notes on Michael Pisaro

[jon abbey]

here is the English translation of Yuko's latest piece:

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When I listened to Michael Pisaro and Greg Stuart's new CD 'July Mountain' early this month, I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible power of the music - I couldn't recover from the strong impact for a couple of days after that. It was a sensationally beautiful piece of a kind that I had never heard. Since then, I have been eager to write about this music, but in the meantime, I am still under the spell of the serene beauty of the 'Harmony Series 11 - 16', which keeps capturing my mind every time I listen to it. So I decided to write a little more about this series before moving onto 'July Mountain'.

When I am fascinated by some particular music, I cannot get out of the spell until I finish writing about every detail of the magical aspects of the music. I feel I am still in the deep woods. The depth of Michael Pisaro's music seems to be almost infinite to me, along with the profoundness of the poem on each score, that I feel I would never be able to reach the core however far I dig into - just like some endlessly deep forest.




Michael Pisaro - Harmony Series 11-16 (EWR 0710) - Part 3

In the 'Harmony Series 11-16', very small events are happening in every nook and cranny of the music, and these subtle changes give magical effects to the music. This is in fact not magic at all - all the events are due to the theoretical structure of the music, but the way Pisaro incorporates them into his compositions is so subtle and natural, that the whole impression on his music becomes poetic. When I listen to each piece while carefully paying attention to the details, I feel that the nuance of the poem in each score gradually emerges on the surface of the music.

In Michael Pisaro's compositions, the scores themselves are as artistic as his music. (Thanks to Mr. Pisaro, I was able to have the scores to the complete series.) When I read the poems and his musical instructions in the scores to the 'Harmony Series', I can imagine how the music would come into being as if I were actually hearing it. To read the poems (and the 'silences' between lines as well) in the scores, while imagining how these poems would be reflected in the actual music, seems to be another profound experience of this series.


Track 1: [harmony series no.16a] Where there is (3:48)

This score features Robert Creeley's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For five sustaining instruments. The duration of the piece is about one minute (or multiples thereof.) Players enter, one at a time, in a predetermined order, on a note they choose (any tone, any tuning), and continue holding that tone until all five players have entered. This chord is sustained for about ten seconds, and then stops. This process, using the same tones, and the same ordering of musicians may be repeated any number of times, with a pause of any length (different every time) between the repetitions." In this version, three sets of the above event are repeated. Performers are Johnny Chang (violin), James Orsher (harmonium), Michael Pisaro (guitar), Marc Sabat (violin) and Greg Stuart (percussion).

First it starts with a single tone, then the follow-on tones are added in order, to form a harmony. The subtle nuances of how the resonances of harmonic overtones affect the harmony are clearly presented via the extremely soft, pure sounds and a slow tempo, all at a very soft volume. A single tone, which is heard consistently when there are no other tones, begins to slightly fade and waver with the influence of the resonances of overtones once other tones are joined. In the process of forming the layer of the harmony as each individual tone is added, the characteristic of each tone starts to gradually become translucent, fusing into a blurring mixture of complicated colors which are impossible to identify.

Whether there are sounds or no sounds (just silence), the simplicity, the tranquility and the soft texture are sustained at the same level, which resonates with the sparseness and stillness of Robert Creeley's minimal poem that consists of only five words on three lines. In this piece, Pisaro presents the subtlety of fluctuations of sounds and changes in the process of forming harmonies, all in a very simple, elegant way.


Track 2: [harmony series no.11a] Zwei Finger im Abgrund (2:20)

This score features Paul Celan's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For three musicians. The piece lasts about two minutes. Musician 1 (short sounds, choose any one pitch or noise; the quarter is between mm. 30 and 40) plays one quarter note twice then one quarter rest, then long pause, then again one quarter note twice then one quarter rest. Musician 2 plays, after a long silence, a long, sustained, noise, with hints of tone. Musician 3, for the duration of the piece plays an extremely soft, relatively high, very pure tone. " In this version, Greg Stuart (percussion) plays all three parts.

While a soft, pure high-frequency tone penetrates through the music, two sounds from a wood block are thoughtfully added, twice each with a long interval. The appearances of these percussion sounds make the sine tone slightly waver and fade for a moment, interrupting its prior consistency. In the last half when another percussion noise (like a cowbell) is added, the fluctuation of the sine tone becomes larger, and the whole music starts to waver more widely. Greg Stuart's delicate handling is crucial to the fragile nature of this piece, and is executed very subtly.

These little wavers caused by the percussion sounds in the music evoke some words from Paul Celan's poem in the score; "To cling to unstable thing", "two fingers are snapping in the abyss", and "world is stirring". The essence of the magical effects that the resonances of overtones give to the music, which was beautifully presented in 'An Unrhymed Chord' by Greg Stuart as well, is cleverly condensed in this 2'20" short piece.


Track 3: [harmony series no.12a] is (20:10)

This score features Robert Lax's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For two musicians, one playing a sustaining instrument, the other playing a compact disc. The piece is organized as a sequence of 27 events divided into five groups as follows: 7 + 7 + 3 + 3 + 7. An event is generally both players playing (i.e., overlapping, beginning and/or ending together, or just barely touching). It is occasionally possible to count as an event just one of the players playing. There are silences (short to long) between the events and longer silences between the groups. Tones for the instrument may be any pitch, any tuning of that pitch, and have the duration of a good breath (up to twenty seconds.) All sounds are very soft, very pure."

"The person playing the electronics plays individual sounds (two-note sine tone intervals) from the compact disc provided. These may be played in any order. Sounds may be repeated, but no more than three times total (i.e., not all the sounds must be used). The sounds may last between ten seconds and two minutes (each sound is given 2'30" on the CD". Care should be taken so that very little or no extraneous sound is made in playing, switching tracks, any fading the CD. The speakers are placed on either side of the instrumentalist." (The precise frequency of the 27 sets of sine tone intervals are shown in the score.) In this version, the performers are Kathryn Pisaro (oboe/english horn) and Michael Pisaro (plays sine tones on CD).

In this piece, the contrast between sine tones (which waver slightly with the influence of the overtones of the horns) and the horns (which sustain consistent sounds without being affected by sine tones) is the compelling quality. The effects of the resonances in the music are different with each encounter of the two sound sources - the wavers of the sine tones become larger when the tones of the two are rather close, and less recognizable when the tones of the two are distant. The soft, delicate texture of the sine tones (which almost sound like a guitar) wavering behind the solid tones of horn instruments is memorable.

The slow repetitive process in which simple, continuous sounds of horn instruments and sine tones are overlapped slowly with intervals of silences, evokes the minimal simplicity, the purity, the immediacy, the regularity and the silences of Robert Lax's poem in the score, and creates a calmness of meditation and a simple beauty containing a sense of eternity. Also, when I look at the score while listening to the music, I seem to find more interesting connections between the poem and the music. The harmonies, which the duo create with different combinations of tones each time, seem to resonate the potentials of various words that could fill in the spaces before and after the 27 "is" with different words (there are almost infinite possibilities in making sentences in combinations with "is" and other words.)


Track 4: [harmony series no.13] The shipwreck of the singular (5:03)

This score features George Oppen's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For five musicians playing sustaining noises. The piece lasts five minutes. There are five sustainable noises, in various frequency bands from low to high (where at least what is perceived as the central frequency lies within a certain range, relative to the others.) These sounds begin at 0'00" and are sustained for five minutes. There are two dynamics, 'pp' (barely audible) and 'p' (clearly audible). The chart below indicates the dynamics to be used over the duration. The beginning and end of the sounds should be very clear, very precise." In this version, Greg Stuart (percussion) plays all five parts.

