Back Pain

I purposefully didn't follow the rhythms exactly. Also the fun compositional bit was in the robotisation :)

Listen here.

..getting an intense massage tomorrow

Lesson

For irony to die, an inexpressible lesson must be taken from his clutches.  

This lesson cannot die, so neither can I while I hold it.

Take it.  

I tried to teach this lesson.  I could not.

No one can teach this lesson.  It can only be learnt.

Feel its fine hairs: they have writing on them.  Read some:

“Experience is inescapably single

Like a musical piece in which background noises are acknowledged as a part”

“Nothing ever happens simultaneously to your experience”

“Experience is inescapably linear

Though our senses tell us otherwise”

“One thing happens after another

A thing can be so small”

One more hair.  The writing is big:

“Nothing else exists”

Listen here:  https://soundcloud.com/toby-graham-music/lesson/s-9J9qn

Lithium

Two today, because I completed my first submission last night.

This is maybe a good time to point out that none of this is autobiographical. 

'Newness feels good,' my mother said.

'The feeling of constancy, that's just as good, and that only comes after.'

Lithium feels good. And after, I want to kill myself.

Constancy, when does that appear, before or after?

She bade me sleep. In this room I could never sleep,

So she painted little flower-stars overhead.

I dream of them. They torment me.

And still my mother tells me to sleep.

The Tree

I'll see Peter today.

But Madge will be with him, I don't want to see her.

Her head, her eyes, her mouth - who told him sweet words of love beneath the tree.

And her ears - who heard him talk of growing up, and knew they'd halved a soul.

Irony arrives disguised and wants to drink from the Well, but we know him by the smell of crushed spiders. He must be stopped!

Irony arrives disguised and wants to drink from the Well, but we know him by the smell of crushed spiders.  He must be stopped!

I have consumed: desired and sated that desire

I have blocked out the cosmos then let it tear into my cracked-wide-open heart and let it burn the tumour from my brain and then blocked it out again

I exaggerate with the full expectation that you will believe me

I exaggerate with the full belief that what I say is true

I understand that people are good and that all things are vastly complex but will never try to trick you.

One two Crack! One Three Four Crack! Crack!

The eggs hatch

Hear here:  https://soundcloud.com/toby-graham-music/irony-arrives/s-l36Wp

'Performance'

Some ideas that could really use fleshing out.

Suggest your favourite pair of instruments to perform this? 

I would love oboe and violin in a really resonant space.

Recording of alice and alice singing this will surface here tonight or tomorrow.

ps. anyone know how to change the key of just one stave?

Prelude: The Tree

Catch some tästy sounds:

www.soundcloud.com/andrew_howes/prelude-the-tree

Courtesy of Lukas Stepp, who also did my translations last week (and gave me some v good & correct ideas)

        

Well of Hope

Well of Hope

Beautiful spiders laid their eggs in people’s hearts

Few would survive

I would be well for a moment

I would visit another planet and be well for a moment

Taste health and know I had been sick all along

Beautiful spider would creep into my heart and lay its eggs:

Relief like finding out you have got a brain tumour

you’re not just going crazy

One day my heart would crack open 

Crawling with babies

Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/toby-graham-music/well-of-hope/s-aEzjA

Dein Mund

 This is the end of part one, but it's certainly been fun to indulge auf Deutsch. The next set will definitely be made of smaller pieces, maybe some solo violin tomorrow?

Dein Augen…

Suche nicht nach mir. Wenn du doch suchst, wirst du mich euch finden

Lass mich dich nicht festhalten...

Bleibe weit weg im widerlichen Licht.

Du wirst untergehen in meinen Armen.

Your eyes…

Do not look for me. if you do, you will find me.

Do not let me hold you.

Stay far away, in the sickly light.

You will drown in my arms.

Schau mich an. Schau mich näher an.

Ich habe dich geküsst… Ich habe deinen Kopf geküsst.

Dein Mund ist unerträglich! Verstecke es aus meinen Augen. Bitte…

Look at me. Look at me closely.

I have kissed you… I have kissed your head.

Your mouth is unbearable! Hide it from my sight. Please…

Das Licht in deinen Augen, sehe ich. Lass sie verdunkeln.

Kommen Sie mit mir auf meine Wiese von Blumensternen.

Das Licht in deinen Augen, sehe ich.

I see the light in your eyes. Let them darken.

Come with my to my meadow of flower stars.

I see the light in your eyes.

Bitte lassen Sie mich allein. Ich kann dich nicht ausstehen.

Bleibe weit weg von dem widerlichen Licht…

I beg of you, leave me alone. I cannot bear you.

