is through watching the shadows made by real things moving behind you but are reflecting on the wall in front of you. In such a situation, you are stuck interpreting these as actual reality rather than whats causing those shadows in the first place. To those who cannot see the actual cause of those shadows, who can only see reflections without seeing the source, these shadows become symbols, removed from actual reality.

Am I making you feel uncomfortable yet?

After reading the full text of the Allegory of the Cave as well as the two other books, I finally had the construct as to why I get super creeped out by the rapid pace of technology and it’s willingness to happily suck away both my time and creativity. Plato’s famous text absolutely nails the cultural moment we are in by directly stating that we are given access to symbols (like text messages, at it’s most benign) that can only approximate what it’s like to interact with a real human being, are addicted to these very same symbols due to the architects of these experiences making them irresistible, and very rarely living in the real world because it’s just too damned blinding, bright, scary, intense, and above all: Real.

At this point, it’s worth quoting, verbatim, a portion of the Allegory of the Cave, as translated by Thomas Sheehan:

SOCRATES: At this point I will show you something about the nature of education and ignorance. Picture the following in your mind. Imagine human beings living in an underground cave-like residence. Its entrance opens up to the light and reaches all along the cave. They have been there since their childhood, their ankles and necks chained, unable to move or turn their heads, forced to look ahead. The light from a fire blazing at a distance comes from above and behind them. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walkway. Imagine also a low wall built along the way, similar to the screen that divides puppeteers from the audience and allows them to show puppets over it.

GLAUCON: I picture the scene.

SOCRATES: Now imagine that people walk behind the wall and carry various artifacts that extend above the wall. These artifacts include carvings of humans and other animals made of stone, wood, and other materials. Some of the people carrying these object are talking, while others are silent.

GLAUCON: You paint a strange picture and describe strange prisoners.

SOCRATES: They are like ourselves. Now do you think they see anything else except their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which light from the fire casts on to the opposite wall of the cave?

GLAUCON: How could they see anything else if they were forced to keep their heads still for their whole life?

SOCRATES: And what would they see of the objects that are being carried? Would they not see only shadows of them as well?

GLAUCON: What else?

SOCRATES: And if they were able to talk to one another, would they not think that the object of their conversation were the shadows they saw in front of them?

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: And what if an echo bounced off the opposite wall of the prison? Would they not think that when one of the passers-by spoke the voice came from the passing shadow?

GLAUCON: Definitely.

SOCRATES: Such prisoners would think that the truth is nothing but the shadows cast by the artifacts.

Similar to the shadows on the cave wall, digital symbols are now presented to us in an onslaught that can overwhelm us in a nanosecond. They are related to real life, but not actually real life.

The Slack messages saying ASAP ASAP ASAP! The texts from friends wanting to spend time with you even though you have four kids. The 100’s of emails. The newsletters of businesses that now have your email address and think you’re possibly going to provide for them. The back-to-back Zoom meetings. Your racist uncle’s monologues that have 10,000 reposts on Facebook. The perfect photo from your coworker’s perfect life on Insta, and there’s nothing wrong! Everything is perfect! They have the best life evah! The wittiest Tweet (I don’t care that their name and ownership has changed… they’ll always be Twitter in my mind). The doom scrolling. BING! Your food has arrived from Instawhatevereats. The LinkedIn humble brags. The news articles from your favorite polarizing news network. And god help you if you even mention the word Capybara around your phone, for Instagram will serve up plenty of cute videos and then attempt to sell you Capybara stuffed animals.

If you’re alone but you have a smartphone, you are at best occupied, but truly, you are still alone.

To me, it’s all facsimile. Related to real life, but it ain’t real life.

What happens if you get tired enough of this quasi-real to get out from underneath it, to escape the cave, and see the world for what it truly is?

What it must feel like to unplug (for good?)

The merits of quick digital communication, via symbols of any sort, are many to count. Certainly, we’d prefer a way to keep in touch with our loved ones without pestering them mercilessly. Sometimes, a phone call is too much, but a text is just right. Sometimes, a little nudge is even better. Emoji’s have a purpose, too. I take hearty advantage of living in a different city than Hollywood but relying upon online cloud services to share files. Instantly delivering a score for a movie was unthinkable 30 years ago.