It starts with a gritty but soft percussion noise (which evokes the texture of sandpaper, but not rough, somehow filtered and softened) moving in a slow circular motion. Although all five parts are played from the start, the volumes of four of them (except the lowest frequency one) are extremely low, so their presences are hardly recognizable. However, as time goes by, the four hidden noises gradually emerge on the surface of the music, one by one, as their volumes shift to 'p' (clearly audible). As the hidden noises become audible one by one, the whole music starts wavering more strongly.

In this piece, Greg Stuart presents the process in which the resonances of sounds are gradually amplified, in order to create mysterious waves which make the music expand, while attracting our ears with the natural flow of his gritty percussion sounds. His performance is so subtle and natural that it gives the impression that the initial single noise has grown into a mass of noises before we realize, rather than the noises simply piling up one by one. It is surprising to realize that the music changes its impression so greatly just because the individual noises have slightly increased their volumes, from pianissimo to piano.

The dynamics of the words of George Oppen's poem in the score - "Obsessed, bewildered", "By the shipwreck of the singular", "We have chosen the meaning of being numerous" - are marvelously expressed via Greg Stuart's percussion. The gritty texture of the percussion (which somehow sounds like it is coming from a far distance) and the way the sounds waver in a slow circular motion vividly evoke a series of visual images of a shipwreck floating on a sea, which is joined by other shipwrecks that emerge from underwater one by one, to bob on the waves all together.


Track 5: [harmony series no.14] A single charm is doubtful (13:53)

This score features Gertrude Stein's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For four sustaining instruments. The total duration is about thirteen minutes. Musician 1 plays one tone, very long (up to four minutes), very soft, and in the middle register, repeated once (a very long pause between the repetitions.) Musician 2 plays a series of seven long tones (from thirty to sixty seconds), in the basic interval pattern given below (the interval between notes is indicated in parenthesis.) Start on a middle register tone. The precise tuning of the notes is to be determined by the player. Pauses of any length may be inserted between tones. Musician 3 plays the following pattern (which may be transposed if necessary.) Slight microtonal variations are suggested for the repeated tones (and possible for the others as well.) The first tone is a b-flat one octave and a miner 7th above middle c. Musician 4 plays three very long (up to three minutes) tones, starting in the middle register, and each one somewhat lower than the previous, with long pauses between the tones." In this version, performers are Johnny Chang (violin), James Orsher (harmonium), Michael Pisaro (guitar), Mark So (piano).

In this piece, each musician besides the pianist starts playing consistent tones at different timing in a low volume. After a short while, Mark So adds an introspective piano sound note by note with intervals of quality silences, like carefully placing leaves of different colors on a still pond to make a subtle ripple. Every time the piano sound is added, the music slightly wavers for a moment. The effect of the resonances of overtones to the harmonies, and the impression that the characteristic of each sound becomes translucent when it is overlapped with other sounds, are delicately presented in this piece. The tranquility of the music may carry the listeners to a different level of consciousness - like experiencing a twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness.

In Gertrude Stein's poetry, extremely simplified and abstracted segments of words bring visual images that each word itself evokes, as well as the phonic impressions that the rhythms of the series of words evokes, combining to create a pure beauty and a strong impact. This music, which also focuses on the purity and simplicity of each sound as well as the gentle effects of fluctuations that the resonances of overtones bring to the music, seems to fit the nature of Stein's poetry. The gradual shift of different pitches of the piano, each note slightly lower, fits the unique balance of Stein's cubist poem - which creates a sense of gradually going off the tuning as you follow each word. One of the most memorable pieces on this CD.


Track 6: [harmony series no.15] No longer wild (6:03)

This score features Wallace Stevens' poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For six musicians, five playing sustained noises and one sustaining a tone. The piece lasts six minutes. There are five sustainable noises, in various frequency bands from low to high (where at least what is perceived as the central frequency lies within a certain range, relative to the others.) Musician 6, plays a barely audible, very pure, and relatively high tone for the six minutes duration. These sounds begins at 0'00" and are sustained for six minutes. There are two dynamics, 'pp' (barely audible) and 'p' (clearly audible). The chart below, indicates the dynamics to be used over the duration." In this version, Greg Stuart (percussion) plays all six parts.

The music starts with a wavering layer of dry metallic percussion hiss noises that evoke the distant wind and desert. Four of five sounds are played in 'piano' (clearly audible) at the beginning, and the complicated resonances of these four create an impression that the whole music is moving roughly. However, as these four sounds gradually decrease in volume, one by one, the waver of the whole piece becomes less dynamic. In the last minute, all five sounds are pianissimo, and the layer of the sounds becomes thinner and more stable. The structure and the shift of the dynamics of the sounds is similar to Track 4, but from the opposite direction.

As the resonances of overtones are decreasing, the waver of the whole piece gradually diminishes and the initial complexity becomes more integrated toward the end. With his delicate handling of percussion sounds, Greg Stuart again brilliantly translates the series of images from Wallace Stevens' poem - "I placed a jar in Tennessee, / And round it was, upon a hill. / It made the slovenly wilderness / Surround that hill. / The wilderness rose up to it. / And sprawled around, no longer wild." Stuart's performance conveys this simple wonder that our perception of a small man-made object could control the whole image of the wilderness in its background so effectively.


Track 7: [harmony series no.12d] the best thing (16:13)

This score features Robert Lax's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For two musicians, one playing a sustaining instrument, the other playing a compact disc. The piece is organized as a sequence of 19 events divided into two parts. Each part is subdivided into smaller groups as follows: Part A: 4 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 1; Part B: 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2. An event is generally both players playing (i.e., overlapping, beginning and/or ending together, or just barely touching). It is occasionally possible to count as an event just one of the players playing. In Part A, events always begin with the sine tones intervals; in Part B, always with the instrument. There are silences (short to long) between the events and longer silences between the groups (within a part) and a very long silence between Part A and B. Tones for the instrument may be any pitch, any tuning of that pitch, and have the duration of a good breath (up to twenty seconds.) All sounds are very soft, very pure."

"The person playing the electronics plays individual sounds (two-note sine tone intervals) from the compact disc provided. These may be played in any order. Sounds may be repeated, but no more than three times total (i.e., not all the sounds must be used). The sounds may last between ten seconds and two minutes (each sound is given 2'30" on the CD". Care should be taken so that very little or no extraneous sound is made in playing, switching tracks, any fading the CD. The speakers are placed on either side of the instrumentalist." (The frequency of the 19 sets of sine tone intervals are shown in the score.) In this version, the performers are Kathryn Pisaro (oboe/english horn) and Michael Pisaro (plays sine tones on CD).
　
This is basically a similar structure to Track 3, but in this piece, a sine tone player plays first in Part A, and a horn player starts first in Part B, which seems to correspond to the structure of Robert Lax's poem in the score - a question in Part A, and the answer in Part B. In this piece, the same phenomena of the resonances of horn sounds affecting the sine tones are perceived. The sine tones start wavering when a horn sound is overlapped, and then come back to the straight solid tone again when the horn sound disappears. Sometimes when the pitches of the sine tones and horn sounds get closer, new tones somehow seem to appear in the layer of the harmonies. Again, these changes due to the resonances of harmonic overtones are very subtle but beautifully presented in this piece, and perfectly fit the minimal simplicity of Robert Lax's poem just like in Track 3.


Track8: [harmony series no.11c] Sonnenfern (2:29)

This score features Paul Celan's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For three musicians. The piece lasts about two minutes. Musician 1 plays a very soft, low tone, for the duration of the piece. Musician 2 plays a very soft, low noise, for the duration of the piece. Musician 3 plays as follows (tones are very soft, and the length of a breath or bow): pause / one tone (low to mid-range) / pause / one tone (mid-range to high)" In this version, Greg Stuart (percussion) plays all three parts.

In this piece, Greg Stuart delicately expresses the key words of this poem - "hums" that are buzzing from somewhere "sun-distant" - very effectively with his percussion noises. Paul Celan, who was born in a German Jewish family, lost his parents in a concentration camp. A quiet, low buzzing noise which endlessly penetrates the whole 2'29" piece in parallel with a low electronic sound, seems to silently resonate with a wound in Celan's soul imprinted by the war tragedy. The third soft tone, which is added in the course of the music twice, like drawing a deep sigh, seems to resonate with Celan's resigned murmurs expressed in the two verses in the poem.


Track 9: [harmony series no.16b] Tomorrow (4:29)

This score starts with Robert Creeley's poem, followed by Pisaro's instructions to the musicians: "For five sustaining instruments. The duration of the piece is about one minute (or multiple thereof). Players begin together on a five note chord (each choosing, independently of the others, their own tone, any tuning), and hold the chord at least ten seconds. Thereafter, one by one, in a predetermined order, the musicians stop, until the tones are gone. This process, using the same tones, and the same ordering of musicians may be repeated any number of times, with a pause of any length (different every time) between the repetitions. In this version, performers are Johnny Chang (violin), James Orsher (harmonium), Michael Pisaro (guitar), Marc Sabat (violin) and Greg Stuart (percussion).

From the start, five soft different tones that musicians chose independently form a chord which feels somewhere between dissonance and consonance. When the five sounds start at the same time in the beginning, there is an impression that the layer of the sounds are trembling together, but as each sound disappears from the layer, the trembling of the chord diminishes, ending up with a straight, solid sound of the final remaining tone. This gradual shift of the sounds evokes a buzzing atmosphere which is gradually coming to a tranquil state, or a wave of grief which is slowly calming down as time moves on. The solemn silence behind the sounds evokes a sense of loss or death, resonating with Robert Creeley's minimal poem that consists of only five words, while also linking to the silent sorrow from the Paul Celan poem in the previous piece.

--Yuko Zama, 3/27/10

[jon abbey]

Michael Pisaro / Greg Stuart - July Mountain (eg.p05)

After I listened to some of Michael Pisaro's music, I noticed that my way of listening to environmental sound has completely changed without knowing. I began to notice that each environmental noise contains a subtle frequency similar to a certain tone or a pitch of the music. My ears started being attracted by daily noises like electric heater noise, the fan noise, the sounds of water flow, the chirps of birds, car sounds, etc., which I did not pay attention to so much before. When I realized that music does not only consists of sounds that human performers play, but also could consist of a series of natural sounds originating in the environment, I started wondering, "What kind of music could be born if humans and nature co-performed with each other?"

I do not experience being overwhelmed by a specific music too often, but when I listened to Michael Pisaro and Greg Stuart's 'July Mountain', which was just released from Engraved Glass as a 3-inch CD, I was completely blown away. In this music, the sounds of instruments and the environment are blended perfectly in a great balance, but also it seems that there is a massive power and beauty which emerges from somewhere beyond the willpower of humans or the simple power of nature.

In 'July Mountain', 20 mono field recordings (each 10 minutes long) that Michael Pisaro made mainly in the mountain area near Los Angeles from 2006 to 2009, along with 10 different kinds of percussion sounds that Greg Stuart performed/recorded, are mixed in a cross-fading method into one 21-minute piece. The poem contained in this score is Wallace Stevens' "July Mountain."

Ten kinds of percussion sounds, including friction noises made on a drum, bowed wood blocks, a bowed snare drum, recorded sine tones projected onto resonant surfaces, a stream of seeds falling on a high-pitched bar, piano chords, bells, etc., are used here. (From the score, there are 143 sounds with different tones or frequencies in 10 groups of percussion sounds.) The timing when each percussion sound is supposed to be played and stopped, the duration of each sound, and how often the sound is played, are all precisely instructed in the score. The timing, the duration and the chords of the piano are also set. In the course of the music, ten of 20 field recordings are simultaneously played at different timings to start and end.

From the start, some environmental sounds like falling rain, birds chirping, distant voices of people, airplanes flying overhead and cars passing by are heard. Despite this being a mixture of field recordings made at ten different locations, the sounds are all nicely blended as if they were sharing the same time and space, without causing any chaos or discordance, perhaps due to the delicately controlled balance of the individual volumes. At this point, any percussion sounds are barely recognizable.

Then as time goes by, more environmental sounds like helicopters, calls of sea gulls, and waves (as well as many other almost unrecognizable sounds) appear in the soundscape. Since the transition between field recording sources is so natural and subtle, there is no impression that one field recording is switched to another at all. It is rather like the landscape and the time you are in is slowly and endlessly shifting to somewhere else almost before you realize it.

About eight minutes in, one strong, determined piano chord is added in the middle of the environmental sounds. The appearance of this piano chord changes the atmosphere of the whole soundscape with a hint of strained tone. These piano chords, played at about 20 second intervals, starts affecting how the environmental sounds are heard. Airplanes, helicopters, the water, etc. - all the environmental sounds start to almost come alive. There is an impression that these scattered sounds from various sources begin to gradually unite into one massive existence by the chords and the notes of the piano.

By then, the complex sounds of percussion have also become more recognizable in the music, as if they have been silently stretching their branches and leaves deep inside the layer of the environmental sounds without being noticed. As always, Greg Stuart's skill of creating and inserting percussion sounds is brilliant here. While remaining behind the foreground of the environmental sounds, Stuart manages to elevate the music dramatically by giving the impression that the environmental sounds become gradually amplified with a little help from his percussion. However prominent the percussion sounds become, they never confront the sounds of nature that are meant to be the major role in this piece. This exquisite balance is sustained through the music.

Every time the determined tones of the piano are heard, the music seems to gradually increase in power as if it is absorbing the infinite energy arising from the surface of the ground. When the power of percussion sounds and the power of the simultaneously played ten field recordings' sounds are combined all together, it feels like the life of nature has waken up and gotten into the music. In the meantime, the transition and the flow of the music is so natural like breathing, there is no sense of pressure. In the last several minutes when the massive sounds interlock with each other, the music seems to gain some overwhelming power that is beyond the capability of humans, or even nature.

The perspective of the world seen in the Wallace Stevens poem - "We live in a constellation / Of patches and of pitches, / Not in a single world" is perfectly expressed by the music. The 21 minutes feel like a very long time to me – as if different senses of time of different places, the long, long history of humans and nature are condensed into 21 minutes. When the music ends, the texture of the air in my silent room feels completely different from how it was before.

In order to perfectly layer the hundreds of sounds with different tones or frequencies played by ten percussion sound sources, with the 20 field recordings that were made at different locations, Michael Pisaro calculated every detail of when each sound comes in and out, how long the sound stays, how each of the field recordings is overlapped, all in his precise score. (I have never seen such a powerful and beautiful score before.) With his calculations and a delicate care to not disturb the subtle nuances of the environmental sounds, Pisaro has created a magnificent symphony of percussion and the environment. Despite how precisely the score is notated, the music has a natural breathing flow and does not feel artificial at all. The theme of perfectly matched co-performance between performers and the environment, which Pisaro has also explored in 'Transparent City' and 'Only - Harmony Series 17', has been raised to a higher level here, in achieving this groundbreaking music. This is definitely one of Michael Pisaro's greatest masterpieces, bringing a wide spectrum of environmental sounds to life in a delicate but sophisticated way.

