X-Country STRING QUARTET Project: pieces for a quartet biking the world, for MUSIC & PLANET

THESE LITTLE MINIATURES, or "sayings in prose," are each meant to be small windows on a new way of looking. What has to thnk a bit, it's true, but I believe it might be a good idea to have little background philosophical reflection interpolations like these nested between Poetry, Dance & Music performances. It's a way of reinventing perhaps, what I experience as the outmoded art form of "THE CONCERT,' itself. It might be a way of filling the performance space, as it were, with a new kind of energy, new ideas, a new kind of shared meaning. What could be more beautiful than that?

[PHOTO: Last light, December, snowy Snake River country, Oregon, where these MINIATURES were written]


THREE METAPHYSICAL MINIATURES, "An extinction of a different kind"

IMAGE: Climate Breakdown basecamp, the WALLOWAS, OREGON

Photo / text of poem is at bit.ly/f5czpb

WATCH…“i’m too poor in this world, and yet not poor enough…after RILKE” https://vimeo.com/845195766

I’m too poor in this world, and yet not poor enough…after RILKE, a soundpoem

Naar aanleiding van het Couperus Jaar verlaten we Amsterdam en reizen we af naar Parijs. Midden in het centrum van de Franse hoofdstad bezoeken we schrijver en columnist Bas Heijne en gaan met hem in gesprek over zijn werk en de invloed die de boeken van Couperus hebben gehad op zijn leven. Voor even kijken we door de ogen van Louis Couperus, één van Nederlands grootste romanciers die 100 jaar geleden overleed.

© Foto: Bart Koetsier

Bas Heijne en de wereld van Couperus

Special thanks to my good friend, Simone de HAAN, Australian new music trombonist extraordinaire…I couldn’t have done this project without his help.

“What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.”

TEXT of Bertrand Russell’s Last letter used here is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/russells-last-letter.pdf

Feel free to make your own, I am sure, much better performance of the text. The track for the orchestral background (minus voice) is here:  http://picture-poems.com/mp3/russell_no-voice.wav

IMAGE: Bertrand RUSSELL, 1957

RUSSELL’S 1970 LAST LETTER, a call for peace in the Middle East

VIOLA DUO V-a sempre forte CANON; 
flips @ CENTER & runs backwards 
pdf http://bit.ly/RxG8Q8  
performance model mp3 http://bit.ly/1mwHuOq  

This is a fun study to work on, I think. A few things to give attention to are the shared pulse, notated as a quarter, and its precise energetic subdivision in four. It's best to keep the bow flat on the string, and, especially, to avoid arbitrary 'beat accents.' The rhythms are not related to the notation; they are rather geometric, and simply written down in meters of 2, 3, or 5 for clarity.  ALSO: In addition to the sustained forte sound, one should always generally play without vibrato.

The coda is by way of contrast. The dominant movement is a driving energy, so one "pushes" the 16ths; The coda lets the movement "float," without goal or direction.



Cheltenham DUO V, for two violas [young performers]

One approach to the rhythmic complexity of the piece is, of course, to simplify. Practice first as a purely percussion piece, without the instruments, singing / drumming the movements without pitch and dynamics. If you can generalize this technique of gradually progressing from simple to complex, a lot more can be learned than just the little study. 

"STUDY IN PIZZICATO" is a part of my "X-COUNTRY STRING QUARTET project." 

STUDY IN PIZZICATO performance materials:
webscore http://bit.ly/yqXZkC 
score pdf http://bit.ly/z4rm8O
performance model mp3 http://bit.ly/xTEEkR
parts pdf http://www.cs-music.com/quartets/study-in-pizzicato_parts.pdf

part of X-Country STRING QUARTET Project, "Study in Pizzicato,"

PHOTO: YUM CHENMO--"Great Wisdom Mother" at EWAM, Garden of 1000 Buddhas, Jocko Valley, Arlee, Montana

SEE TEXT at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/1000-buddhas_9-29-10_8bw.html

RETWEET #buddhism A QUESTION OF #NONVIOLENCE, OR NON-EXISTENCE—a meditation pdf [140k] http://bit.ly/1nkSlvg mp3 [3.7Mb] http://bit.ly/1nkSjDB

A QUESTION OF NON-VIOLENCE, OR NON-EXISTENCE,  a meditation . . .

