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"

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED in this way of doing philosophy, check out my 100 MINIATURES Project: ONE image, ONE idea, ONE new way of looking...

This poster, ART IN AN AGE OF SPIRITUAL CORRUPTION, is at http://bit.ly/1gnLfkt pdf http://bit.ly/1bweeOu

You can download all 100 b & w posters as pdf SET of 100 [24Mb] http://bit.ly/TLkDcp

Or you can toss the dice, and get a different slideshow w/ sound of all 100 posters at http://picture-poems.com/100

MUSIC HEARD in clip is at #StringQuartet STUDY IN PIZZICATO http://bit.ly/yqXZkC pdf http://bit.ly/z4rm8O mp3 http://bit.ly/xTEEkR

ART IN AN AGE OF SPIRITUAL CORRUPTION, a manifesto

OBJECTIVE NARRATIVE POEMS are "tre secco, sotto voce" descriptions, mostly of visionary scenes. Here, we imagine the singular moment when the power of mechanical intellect embodied in robotic performances surpasses that of the human performer. How one sees this depends very much on one's view of Intelligence and the nature of the Universe. The more mechanical your view, I would guess, the greater your fear of the world being taken over by computers. Personally, I fear much more how mechanical we have already become in our present admittedly hi-tech, but, in my view, spiritually bankrupt classical music world of string quartets and such. 

The text STRING QUARTET, a vision, is at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/quartet.html

STRING QUARTET, a vision [an objective narrative poem]

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,"

"21-steps"—for STRING QUARTET: A dance movement, based on light & quick improvisations on a 21-step (twenty-one 8th notes) pizzicato figure. Once the basic rhythmic patterns, etc., have been mastered, one could easily add more . . . 

"21-steps" is a part of my "X-COUNTRY STRING QUARTET project."

VIEW webscore at: http://cs-music.com/quartets/21-steps_quartet_1.html

DOWNLOAD score pdf at: http://cs-music.com/quartets/21-steps_quartet.pdf

DOWNLOAD parts at: http://cs-music.com/quartets/21-steps_quartet-parts.pdf



part of X-Country STRING QUARTET Project, "21 steps"

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"

If we were to use our aesthetic compass within the classical music world for young performers, dominated as it is by the mindlessly hobbled, prancing white  viennese horses of Mozart sonatas and concerti, trying to find a way out of the landscape of just another copy of SUZUKI BOOK five, I'm not quite sure where we might end up. We have the great Bartok & Berio duets. But then, things get dark and murky fast. 

I think a good measure of the seriousness of a music is what it creates to awaken the native talent and sensitivity of the young performer to the new and unknown. These two little violin & piano pieces attempt to do just that, in a small way.

It's ironic that the "stone pine" of the title refers to the great NESTOR of high mountain trees, the Whitebark Pine. Little did I know when I wrote the piece seven years ago that I would soon find myself in the middle of an Oregon wilderness area, at least 1000 km from the nearest violin player of any age, working on a photobook on the possible collapse of Whitebark Pine due to an historically unprecedented hotter, drier climate. So now, instead of rehearsing with young performers on pieces like this, I find myself searching at 3000 meters for dead wood that might make a good string instrument. (The Austrian water wizard, Victor Schauberger, complained already 120 years ago that, because of watershed degradation, it was becoming nearly impossible to find Norwegian Spruce of the quality necessary to create the remarkably resonant tops of Stradivari-style violins…) This, in a way, to awaken the world of the city and concert hall to the plight of the oldest species in the Northwest of North America. That is what happens, I guess, when your compass leads you totally off the map into some as yet uncharted, pathless land.

GO TO webscore is at: http://cs-music.com/strings/stonepine_1-allegro-1.html

DOWNLOAD performance score pdf at: http://cs-music.com/strings/stonepine-sonata_1-2.pdf

DOWNLOAD violin part pdf at: http://cs-music.com/strings/stonepine_1-2-vl.pdf

STONEPINE SONATA, for violin & piano, "Allegro & Nightmusic," for young performers

VIOLA DUO II, for the young player / webscore http://bit.ly/1yspCYN pdf http://bit.ly/1ud9Hb6 mp3 http://bit.ly/1ud9Ife

CHELTENHAM DUOS for viola: II, for the young performer

4 minute intro to the project. 4 minute variation on the JOPLIN classic.

SCORE http://cs-music.com/quartets/mov_strings.pdf
PARTS http://cs-music.com/quartets/mov_strings-parts.pdf

IMAGE: On the toad, biking across MONTANA…

X-COUNTRY STRING QUARTET Project “Move Over”

TEXTS are at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/freecycles_missoula.html

"Down the rough road of change, a bike’s wheel keeps its true by centering in the clear intentions of the motionless hub."


