Fence Sounds

Fence Sounds

Springtime in Los Angeles is just as dramatic as the East Coast,
even if the seasonal changes here are much more subtle.

It had been well over two years since my last composition,
and beginning a new piece filled me with all kinds of apprehension.

Finally, a solution presented itself. I would proceed very slowly
and calmly with pure alap, a form translated to mean evocation,
conversation and meditation, yielding music with barely a discernable pulse.

Sitting in a large room in the back of my new home, with windows wide
open to a sea of green, mostly created by large fica trees with a sprinkling
of fuscia bougainvillea, I was enchanted by low, gentle, softly-powerful
vibrational murmurs that I soon realized were coming from the wooden
fence richly embroidered by the fica trees. This friendly and uncommon
fence music was prompted by lovely intermittent breezes, and it seemed
to welcome my presence and companionship. There was a new audience
for it’s song in addition to the birds, squirrels, and whatever else
noticed it sounding like a mysterious-spirit, slow-motion giant guiro!

Suryakanta is the joyfully beautiful Karnatic mela I selected for
composition, and it is related to Ananda Bhairava from Hindustani
music. The melodic structure features all pure swaras except for
the dramatic inclusion of komal rishaba. Rishaba is believed to have
originated from the sound of the cow calling her calf, a bull,
or a particular bird that is no longer identified.

For the main voice, I chose a favorite piano timbre shaded with the
vivid colors of Indian bells, rotating drum and rainstick. All this is
framed by three distinctive tanpura patterns moving at slightly
different layas to achieve a timeless feeling: The void that
existed prior to earth and life. The swaras uttered by the tanpuras
are shadja (peacock), panchama (kokila), and gandhara (goat).

After completing the piece, I was inspired by my environment to name
it California Spring, and I still felt the need to warm-up some more, so
I proceeded to compose another alap composition. That too finished,
I now felt awakened and prepared enough to add another dimension:
Rhythmic fraction exploration by percussion timbres – that’s one way
to phrase it – an area of music I enjoy equally to melodic exposition.
Both melody and percussion are complete by themselves, including
each other, of course, and the challenge of combining the two
is thrilling for me.

This led to finishing two compositions with percussion, and for a
change-of-pace, I returned to the pure alap format with four more new
pieces, then two more with percussion. I had begun an eleventh new
work – all this took place between March and September 2009 including
some interruptions – when I suddenly felt the need to leave the world
of pure composition for the realization and production phases of the
creative process in order to allow the new music to exist in the
corporeal world of tangible sound.

I remain surprised that to my knowledge, no one else has remotely
followed the musical path I’ve taken, using the combination of music
technological instruments I employ, and collectively call meruvina,
together with ancient South Asian raga forms.

In one of his last published books, Alain Danielou makes musical
reference to “the mysterious spirits that inhabit electronic machines.”
Numinosity in musical instruments is an ancient concept shared by
Africa and South Asia, and, I am rather certain, everywhere else. It’s
not something I’ve thought of very much with the meruvina, and that’s
why Danielou’s comments intrigued me.

When I delved back into the complexities of compositional realization
with the meruvina after several years, I felt some intimidation with
the unconventiality of the whole thing, but shortly thereafter
something clicked, and I knew that this was my true instrument:
The ball was swishing through the net.

In painting bamboo the spirit must be transmitted;
whoever said it’s a matter of being realistic?

- Michael Robinson, February 2010, Los Angeles

Poetry by Yang Chi, translated by Jonathan Chaves.

The new compositions referred to above after California Spring (Suryakanta) are Bhairava, Bhairavi, Gamanapriya,
Hansadhvani, Rusabhapriya, Dharmavati, Dhirasankarabharanam, Latangi, Chakravaka, Kokilapriya, Kanakangi,
Kamavardhani, Ramapriya, Tanarupi, The Girl In The Photograph (Karunapriya) and Ganamurti.

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