PHOTO: Arinica (Arnica montana) & Butterfly, the Alps

POSTER is at: http://www.cs-music.com/features/cards/poster_sonnet-XIV-2.html

POSTER pdf is at: http://www.cs-music.com/features/cards/poster_sonnet-XIV-2.pdf

DOWNLOAD: #FreeFriday RILKE IN THE WALLOWAS 80 new tr. & 120 photos, by CLIFF CREGO pdf 212 p/ 208 Mb http://bit.ly/mA3Ly7

RILKE: Sonnets to Orpheus, XIV [second part], German/English, tr. Cliff Crego

PHOTO: 'METH HOUSE,' Northeast MONTANA, somewhere lost, biking, along Highway 2...SEE MORE at: http://bit.ly/1S2iNWG

MUSIC featured is from my THE MAGIC BOX project, for mallet instruments...."dance of the blue castanets" ...
SEE webscore at: http://bit.ly/1PeKz3h
DOWNLOAD score pdf at: http://bit.ly/23cJQUy
  


7 MINIATURES: House of Culture - For the Young - Wilderness - Creationist? - Face of Empire

"Study in 2" is part of my "X-COUNTRY STRING QUARTET project."

VIEW iPad webscore at: http://cs-music.com/quartets/study-in-two_1.html

DOWNLOAD score pdf at: http://cs-music.com/quartets/study-in-two.pdf

DOWNLOAD parts at: http://cs-music.com/quartets/study-in-2_parts.pdf


part of X-Country STRING QUARTET Project, "Study in 2"

IMAGE: The freedom of the open road, my home/office/basecamp, along Hwy 2, MONTANA....

FOR MORE ON the X-Country STRING QUARTET Project, go to: https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/sets/x-country-string-quartet


The X-Country STRING QUARTET, biking round the world, for both Music & Planet

A 17 seventeen-step poem is a kind of generalized HAIKU. How it is notated in the score isn’t relevant. Only the 17 steps as we hear/sense/feel them as a dance, a pattern of movement, is important.

A SEQUENCE strings 17 of these seventeen-step poems together, like strings of lights on a Christmas tree. Each string has a different color or theme or center.

There are 17 SEQUENCES. Here, we hear the first nine.

Each numbered pattern we hear is a single image or experience from a bike packing pilgrimage made through the mountains of IDAHO and OREGON. 120 days / 80 camps. Many more, new special places and new friends.

TEXT of SEQUENCES I through XI… (rough draft…) is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/lost-in-idaho.pdf

IMAGE: My bike packing rig, MISSOULA. I cache the bike, and periodically change over to boots and backpack for wilderness photography work, and then hike back out to my bike.

LOST IN IDAHO, A pilgrim’s notebook….Sequences I through IX

THIS IS A set of metaphysical MINIATURES from the picture-poems.com 2014/2015 CALENDAR. All b & w photography, pdf [22.9Mb] is at: http://bit.ly/1F9R54K

MUSICAL header & coda is from the STONEPINE SONATA, violin & piano, for the young performer, on Soundcloud at: http://bit.ly/1D7Ni1S score pdf http://bit.ly/1D7NrT9 This is the piece I hope to have played on a fiddle made of whitebark -- or stonepine --wood. [SEE BELOW....]

PHOTO: Old-growth Whitebark pine, or Stonepine, on solid rock, at 2500 m., Eagle Cap #Wilderness, OREGON. I'm working on a photobook project, WHITEBARKS OF THE WALLOWAS. Whitebarks of the polar bears of trees, both the oldest and most important keystone species of the high alpine zone, and also the most endangered of species, threatened on all sides by beetles, and, most especially, a hotter, drier climate. SEE MORE AT: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/whitebark_on-rock.html



Natural Justice - Freedom & Limit - Dialogue - Religion - Square of False Rationality, 6 MINIATURES

An older track written for a release which didn't materialise. Enjoy, preferably near or in a large body of water. 