GO BIKES! a NEON GRAFFITI appreciation . . .

BRECCIA III, for #violin & #cello score http://bit.ly/1v0uRiA pdf http://bit.ly/1v0uRiD mp3 http://bit.ly/1Ddv7xB

There's also a version for two violins at: http://bit.ly/1DVg0YM mp3 http://bit.ly/1FPnag4

BRECCIA I is also on soundcloud at: http://bit.ly/1Dqq62f

The X-country STRING QUARTET project [soundcloud bit.ly/1Dqp9XP] is an initiative/idea of mine, to form a string quartet that bikes cross country, giving concerts, lectures,  demonstrations of a wide repertoire of new music in small rural communities about every 40 of 50 k during the spring and summer months. 

PHOTO: A Jaspar Breccia, a rock with distinctive, sharp, angular segments that are cemented together, forming a naturally complex composite 


BRECCIA III, for violin & cello, for the young performer, part the X-country STRING QUARTET project

BRECCIA I, for #violin & #cello score http://bit.ly/1MS090N pdf http://bit.ly/1EQU3YZ mp3 http://bit.ly/1MS0n8d

The X-country STRING QUARTET project [soundcloud http://bit.ly/1Dqp9XP] is an initiative/idea of mine, to form a string quartet that bikes cross country, giving concerts, lectures,  demonstrations of a wide repertoire of new music in small rural communities about every 40 of 50 k during the spring and summer months. In my view, the way to do this is simply TO DO IT! Even if you've never biked, if you're just a cellist alone, you just set out on the open road following the power & necessity of an idea, and everything else you need -- food, shelter, people -- will present themselves, along the way. 

BRECCIA III is also on soundcloud at: http://bit.ly/1EQUFOi

IN THE SPIRIT of free & open source, BRECCIA can also easily be turned into a string quartet. In fact, I think it would be great to play BOTH, back to back, first as DUO, then w/o missing a beat, as a quartet. How one orchestrates the voices is then up to the performers, as rightly it should be.






BRECCIA I, for violin & cello, for the young performer, part the X-country STRING QUARTET project

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

MOST OF THE CHELTENHAM Duo's for two violins or two violas I've done w/ kids in my performance project, THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE. But some reason not this one... It seems like a pretty okay piece, or at least an interesting rhythmic challenge. Webscore is at: http://bit.ly/1DLE01L Performance pdf: http://bit.ly/1DLE5Ta mp3 [5.1Mb] http://picture-poems.com/mp3/c_duo-IX-mix.mp3

THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE is an open source project, so feel free to make other versions once the music has been thoroughly understood.

CHELTENHAM DUO IX, for two violins...music for the young performer

Teach the SIMPLE, to master the COMPLEX;
Master the COMPLEX, to teach the SIMPLE.

Any NEW MUSIC of any significance will, in my view -- at least implicitly -- hold enfolded within itself a very much more simple stream of sound and movement that is appropriate for children of different ages. A kind of path of discovery that opens the door to the unknown, and awakens a sense of the marvelous. In the early 20th century, Stravinsky and Bartok are good examples, I think, but the tradition really has its real spiritual source, I think, with Bach.

CHELTENHAM VIII is little project for kids ready to go on a bit of a rhythmic adventure. It's a double duo, with four voices, so one might play it with a much larger group as well. I've done it two or three times with groups around 13 or 14 years of age.

It's best to do it without conductor. That's the only way an ensemble will develop a shared sense of rhythmic ground, pulse, and subdivision, which is what the piece is all about. 

My experience is that, rhythmically, kids can play just about anything, much more than we assume, or give them credit for. The approach in THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE is that the guide or teacher knows the pieces by heart, and can sing them without music, BEFORE the first rehearsal. Kids resonate instantly and powerful with this kind of energy. You don't even have to play violin,  although it does help as coach to be good with bow/fingering/harmonic placement stuff, etc.

THE Webscore is at: http://bit.ly/1c9Wduo The pdf is at: http://bit.ly/1FmWOQA Parts pdf: http://bit.ly/1Jpyt0h

THERE'S a version for viola, too, at: http://bit.ly/1FmXuW9 pdf http://bit.ly/1FmXzZZ pdf parts http://bit.ly/1ItDOWN mp3 http://bit.ly/1ItEmMt

THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE is an open source project. So, if you'd like to make a new, perhaps better, version for different instruments of the piece, have at it!



CHELTENHAM (DOUBLE) DUO VIII, version for 4 violins, for the young performer . . .

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 Bluesky

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.

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

Cliff Crego