Scott and the problem of development

I wrote a short story about a young man named Scott who went everyday to a church that had been converted to a permanent concert hall that was playing an electroacoustic piece that would last 300 years (this idea was based upon the John Cage piece Organ²⁾.  It was a single melody, each note of which lasted between 1 year and 5.  It was controlled by a computer. 

Scott would go to this church everyday and listen to the single, pure tone being played.  The church was a bit of a tourist attraction, Scott would listen to the reactions of tourists and scoff at all of them – no one got it.

I left the story unfinished – because I couldn’t figure out what happened next.  I never know how the stories end.  I can picture Scott – he is dark haired, very tan, he wears a plain blue t-shirt and brown pants and walks around hardly noticing his surroundings.  He dropped out of high school when was 18 to backpack around Europe.  I know him so well but I cannot for the life of me figure out WHY he listened to that piece of music in that church.  If I were there, in the church commenting on the music I hear, Scott would scoff at me also, because I don’t get it anymore than the tourists I created do.

            I can never figure out WHY my creations behave as they do.  

“Who but you could possibly know that?” asks the reader.

            “My friend,” I answer.  “I just open the can – where the snakes land is up to God and Gravity”

 

            The reason I cannot write music is that I do not know what makes a song a song.  Just because one event immediately follows another does not mean they belong as such.  What makes four movements into a symphony?  Reoccurrence of ideas?  That only goes so far before it seems artificial, or worse, boring.

            I can put ideas together in a way that flows.  It makes sense unless you really think about it and analyze what I have done.  Beethoven is a genius because I can find no fault with his structures.  It is easy to place one movement after another.  But with Beethoven the second movement must come after the first, there is no other idea that would work.  

~ by zimmermusic on May 12, 2008.