--Yuko Zama, 4/2/10

[jon abbey]

Michael Pisaro / Barry Chabala - Unter Eichen (Roeba 001)

Michael Pisaro's 'Unter Eichen', composed for electric guitar in 2003, was performed and recorded by Barry Chabala on CD in 2009. With Austrian poet Georg Trakl's poem 'Untergang (Sinking)' in the score, the structure of the piece is divided into six sections in keeping with the sentences of the poem, with long silences between. The pitches and chords of the guitar are all instructed in the score, but the timing of playing them, the length of each silence, the volume of each tone and the strength of each stroke are mostly left to the performer's decision. The performer is supposed to "use a very low level of amplification" and the guitar sounds are supposed to contain "no distortion or very little." The two other instructions in the score, "there is more silence than sound in this piece" and "notes are mostly allowed to ring until they die away', seem to be particularly crucial for this piece.

Unter Eichen
-for electric guitar

Sinking

The wild birds have flown away
over the white ponds.
In the evening an icy wind blows from our stars.

The broken forehead of the night bends
over our graves.
Under oaks we drift on a silver raft.

The white walls of the city are always ringing.
Under thorn bows

O my brother we climb blind hands toward midnight.

(Georg Trakl) - translation by Michael Pisaro

In the first section, after a long one-minute silence from the start, a downstroke of a chord of a few high pitches is played on the guitar at a slow tempo. The solid texture of the sounds, which contains slight senses of tension and alertness, evokes the images of the first line of the Trakl poem - the cold still water of ‘the white pond’ after ‘the wild birds have flown away’. Every time the guitar chords are heard after a long interval of silence, the air seems to get chilly and the density of the silence increases in the stillness. Again after another long silence, a downstroke of a chord of a few high pitches is played, soon followed by a bass note from the guitar with a long resonance. The thick bass sound of the guitar evokes shadowy water below the oak tree, as well as the increasing darkness of the silent evening. As the silence increases its presence, the sense of reality seems to be gradually fading away. About 9 minutes and 40 seconds in, a long three minute silence ensues. It is a very dense silence that makes the listeners feel like everything is in a complete stillness without the flow of time.

In the second section, after a very long silence, a soft, pure high pitch of the guitar is heard. This soft tone also contains a slight sense of tension and sharpness, which evokes an extremely heightened sensibility. In this section, a high-pitched tone, a middle-pitched tone and a low-pitched tone on the guitar are heard individually at the intervals of silences, sometimes at a loud volume, sometimes at a very low volume. The pure high-pitched tone evokes the image of the lights of distant 'stars', the solid middle-pitched tone evokes the image of 'icy wind', and the deep low-pitched tone evokes the image of the increasingly darkening 'evening', all in the Trakl poem. With such a simple structure of a few different pitches and strengths of the strokes, a vivid realistic perspective and the sense of elapsing time in the scenery of the Trakl poem are exquisitely expressed via the sparse sounds/atmosphere.

In the third section, again after a very long silence, a strong bass note is played on the guitar with a slow tremolo effect, quivering widely and bending, leaving a long thick resonance in its wake. The gloomy bass sounds, which spread a dark, disquieting atmosphere, are resonant with a line of the Trakl poem - 'the broken forehead of the night bends over our grave', conveying the images of the deeply eroded spirit, the stricken heart, and the distorted, distressed mind of the poet. Every time the quivering bass sound is added vertically, the silence seems to be momentarily blasted, only to become even denser afterward. (This contrast between the bass sounds and the dense silence seems to have some sort of hypnotic, sleep-inducing effect.) When the heavy guitar bass disappears after each long thick afterglow resonance, the silence seems to overlap with the darkness of the poet's mind.

In the fourth section, again after a very long silence, a softly plucked high-pitched tone of the guitar is heard, containing both coldness and softness simultaneously. Four different pitches of high-pitched tones are individually played after short silences, some of them extremely quiet and some of them rather strong. This section evokes the sense of floating alone in stillness, which is resonant with 'a silver raft drifting under oak trees' in Trakl's poem. In the long silence after this section, there is a silent image of something gradually sinking into a thick darkness.

In the fifth section, again after a very long silence, four chords consisting of two notes individually are heard one by one, each after short silences. Each major chord and minor chord seem to create a different mood in a subtle way - hope, harmony, anxiety, lament, resignation, fatigue, urgency, weakness, question and grievance. It is amazing how all these different moods are evoked with such simple changes. The nuances of these chords calls to mind images of numerous voices of souls who are calling the poet from the other side of 'the white walls' - the land of the dead, which is resonant with a line from Trakl's poem: 'The white walls of the city are always ringing'. These sounds contain rather sweet, inviting tones without any sense of fear or frightfulness, which seems to reflect Trakl's yearning for the end of life.

In the last section, again after a very long silence, soft high-pitched tones of the guitar appear one by one, sometimes as a chord of a few notes, while wavering their translucent tones like water, then disappearing into silence with a faint afterglow. These transient tones, which contain a fragile beauty and a slight sense of tension, evoke the images of little souls that are trying to climb upward through the cruel world of reality, which is resonant with the last line of the Trakl poem: 'climb blind hands towards midnight under thorn bows'. Despite that the motif of this section is rather dark, there is no heavy negative tone like bitterness, grief, fear or anger in the sounds and silences here. Instead, the tones are all tranquil and transparent, which seem to reflect the poet's strong fascination with another world, where he thought he could finally gain the ultimate comfort and peacefulness in his soul.


The darkness of evening, white pond, icy wind, distant stars, graves, silver raft, white walls, midnight - these words that often appear in Trakl's poems seem to be associated with the image of death. The contrast between these cold dark stillnesses and the flickering living souls that are moving up towards midnight brings a memorable beauty to the poem. The long, deep afterglow of the images, which is unique to Trakl's poetry, is closely overlapped with the resonances of the guitar sounds. Michael Pisaro's composition and Barry Chabala's guitar performance have brilliantly and sensitively expressed the dense silence and the clear, unclouded darkness that are unique to Trakl's imagined scenery (which could have been somewhere between the world of reality and another world) with sparse insertions of simple tones and long silences. Even though Trakl's poetry is filled with the images of death, his poems never convey any feeling of depression or deep sufferings. Instead, there is a tranquil and ethereal atmosphere, created by his poems that have similar flow and rhythm as soothing music. This ethereal, eternal beauty and the surreal images of Trakl's poetry were perfectly translated into this 60-minute piece by Pisaro and Chabala, with their deep understanding of the poem and delicate and precise uses of simple sounds and silences.


Another of Michael Pisaro's compositions, 'black, white, red, green, blue' (performed by Barry Chabala as well), also consists of sparse sounds and very long silences. While the silence in 'black, white, red, green, blue' gives the impression of spreading horizontally while sustaining an intimacy between the sounds and the silences, the silence in the 'Unter Eichen' gives the impression that there is always a tension between the sounds and the silences, and that silence is shaken for a moment by the appearance of each sound, which seems to vertically strike and momentarily explode the silence. While the silence in the former piece contains peacefulness and warmth, the silence in the latter piece contains tension and iciness. Even though both pieces have similar structures of sparse guitar sounds and long silences, the texture and the impression of the silences are extremely different. In these compositions, Michael Pisaro has clearly demonstrated that the sounds that exist before or after silences can dominate the quality and the characteristics of those silences.

--Yuko Zama, 4/8/10

[barry]

really fantastic, the depth of your analysis Yuko. thanks so much for taking such time and care with this music!

