WORKS

SEDIMENT(S) is inspired by the imagery of sedimentary rocks in rivers and lakes, over metal music. A pulse underlies throughout.

The term, “aporia” (or απορία), derives from Ancient Greek which means a state of puzzlement. Governing the ideology of this composition, this term is critical in deconstructionism, more often associated with Jacques Derrida, in which aporia symbolizes the state of puzzlement and uncertainty in just about all the beings in the world. The being of a thing faces the judgements of the otherness, while these judgements ought not to be black and white. Namely, the judgement of a being resembles Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, where nothing is merely a one-sided thesis opposing its antithesis.

The incorporation of the Renaissance lute mystifies the component of time, mixing modern instruments with early instruments with the strings tuned at 440 Hz (equal temperament) and the lute tuned at 414 Hz (sixth comma meantone). Quoting from John Dowland’s “Lachrimae” (with the “Lachrimae Pavane” quoted verbatim at the end), the composition creates uncertainty between tonality and atonality, where the tonal theme is blended with serialist chords.

While the faster sections of the composition are strictly deterministic, the slower sections, i.e. “Subtle With Some Interruptions” and “Equilibrium,” should have flexibilities in their tempi. The theme that appears in the first phrase of “Dodging” needs to be implicit but showing semblances of it, and the inversion of the theme in the second phrase needs to stand out. Most importantly, the all-trichord hexachord, which first appears at first E# of the theme, requires special attention and serves as an arrival chord in other places of the composition.

In the end, the sole objective of this composition is to demonstrate the concept of aporia though the array of sound frequencies.