Lake Echo

This is the sound track for: Watch “THINK OF A RIVER, a flowform meditation” on #Vimeo https://vimeo.com/841380035 

MAGE: Rolling Thunder Falls, Eagle Cap Wilderness, Northeast #OREGON

I'VE BEEN MEDITATING a lot recently on Thoreau's little 7-beat aphorism, "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." We are, after all, marking the 50th anniversary of APOLLO 8 & the great EARTH RISE photograph. Yes, "When we went to Moon, but discovered the Earth." And yet, reactionary forces everywhere continue their mindless attack on our planet home.

"THINK OF A RIVER (as something powerful)" was first composed in preparation of a 56-day double circumambulation of the WALLOWAS I do every year. This is a vast and rugged wilderness area where I work in the US, about 1/6th the size of Switzerland, running from alpine peaks above 3000 m. all the way to the great Hells Canyon and the Snake River at 600 m., where we can almost smell the Pacific Ocean. I do the outer circle on Mt. bike, and the inner circle--all the way round what I sense as the neutral, motionless "hub of the wheel" of the living mandala of Eagle Caps--running all the many rivers on foot.

The idea is simple: If you want to understand a watershed, walk it. And always running parallel, "If you want to understand, to "strike at the root of evil," observe as an intense form of meditation in Nature your own thought and thinking.

The two streams, that of the river, and that of consciousness, are for me one, inseparable. To understand one is to understand both. A revolution of consciousness IS a revolution in the nature of our relationship to water. And a revolution in our relationship with water IS a revolution of consciousness.

The rhythm of the piece is measured i what I call "flowform time." I prefer not to write this down in western musical notation. If you'd like to perform the piece, feel free to simply learn the movement of the text by heart, and play it by ear, from there.

TEXT, in a slightly different version, is at: bit.ly/1JARAEs Another recording, made a few years back, is on Soundcloud at: Cliff-crego – Think-of-a-river-as-something

THINK OF A RIVER, a flowform meditation...

In deze editie van Atelier Amsterdam is bariton Michael Wilmering te gast. Hij zingt in de opera die Zauberflöte van Mozart maar zal ook te zien zijn op het Internationale Vocalisten Concours in zijn eigen muziekvoorstelling Grenze(n)loos. Emma Louise Diest gaat met hem in gesprek over zijn grote liefde voor de muziek.

De grensverleggende muziek van Michael Wilmering

Composer. Writer. Photographer. Former conductor & founder of the ASKO ensemble.

On a bike/ski/hike trek of the Pacific Northwest studying native plants & climate breakdown 🌲 from sagebrush sea to whitebark pine. Composing off-grid the whole way.

#Sun2Sound 🌕 on X

THINKING LIKE A STONEPINE, a soundpoem manifesto https://vimeo.com/844665859

“LOVE & WATER, three thought poems w/ coda, PHAROS for small orchestra, “Nightwind”” https://vimeo.com/847079690 

CURRENTLY on mt bike/ski/climbing trek through Pacific Northwest, working on a photobook about WHITEBARK PINE COLLAPSE and CLIMATE CRISIS. BASES in the WALLOWAS | AMSTERDAM | ALPS. 

WEEKLY photo/poetry updates at www.picture-poems.com & THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE new music, poetry & dance performance project at www.cs-music.com

ALWAYS ON THE LOOKOUT for progressive, tech-savy, instrumental virtuosi interested in dialogue & collaborative undertakings.

CONTACT cliff@picture-opoems.com
Or on SKYPE or FACETIME @cliffcrego

MUSIC? The one thing humans do,
that makes the rest of nature jealous.

Cheltenham DUO V, for two violas [young performers]

Cliff Crego

Related tracks