Invisible Fabric
David Beardsley
Only your notes are pure contraption,
Only your song is an absolute gift.
—W.H. Auden from "The Composer"
My compositions are a contraption too!
😄 Feed it notes!
—David Beardsley
I was a little surprised at David Beardsley's response to those two lines of Auden. His response was playful and not a bit pretentious. He didn't talk of heaven or ecstacy — those were my words. He joked of notes. Then I remembered a story about Auden that I had forgotten. The story goes that when students wanted to study with him, he would ask, "Why?" When they answered, "Because I have something to say," he would send them to the English composition teacher to write essays. But the student who answered "I like to play with words" was invited to study with the poet. Only a composer would say, "😄 Feed it notes," but that is the job, so you might as well get used to it.
My years of adventure are history.
I just pay the bills and write music now.
—David Beardsley
Music as an Appliance
When I am asked what is my favorite music, I respond, "When the day is hot, I love my air conditioner. At breakfast, I am fond of my toaster." After that cryptic response, I am generally left alone. But I really mean it! Music is a mental, emotional and spiritual appliance! I listen to David Beardsley music because of what it does for me. And what it does is sometimes necessary!
I'm usually looking for intervals in the tuning that show a special mood, a color we may not be familiar with. The pieces from this year have a compositional logic inside that make them pulse forward. Invisible fabric.
—David Beardsley
When my mind will not shut off, and meditation is not going to happen, I desperately need some music that my brain will not decipher and dismiss, and that for me is anything by composer David Beardsley. Each note on all of the many albums of his music has its own story to tell, and there is no repetition at all to my ears. And all of the changes are subtle. The timbre and tone, duration and silence between notes has been felt in the composer at that moment, because he knows his job is to "😄 Feed it notes." What I hear is a performance that leads me into a meditative state that could be described as "heaven," on a day when nothing else will calm my burning brain.
If listeners aren't carried away to Heaven, I'm failing.
ORIGINS
There was a Rolling Stone article about La Monte in '75. Sometime in the '80s, there were marathons on WKCR. I finally got to hear the Well Tuned Piano and other pieces on the radio. 1996-2003, I was at the Dream House quite a bit. La Monte looks just like the photos, denim.
—David Beardsley
The seed had been planted. David learned by listening, and also by reading which continues today. When asked about his weekend even now, his response: "I'll be reading about minimalism and listening to music."
My first acquaintance with Robert Frost was when I was twenty-two. ... I thought that I could do better, so I started writing my own poetry.
—Joseph Brodsky
1980, Terry Riley's Shri Camel was released. I read a review, ran out and bought a copy and was interested. I didn't do more than listen for years. In 1994, I bought a digital synthesizer that could be microtonal and I was off to the races. I think it was affordable. I had a credit card.
—David Beardsley
A more common response to La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Morton Feldman and most composers of the 60s and 70s would be listen in awe and wonder. Not David Beardsley! He didn't listen casually and his commitment to this new sound was total!
I was a regular at AFMM (American Festival of Microtonal Music) concerts. I was at every one for a few years, same with La Monte Young's Dream House. And the Harry Partch instruments with staying with Dean Drummond & the NewBand.
—David Beardsley
David Beardsley has become an authority on this music, but few among us would become a composer in response the music at the American Festival of Microtonal Music. Very few. He has read the theory, and heard the music, but most of all since 1994 he has learned by composing with a remarkably talented ear for the sound, timing, timbre and form of a music designed to replace racing thoughts with subtle sound.
The Sound of the higher level naturally reaches far downward. Further, the flow of the subtle substance (Sound) is further than the flow of the gross substance (Sound), and naturally the subtle permeates the gross substance.
— Maharishi Mehi Paramahansa Ji, The Philosophy of Liberation (Moksha-Darsan)
David Beardsley is far too practical to attach the insights of a yogi to his music. He likes to play with sound, and he has refined his compositions to a very high level with that "liking." As a listener, I am not constrained to such practical concerns. To me, the freedom from my own thoughts this music affords me can feel absolutely miraculous. I have listened to about a dozen of David Beardsley's compositions varying from 10 minutes to over an hour in length. For me, they are like a successful meditation in which the repetitive "demon" thoughts in my mind are eventually banished. The relief is palpable and pervasive.