Digital minimalists would quickly suggest we get rid of all of this, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Throw the smart phone away. Get rid of all the apps, the profiles, the likes. Why not live simpler life?

Because it’s painful, impractical, and unbelievably out-of-touch.

The algorithms have our number, the technology these symbols are delivered on is designed to be supremely pleasing and addictive, and if we get tons of dopamine hits from small digital moments that add up to basically nothing in the end but social proof, then we are facing an uphill battle. Addiction is hard, baby. Very hard.

But, let’s say you actually got disturbed enough by the ample evidence that being underneath this digital avalanche wasn’t good for you, and you decided to actually attempt such a thing. Here, again, the old wisdom of The Allegory of the Cave paints a clear picture of what to expect. What happens when forced to walk straight into the light? Again, as translated by Thomas Sheehan:

SOCRATES: Now imagine what would happen naturally if the prisoners were released from their shackles and cured of their ignorance. Right after they are released and suddenly forced to stand up, turn their necks around, walk, and look towards the light, these activities will cause them pain; because of the bright glare they would be unable to see those things which they previously had seen only as shadows. Now what do you think they would say if one were to tell them that what they saw before was fooling them, but that now, when they are closer to what really exists and when they face that which more truly exists, they see more clearly, in a straightforward manner? What if that person pointed to the objects as they passed and asked the former prisoners to tell him what they were? Don’t you think they would be baffled and think that the shadows they formerly saw were truer than the objects that are now being pointed out to them?

GLAUCON: Far truer.

SOCRATES: And if they were forced to look straight at the light, would that not make their eyes hurt? Would they not try to avoid the light and turn back to the things that they can see? And would they not think that in reality the shadows are more clear than the objects they are forced to look at?

GLAUCON: True.

SOCRATES: But what if someone dragged them along a steep and harsh ascent against their will, and did not let go until they were dragged right into the sunlight? Would they not feel pain and discomfort? And if they walked towards the sun and their eyes suddenly filled with brilliant light, would they be able to see even one of those things that are now called true realities?

GLAUCON: No, not right away.

SOCRATES: I think that if they wanted to see the objects of the upper world they would need to grow accustomed to them. First of all, it will be easier for them to see the shadows. After that, they will see the reflections of people and other things in the water, and only after that they will see the objects themselves. After that, they will see celestial objects and the sky itself; it will be easier to see them first at night, by looking at the stars and the light of the moon, than during the day, by looking at the sun or the light of the sun.

GLAUCON: How could it be otherwise?

SOCRATES: Last of all, I think, they will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of it in the water or other media. They will be able to look at the sun itself directly and see it as it is.

GLAUCON: Definitely.

I will admit I felt this way when I started to keep a larger space from addictive digital communication technology. I quickly realized there were going to be some sacrifices I would need to make, that it would make me feel discomforted, at best. I had to make it through because ultimately I wanted to create more music, learn more about orchestras, and maintain a creative space that rewards me for the effort.

Forgive me for patting myself on the back here: I am grateful I figured out the right boundaries around technology. I first wanted to make it hard to check text messages, which was my biggest chink in the armor. I forced myself to only check text messages outside the house, on my front stoop. Yes, my entire house with exception of my front stoop is a text-free zone. At first, I was truly annoyed with forcing myself to walk outside. I’d have to put on pants (gasp!), be ready to possibly say hi to neighbors (double gasp!) and each time I’d risk getting pulled into an actual conversation (HMFS!). But eventually, after the annoyance wore off, I began to enjoy the moment I’d step out to hear from friends and loved ones, as well as the creative space I created inside my house. It felt overall more pleasant, quiet, and balanced.

It got even more intense after I read Deep Work by Cal Newport and experimented enough to figure out that my best work gets done in the morning, 5am to 12pm. That was rough, to begin with. I felt out of touch, annoyed, and desiring of some sort of connection with the world, no matter how fantastical it really was. The thing was, something happened after I completed a film I was working on called Finding Solace (forgive the self promotion. I’m proud of that film). The entire project took three months to complete. I saw that after I finished writing, producing, mixing, mastering, and eventually delivering that music, I was never happier as a creative professional. I loved the entire experience. I simply shut off my phone and got to work. I could never go back.

I highly doubt I’m the first to realize that digital symbols, as Matthew Crawford makes a solid case against in The World Beyond Your Head, are being delivered at break-neck speed by a communicative technology that’s out of control, as Paul Kingsnorth intuits both emotionally and passionately and frankly obstinately in Against The Machine, and that these same digital symbols are at best facsimiles of the real thing and that it hurts to be exposed to the actual way things are, as Plato and the Allegory of the Cave teaches. I hope I’m not the last, too.

Putting the tech back in it’s place

Often, I choose to limit interacting with these digital symbols because I prefer the real thing. Asking what a close friend thought my blind spots were scared the living shit out of me, but I did it because there was something I dared to know. I was craving a little reality, outside of me. Sometimes, to make the echos in the echo chamber stop, you need a voice that is far louder and a great deal more compelling. I hope you also have a friend who will tell you the truth, and I hope you can hear what that friend says, too.

And before you assume anything, I know I need these digital symbols to keep in touch with people that I care about. I might not answer them immediately; I know that the people who design the digital environments can manipulate me into feeling more connected with the outside world than I really am. They’re still just a facsimile of communication with a real human being I’d much rather be hanging out with. All things being equal, it sure is nice to send someone I love a quick note that says I’m thinking about them.

The best thing I can do to escape this digital landslide of symbols is to force myself to see the sun and get out and meet people, face-to-face. New people. People in my industry. Flirt with good-looking women. Goof around with friends. Build something interesting with my uncle. Play music with someone I just met and like the creativity of. Smoke cigars with people whom I openly disagree with, tell them they are full of shit, and loudly. Walk up to random people and ask them to try their best to insult me. After all, if my friend is correct that my biggest blind spot is that I am closing myself off from the world, I’d do well with a few punches to the face.

If we’re to believe that the Allegory of the Cave is pointing towards more engagement with the world, getting out of the cave of symbols, stepping away from the digital flood of notifications, and walking straight into the overwhelming daylight, we might as well ask: Are we willing to get sunburned to live a more balanced life?

Fuck it, man, fuck it.

I am.

Rehearsal Numbers 57 and 58

This section sounds odd. I mean, unbalanced and odd, volume-wise. The brass are just way too darned loud and they’re crushing everything else. I was imagining what I would sound like without the brass. I think there’s something interesting there.

• Four French Home horns easily devour the bassoons, a contrabassoon, cello in divisi, and contrabass.

• One trumpet completely engulfs the strings (violin one, violin too, and viola) oboes, and the English horns. They’re all doing roughly the same thing, but you only hear the trumpet.

• Yet, one can hear the Piccolo trill, flutes, clarinet trill, and the clarinets because they’re a different design altogether.

• The Ttimpani can also overwhelm other instruments. I ought to be careful of that.

Maybe the moral of the story is: use this style sparingly. Make sure it’s 100% by design. If you’re gonna use the horns and blast them, know that you’re going to bury everything else. This could be a useful thing if you want to go really big, but if you’re doing very intricate, you’re gonna have a harder time with a lot of brass. 

Very, very few songs start on a half-diminished chord. They are rarely used outside of jazz because of their inherently dissonant and unstable nature. Ondleton, from The Double Headed Seagulls, seemed to need it, listenership be damned.

In context, through the development of the story of this song, the dissonance can be rather pleasing: The hardest-hitting chord ends at 31 seconds. From there the song gradually becomes more and more pleasant to listen to. If you can make it 31 seconds, you will be continually rewarded with ever more pleasant harmonies.

Ondleton wasn't designed to be an asshole at first. It just ended up being that way. It was a process to get to where this song could be shared. On behalf of all the dozens of people involved with Fire, Fire, Red Star Down record label (ha!), we sincerely apologize for this gross inconvenience of harmony. We (ha!) extort you to remember that though Ondleton first punches you in the face, it will proceed to send sweeter and sweeter kisses to make up for it.

Dripping with reverb acoustic guitars and vocals, very still and silent, but also frozen, Archive Volume Four offers you some songs for rainy days where you just don't want to get out of bed.

All these songs were written in 2004, I believe. I am not entirely sure. That’s part of the fun with Grande Valley Auction Incident. It’s a look into the way-back machine as far as what I was thinking and feeling so many years ago. I remarked to a friend recently that I felt two lifetimes away from this music. I was such a different person.

Anyhow, you can definitely hear the Red House Painters and Owen vibe throughout. There's even a little trip hop on this release, ala "Sorry Day." Very moody.

