POEMS: diverse streams. from different collections...

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"

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]

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: '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

These are little meditations on two very different sides of "nothing." One, the miracle from India of the idea of nothing as zero, of non-BEING. The other, entirely an artifact of thought, as we project meaning rightly or wrongly onto gestures—a letter, an email, a phone call—that receive a very different kind of nothing, the nothing of NO REPLY.

RECORDED in the Eagle Cap Wilderness....Northeast OREGON.

TEXT ARE at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/shelter_12-26-09bw.html

PHOTO: Goatsbeard, skyview (Tragapogon spp.), highlighting the striking geometry of the radiating bracts, from center beyond the yellow ray florets... .  .    .       .

TWO LITTLE POEMS ABOUT NOTHING--Zero & No Reply

[Omphalos: Greek = “navel” or living center
of the body of the Earth….]

“They released two golden eagles
from the far corners of the Earth
and knew that, where they would
come together and touch wings,
there, they would find the center
of the universe.”

OMPHALOS--a longer narrative poem

photo WHITE OAK (Quercus alba) in Ohio Country 
w/ poem DEPARTURE TREE http://bit.ly/TwRSSW 

"Sweets are always the first thing missed  
and the last to be forgotten.” 

[Recorded in The Eagle Cap Wilderness, w/ in an 
Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) in the background,
one of the most enchanting songbirds of the PNW]



DEPARTURE TREE--a longer narrative poem

An adagio meditation, on the spirit of 
a WOOD FLUTE'S sound . . .

Recorded in the Eagle Cap Wilderness,
w/ a stream-side Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius)--
I call them Spirit Thrushes, because I almost
never see, but go running after their sound
as soon as they return to the high country in May.
Their song is a kind of ethereal frequency modulation
of two mistuned unison tones, occurring in cyclical,
regular way, but w/ a signature SOUND to SILENCE
ratio of about 1 to 8. 

text of poem, w/ photo is at http://bit.ly/XwheFB

WOODEN FLUTES--a long-line sonnet

TWO TEXTS, one is a saying in prose about the metaphysics of RELATIONSHIP; The other, is lyrical piece about TRUST, a word that has become highly significant for many people in what has become a remarkably highly uncertain world.

BY WAY OF footnote, I might just mention here that the history of the word, TRUST, goes back to an ensemble of shared Indoeuropean meanings rooted in the idea of CONSTANCY, which includes both "truth" and "trees."

TRUST IS...is dedicated to my friend, Bruno Müller, the amazingly talented climber, writer, mountain guide, and finder of crystals, at home in the pure granite heart and center of the high European Alps.

TRUST IS . . .

. . . for Bruno

Trust is...the pure, clear water we drink
from a mountain stream, without doubt,
without hesitation;

Trust is...the simple house of wood we build around
a deeply rooted tree, bedstead still standing on
rough granite, unmoved, awaiting the pilgrim's
return;

Trust is...the rope between two climbers,
double anchor of friendship we know will
hold the falls that are sure to come.

ENGLISH & GERMAN text is at: bit.ly/W2nynV


TRUST IS . . . / VERTRAUEN IST . . . for Bruno

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.

STRING QUARTET, a vision [an objective narrative poem]

Cliff Crego