Contributors’ Notes

C D C O M P A N I O N Contributors’ Notes “HIGHER SONG” from Clarinet Songs Daniel Goode, 167 Spring Street, #5W, New York, NY 10012,U.S.A. “HigherSong”.Higher than what? Well, than the “ClarinetSong”that came before it in the cycle. Is that all it means?Well, no, but there must be some secrets to keep the listener thinking.All of the titles in the evening-long,clarinet-solo,song-cyclewithout -words ClarinetSongs (19791988 ) are distillationsof all that made them. In “StreamFlow with Irregularities ’’there are predictable unpredictabilities of a stream’sturbulence outside of a house in which I lived and practiced . In Whittling”, a knife forms a pattern closely controlled by the armature of the stick beingwhittled.In clarinet terms, the notes are the resultant of the left-and right-hand fingerings interpenetrating in nontraditional intervals,improvisedwithin limits and a growingsense of symmetricalform. All of this began in 1973with my piece Circular Thoughts,which is based on a repeated rising scale played without a break (usingcircular breathing , an ancient technique that originated , as did wind instruments, on the Asian continents). kept notebooks. First for recorder lessons, then for piano, these notebooks have developed through the years into musical ‘sketchbooks’, encompassinganalysesof favorite musical moments, first versions, selfencouragements ,graphic techniques, confessionalwritings and records of my experiments in musical percep tion. Since the late 1960s, my notebooks have been full of minimalist thinking: observations,graphics, numerical patterns, chord progressions .At the same time I have noted correlationswith the folk musics of the world in which differencesand similaritieswere equallyvivid. These things deeply influenced my solo clarinet pieces. Minimalism are not hard to notice. But some of the differencesreally turned my head: qualities of folk music such as warmth, intimacy,wit, archetypicalexpressiveness.I feel it is Since I was 8or 9 years old, I have The similaritiesof folk music and the absence of these qualitiesin our own new music that has turned many American composers, myself included , toward embracing the music of other cultures:Indian, Indonesian, Scotch-Irish,Chinese and Slavic, to name a few. of folk music, the ‘corporeality’of Harry Partch that I think the American avant-gardehas tried to re-find in ritualistic events, audience participation and ‘environmental’pieces. I ask you: Why should the popular musics be the only ones to trafficin intimacy, in colorful communicationswith love, bitterness, sorrow,ecstasy?I still hope for a solution to these questions of style and cultural need in whatever it is that we, ascontemporarycomposers, call our own.I think it is ultimately impossibleto pass outside some irreducible context absorbed early in life and within which one is suffused. One can be an expatriot in every way, except in the most personal way. There is also the communal aspect STAY A MAVERZCK I Wayan Sadra,Jerusan Karawitan, SekolahTinggi Seni Indonesia, Kentingan /Jebres, Surakarta,JaTeng, Indonesia 57139. The text for Stay a Maverick is a brief excerpt from an interviewwith Stephen Sondheim that appeared in an unidentified English-language newspaper in Indonesia on the day of the recording (21June 1989): The fact is, popular art dates. To stay popular is a real trick, becauseyou have to move with the times, and as soon as you move with the times,you move away from your roots. But I am a maverick. And to stay a maverick is no trick at all. The piece takesinto account both the varied regional backgrounds (WestJava, CentralJava, West Sumatra and Bali) of the individual musicians and some of the innovations in instrument design incorporated into the Gamelan Lipur Sih (LipurSih translates as “comfortingyour loved ones”) such as extended range and modal possibilities. Rehearsalsfor the instrumental sections took place over severalweeks, while the vocal part was improvisedon the day of the recording , at the composer’srequest. Stay a Maverickwas written and recorded as part of a commissioning project in Indonesia in 1989.Eight composersfrom two cities (Bandung, WestJava, and Solo [alsoknown as Surakarta],CentralJava) were commissioned to compose new works and record them in theJugala studio (in Bandung) and the PN Lokananta studio (in Solo). Other composers participating in the project were Nan0 S. B. Subono, Pande Made Sukerta,Suhendi, Harry Rusli, Otok Bima Siddharta and Dody...