Rehearsal number 56

I think this section illuminates two or three compositional themes that I’ve seen in The Rite of Spring

1. Dovetailed trills in the woodwinds. The vibe itself changes depending upon which instrument does the trills. In this section, the flute trills have a butterfly effect to them. I wonder how to describe dovetailed trills and how they sound like when other woodwinds are doing them.

2. A simple flickering melody which naturally end without conforming to an existing time signature. In this section, the melody is widely spaced between a totally brilliant sounding E flat clarinet and a super warm alto flute. It’s very rare you see a clarinet this high and a flute this low at the same time and so exposed, but it works in a really disturbing and unsettling way. More to the point: The melody dictates the time signatures, which tells me that if a melody feels like it wants to go further in a more natural manner, it’s best to change the time signature and extend it (and vice versa). Do not force a melody to conform unnaturally to the prevailing time signature if you can help it.

Rehearsal number 54

Essentially two things:

1. Very fluid and flowing woodwind and string figure. More like a choir than it is a melody, or, a competing set of melodies that repeat relentlessly.

2. Excessively loud and bombastic rhythmic soli using the ostinato figure established earlier in the piece

Soft woodwinds handle the bulk of the melodic lines, and I hear them the most prominently over the strings Strings play same rhythm, but the melodies that are different bring a super strange choir like sound Repetition of this sounds super messy and intense

Rehearsal number 55

• Taking the strange ostinato figure established in the beginning of the piece, but making it a full bombastic soli

• Carrot marks? Super intense articulation? I need to use more of that in my music. Go all intense…

Rehearsal number 53

• This part… I mean, as insane as it gets

• I'm stunned by how much Stravinsky got away with here

• The gong, grand Cassa, and the timpani are totally bonkers and over the top. It's almost like an 80s hair metal band getting over-zealous with a gong and the pyrotechnics

• It's very well seems like he has organized these choir-like section into three different parts, roughly speaking

• The pulses are handled by the contrabass, cellos, percussion, clear brass, and the bassoons. You could make a case that the clear brass is more punctuation a pulse, but still, very pulse-like

• Chorale with weird planing (established in the previous rehearsal numbers): high strings, flutes, clarinet

• The counter chorale is played by the French horns, Oboes and English horn

• Interesting to note that the French horn is split between all parts. In other words, in order to really truly look at the music theory underpinning this part, look at the French horns. They'll give you everything that you need 

Rehearsal number 51

• Same weird cluster chord… Starts on a GbM7 and is spread to the violin in a 4X divisi as well as three flutes and an alto flute

• Same measured bass repetition. Totally freaky sound.

• Interesting to hear the doubling of the Eb clarinet with the Piccolo. It's quite a decent combo. brightness of the Eb clarinet balances out the brilliance of the Piccolo

Rehearsal number 52

• The oboe sounds so lovely here, but as a time based contrast, it works really well against the Piccolo and Eb clarinet combo scene in rehearsal number 51

• Notice the fact that the woodwinds go back-and-forth between two notes, thus two chords. It's a wild and scary sounding ostinato. Gotta remember to do this.

• I will also want to remember to use a super low French horn for a sus sound. Like, below where it really sounds good

Rehearsal number 49

• Love this brutal part!!

  • Bassoon and contrabassoon perfectly doubled with the cellos and contrabass. The bassoon is pleasant, the contrabassoon is warm, the cellos and contrabass are mellow and mellow.

  • I've never seen a fifth this low, divisi and doubled. Kind of like how muddy and brutal it sounds.

  • I love the syncopation here, too. It seems more of a traditional orchestral compositional thing to do, to put instruments on the offbeat to get some rhythmic excitement into a piece. Stravinsky uses it in a really super dark way.

  • The violin II, half of the cellos, and half of the violas are playing down bows on beat

  • The other half of the cellos and Violas, and two bass clarinets are playing on the offbeat. I really love the sound here, again.

• Look at the gorgeous grace notes. Why the fuck am I not writing more grace notes in my music?!?

Rehearsal number 50

• Perfect doubling up the French horn and flute here

  • A strange type of planing, weirdly tonal, but super dark and dissonant. The best I can figure is that he's planing a GbM7 chord without the fifth

• You gotta be nice to the French horns. They're delicate flowers and they're not to be abused.

