Delibrium!Deliberate Delirium!

Experimental Compositions

Brian Hagy

Needless to say, there have been many people and thoughts that have influenced me over the years.

Needful to say, there are some who stand out above others.

These people deserve the attention I give in this section for pushing me to think, compose, do (in order of visual design):

Myself Lisa Fay Jim Rich Natalie Ellis Mark Enslin Eric Beckley Patch Adams Cara Maurizi Herbert Brün Jeff Glassman Susan Parenti Jessie Holmes Mark Sullivan Laura Bennett Carol Schuster Tami Haubner Kevin Trumble Rick Burkhardt Heinz Von Foerster Humberto Maturana Mary and Henry Hagy Aubrey and James Wachtel And One Anonymous Friend

Developmental Services CenterSoDo Theatre and Class Act

The Prompting TheaterIllinois Arts Council

Zoo ImprovU-C IMC

SDaS

Friday June 22Saturday June 23

2012

Stripsody (by Cathy Berberian)

Five Fragments at a Composition

After the Before (World Premiere)

I Can’t Help It (By R. D. Laing)

(performed with Brook Celeste)

INTERMISSION

Gazetudes (World Premiere)

Who’s The Enemy (performed with Brook Celeste)

Meaning, Meaning What? (World Premiere)

“Art” begins absurd, naturally and socially. “It” does not occur in nature without the aid of human (this is

not to deny that once there was a proposition of natural, which can no longer be a proposal, only a referral). And “it” does not want its current witnessing society; it favors

the society it contributes.

The best society is the one which cannot exist, but could.

How much do I need to see (hear, witness) before I know what to expect?

Communication - nothing; I already knowErgodic - a bit (just a bit)Anticommunication - all, until “it” decays from information to knowledge and thus into communication.

We move toward the past, and away from the future. That which we call the future is the only past we can look forward to.

SEQUENCE:

Why EXPERIMENTAL?

I have a question to which I do not know what the answers could be. Thus, I set up experiments, conditions to test ideas, and then observe the subsequent interactions. I can repeat this until I have sufficient variety to my question, so I can choose my most response to the question, if desired.

Why COMPOSITION?

I wish to create that which without me would not exist. Thus I gen-erate activities and ideas which allow for interactions which would not arise without my contribution.

Why NOW?

Why not.

The beauty sought after today is no longer that of being offered, but that of been offered. Even worse, beauty is being sought after. Those who create, or contribute, gen-erate that which teaches its respondents its aesthetics, works which teach their languages, ones not yet under-stood. These works are labeled masterpieces. Master-pieces contribute to and in the society in which they func-

tion. They language alternatives.

Composition necessitates risks.

Composition requires the witness to create the pleasure, whereas tradition requires the witness to know and want the pleasure which already

exists.

If truth is without me, then I, in its presence, am superfluous. To search and desire for truth is self-de-

structing behavior. In the presence of proof, I trivials. In the presences of possibilities, I distinguishes.

The past has happened. Our memory confirms this. Accuracy of memory is for this moment irrelevant. Knowledge of the past in-forms us as to what events occurred so that we can recognize, de-scribe, this past. We know then what has happened. This has conse-quences on us in this generating past. We know what has happened so that we do not happen it again, less we want to futilely undistin-guish this past. Hence, the past consequences us to avoid its offering so that we offer our own soon-to-be-avoideds.

The past is happening. Our predictions confirm this. Accuracy of prediction is for this moment irrelevant. Knowledge of this past in-forms us that events occur now so that we can recognize, describe, this past later. We know then something is happening. This has consequences on us in generating past. We know something is hap-pening so that we will attempt to not happen it again, less we want futurely undistinguish ourselves. Hence, this past consequences us to offer to that we become that described in the first paragraph.

To offer then requires a knowledge of offerings, those which have been announced before and without you. To offer then requires a past, so that you know what has been offered, and a will-be past, so that you do not offer what has already been offered. In this pool of the past are vacancies, voids, which then by your, or my, offering are filled. The will-be past articulates these voids in the past with offers which fill them.

An exposed void then becomes an exposed avoided. And this gener-ates a contribution, a composition.

STRIPSODY

This work was composed by Cathy Berberian. It was commis-sioned by Hans Otte on behalf of the Bremen Radio for the Festival of Contemporary Music of May 1966 and was first performed on that occasion. It is to a degree a glossary of onomatopoeia used in comic strips.

I first encountered the score in 1989 and performed it shortly after. Even though the score is meant to be performed as if by a radio sound man, without any props, and only for voice, there are sec-tions that are meant to be performed with gestures from the body. This led me to think that perhaps a crossing between music, theater, and poetry would be a more appropriate, for my performance.

WORKS NOT COMPOSED BY ME:

I CAN’T HELP IT!

This script is from a collection of poem plays by R. D. Laing, in a book of his called Do You Love Me? R. D. Laing was a psycholo-gist who merged ideas from cybernetics into his thinking about schizophrenia, helping to further the analysis approach of including one’s environment as a contributing factor of mental illnesses, and creating therapeutic conditions that include familial and environ-mental supports unexplored at the time. The book Do You Love Me? explores the language of desperation and dependency.

N400, P600, HIKE! (A poem used in Meaning, Meaning What?) (And dedicated to a friend whose words impacted me)

After I thought upon it, easy.Barely after that, each event addressedElicits either in me, in Eddie, indeedIconic info insisting knowing is doing is knowingHow much to doubt or put on, shows usDual sums and ultra assum’n. Unask?

