It’s time I take my silence back and give
since now becomes a focus and a pivot
on and into who I’m offering:
No mystery.
Dawn was clear and clean so I respond
With a payment on a promise given.
We go through losing one by one
Our main supports, finding neither balance
nor adjustment. What to connect? And how
to open out—or make [...]
NO MYSTERY (for Virginia)
Published in August 18th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
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Context
Published in August 11th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
I was once asked to give a paper on a panel the topic of which was Contextualism. I quite deliberately interpreted context as the larger than individual current events that impinge on our lives, having had to inquire as to just what this latest academic ism was. It was ( I might have known ) [...]
Are blogs presented backward?
Published in August 8th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
A blog lets anyone making use of it observe a progress, stage by stage, of related ideas becoming a process. The most recent stage of this is the first posted item a visitor to the site sees. But items posted earlier sometimes need direct connection to earlier postings. Jon Roy’s account of how, when, and [...]
Composer-as-Arranger/Arranger-as-Composer: Questions
Published in August 8th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
Is a composer who arranges other composers’ works as Igor Stravinsky did a thief? What if the works he arranges are his own? Is he less creative for doing this, as Harry Partch did? And what about Broadway composers, who typically hand over their lead-sheets to arrangers? Who is the principal creative contributor, composer or [...]
Thanks
Published in August 5th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
This site documents a process of mutual teaching.
Jon Roy asked me to teach him the musical, mathematical and philosophical bases of my just-tuned microtonal compositions. In return I asked Jon Roy to help me to help me learn to make useful and intelligent use of my Apple computer.
Thanks, Jon, for doing much more than just [...]
What? How? Why?
Published in August 5th, 2008
What:
Insights into the final (fourth) movement of a string quartet (the tenth).
How:
Extended just intonation, interpreting all musical intervals (melodic as well as harmonic) as small whole-numbered vibration ratios, a process here applied to major and minor (mirror inversion of major) modal tonalities.
Recomposing samples of successive contrapuntal styles: :a “what if” revisionism applied to successive stages [...]
The Phoenix:To be reborn means your death must be completed
Published in August 3rd, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
When I look at my life as a whole continuity the pattern of inner death and rebirth stands out. I’m not talking about ritualized symbols. I’m not referring to any version of Christian —or any other religion’s— use of these terms to indicate conversion from sin to grace. I mean it in terms of immediate [...]
Bringing into Focus
Published in July 28th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
In trying to come to a clean honest view of what has been and is my own life each day, each moment I am discovering that person. I am that person only if I keep my attention focused both on others I find myself caring about and valuing and on the person I am as [...]
Credo
Published in July 20th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
I think we are facing change to a degree and depth and speed unprecedented in our recorded experience.
And I feel like an automaton reiterating.
I want to affirm : I am determined not to give up or in or out for as long as I can make the choice. That way is growth and openness .
Can [...]
Drawing it all together
Published in July 19th, 2008
Posted by Ben Johnston in Ben's posts
At this time in my life I am trying to make an intelligible whole out of all the pieces. I mean both musical pieces and fragments of myself. Some of these shards can simply be discarded and some even have to be trash-disposed. But most need my focused attention to fit in and to function [...]