Rehearsal number 48

• So beautiful… The trills make it feel like a moving target. Sort of like the squirrelly little kid who never got hit in dodgeball

• The grace notes, because doubled, have this weird stodgy feel to them

• Clarinet Piccolo and bass clarinet are really far apart, I think three octaves. This is an excellent example of McKays "extreme registers."It sounds gorgeous

Rehearsal number 46

• As close to a fanfare as I suspect Stravinsky will get in this piece

  • Trumpet and C, all flutes, are playing in Bb major

  • Interesting to note that this fanfare has a three octave spread between the piccolo, flute, alto flute, and trumpet.

  • Really solid pairing of alto flute and trumpet here. Like the color combo

• Clarinet also playing in B-flat major. It makes this part of the piece of bright spot.

  • The clarinet give girth to a three active monophonic line

  • They fill out other notes in the harmony, weirdly.

Rehearsal number 47

• Violin I in C mixolydian, I think, though the third is missing. Violin I comes in a little bit later to make it more intense and loud

• Cellos have a dope harmony line supporting violin II. Lots of really interesting things going on there

• What the fuck is the polycord on the hits?!? What the fuck…

Overall, I think that Stravinsky and Ravel have something in common, or perhaps it's all composers have this in common: they will stick to an idea for a tiny bit of time, orchestrate at a very particular way, and then switch it up. Anything new afterwards will be orchestrated in a different way. I have focused too much on smooth orchestral transitions between each part. I could shake it up a little bit.

Ravel focused on tone color. You can see that in Daphne and Chloe perfectly, and he sticks to it pretty clearly. Stravinsky just don’t give a shit. He just does crazy shit every few measures and he seems to expect the players to fill the gap and make up for it. That's a mindset shift that I would like to have. I'd like to challenge them a little bit

Rehearsal number 44

• Trumpets are doing their measured triils that I love

• The French horn has the melody… At the very top of its range no less! Wow. Notice the stopped French horn at A5… not a bad idea to support the soloist when notating a part that high.

• Strings and trumpets, oboe and English horns, all of these are gorgeous. they are all playing an F7 chord while the French horn soloist seems to outline an A chord, very linear sound, could be an A Major or A Minor chord, but the linearness and polytonality of it seems to leave no question about it's intention.

Rehearsal number 45

• Nice descending figure. Sounds weirdly diminished

• I love the French horn in the section, as well as the trombones and tuba.

• I also love how Stravinsky writes the percussion to fill in the gaps beautifully. He does this with timpani and grand cassa

Rehearsal number 43

• I have so many questions for David Shipps. This part? Ridiculous.

• Melodically it's in C# Major

  • Flutes and piccolo

  • Oboes in English horn

  • I'm super confused about what he thinks the transposition is in the clarinets. Could use a little clarity there.

  • Strings, maybe??

• What on earth does eighth note equals eighth note mean? Seriously? It’s above every single bar… was that a typo?

• Bassoons playing a weird tritone pattern, all jumbled up. C and Gb

• French horns doing a partial choir thing…

  • French horns 1 & 2, 5 & 6, are doing melodic duties but in a different key than C# Major?

  • French horns 3 & 4, 7 & 8, are doing same note repetitions. The thing that I noticed Holst doing. It’s the “Melody on top, supporting notes beneith” thing.

  • This switch roles, A lot

• Whatever drugs Stravinsky was on, do share a bit. This is insane in a great way.

Rehearsal number 42

• Mind is officially blown all the fuck apart: I've never seen a more dense piece of orchestral music in my entire life. This beats everything else I've ever looked at.

  • The French horns are low hanging fruit as far as analysis goes. They roughly come out to a G diminished chord

  • All clarinets end up becoming an Eb7 chord

  • Oboes, possibly English horn, violin II, and viola's are all a C# diminished 7 chord

  • The flutes are all Eb-7

  • Violin I and cellos and contrabass are all F#7

  • Trumpet is an A7

• Interestingly, the cellos and contrabass truly peek through the mix, despite how crazy this is.

• It’s another section where Stravinsky almost relies upon the forgiveness of the orchestra to do his crazy bidding. No wonder people hated this piece when it first came out. It must have driven them nuts.

