Life A Flow of Consciousness Precompositional Ideas Play Ground of a Moment Think of living as a journey from moment to moment. Living is an amazing sequence of improvisations. Each individual is free to construct the syntax or language of its own experience. In a sense attitude is a precompositional idea, an idea that creates a place of beginning, a perspective to create from. This is why voices are heard and why great composers have a particular way of seeing the world that makes their music resonate. Likewise each person has the freedom to begin every moment with a breath of permission to live their life in a style that the world will grow to recognize. And as a person changes from year to year so too does a composer change from composition to composition if even ever so slightly, because no moment happens twice and awareness expands and contracts. Yet there is a recognizable signature of individuals that is unmistakably their unique footprint that creates a road map not so much of destinations but of locations, not to arrive at, but to start from and use their voices in. It is said that Henry Cowell was a great permission giver, and I would agree. He began from a very young age to say yes, and hmm, lets see, oops, oh, and Okay Yes! And don t forget WOW! And Yay! And Cool! And IUEHLDHIHVQPOIUEWZ, Yes this is my new invention it is called a letter cluster, Now used for exclamatory remarks to emphasize the overtones of excitement! See it is really easy to be an inventor you just
have to do it. And that is who Cowell is he is a Doer, go-getter make happener, lets go for it kind of guy. Yes this is the result of my scholarly Research! Pre compositional ideas can affect your whole state of awareness in essence it is your state of awareness. Outside influences are occurrences but the greater majority of your experience is due to how you choose to react to the notes and rhythms that have been played. I had a precompositional idea to visit my friend Kristen for my birthday on last Friday May 18 th and here is a short excursion into the improvisation that is my life. I have been sitting with love in my heart and joy in my song and vibrating with my loved one Kristen Poier and my friends. Pouring as much positivity as I can into the world one person at a time. It is an amazing quality to cultivate love and an amazing gift to be the recipient of love. And the methods of expression are never ending. Yes okay okay yes life is yes okay it is always a stretch to stretch your borders of comfort and acquire an ability to acknowledge something as legitimate that is alien to your experience. It really isn t alien it is just imbalanced to your expected experience. It is a characteristic that you observe as excess, so it is an aspect of who you are, we are the same, and we are changing it is just how it is. (There was a kind of annoying guy named darel in the car and he kept on talking about himself the whole time and I tried to show him how to focus on others by telling him about everybody and how amazing they were. Wow totally amazing.) And it is good. So when you feel that way just be honest with yourself and speak. Speak of the experience you have of them or at least express how you would feel comfortable. I spread a lot of love today through singing and dancing and
hugging and smiling. And I will always remember always that there is a smile for me in Sacramento. I have nee never met Henry David Cowell but today I heard his compositions and would like to mention my peace with his expression. He composed and composed and I listened and listened. When I listen I can hear vibrations blending together. This is the nature of all vibrations. Even when you might not be satisfied with their root, And roots aren t really bad, they just are, everything eventually dissolves into vibrations, or is everything already vibrates, what ever the case it is true that moments of memories are truly gifts from your past, dreams and hopes are truly gifts from the future and smiles and music are gifts from now. Now is truly who Cowell was. He was a Man who asked and Listened to what is the world s audio landscape. I am part of and am the world, and I am as versatile as my volition deems and my volition deems that I want to have influence from the whole world, and my playground of experience to compose from is inspired from every Jungle-audio-gym-scape. Its like saying yes when I see another person with a different culture and music I will not be egocentric, I will be, well is it still egocentric if you are focusing on someone else s idea of ego? Well I don t know, probably not because ego probably means I or something weird like that, so someone else isn t I unless it is I and we share an ego. Wow weird. Well here I am Typing I... wow I am so egocentric. Well, Cowell Cowell Cowell is Cowell Cowell Cowell and I am still getting to know him him him and his music and that is good. I learned that he was for practical purposes bisexual but he was probably completely homosexual and married for political purposes after being arrested for moral charges or sex with a minor and that was probably a messed up case because the minor was probably consenting and the parents just found out and
were not prepared for the reality that their child was gay and destroyed a mans life in a sense. Well it didn t destroy his life he chose to continue to use his magical-music skills and taught the prisoners of san Quinton how to play and he composed while in prison and he wrote books and he formed a magazine for new music and he organized musicians like Slominsky and Ives and got funded by Ives to do a concert tour of England and that is amazing because Cowell was one of the first western composers/performers who went over to Europe and won an Audience. Well time is a moving creature and he is moving while no body played Ives s music and when they played his music in Europe thanks to multiple forces the critics prejudiced him as being influenced by bartok and Stravinsky and that s not true. Mahler might not have influenced him but Mahler did write two simultaneous musics before he did. It is so strange saying these words with confidence because I am just realizing the faith I have in books and my teachers and am amazed by how much I can learn if I have faith in my teachers and books. But also to be aware that what is the purpose of these words. What is the purpose of reiterating truths that have been disseminated from history or her story which ver. Aside from the fact that they contribute to the evolution of my own musical understanding of the worlds understanding which in reality is the meaning of their repetition. We repeat their story in order to create a history of the evolution of homo sapiens art form. Cowell was a human he yeah he was a homosexual human guy. Happy and hard working very hard working, admirably hard working he was a prolific composer. I feel like Cowell had grief and hardships but he nevertheless was a free spirit who acknowledged, and had an inner dialogue of truth with his interests and existence. I don t
think that it s true that it was a sad day in music s history when he was arrested on a morals-charge in a sense that it was disgraceful to music. I think it was a disgrace in human history because he was being blackmailed and the relations were power over a humans life. In one way that is an idea I am struggling with this semester. In my school and Society class there is all this talk about acceptable behaviors, and one of the points about Cowell is that he didn t go to school for very long I think he stopped in 3 rd grade and this is an important note because he was not hindered or limited by the restraints of enforced and or encouraged behaviors. He was truly a wild child, a wild intelligent child who learned what was in front of him by getting his hands on it. He would get his hand on a piano and see the whole piano not just the face of it. And isn t that beautiful? It is like looking into somebody s heart instead of just seeing his or her eyes. I wonder how long the piano was waiting for someone to see it that way? And it is not as if the world was not ready for the innovation. People were fascinated and flocked to his concerts around the country from 1924-1935 he toured the country and people were receptive to his new style of spirit. I wonder how long people wait for a miracle to appear when it is always in front of them and they just let its tradition blind them from its potential. I wonder about the subconscious and the mere presence of people in a place. I wonder if their present even if they re not awake. I mean wow does their sleep energy contribute to the waking world? Does their expanding minds help ours to contract and understand? Does expanding help me right now to think as I do the day is night it is night and it is night and my mind opens to sounds of violins plays as if kissed by the wind. Would you believe that Cowell was Courageous? Would you believe that he was
vivacious would you believe that moments stretch you could bet every note we catch is a tone we choose to fetch? It is a subjective experience of meaning. Splitting welding transporting Cowell obviously didn t think that the crime he was guilty of was immoral. He must have felt innocent to submit to the authority of the court. In his heart he probably felt like all the activity was consensual and that he didn t sacrifice his morality by succumbing to the black mail for money. Wires got crossed and it hurts to be made to suffer punishment for pursuing happiness. Because that is just who Cowell was, he pursed a life in music earned enough money to buy a piano as a youth, and kept this philosophy for every composition. It is the style of his spirit.