[surfer]

I was reading this poem last night and thought of Pisaro and Malfatti and the Wandelweiser crew:


Unsaid


Have you listened for the things I have left out?
I am nowhere near the end yet and already
hear
the hum of omissions,
the chant of vacancies, din of

silences:

there is the other side of matter, antimatter,
the antiproton:
we
have measured the proton: it has mass: we
have measured the antiproton: it has negative mass:

you will not

hear me completely even at this early point
unless you hear my emptiness:
go back:
how can I
tell you what I have not said: you must look for it

yourself: that
side has weight, too, though words cannot bear it
out: listen for the things I have left out:
I am
aware
of them, as you must be, or you will miss

the non-song

in my singing: it is not that words cannot say
what is missing: it is only that what is missing
cannot
be missed if
spoken: read the parables of my unmaking:

feel the ris

­ing bubble's trembling walls: rush into the domes
these wordy arches shape: hear
me
when I am
silent: gather the boundaried vacancies


- A.R. Ammons, from Expressions of Sea Level (1963)

available in its entirity as a pdf here: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/181 ... _LEVEL.pdf.

[jon abbey]

Michael Pisaro / Greg Stuart - A wave and waves (Cathnor 009)

Michael Pisaro's 2007 composition 'A wave and waves', performed and recorded by percussionist Greg Stuart, is soon to be released on a CD from the Cathnor label. 'A wave and waves' was composed for one hundred percussion instruments (or one hundred percussionists) in two parts. The one hundred percussion instruments include sandpaper, metal brush, small grains of rice and seeds falling on the surfaces of different materials (wood, ceramic, glass, hard plastic, metal, etc.) as well as on more traditional musical instruments including marimba, vibraphone, snare drum, etc. The score states: "All sounds are extremely soft. They are like single grains of sand (or molecules of water), which, by being combined with other like sounds form larger patterns and collections."

The first part is "a single wave", and the second part is "100 (smaller) waves". The duration of each part is 35 minutes. Each part begins with one minute of silence and ends with 40 seconds of silence. There is also a silence of 4 minutes between the two parts.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 1: A world is an integer.

This part consists of 100 consecutive sections of 20 seconds per unit. The starting time of each instrument in each time unit is marked in the score. The duration of each sound is 20 seconds (or a multiple of 20 seconds). Sounds are supposed to be steady with no crescendo or decrescendo.

After the one-minute silence, a soft middle-pitched tone generated from a bowed vibraphone emerges like a gleam in the dark. The pure tone is soon overlapped with a small noise of rubbed stones, and then disappears slowly. Soon after, a few different pitches of tones appear and begin to form quiet chords behind faint metallic noises. As in 'an unrhymed chord', the process of forming quiet harmonies when different tones and noises overlap is beautifully presented, as well as the subtle waves born from the resonances of overtones. Then, various other sounds, like falling rice, seeds and pebbles dropped on different materials, and the friction noises of sandpaper, come in and out over the course of time, to slowly form a more complex constellation of sounds.

Since each sound is played at a very soft volume, even a thick layer of numerous sounds does not bear any noisiness or heaviness which would commonly be associated with the idea of '100 percussion instruments'. With Greg Stuart's extremely careful and delicate treatment, the plural sounds never clash roughly with each other, and instead give the impression that they are moving as a collective with consonance while sharing the same tranquility. Stuart brings a memorable beauty to his sound creation here, as if each single sound were given a small life as part of nature.

The pure straight tones in different pitches, created by bowing various musical instruments, evoke the horizontal vastness and a slow, gradual move of a single wave. Meanwhile, the fine particles of small grainy sounds, created by the showers of rice, seeds and pebbles falling on various materials or simply from ripping paper, evoke the image of a microscopic world inside the wave - where thousands of small bubbles and swirls of water constantly emerge and disappear. The layer of the various sounds with different textures creates a stereoscopic effect and a realistic perspective for the whole soundscape, resulting in the lifelike impression of a single wave slowly and silently surging from a far distance. The whole sound also evokes a feeling of floating in space, as if I were watching small stars glowing in the dark - appearing one by one in the galaxy, slowly passing by each other, then disappearing into the dark.

As the piece progresses, the combinations of the sounds in the wave are gradually shifting as if different sceneries are being portrayed. The transition between them is so natural and subtle that each fully emerges before being recognized. Even though the volume of each sound is not raised, the music seems to expand on a grand scale, via the effects of small fluctuations born from the resonances of the increasingly intricate overlaps of the sounds. Even when the wave reaches the highest peak with the thickest layer of sounds (50 sounds at the same time), the whole never falls into a chaotic noisiness, and the same tranquility is sustained throughout. Sometimes in the midst of a dense cloud of sounds (evoking a meteor shower), some subtle glimmers of chords (harmonies) emerge off and on.

Near the end of the piece, the intricately scattered sounds gradually decrease back to the thin layer of sparse sounds. After the music ends, when the last sound of small grains falling on a metallic surface is absorbed into a complete silence, the remnant of the chords remains in my brain as if the music were still continuing behind the silence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2: A haven of serenity and unreachable.

This part consists of a series of one hundred waves of sounds. According to Pisaro's liner notes, he observed the actual waves on the coast of Big Sur for hours, and found "not only that the waves came in nearly regular intervals of fifteen to twenty seconds, but that there was a larger pattern in which every seventh wave would be a big one."

In this section, six groups composed of ten instruments play sounds in a row, followed by a group of forty instruments forming one big "seventh" wave, in order to duplicate the cycle of the real waves. Each group sustains the sounds for thirty seconds - starting with very soft sounds, crescendo gradually and "crest" with a slight dynamic “hump” at the twenty-second point, and then slowly fading away. Each group starts playing twenty seconds after the previous group started, thus there is a ten-second overlap from one wave to the next.

The gradual ups and downs of the volume of the sounds convey the dynamics of actual waves, combined with the small wavers created by the resonances of various percussion sounds. All the sounds from a hundred instruments are perfectly balanced with each other, occasionally creating subtle harmonies, giving the impression of one massive organism slowly moving, not a random collective of various sounds. Each wave consists of a slightly different combination of the sounds, and the size of each wave is different just like real waves. As the volumes of the sounds moderately shift up and down, a wide range of sounds from low frequencies to high frequencies intertwine with each other to form a series of waves, while the 'seventh wave' conveys a tremendous psychological impact, as if the wild force of nature were gradually seizing you. The recording and mixing techniques create a fantastic stereoscopic effect here - it almost feels like I could touch a small particle of some of the sounds if I reach a hand in the air. Even when listening to it with a normal set of speakers, there is an impression that the sounds are surging from many different directions, creating a physical skin-tingling effect beyond the auditory sensation. If I heard this section with a surround-sound system of several multichannel speakers, I feel I would experience the illusion that real waves were swallowing me.

Again in this section, Greg Stuart shows great finesse in re-creating the natural dynamics of waves, while giving the organic impression that the whole music is alive. The subtle transition of the soundscape, where one sound cross-fades with another successively, creates a memorable beauty - as if a kaleidoscope is showing slightly different patterns of images while slowly turning.

Near the ending, the thick layer of the sounds becomes thin and sparse again. After the last percussion sounds (evoking the gentle sound of rain sparsely hitting on the roof) disappear, the music ends, followed by forty seconds of silence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In both parts of the piece, the flow of time is perceived on a grand scale, while a constellation of small sounds shifts gradually, all with a tranquil atmosphere. Each part is presented gracefully between two silences - the silence before the piece contains a hint of the sounds about to appear, the silence after the piece contains the residual images of the sounds of the entire piece - similarly to much of Pisaro's other work.