A quiz junkie waits for help by a maxed vice guy.Yogie caved ex-mob Paul, her fist awoken Jozie Q.Quay zag juice invoked (wax times beef)/per Leah.Holler up if bois meet ox wood. Ok, even, cuj, gaze you aqua.

QA part: Seed jizz king, box of cum luv. Why?

So cogs go soso.Draped hard, Red pruned her mended bed.Wit! Tilt Lizzy wit’ tizzy lix.Of you I sex.

Baby maybe five, move, bump, pave.Gnashin’ scenes do such to stand.Queer crack. Quick gig. Go.Prank crabs gain more canvas inkes, but gays may dock

Cut mojiq gave on kao dip. O, hiro! A zu o’ fybs, ex low

Common sense commons according to the operating power structure. A change in power structure results a change

in the common. This has little to do with sense.

I enjoyed myself in the presence of an event is a different proposition than I enjoyed it.

WORKS COMPOSED BY ME:

FIVE FRAGMENTS AT A COMPOSITION:

I composed this in 1992. I wanted to explore taking gestures (and in particular the gestures arising from a given medium, such as sound or movement or color, etc) and seeing what would happen when I fragmented the gestures into packets of information which could be reassembled how I wanted, rather than how they were expected.

It was first performed in Herbert Brün’s Experimental Composition Seminar in 1992.

AFTER THE BEFORE

A story. Many stories. Told from the inside outside in. A pivot. Many pivots. Created from the outside inside out. Composed in 1994, inspired from a workshop given by Jeff Glassman.

This is the world premiere of this composition.

WHO’S THE ENEMY?

A result of being irritated by the language which arose during the start of the so-called war on terrorism. Perhaps it’s best to not ir-ritate me through language. Written and first performed in 2003, with aid from Clint Popetz.

WORKS COMPOSED BY ME:

GAZETUDES

“There is so much power in how and where one looks.” - Lisa Fay.

Almost 20 years ago, composer Fay said that to a bunch of creative minds in a workshop. And yet, 20 years later, no one had followed up and investigated such important words. So, I take the challenge and create this series of etudes for Solo Head with Voice, and Occa-sional Hand. There are five etudes: WINK, TWITCH, GESTURE, OVERLAPSE, THE SHOPPER (which includes the poem “The Shopper” by Bertolt Brecht).

This work was composed in the Fall of 2011. This is the world pre-miere of this composition.

MEANING, MEANING WHAT?

What happens when thought, expression, learning, defining, and composition collide? Meaning, Meaning What? is born. The cul-mination of nearly 10 years of ideas and explorations, and discus-sions with friends (new and old) brings about this experiment in teach/learn/do. The exploration of “meaning”s is so pervasive, that even waveforms from neurological activity in the brain associated with meaning recognition were used to control parameters of the work. I also played around with not only possibilities of presenta-tion, but also with colliding media (one medium creating an activi-ty in another medium, such as a movement of arms creates a sound of a clap). Deepest respect from multiple conversations I had with multiple people whose intelligence and concise descriptions helped provide me insightful questions.

I finished composing this work in the Spring of 2012. This is the world premiere of this composition.

Language provides the context in which thoughts have life. More languages allow more thought possibilities.

I understand my world by the ways I describe it. The more descriptions I can provide, the closer I am

to the variety of my world.

Composition Proposition

Composition claims from a listener its identity only as a proposition.

Composition, the proposition, refers to any organized event in any me-dium a composer offers or offered which until that time had no existence.

Composition, the concept or the it, refers to the accumulation of all propo-sitions offered through now and the predictions of propositions yet to be offered.

Propositions which were, still are, just more.

Composition, such as music, results from language as an objectified form-less, hence the consistent referral of “a PIECE of music.” Composition, the proposition, assumes a form (something exhibiting borders) only in our common linguistic behavior.

We speak of composition, the proposition, as if it generates from a pool so that examples are revealed or contributed, rather than participates in a an accumulation.

(A contribution does occur when a composer reveals a proposition, not to compositional thinking, but to society.)

Composition, to result from a proposed system of organizing sound events in such a way that the organization would not have occurred had not the composer done so, can only be composition, the proposition retroactively.

All talk of composition, the proposition, before witnessing occurs predicts. All talk of composition, the proposition, without witnessing slanders and hearsays. All talk of composition, the historical object, explores the propo-sition. All talk of composition, after all, don’t they?

Each composition, proposition, consisting of a universe of overlapping systems of thought and medium manifested in duration, defines itself as a whole, not as a part.

Hence, for example, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 proposes music, not a part of music (or “a PIECE of music”).

Only one witnessed composition, proposition, exists, that being the event just occurred.

Memory insists that there are other musics, paintings, poems, dances, and other compositions. No. These are previous propositions a listener iden-tified. The proposition recently occurred wants that it be the one music, painting, poem, dance, composition now, maybe because of help from pre-vious, maybe because of maliciousness towards previous.

History accumulates, not composition.

A composer proposes her universe of overlapping systems of thought, ex-periment, and events in a medium (or media) organized in duration to a witness so that it proposes composition.

Composition histories as a linguistic possibility only.

Composition results from listeners.

Propositions, contributive, result from composers.

A sound event becomes a musical event when the composer and the listener give the sound event a significance which it otherwise would not have.

Music results from proposing significance to sound events.