Yesterday, I asked Christián for his opinion of the percussion in a short piece I’d written for Dani’s short film. At one point, he asked me, What are you trying to accomplish? I made up some bullshit about a statue of the Buddha with a pistol on a beach on the Baltic Sea, waves lapping at its base. A module in my collective mind reacted before my more mature modules could stop it. It feared that without an initial #narrative to back the piece of music up, the whole process was meaningless. Even after other #modules caught up, I didn’t back up and correct myself. Only later in the evening did I write something pertaining to my more mature thoughts on the subject.
From far back in my cultural education, I was progressively etched. If there is no compelling narrative as the impetus for a piece of #music, then it has no substance. Why? Why can’t a piece of art stand on its own without a story to back it? I respect Abstract Expressionists in this regard. And, in fact, for myriad works I have completed and are in the process of completion, no underlying narrative exists.
Many of my modules carry this cultural etching. The ones that do not, or on which the etchings are fading, become more and more dominant.
I think it is inevitable that for music humans bother to delve into, narratives are created, sourced from personal experiences and from emotions that surface during immersion. These pieces of art do not require an initial narrative, though. No #meaning is necessary. They can be personal sounding boards. They can be spaces where reverberations create unique narratives.