Over the course of the thirty-five minutes of each part, Michael Pisaro has brilliantly mapped out a blueprint of the imaginary waves in his score with careful calculations - the timing that each of one hundred percussion sounds should come in and out, how the sounds should overlap with each other, how the collective sounds should form the dynamics of the real waves, and how to allocate each grain of the sounds to bring the perfect balance to the whole music without losing a natural flow - just like he did in his 'July Mountain' piece. And in addition to Pisaro's precise formulation of the waves, Greg Stuart has breathed a living energy of the real waves, by re-creating a series of dynamic and sensitive moves, with his meticulous attention to detail and the skillful performances based on his deep understanding of the composition. As always in Pisaro's music, the music conveys the natural feeling without any artificial impression, despite the precisely measured configuration of the sounds. As well as another recent masterpiece 'July Mountain', 'A wave and waves' is a sublime collaboration in which the outstanding sensibilities and the talents of the composer and the performer are perfectly linked together.



A New Realm - Somewhere in Between...

The notable momentum of the recent works of Michael Pisaro, as recognized in his 'July Mountain' and 'A wave and waves', seems to reflect the significant growth and inexhaustible creativity of Pisaro as a composer. The surging waves of his creative ideas and energy, which seem to be endlessly diversifying, deepening and moving forward, constantly surprises me with his new releases every time - from gracefully simple, serene music with almost unrecognizable subtle waves of sparse sounds and characteristic silences, to overwhelmingly dynamic music with mesmerizing waves of thick layers of complex sounds.

The signature of Pisaro's music is that seemingly simple and sparse compositions can create impressively profound and rich experiences, while seemingly massive and thick layers of tumultuous sounds can create serene and tranquil experiences. In Pisaro's music, silences can evoke sounds, and sounds can evoke silences. While subtle wavers of the sounds bring to mind some translucent images floating somewhere in between awake and asleep, the music can carry the listener somewhere in between the reality and a different world - a new realm of consciousness.

Of course people may feel different ways about the same music, and what I wrote about the music here may not be experienced by many people in the same way. But I think that is not so important. The most important (and amazing) thing is that music can contain a magical power to inspire an individual deeply and intensely, awakening one's creative imaginations to unexpected areas, and let him/her experience profound, multiple beauties by directly appealing to perceptions with sounds and silence. My experience was just one of the examples of how this magic could happen to a person - which in my case has driven me to this long writings. (In the past decade, I have not been inspired by any particular music to such long serious writing, and I thought that I would never be into writing about music so passionately again. In that circumstance, to bring back my devotion to the music writing has been a very precious experience to me. I would like to express deep thanks to Mr. Pisaro and his music in that regard.)

In the last three months while I have been trying to explore Michael Pisaro's music - in order to find the answers to the spell of the music, the experience was just like entering into a deep forest. Rather than writing about a wide range of music extensively from a horizontal approach, I prefer to write about some particular music (or a musician) by trying to dig down deep to the core of the music. I believe that in this way, I can discover something truly valuable, which may only be found with such a vertical approach - and I love that value. In the process of exploring the Pisaro ouevre so intensely, I think that I found many small but true pieces of beauty that exist behind the music. They were like little jewels gently placed under the trees, in a quiet, modest appearance which people may pass by without noticing, but emitting a pure, true light. When I found each of them, I tried to describe where they are hidden, and how beautiful they are, in my words - hoping that someday someone who seeks the similar musical experiences as mine would notice the presence of those gems as well.

I may have found some of the answers to the spells of Michael Pisaro's music, but I would never be able to figure out what is coming next - what kind of groundbreaking ideas that this prolific composer (who has already written over 80 pieces) may come up with in his genius brain in the future. Especially in recent years, Pisaro's music seems to have been even more creative and dynamic, growing deeper and broader through his close collaboration starting in 2006 with Greg Stuart, one of the ideal performers for Pisaro's composition as well as Barry Chabala, both of whom can precisely and deeply understand and realize the subtlety of Pisaro’s compositions. It will be always exciting to me to see what will emerge from their mutually inspired collaborations.


- Yuko Zama (4/24/2010)

[jon abbey]

(Yuko's study graph of Part 1 of A wave and waves - a chart to see how 100 percussion instruments come in and out.)

[barry]

thats outa control! this should really be a book. really fantastic analysis.... great Yuko!

[billygomberg]

thats outa control! this should really be a book. really fantastic analysis.... great Yuko!

yeah that is a beautiful piece of paper. I'm really enjoying this whole series as a serious investigation into listening...

[jon abbey]

Yuko said that even though she's done writing about it now, she's going to do a similar graph of the second part just "for her own pleasure".

[Dan Warburton]

That's even prettier than the score. Great piece, just spent most of last week listening to it.

[jon abbey]

Yuko's study graph for part 2 of A Wave and Waves, bigger than the previous one (six pages instead of four):

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

"Some deliver sermons, the greats leave us with our freedom."

total sidenote, but, Jon, your signature is awesome.

could you give more context?

[jon abbey]

sure, it's from his film about Tarkovsky, 'One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich'. I actually haven't seen the film (yet), but I like the line.

[jon abbey]

music with fluctuations

About ten years ago, I talked about 'music with fluctuations' at one of the lecture series held every Saturday at a jazz cafe in Tokyo, where music writers and critics gave small lectures each week while playing some music (mostly jazz) under certain themes they chose. For my turn, I decided to do a personal interpretation of the music I was especially interested in at the time rather than a formal lecture. Also, since I had not yet been exposed to a wide range of music back then, my choices of music were embarrassingly narrow - some from contemporary jazz, some from minimal electronics. But one thing I particularly remember is that I was strongly fascinated with something like ‘fluctuations’, which I found in some of the music.

In those days, I was not able to explain why I was so strongly attracted by 'fluctuations' in music, and did not fully grasp exactly what kind of musical phenomena caused the fluctuations. I just noticed that in the process of some music developing (supposedly) under a certain frame of the music along with the flow of time, sometimes there was a moment when a subtle change appeared like a waver and stirred the music as if the music were almost going slightly off balance. Sometimes it was a little tremor of a voice, or a moment when a soft sustained electronics sound started slightly wavering, or a moment when I thought I perceived a hidden unexpected tone under the present chord. Those changes were almost unrecognizably subtle like small events happening in a micro world, and seemed to be missed easily with casual listens. But for me, they created a vivid (and fascinating) moment as if I were falling into a black hole or the reality was fading out in front of me for a moment, which almost caused me a light dizziness. What I perceived then could be some 'sound movement’ that I had never experienced before. Or it may not have been an actual sound movement; instead it could have been just an impression in my imagination via some particular element (or some combination of multiple elements) that had somehow brought the images of fluctuations into my brain.

These images of fluctuations in music, which I had only faintly sensed in those days, are now much clearer to me since I started listening to Michael Pisaro's music (especially 'an unrhymed chord' and 'harmony series 11-16'). The fluctuations I perceived in the music, I now think, seem to be connected with ‘the unknown’. For example, if there is a straight line on which regular numbers are supposed to appear one after another like '1' followed by '2' then by '3'. But if some unexpected number like '1+1/2' appears as a half-translucent image between numbers, or if the number supposed to follow '3' is somehow almost invisible, our established sense of reality is momentarily shaken with the unexpected event - and this must be the moment when we experience a 'fluctuation'.