Rehearsal number 40

• Pizzicato in violin I means this part is buried. Gone. Textural only. Violin II doubles the flute and piccolo, but with a measured tremolo. This sounds totally bonkers and I've got to remember to do it.

• Wow! The trumpets! They sound like measured tremolo strings. They're so percussive and lively!

• The French horn seems like it's hitting a D power chord in its melody while the flute section and violin II are hitting Eb mixolydian.

• Trumpets seem like they hit an Eb7 chord which fits the flutes and violin II.

• Violin I also hits an E flat seven cord

• Maybe he likes the dissonance of dominant 7 chords in his polytonality?? Dunno.

Rehearsal number 41

• Feels like brass were made for these sorts of lines.

  • This seems like a very Ravel-like thing to do… A tone pyramid. Sweet!

• Strings fully in a background role, here. It's one of those "you feel it more than you hear it" sorts of things. Come to think of it, strings are relegated to this role quite a bit in this piece so far.

Rehearsal number 37

• This part of the piece is so loud and so intense that it almost doesn't matter what the strings are doing. You won't hear them.

  • At this level of volume, grand aassa makes a great deal of sense as well as having a timpani double it

• French horn and trumpets in C, both four instruments each, on a massive sustained sound. Loud as fuck.

  • The French horn is playing a C major chord, but the trumpets are playing a Eb7 chord

• The trumpet and flute were made for aggressive lines like these! It sounds almost militaristic.

  • Noticed the differing articulations between the two instruments. The trumpets are playing a double tongue figure While the flutes are just playing single notes, and the Piccolo clarinet is playing staccato

Rehearsal number 38

• Again, wall of sound.

• The bassoon is playing a major triad with an E7 sharp five at the very end, at least as how I see it. That is, if Stravinsky was thinking about polytonality. Who the fuck knows?!?

• Noticed the fingered trills between flute and clarinet… These trills do a contrary motion thing. Nice!

Rehearsal number 39

• French horn figure right before the rehearsal number sounds more like a glissando than four distinct notes at this tempo.

• The trills are passed around, too. From clarinets to violin and viola

• Lots of downward polyrhythmic figures (something that he resorts to, and it doesn't matter that they're not heard. It's almost as if he was writing them so he could see them, not hear them)

Rehearsal number 32

• Cellos and contrabass pull the entire rhythm off base. These two instruments re-distribute the pulse and pull the rug out from underneath the listener

• It's almost as if he wanted to see how far he could take that one simple motif that he established almost in the beginning of the peace: A4– C5 – B4 – C5 (trumpet in C)

  • The same motif is reflected in the French horn, piccolo trumpet, later on in the tuba, and in so many other places. It's almost as if he really wants to get the full measure of that ostinato, and base much of the piece on it

Rehearsal number 33

• It's almost as if he was thinking, "I gotta take this to the next level."

  • Look at the textural figures, those long chromatic, polyrhythmic lines: flutes I & II, alto flute, oboe I, clarinet piccolo, clarinet (3x), and bass clarinet

  • i've seen this countless times… Where a composer wants more, just add so many instruments that it becomes this beautiful wall of sound and mass. In the hands of a lesser orchestra than the London Symphony, the recording that I'm listening to, this section wouldn't sound even remotely cool.

  • I remember a story my old teacher told me about The Rite of Spring recording that Stravinsky conducted. He said it was terrible because Stravinsky wanted to hear every single little note. Apparently, he took the entire piece so much slower so he could do just that, and as a result, the momentum and pulse were just absent. Makes me think that I should 100% hire David Shipps to conduct my work in the studio so that I don’t get bogged down in the details. Besides, I have no trouble giving good friends some extra dough for being in front of an orchestra and I get to hang out and drink coffee in the control room.

Rehearsal number 34

• Woodwinds are so loud that the strings take a background roll

• The piccolo soar over the top. No wonder they used for war

• Low strings echo and double the timpani for more power. Otherwise, no percussion is in this section!

• Strings seem to add this immense pulse and flow at the same time. This blows my fucking mind. What on earth was he thinking when he created this? Ridiculous.

