Postcard Compositions

These compositions are an attempt to bridge the distance of geography, social isolation, and quarantine with intimate obscurity. They have few rules and while they contain musical instructions, I would say that these pieces are “pushes”, like visual art. I wish for them to accumulate meaning in the course of quotidian contemplation; they are meant to sit until they absolutely must be performed. I have joked that something horrible would have to happen to me for anyone to feel the need to perform them.

For many of these pieces, I have collaborated with my wife, Jessica Brown, for the artistic designs of the postcards. The opposite of ready-made mass-produced scenes, they are one of a kind pieces which seek to capture the vistas of the soul, and they are themselves music whose temporality presents a “now” which is integrated cyclical creations of relations in the past and present. They are performable, in many cases more so than my contributions, which for this project are indulgent beyond casual comprehensibility.

All of our projects together center Eros, in many ways we are a system of shared responses, ethics, and desires.

This series is inspired by the postcard creations of James Tenney. A performance of which was at my first concert experience here in Philadelphia. The person who took us to this concert Thomas Patteson, is the first recipient of our compositional output. He is also a mensch.

Rules and hints-

1- Never say anything written on the card outloud unless instructed. This is not a spoken word poem. 

2- I frequently use pitch-class notation and sets, the different colorations of the sets are up to interpretation. 

3- Never force yourself to perform any of my music, it is a well-spring not a mine. 

4- You must love someone or something