Along with the subtle resonances of the harmonic overtones that bring actual wavers in the flow of the sounds - just like magic, the moment when our established sense of reality is challenged, could be when we see the entrance to the unknown time and space (which is slightly away from reality). This experience activates the listener's imagination - just like some invisible sentence seems to emerge in between printed lines of sentences on a paper if imagination is involved. When a listener encounters these fluctuations in the music, his/her brain which used to rely on predictions unconsciously and just follow the flow of the music (reality) passively before, suddenly starts working actively for the first time - then the listener starts listening to the music more carefully, trying to explore something which may be hidden under the music (and silence) beyond the actual sounds and silences.

- Yuko Zama (5/1/10)

[jon abbey]

‘July Mountain’ in Tokyo

During my 2-week stay in Tokyo this May, I visited the Sound Cafe Dzumi in Kichijoji to see the owner and some of my music writer friends. The owner of the cafe was a former recording engineer and art film producer, and he has installed a great audio/speaker system there. This cafe is a nice gathering place for the Tokyo music community, where front-line music critics/writers and hard-core fans of experimental music (and also jazz fans) can get together. Occasionally, musicians like Otomo Yoshihide, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama and Ami Yoshida present some small concerts here, too. Since the cafe owner and my writer friends were curious about Michael Pisaro's music after reading my writings online, I brought some of the Pisaro CDs and played 'July Mountain', 'A wave and waves' and 'voyelles' (from the side B of the cassette tape) on this incredible stereo.

Everyone in the audience at the cafe - including some regular customers who happened to be there - loved Pisaro’s music that I played, even though they were not normally contemporary classical music fans. We also listened to some other LP/CDs like some recent jazz, improvisation, old ECM stuff on customers' requests, but in the end before the cafe was closed, every one of them asked the owner to play ‘July Mountain’ again, since the music had captured their minds so deeply.

A few days later, one of the music writers who was there wrote a review of ‘July Mountain’ for a Japanese music website (Jazz Tokyo), so I translated it to English to put here with his permission.

I have the impression that there is something in Michael Pisaro’s music that seems to be naturally received among Japanese listeners, who are living ‘in’ the experiences of various textures of silences and the sounds of nature in their daily lives.

- Yuko Zama (5/29/10)

------------------------------------------------



‘July Mountain’ for field recording & percussion / Michael Pisaro, Greg Stuart (engraved glass p05) 2010

- Review by Masanori Tada

A limited release of 50 copies from a British contemporary classical music label. With a beautiful cover, I was told that this is a composition of percussion sounds and 20 field recordings, but the actual listening experience is something beyond the description.

I love to listen to the murmurs of the wind in the trees, the sound of rain, various sounds that occur when I ride a bicycle with my kids, while paying attentions to the perspective and the movement of each sound. This might be something similar to field recordings, but the difference between those sounds I hear and that music must lie in the composer's presence as an intermediary - who incorporates his clear aesthetics, thoughts and ideas into the materials of the recordings - prayerfully.

I saw Yuko Zama of the Erstwhile label again after ten years. When I heard her voice, I felt like I was time-tripped to ten years ago when I had a music talk with her for Out There magazine. I explained to her that my taste for music has changed after hearing Michel Doneda playing outdoor - towards the music that evokes in me environmental sounds like temple bells or the sounds of nature like murmurs of the wind in the trees - which are not really the sounds of nature but contain the similar feels and waves. I seldom listen to current improvised music these days. When I told her so, she said that a similar mindset can be found in some of composer Michael Pisaro's work. Then she played some music of Michael Pisaro at the Sound Cafe Dzumi in Kichijoji, so I had a chance to listen to his music for the first time.

This was like a sound drug - the customers who were there at the cafe including a young lady who loves noise music, a contemporary jazz fan, an artist, a recording engineer - all of them looked like they were straying away from their normal listening path to enter a new world. The cafe owner was so excited that he brought a LP of the Italian ambient music by Giancarlo Toniutti and said that he had a similar experience of discovering something completely new to him when he encountered this LP.

I cannot tell the exact differences of field recordings, noise music and ambient music in general, but I can tell that this "July Mountain" is definitely the most powerful music you can experience. You can read the more detailed story about Michael Pisaro in Yuko Zama's blog. It just feels great to listen to this CD. With the music, I can also hear the sounds of Cessna planes flying over the panoramic view of this residential neighborhood in the suburbs of Tokyo, the chirps of birds, and even the sound of the sun. If Michael Pisaro ever has a chance to visit Kyoto, I can imagine that he would make fantastic recordings of everything there - from the calm chatter of the Kamo River while sitting on the embankment, the sounds of the temple bells, the sounds of Gozan-no-Okuribi, to the sounds of a small restaurant in Kyoto.

Listening to this music carefully with my headphones is also a great experience. Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds really musical. The inserted piano sounds have even a little feeling of pop music. There are many works of ambient music in the world - that might be freer from the intermediacy of musicians. But this incredible sense of exaltation in the music of ‘July Mountain’ - that is almost enchanting - must derive from the unmatched artistic creativity of the composer Michael Pisaro, who has a splendid awareness in seeing the beauty of the world.

- Review from Radio Tagara on Jazz Tokyo by Masanori Tada (born in 1961: music writer/co-organizer of Japanese music website "musicircus")

http://www.jazztokyo.com/column/tagara/tagara-08.html

[jon abbey]

Somewhere far distant from this loud world
where trees breathe silently.


Michael Pisaro / mind is moving I (EWR 0106)

In our daily life filled with many excessive noises, it is often difficult to find pure states of silence and calmness. Various mixed sounds and images appear one after another in a stagnant air, passing by swiftly like they are competing with time. Is it only possible now to experience a precious, seemingly eternal time and an unclouded, seemingly infinite space in a fantasy?

'mind is moving I' is an early piece for solo guitar by Michael Pisaro, composed and recorded in 1995 and released by Edition Wandelweiser in 2001. The serenity of silence, which has been vanishing from our daily lives, is thoughtfully captured and described in this beautiful piece. Right after the moment the music starts, it feels like the air surrounding me has completely changed - like there is a new 'space' simply born from the sparse guitar sounds, whistles and silences - which seems to instantly clear away all the worldly noises and worldly thoughts in the room. The soft, clear air of the space created by the music seems to contain the tenderness of a pure silence, which I had experienced somewhere before but had forgotten for a long time.

The moderate volume of the whole piece has a wonderful effect to create this spatial atmosphere in the music. Every time a set of guitar sounds is played with one note or a few together at a time, the subtle vibrancy of the harmonics born from the strings (that were tuned entirely based on harmonics) let off a translucent chord into the mysterious silence one by one, sending in crystal-clear air to the music - just like a tree breathing out oxygen gently in a forest. As time goes by slowly, the guitar sounds, which are carefully placed as if tracing the outline of the invisible landscape from different directions, seem to gradually broaden and deepen the meditative space of the music. A soft whistle appears once in a while, blowing through the imaginary space like a colorless wind. The tranquility attained here is flawless. The guitar sounds come in and out with their resonances restrained to moderate lengths, so they would not leave any cloudy residue in the clear air. In the silences between sounds, similar subtle vibrations seem to remain in the air (or in my memory) after the sounds disappear as if there were still some sounds.

It is surprising how unintentional and natural the whole music sounds, even though all of the details are precisely configured in the score as in many others of Pisaro's pieces - from the pitches and strengths of each guitar sound, how to make string noises, how to create harmonics, how to make whistles, how long each sound should last, how to stop each sound. Despite all these regulations, the resulting music feels as if it had become one with nature melded into the flow of time, and there is no stubborn sound that tries to remain in the air against this natural melding. The preconceived idea that compositions may kill the rhythms and breaths of nature by forcing them into artificial forms is completely defied by Pisaro's works - which contain a natural (and almost mysterious) power similar to a Zen monk's silence born in the spiritual state of nothingness. This is a power to change the characteristic of the space - and even the way that environmental sounds are heard - silently but dramatically.

