Where I Belong

What I mean, is, I have found my place within modern art.

Abstract Expressionism

I don't think it would be far off to call the piano writing of the past several months "Abstract Expressionism". I am trying to get to the bare bones of my own harmony and subjective self- expression.

Modern Jazz and Modern Art

Jazz was born in a world where abstract art was also being born.

Where I Belong

I have found my place.

Emotional

It strikes me that the music I write is very emotional, and very particular to the kind of emotion the listener might be willing to experience, at that moment. Very subject to mood, and individual experience.

The Interpretation of Dreams

You know, Norma, pictures have changed quite a bit.

Under the Bell Jar

The composition "Feature", posted here today, reminds me what a bell jar I am under, sometimes, in the studio. It was recorded shortly after the piano was tuned, and you can tell it is about the piano.

A Recording Studio of One's Own

I featured the piece "Introaction" on facebook this morning, because I am listening to it myself, (it feels to me to be the only recent piece to have the right quality for this moment),while I am reading. In recent months I have invited to the studio listeners who are following what is happening in the composing, to listen to alternate takes of recent compositions, and to longer versions of what is edited for broadcast, but may be released in total on CD's. We call such gatherings "Studio 33 sessions" and they evolved because of the need for fellow listeners to be present sometimes, to create a vibe to help absorb and consume all the "playback" tracks involved in having a recording studio of one's own. Now there is the Virginia Woolf concept: "A Recording Studio of One's Own".

Kantat för älskande (Cantata for Lovers)

I am writing material for a show in 2011. The songs in the show are to be sung in all the languages from which I am descended. The first series is in Swedish, "Kantat för älskande" (Cantata for Lovers). The ten poems I wrote for the lyrics have already been translated into Swedish. When I compose something in two languages, I like to write the melody on both the original English and the translated lyrics at the same time, going back and forth, in the singing, and that is how I perform them as well. I am very moved by the sound of Swedish, my mother is descended from Swedes on both sides. Singing in Swedish is all about my mother. So naturally I get through a trial melody, and I am already balling my eyes out. Even learning to pronounce a few words at a time sends me into the zones.

In digging for the melodies, the first melody that was seeming to work for me was to match the lyrics that include the phrases "Poeter stapplar omkring i mörkret, stöter i väggar, Med kompositörer är detän värre. Vi bara hör, och är inte ens säkra pa vad vi hör.

"Poets stumble around in the dark,

bumping into walls.

With composers

its even worse.

We only hear things, and aren't even sure of what we're hearing."

The beautiful Swedish translation is by Eivor Kormak.

To the piano.

Thinking about Rahel Varnhagen

I named the current composition for Rahel Varnhagen, a very unusual 18th century Jewish thinker, because I have been reading her biography by Hannah Arendt. Rahel had such a way of analyzing and living with her own unhappiness: she had to make it interesting to herself, and worthy of appreciation, and cherish her own survival as an accomplishment. 1771-1833.

narrative structure inside the music

I think there is a narrative in the pieces posted since last June, when I started to take apart my piano playing, and music writing. Each week I set myself a chord voicing or harmonic task, and followed my feelings, living with the sounds I had recorded the day before. Gradually I pretty much stopped listening carefully to anyone else's music, just listened to what I was writing, and let the music I was writing, take me to the next music to write.

Charnie Guettel: the first day of the Blog

I just posted the jazz piano piece "Rahel Varnhagen" on www.youtube.com/charniemaeguettel.

Today is the beginning of this blog, a place to comment on the musical structure of the compositions I am writing.