Stay far away from the sickly light…

I can’t open my eyes… is anyone there?

Renoir Response #2 - Sleeping Girl with Cat

My image for today was this one:

Here my first go at a score:

Some instructions:
- Start at the treble clef
- End when you wish
- Repeat each cell as many times as you wish

Taking these instructions into account, how intuitive do you guys think the scoring is?

I'm thinking of building a Max Patch that could play through this with the given rules. Might be a two-day project.

Feed Me

Hi everyone.  Feed me.  After the the part when the vocals come in, the whole of what you have just heard is repeated.  Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/toby-graham-music/feed-me/s-b547I

Intermezzo: Paradies

This one is not nearly long enough to express the idea I began with, so I'm going to split it here and continue tomorrow. It's been a lot of fun following this particular train of thought, but I think tomorrow will see the end of it, but also a new beginning.
Does anyone have any fav German words? So long as they're mildly aquatic I'll work them into tomorrow's...

Composer Fan Fiction - #1 Ravel

Sometimes, an author doesn't give you what you want. Sometimes, they do but not enough of it. Enter, Fan Fiction! Say you've been reading Twilight ever since it first came out (way before it was popular). You're hanging out for book four, waiting for Edward and Bella to finally get it on. They do! But... wow. Really, Stephanie? Is that all? Never fear, there are hundreds of fan fics offering you a chance to indulge in what you missed out on.

Now the above experience does not apply to me. However, I've started writing fan fiction about composers. These are not short stories about Mr Ravel my stern but sexy piano teacher. Rather I'm taking moments of his music I absolutely adore and fleshing them out so I can bathe in them for as long as I wish.

This moment comes from the divine Tombeau de Couperin. Who can forget this shivery moment from the third movement, Forlane? If for you, like me, those nine-eight-y gems went by a little too quickly, feel free to indulge in my fan fic.

Soup's too intense. Reduce it.

A musing on JK Rowling's great work.  For (so far) voice, left handed piano and 2 drum kits even though you could play it on one.  Sibelius midi audio here: https://soundcloud.com/toby-graham-music/soups-too-intense-reduce-it/s-iuCdB

little phrases

I gave myself half an hour on a timer to write non-stop, and wrote some disconnected sentences. this is about half of it.

I'm going to go see daniil trifinov play some good piano tonight so maybe that will do an inspire of me to do a write of better

Paradies

Das Wasser um mich ist warm, aber du würdest es kalt finden.

The water around me is warm, but you would find it cold.

Wo ich lebe, ist das Paradies.

Where I live is paradise.

Ein tausend Fische, Glitzersteinchen, Der tiefe Abgrund.

A thousand fishes, glittering stones, the deep abyss.

Leben umschließt mich, streichelt mich.

Life surrounds me, caresses me.

Hier wirst du einen ununterbrochen, traumlosen schlaf finden.

Here you will find uninvaded, dreamless sleep.

I have been eaten 7 times since I was 7 – it is not a regular thing.

For piano.  This is my neat version.  I'll post a nice legible Sibelius version tomorrow.

Following day: Sibelius version with some significant register edits.  The piece is about me.  It speaks of the sad sense of beauty that pops up in a context of disconcerting repetition - always hopeful, always on the brink of giving up.  Maybe hope and hopelessness hold hands and lean outwards, balancing on something very tall and thin.

  Audio here: https://soundcloud.com/toby-graham-music/eaten-7-times/s-oKPEV

lil vocalise

a germ of an idea I've had for a while, given strips of flesh. stage two will involve actual piano and actual band(?)
I want to duel melodica and vocalist and I want the vocalist to have words and I am not sold on the words exactly but for some reason I'm thinking Hail Mary?¯\_(ツ)_/¯?

melodica too loud for this time of night - here's some tentative soprano instead.

Renoir Response #1 - Prelude: Clear Cloth

One of the many things I find sublime in Renoir's paintings is his depiction of creased transparent material over the skin. This was the starting point for this prelude. MIDI Audio here.

Untergehen

Ich werde dir zusehen von Moß bedeckten Felsen. Suche night nach mir. 

I look upon you from amidst the moss-covered rocks. Don’t look for me.

Ich kann dir nicht folgen. Ich werde hungern.

I cannot follow you. I will starve.

Lass mich dich nicht festhalten. Du wirst untergehen in meinem Armen.

Do not let me hold you, you will perish in my arms.

Oder willst du untergehen.

Do you wish to drown?

Side note: I much prefer composing in the morning, so some of my submissions might come a day ahead going forward