While John Cage presented silence in 4'33" in an intense, provocative way like breaking an invisible hole in the air (and in time), Michael Pisaro presents silence in his 'mind is moving I' to connect music and nature as one entity - without disturbing the flows of time and air. The silence in Pisaro's music contains a naturalness which is close to Zen spirited silence, a concept which many Western musicians have been fascinated with and have tried to instill in their music, but rarely seem to be able to reach this goal so successfully as Pisaro does here. Just like the forest contains trees, Pisaro's music contains Zen (or meditative) silences naturally. This must be the reason why it feels as if the performer's space and the listener's space were instantly connected as one place in 'mind is moving I' - like both were sharing the same infinite space and eternal time.

-- Yuko Zama, 6/21/2010

[barry]

another wonderful piece about a wonderful piece! MInd is Moving I is a rough one to play, and to make it sound effortless, as Yuko points out. i will be playing portions of this throughout my set on the 30th.

[jon abbey]

At Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, Barry Chabala presented 'An Evening of Pisaro', performing three of Michael Pisaro's compositions: 'appearance (2)', 'E lá fora' and 'Ascending Series (6)', with Travis Just (clarinet/melodica) and Tucker Dulin (trombone).

The first set consisted of one piece, 'appearance (2)', performed by the duo of Chabala and Just, a 35-minute version Chabala assembled for this concert from the original 55-minute piece. The piece is for two instruments: one for sustained sounds and the other for decaying sounds. The version in this concert consisted of seven 5-minute sections in which two musicians played the same pitch in unison in each 10-second event (8-second tone and 2-second pause). The pitches, timing and number of repetitions of the 10-second event were chosen by chance operations. In this concert, Chabala played 'decaying sound' on acoustic guitar, while Just played 'sustained sound' on clarinet.

After 20 seconds of silence, Chabala played a single tone four times on acoustic guitar with pizzicato, while Just simultaneously played a sustained sound on clarinet in the same pitch as Chabala's, slowly and softly. The first section of the sounds was followed by a long silence. There was almost a meditative atmosphere in the way the two musicians were introspectively listening to the silence. There were four sections of the sounds in the first five minutes, with long silences in between each set. Since the silence was so long and deep in this section, five minutes felt like a very long time. The next section had even longer silences between the sounds (in a different pitch this time). The lengths of the silences within each section of sounds were different every time, sometimes much shorter than the previous section, and sometimes longer again, while the length of the two musicians' performances in each sound event was the same throughout the piece. The odd relation between the different lengths of silences and the same lengths of the performed sounds caused a bizarre illusion as if time were gradually being stretched or shrunk during the performance depending on the frequencies of the sound events. Chabala and Just performed this piece beautifully with their simple but sincere approaches. The soft, modest tones of Travis' clarinet in this piece were especially impressive - which sounded like almost soft electronic sounds or the resonances of Chabala's guitar.





Then there was an intermission, followed by a second set consisting of two pieces. The first piece was 'E lá fora', again performed by Chabala (this time on electric guitar) and Just (this time on melodica). This 10-minute piece was originally meant to be performed outdoors, but Chabala brought his field recordings as a substitute of the outdoor sounds. (edit: Chabala told me later that it was not field recordings, but live sounds from outside picked up with two microphones - one to a window at either side of the building to create stereo live environment sounds from outside.) The set started with the sounds from outdoors (which sounded like cars passing by on a street or waves in the ocean), then Chabala and Just played different tones on each instrument at the same time, to form a ten second long harmony, followed by ten seconds of silence. Every time they played different chords together, the tones of the guitar and the melodica changed their relations and created beautiful pools of harmonies that evoked for me the subtle fusions of different colors. The continuous sounds from outside streets emerged in the silences between sounds, as if the volume of the sounds from outdoors were changing when the instruments were silent - the illusionary change of the relation between the sounds, silences and the environmental factors (time for the previous piece, sounds from outdoors in this piece) was surreal and beautiful here again.

The last piece was 'ascending series (6)' performed by Chabala on electric guitar, Tucker Dulin on trombone and Pisaro's sine tones played from a computer. This nearly 40 minute long piece was originally written for Radu Malfatti. The most fascinating feature of this piece was the sine tones made by Pisaro, which were penetrating the whole piece. According to the score, "The basis of the sine tone part is an ascending scale of nine tones from F2 to G2, each tone lasting three minutes and with a minute separation between the tones. The sine tones fade in and out (they will not always be audible at the beginning or end)." The vivid sine tones in this piece made me think of the long, almost eternal life of stars. It felt like watching several planets giving out vital light, throbbing steadily, slowly moving toward each other - when some sine tones and the sounds of the two instruments approached each other, it felt like some delicate tones of mixed colors of lights being born - which I found breathtakingly beautiful. The powerful wavelengths of the sine tones seemed to intertwine the listeners deeply into the music, so it felt like the pulses of the sine tones were reflecting those of the audience (or at least me). It had a calm but tremendous power in the whole piece, which captivated my ears from the beginning to the end. This is definitely one of the most intense pieces I have yet heard from Pisaro.

It was very interesting to listen to the three pieces of Michael Pisaro at this concert. The different nature of each piece represented a wide range of Pisaro's different styles of compositions - from the initial minimal, introspective piece with long silences to the ending piece which made me think that Pisaro's universe has an almost unlimited potential in the future.

--Yuko Zama, 10/7/10

[jon abbey]

Yuko has written some more pieces in recent weeks/months, so I'm going to post the Pisaro ones here in the interests of keeping them all in one easily accessible place.

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Michael Pisaro / Greg Stuart - ricefall (2) (Gravity Wave 001)

Michael Pisaro's music has changed my way of listening to sounds completely. And especially after listening to "ricefall (2)", my ears were opened more widely for the subtle sounds in the environment that I used to miss before - like the almost inaudible sounds of water quietly running through the pipe over the ceiling suddenly started jumping into my consciousness, with a hint of a harmony formed by faint echoes. This is the thing that always fascinates me when I listen to "ricefall (2)". Behind the thick or thin wall of the sounds of rice falling at different speeds on the surfaces of 64 percussion instruments (sometimes it sounds like an intense squall, sometimes it sounds like a sparse raindrop hitting on the roof gently), some microscopic harmonies echoed behind the sounds of the rice falling gradually start to grow in my ears over the course of the 72 minute piece - like some transparent fragments of lights start to turn to subtle colors. The harmonies behind the rice fall sounds are almost inaudible - like flickers of tiny lights, but the subtlety and the distant feel (which feels like the echoes were coming somewhere far distant from the reality) attract me, gluing me to the sounds throughout the whole piece.

The simple sounds of falling rice gradually start to be heard as more musical every time I listen - like it was performed by an orchestra (of gravity, rice, and many different surfaces of percussion instruments, with Greg Stuart as the conductor.) The way the density and sparseness of the falling rice changes minute by minute is mesmerizing - it was thoughtfully composed by Michael Pisaro to give the whole piece a perfect balance, not to fall into a chaotic mess at all. It evokes in me a pure white light that keeps changing its brightness and softness over the course of time - sometimes a dazzlingly powerful sunlight, sometimes soft, delicate flickers of light. The ever-changing textures of sounds give me a positive feel of tremendous vitality of life and strong awareness. Greg Stuart's delicate and skillful control of dropping rice brilliantly realizes Pisaro's composition as a phenomenal piece of music, using the simple power of gravity.

--Yuko Zama 10/14/10