Alexandra Gardner | Book of Days Archive 2001

Alexandra Gardner
:: composer

book of days archive 2001

12.01.01
Wow - December 1st, and so warm outside that I went running in shorts and a t-shirt! Fortunately I am not the only one with incredibly white legs.....

Craving stillness and quiet lately. To some extent, running fufills this need. Although it is hardly silent on my route through the park, (cars, kids, bicycle bells, etc.), the physical activity becomes a form of meditation; a time to be completely in the present, to soak in the surroundings. Motion and breath.

10.26.01
If you could be the silence between two sounds, what two sounds would you be between?

This is my favorite musical question, asked many years ago by Pauline Oliveros, during a Deep Listening retreat in the mountains of upstate New York. For me the answer changes every day. Sometimes I would like to be the tension-filled silence between a flash of lightning and its accompanying thunderclap, while at other times I feel more like the quiet between drips of water from a leaky bathtub faucet. The point of this question, that the silence between the sounds is just as important as the sounds themselves, is something I try to consider in all of my work.

10.10.01
Autumn! Absolutely, positively, my favorite time of the year. I know that some see autumn as the beginning of the end, a slow decline into the dark of winter, but for me it always brings a sense of newness. Now that the heat and haze of summer has lifted, everything seems clearer. Even inspiration travels faster in the crispy clean air! And musical ideas come tumbling in.....

9.28.01
Thank you Albert Einstein.....

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing I do know: that we are here for the sake of each other, above all, for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of others, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.

9.19.01
One of the radio shows I am putting together this week is completely wonderful. Entitled "John Hull: Roof of Thunder", it chronicles the experiences of an Australian man who goes blind in his mid-forties. The struggle: how to live? As a seeing person who can no longer see, or as a "truly" blind person for whom sight is not an issue?

My favorite part: a gorgeous description of stepping outside into the rain, and hearing how it defines the contours of the environment, creating a new sense of space and direction.

9.12.01
So quiet this morning. I never thought that silence could be terrible, but this particular silence and all that it carries with it is frightening. The usual sounds of movement and activity in my neighborhood - planes overhead, trains in the distance, the school bus that idles for several minutes across the street as it picks up children - are absent. Replaced only by the occasional whine of an F16 (nothing at all like a commercial jet) or a helicopter passing overhead.

We don't realize how much the sounds of our environment have become incorporated into the fabric of our lives, into our sense of familiarity, of comfort and safety, until they are gone. True also with buildings, with people. All will be deeply missed.

How incredible that the world can shift so profoundly in only one hour.

7.15.01
Amazed by a piece of music last night!

themythofAcceptAnce for electric cello and sampled sounds by Henry Gwiazda, performed by Jeffrey Krieger. The "e-cello", amplified and sent through a pitch-shifting device, begins with short, scampering pizzicato phrases that slowly transform into lush, ecstatically singing melodies, all the while enveloped by a series of intertwining soundscapes - a busy pub, various animal noises, children playing.... a beautiful journey. How incredibly refreshing to hear those sounds without all the usual processing and mangling. Rather than forcing his will upon the sounds themselves, the composer created a powerful story through simply revealing their true nature.

This makes me seriously reconsider my own "process and mangle" approach to audio! Will see what happens as I work on this new marimba and tape composition....

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