Q. Are you adjusting for more harmony or finding an interval that moves you outside the norm?
David Beardsley: Searching for an emotional response that doesn't exist in equal temperament systems.
What more could a listener ask than that? I truly believe that music can function as a kind of appliance in my life, but only if it is GOOD music. I reviewed an album that called itself "healing" before, and I trashed it for that claim. All good music is healing, and that album was exclusively one note played on a didgeridoo! Real composers don't make those kind of claims in my experience.
I'm usually trying out something new, a compositional or tuning idea. I hope someone likes it.
—David Beardsley
I like it.
David Beardsley's CV
There is link below to David Beardsley's "bio" on his website. His musical education and experience is detailed there at much greater length. He has earned his place in your heart with 29 years of careful listening and composing. The most important part of a musicians body are his ears. I invite the reader of this review to go now and listen using one of the links below.
The cover of Invisible Fabric hammers it home. The magenta colors are exactly what Marian Zazeela's Magenta Lights look like in the [La Monte Young's] Dream House. Also like the cover of the 2nd Dream of China. Folks make that connection.
—David Beardsley
If you are in the mood for Beethoven or the Rolling Stones, this might not be the night for David Beardsley. But I promise you will find a day in which nothing else will do. I will be listening to one or another of David's many albums long after this review, and there will be days, as there have already been days, when there will be no better choice than this composer and great lover of music, David Beardsley.
Piano lessons when I was a kid for a few years. Music theory in high school. Self taught guitar player, although I don't play any more. Raga classes with Michael Harrison and a few raga lessons with La Monte too. Just the very basics.
The raga phase was when I was around 40. I was already writing microtonal music, but didn't discuss just intonation with them too much. I made it a point to hang with the NYC microtonalists.
—David Beardsley
Even this Cliff Notes version of David Beardsley's education and experience is sufficient to emphasize how much deeper he has gone into the practical process of composing this music. David knows a thing or two about this music, because he has composed a thing or two over 29 years. I hear that experience when I listen, and I relax knowing that I am in good hands. And then this music takes me somewhere I really seriously need to go.
Conclusion
Music takes many forms and we can listen to it for many reasons. The important thing to look for, when choosing something new and unfamiliar to listen to, is whether or not you are being sold a product, or a genuine labor of love. I can hear the love in all of David Beardsley's music, but David may be more practical, and even more subtle in his words.
Just intonation sounded interesting (a 1975 Rolling Stone article about La Monte Young) and I loved it when I finally heard it (1980, Terry Riley, Shri Camel) — the resonant, beatless large intervals and the sparkling microtones.
—David Beardsley
I heard an artist long ago make an astonishing statement that I had almost forgotten until this moment writing about David Beardsley. This applies as well to David's music as it did to that artist, whose name, unfortunately, I can no longer remember:
This is what I do. People buy it, and they call it art. I would do it if they didn't call it art! I would do it if they didn't buy it!
—The Unknown (Forgotten) Artist
David sells his albums on Bandcamp. You have buy one for download for $2. What else can you get for $2 that might make a difference in your life?
David Beardsley's Links
The Closing Verses
During the “interview” process, it became clear that both the composer David Beardsley and the reviewer believe that Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching” Chapter 12 should be part of this review. The composer prefers Ursula McGuin’s translation, which has been included here immediately below:
12
Not wanting
The five colors
blind our eyes.
The five notes
deafen our ears.
The five flavors
dull our taste.
Not wanting
The five colors
blind our eyes.
The five notes
deafen our ears.
The five flavors
dull our taste.
Racing, chasing, hunting,
drives people crazy.
Trying to get rich
ties people in knots.
So the wise soul
watches with the inner
not the outward eye,
letting that go,
keeping this.
drives people crazy.
Trying to get rich
ties people in knots.
So the wise soul
watches with the inner
not the outward eye,
letting that go,
keeping this.
Go to Bandcamp for the active links to these albums. The images below are not linked to anything.
Some older and notable David Beardsley albums:
Email: billymwb@gmail.com
Submissions accepted. Send a link, not a CD. Lyrics and artwork plus any information is appreciated. Access to artists for interviews encouraged.
No comments:
Post a Comment