Practice Room Rhapsody (2016)
fl, bcl, tbn, pn, vn, db
10 minutes
written for and premiered by Ensemble Mise-En
It was when I was visiting New York City in fall 2014 that the idea about this piece came to me for the first time. I was on the bed and heard a trombonist playing a simple melody on the street. Based on what I heard, the player must have been a very well-trained musician – maybe he or she was just drunk or did it for some extra money for drink. That made me recall my time in Paris, where I could run into many excellent musicians playing in subway stations for living. Well, actually, it does not sound very different from any big city, or any musician’s life including my own. Once I reach that thought, I became wanting to write a self-portrait-like piece or several, as an ode or cheers to ourselves.
As we musicians spent the majority of time on practicing, it seems to be reasonable to me make this piece about it. So I created passages to practice – one for each performer, which might sound somewhat ‘meaningless’ – but hey, what is meaningful, anyways? Almost throughout the piece, the players practice or pretend to practice the part or the entirety of assigned passages. They are juxtaposed altogether, carefully controlled to sound random (but not too much). I may want to say, our devotion itself is beautiful enough already.
At the end of the piece, there is a trombone solo – now it is about a composer who tries to create a melody. However simple it may sound, there are so many considerations behind – maybe not enough yet. I attempted to make the trombone lines to reveal the stream of my consciousness working on a fragment of music. It is also the imaginary replica of the melody I heard on that night in NYC – where all connections emerge.
10 minutes
written for and premiered by Ensemble Mise-En
It was when I was visiting New York City in fall 2014 that the idea about this piece came to me for the first time. I was on the bed and heard a trombonist playing a simple melody on the street. Based on what I heard, the player must have been a very well-trained musician – maybe he or she was just drunk or did it for some extra money for drink. That made me recall my time in Paris, where I could run into many excellent musicians playing in subway stations for living. Well, actually, it does not sound very different from any big city, or any musician’s life including my own. Once I reach that thought, I became wanting to write a self-portrait-like piece or several, as an ode or cheers to ourselves.
As we musicians spent the majority of time on practicing, it seems to be reasonable to me make this piece about it. So I created passages to practice – one for each performer, which might sound somewhat ‘meaningless’ – but hey, what is meaningful, anyways? Almost throughout the piece, the players practice or pretend to practice the part or the entirety of assigned passages. They are juxtaposed altogether, carefully controlled to sound random (but not too much). I may want to say, our devotion itself is beautiful enough already.
At the end of the piece, there is a trombone solo – now it is about a composer who tries to create a melody. However simple it may sound, there are so many considerations behind – maybe not enough yet. I attempted to make the trombone lines to reveal the stream of my consciousness working on a fragment of music. It is also the imaginary replica of the melody I heard on that night in NYC – where all connections emerge.