Friday Music at Five Episode #1: ATTENTION (PRELUDE AND FUGUE IN F#) - Keyboard Improvisation | AsteriskedMusic.Com
Time to kick off your weekend with some new music! Welcome to Friday Music at Five, Episode #1.
Attention (Prelude and Fugue in F#)
I have decided to name this Prelude and Fugue "Attention," because it was inspired by the pen illustration featured in this post ("The Boy and the Cat," by Betzael Corvo). Mr. Corvo goes by @betzaelcorvo, here on Steemit. What strikes me about this work of art is looks on the faces of the cat and the boy. They seem to be staring raptly at some object in the distance, engaging their full attention to it.
Attention is an interesting thing from a phenomenological point of view. Heidegger describes objects of being as emerging through our participation in reality. Objects emerge from the void as a consequence of us negating all that is not radically other. Objects actually emerge as a result of us paying attention to them. Until we do, they are simply part of the undifferentiated manifold of experience.
Objects of Attention
In a very real sense, things, as such, do not really exist until they are formed by us paying attention to them. Things have a way of accumulating meaning the more we dedicate our attention to them. When we do not direct our attention to things, they often have a tendency to fade into irrelevancy. But when we do direct our attentive thoughts and actions to them, other things accumulate around them until they become irreversibly embedded in our sense of being; replete with rich relationships of meaning with other objects of experience.
"The Boy and the Cat," by Betzael Corvo, taken from [SteemIt.Com]; this image is used with the permission of its creator.
Projection
When an object has become deeply embedded in our experience of being, it begins to have a sort of gravitational pull. It begins to affect our language; consequently, it ultimately affects the way we think. That which captures our attention redefines our very reality. This is how objects of experience became our religion, which then became our language. Religion establishes a hierarchy of being. This hierarchy of being evolves into language. That language becomes our means, not only of communicating but of thinking rationally. What we pay attention to determines everything about us and our life experience.
Some Notes on Attention (Prelude and Fugue in F#)
Just like my other Preludes and Fugues, this one is modal with impressionistic, modernistic, and/or minimalistic tendencies. This particular one operates in two different modalities. The modality of the Prelude is similar to F# Major, although it does drift into some Mixolydian, blues, and quasi-octatonic textures and has a significant amount of dissonance. It also explores the parallel minor a bit. The Fugue has a unique modality similar to f# minor, but with a lowered 2nd scale degree.
The Prelude is highly melodic. It has a steady ostinato in the lower register, and it slowly turns over a melodic motif in the higher register. It dwells on it and explores it, much like someone carefully paying attention to a fascinating object. The Fugue is a two-part canon. I chose to do this because I wanted it to reflect the two characters in the drawing. Just as the two characters in the drawing seem to have resonant reactions to whatever it is they are observing; so too do the two melodic lines of the fugue play off and harmonize against each other. This fugue is somewhat unique in that, in the development section, there is some extensive variation of the theme, rather than a predominantly tonal development.
The piece ends on the fifth scale degree; as if to suggest that the object in the distance is still something of a mystery to the observer.
Announcing the New Podcast Series
The Asterisk Piano Podcast (available on iTunes) now has, as its primary feature, the Friday Music at Five series (F.M.F.). This is the first official episode of that series. Stay tuned, and kick off your weekend with new music every week, published every Friday around 5 P.M. E.S.T.
Copyright, Philip John Cornell, 2018, some rights reserved. You may download this content freely. If you share it, it must be prominently attributed to "PJ Cornell," and if shared online, a link to the original content must be provided in a prominent location. This audio and video content may not be used for commercial purposes or modified in any way without permission from the copyright owner.
