Musical contemplations

I have wondered and wandered for some time as to what kind of contributions I can make as an artist of sound, so that I can become someone worthy of being called one. Inevitably, I came to a decision that I must play my own music, and my own only, because then I am able to produce something that is not forced.

A thing that spurs instantaneously without conscious reference feels organic, though it needs to be worked on. It is a rather strange process, since there is no certain way of doing it. It’s like reaching out into the ungraspable clouds above.

Isn’t that what sound is? It is invisible to the eyes, without physical form. It cannot be grapped. It is in the domain of the psyche, the soul, the mind, or, God. This thing called sound, vibrates the chalice that is the body, and breathes life into beings.

When vibing with someone, I feel great pleasure. Just like that, the most pleasant sounds vibe with both the soul and the body. If the soul vibrates, I am moved to tears; if the body, I bop. Sometimes, there is music which vibes with the soul and body to a point of equilibrium and puts me to sleep, like the caressing embrace of a lover, my head lying in her bosom. 

There are sounds so catchy that loom over my head endlessly, sometimes pleasantly and sometimes hauntingly. They are popular tunes like “Ditto”, “Hypeboy”, “Shy Girl” of K-pop girl group New Jeans and “As it Was”, “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” of Harry Styles, to name a few from myriads that pop into my head.

There are also sets of sounds which petrify, paralyze, from the sheer overflow of complex sounds or beats, such as John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Jacob Collier’s Moon River, Snarky Puppy’s Lingus, or Alexander Scriabin’s Piano Sonata Number 10. Yet, this delirium is only possible when I fully emerge myself in the act of listening. Otherwise, they become irrelevant (or annoying) noise.

There are sets of sounds which regardless of being heard with attention or not, having become music or noise, are pleasant to the ears. Such music also unites the mind and body together, as if they had always been one and the same. Now those are the kind of sounds I dream to produce. 

A single reverberation contains multitudes; it contains infinitudes. A plucking of a string is composed of infinite harmonics, and it is up to the artist, and the listener to fathom its universe. A uni-verse is all that is needed. Then why do we continue to add more sounds on top of one another? I pledge to do so only when it feels organic, for all my life, I have been stacking and playing the piano with no clear awareness of sound as an artform. 

I am still unsure where to I am headed, but all I can do is embrace this uncertainty and keep on treading into the clouds. 

July 12 2023, Paju.