Rehearsal number 30

1. Violin one in divisi playing measured fingered trills in 16th notes while the 4V – LE SOLE (perhaps viola solo or four Violas maybe??) are playing a 16th note downward sloping line

2. A similar design is happening with the cellos and contrabass. The first chair Cellist or perhaps three Cellists all at once are playing a downward sloping line while the rest of the cellos and contrabass play other lines continuing the poly meter from the previous section

3. Violin two doing a massive blend of differentiated motion, but doubling the clarinet in their accent at the same time. Nice.

Rehearsal number 31

1. Notice the pulse switches to oboe and English horn here; Stravinsky clearly alternates between the fuzzy and soft woodwinds when it comes to pulse and melody in different sections. In that way, he seems to have a little Ravel influence.

2. The bassoons counter melody is super sick. I can barely hear it, but that's perfect. It's a nice contrast to the brilliant quality of the Piccolo here.

3. Wait… How can a violin do an upward Pizzicato?? With the thumb? It has to be… The London Symphony recording that I'm listening to sounds like they're only doing down plucks with their pointer finger

Rehearsal numbers 28 and 29

1. Interesting polymeter, blend of differentiated motion, in both the cellos and contrabass. Same motivic thing seen earlier is now in the Timpani (as well as many other places).

2. Something to keep in mind: you do not need to simply add a single note to a single instrument to get a sustained sound. What this section proves to me is that I can add a great deal of pulse and movement if I dovetailed the woodwinds, wrote repeated figures in the strings, and generally embraced motion as sustaining sound as well as blend of differentiated motion

   • Clarinet (B) has the same repeated figure, as does the flute, alto flute, piccolos, and oboes. Each of them have repeated ostinato melodies that dovetail to save breath. This is much more interesting than a single whole note in a measure, and it achieves a great deal more pulse

   • The bassoon is still doing the trail, dovetailed!

3. I love the trumpets here. They sound diatonically planed, but that's just not the case.

   • GbM7 to Ab7 to a Bb7 to a C half diminished 7

   • GbM7 isn't part of melodic minor at that point of the scale, but from Ab7 to a Bb7 to a C half diminished 7, they match the IV, V, and vi of melodic minor perfectly.

   • I have a strong hunch that Stravinsky trusted his ears way more than the music theory. In other words, I think he changed the first chord to match what appealed to him rather than just forcing that chord to be a M7#5 as it would be in melodic minor

Rehearsal number 23

• Clarinet and Viola doubled in E triad shape versus a trumpet in C with the violin one and violin two sections doing roughly B minor add11 ostinato figure.

• Seems very much like a polytonality moment

• I love the first violin here. The grace notes are lovely and determined sounding. The down bowing makes it interesting and intense

Rehearsal numbers 24 and 25

• The bed he creates here highly dovetails the bassoons, but the violins are able to play the same figure throughout the entire section.

• Bassoons hit measured fingered tremolo between F4 and E4 while bassoon two has an unmeasured trill at C4 , possibly to D4,. Both of these have a pleasant tone.

• Violin solos doing a full doubling of the bassoons, but no dovetail is needed. Pleasant and mellow territories as far as tone.

• There's a weird polytonality action happening in the strings and bassoon dovetails. When broken down, my guess would be an A minor chord and a G minor chord

• French horn and flute melodies have a gorgeous C mixolydian melody, I'm thinking

Rehearsal number 26

• More of a transition part I guess, but the French horns moving downwards as well as the oboes moving downwards makes this part feel less consequential than the parts before and after

• The same bird-like tone in the oboes as you could get in the flutes in rehearsal number 21. Gotta remember the downward grace notes. Parrots principle at work? Vast majority of composers write grace notes starting from a lower note. Why not the higher?

• The same musical bed is continued. I always worry about staying too long on a loop, but this bed is so interesting that perhaps this can be amended. If I have a really super interesting loop, and the things that are happening around it are really interesting as well, I could probably stay on it for longer. Otherwise, loop lock…

Rehearsal number 27

• I think this part is far more put together with its polytonality. I tend to hear the melodies a whole lot more than I do the bed that has been established. Perhaps this is another reason why the bed works so well for so long. There is so much happening around it.

• Alto flute sounds gorgeous here. It's almost haunting, far more glowing and restrained comparatively to the flute, which comes in on the fourth measure after the change to rehearsal number 27, and it makes it sound like it's peeking out of the mix because it's in its bright territory

• French horn joining polytonality established in rehearsal number 24 and 25. This is a great way to make any loop more intense, simply just adding more stuff onto it