Only the latest episodes of this show are available on iTunes and Soundcloud. To locate archives of this podcast, visit: http://pjcornell.com/category/asterisked-music/piano-podcast
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For me music is just music. Don't get me wrong - I love music but I know nothing about it. It's just beautiful sound that makes me feel good and makes me want to dance. Your notes made me think that there is so much behind it and that I was being an ignorant until now. I don't understand some words that you used (for example Mixolydian or octatonic) but I will google them and understand their meaning :)
I have seen this drawing before and I loved it. Your music is perfect for it. I can't even describe how I feel listening to it (listening for the second time). It's simply beautiful. It makes me relaxed and happy. It's soothing my soul. It's clean and refreshing. Very nice :)
Thank you for sharing!
Well, since art is anything which is meant to be experienced for its own sake, it should not require secondary explanation. I'm glad you enjoyed it. You don't really have to understand the mechanics of it, although I'd be happy to answer your questions about that. The mixolidian scale is similar to the major scale, except that the seventh scale degree is lowered by a half tone. The octatonic scale simply consists of alternating halftones and full tones (resulting in 8 scale degrees, rather than 7, ergo "octa-tonic").
None of that is crucial to understand if you just want to listen to it. I actually started writing about my music simply for SEO purposes; search engines prefer to see posts with 300 words or more. So, I write about my music to give my posts better odds of performing well in the search ratings. That being said, as it turns out, a lot of people like reading about the theory, and I think that's great.
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@pjcomposer,
I 100% agreed with your statement. If we do not pay attention to our surrounding, object won't be existence. It exist only if we noticed them.
In this post of yours, you very good in philosophy as well. You have explained it very well although I need to read twice in order to understand fully what you tried to deliver but it worth my time. You also have chosen the music well to explain how this classic music was played with your own review.
Now I wonder, you are a musicians or a philosopher :P Both also you can elaborated it well in this post of yours.
This is a heideggerian idea. I am attempting to elaborate on his introduction to metaphysics, here. I really think there are other practical implications of this idea that he could not have foreseen (or, perhaps, he did). Namely, in the study of leadership and psychology. The new age movement plays with this idea as well, although I don't think most new age adherents really grasp the finer points of this.
We can choose what we emphasize in our experience. When we consciously make a habit of doing this in an intentional way, we are actually empowered to change the course of our lives. That's the real implication of this, and it's a powerful idea.
As to whether I'm a musician or a philosopher: I'm both. I studied composition as an undergrad, and I studied philosophy in graduate school.
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Wow this was simply wonderful, a warm and deep sound, at least that's what he told me, you conjugate very well the music with the philosophy.
It is interesting that you have been able to create this piece just by looking at the drawing of that great artist, who for his drawings are impressive, A big hug @pjcomposer
Thank you! :)
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Hah Im listening to some rap music and then I clicked on this and felt ashamed :D Since this is kinda the real art...while rappers...dunno, are kind of low level art. I just can't help myself haha:D I like rap soo what can I do :D
You like what you like, man. I like a lot of rock and metal, myself. I think it's fine to be a complex person who resonates to a wide variety of things. I resonate just as much to sevendust as I do to Prokofiev. I see no contradiction, there, much less guilt.
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The drawing is just great, it's one of the drawings I've seen in Steemit that I liked the most. What you describe about Heidegger and the objects seems to me quite correct. I do not know why I thought automatically about the money, and the value we give it, crossed thoughts, I suppose.
Money is the perfect example of this, actually. It is literally a fiction that only exists and has meaning because we pay attention to it. As a consequence of our attention, money connects to every part of our experience. You get it, man.
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So cool, that you have been inspired by a work of betzaelcorvo, by the way is very good drawing.
Your work conveys too many sensations, that's brutal, it has some sadness, nostalgia, confusion (especially when there are unexpected dissonances). I like that personally, and it fills me.
It reminds me a little of a Spanish pianist who has great works, I suggest you listen when you can is called Jose Carra and has compositions with an air of jazz mainly and much of classical music.
Wow... he's pretty good. I've added him on Spotify. I love music with complex harmonies. Which is what I typically go for myself, as you can tell. Lol.
Thank you.
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