Sum IV.1: String Shortets (2024-2025)

Sum IV.1: String Shortets

A series of string quartets a minute long, based on motifs from diary entries. (Final order undetermined) There will be 15 altogether, as a send-up of Warhol's 15 Minutes.

It's a Rodeo 

This is an interesting way to put the human in the loop: generate the music based on your words, transcribe the melodies and riffs, then arrange for string quartet.

The original rhythm is based on the rhythm of the words, "Part of the fabric (magic) of America is a rodeo"--as it was interpreted by AI in a funky R&B interpretation.

11/15/2004

Once jazz became suffused in urban environments, it became elite and intellectual. It's now hard to deny that the intelligentsia is part of the fabric of America as a rodeo.

 

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Gabrielle

Based on a  diary entry by Count Harry Kessler, 7/2/1907 (Paris)

Visited Renoir with Vollard this afternoon in Montmartre, rue Caulaincourt...Renoir sat on a rolling chair and painted a long, life-size blond nude, a replica of the nude at Gallimard’s. His black-haired model Gabrielle, in a loose yellow calico blouse, cleaned his brushes afterward. He had her bring out a nude of her, as she lay on the sofa with her mature, rather round form...

Motif:

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7/10 Dream

 

Based on music heard in a dream on 7/10/2024.

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All the Way To North Dakota

Derived from the 5/13/1977 diary by Keith Haring: "Took a bus to 1-94 and caught a few little rides and then a truck ride all the way to the border of N. Dakota where we ate three cheeseburgers and drank some beers. It was all farmers and when I went to the bathroom they all talked about my hair...Rednecks! Then we got a ride from a pilot who likes Bachman Turner Overdrive and then a truck ride into N. Dakota." 

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Beauty of the Air

 7/7/2022

An interesting quote by Monet that describes ambient music: “Other painters paint a bridge, a house, a boat...I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house, and the boat are to be found, the beauty of the air around them. To me the motif itself is an insignificant factor, what I want to reproduce is what lies between the motif and me.”

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At The Parade

Derived from 2 entries on May 27:

5/27/1966

Long sequence involving Bob Dylan and John Lennon, filmed riding in the back of a limo driving into central London. No script or direction other than to themselves. The piece was long and incomprehensible, made worse by the fact that they were both on drugs. The sequence was intended to form part of Eat The Document, a chronicle of Dylan's latest European concert tour.

5/27/2019

Memorial Day. Went to the parade and was thinking about America's soul...

Seed Riff: