The Homepage for Barry Seroff

So the fourth of July is here, which doubles as my birthday! It’s a great time to donate to Democracy, and I encourage you all to click on the link to the democracy page above to learn about the piece. Time is running short, and we are not near our goal yet, so please make this birthday special and donate any little amount. It all helps. Thanks!

http://www.indiegogo.com/democracymusic

It’s official, the indieagogo page is up and accepting donations. Perks include custom T-shirts, tattoo time, keychains and a whole slew of other great stuff! Go here for more info:

http://igg.me/p/28878?a=148596&i=shlk

Thanks for donating!

It is truly amazing how quickly the buzz is building. Thanks for stopping by! We are finishing off the indieagogo page for the fundraising and then the shirts, as well as a ton of other fantastic items, will be available. Soon, patience kind people. It will be linked right here as well as a whole lot of other places. In the meantime, go to the Democracy link above to learn what this is all about, and fan me on Facebook to stay in the loop. Also, there will be other items available on the soon-to-be-present ‘store’ page right here!

Of all the instruments I’ve played, the shakuhachi was always the most daunting to compose for. It wasn’t so much the technical aspects as much as the history and reverence for the instrument that exist in the shakuhachi community. I never felt that I had a true understanding of Zen, therefore I never felt ready to tackle a piece for the instrument that so fully embodies that mode of belief.

That being said, it doesn’t mean I never imagined what such a piece would sound like. Or look like, for that matter, for in my head the visual was very important. So picture this: The stage is empty save for one lone shakuhachi player in full fuke garb including a woven basket on their head (the basket is also traditional, it is symbolic of the loss of ego that monks must achieve). The player sits perfectly still and plays a Zen piece; on the last note the sound engulfs the room from all sides as the lights dim. From there, I imagined the piece as a journey through the mind of the monk has he seeks enlightenment, but aurally I could never make it out past the opening. The moment for this piece was not present, so I left it as it was.

One day I was speaking to Stephan Moore, and he mentioned that he had designed the 15 channel system for Issue Project Room in Brooklyn known as the Hemisphere. I immediately thought of the shakuhachi piece and mentioned the concept. He invited me to perform the piece at the Floating Points festival at Issue Project Room, and I accepted. I immediately dove into writing the piece, which turned into a theme and variations on the ancient Zen piece ‘Banji’.

The piece opens as I originally conceived it, and the search for enlightenment is still present, but the chief development of the work is now more of a movement from Western thought to Eastern. I found, in studying music of both cultures, a fundamental difference in the impetus of both musics. While Western music is more about the journey and creating a sense of movement, Zen music is more about creating a sense of stillness. This is of course a gross oversimplification, however it stood as a means to develop the piece; the variations start using Western techniques such as chorale settings and harmonic motion, but gradually moving to create a deep stillness, culminating in what I think is the ultimate expression in 21st century Zen, noise (don’t believe me? Go ahead and read Merzbow’s official bio to see what I mean). I am quite happy with the result, and I very much hope you all will join me. Here’s the info:

Thursday July 22nd,
8 PM
ISSUE PROJECT ROOM
232 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY
$10 day of, $9 in advance
Buy tickets here

Also appearing will be wonderful flautist Barbara Held. Also, much help on the electronic end of things is being provided by Dr. Pat Muchmore.  Hope to see you all there!

What a wonderful, thoughtful review written by Nate Trier. Check it out:

http://natetrier.com/?p=148

I suppose the occasional blog post wouldn’t hurt. Break time. Democracy is done, next up is the Terra Incognita festival in Quebec on May 15th. Enjoying some time off, hanging with my son. See you all soon!

Many of you have asked me questions regarding the text of this work. This essay is my answer to you. Initially, the idea was simply to take texts that share the theme of ‘All that Lives is Holy’, and try and make a story out of them. Only after the poems were assembled and I began setting did any meaning reveal itself. Before you continue, you’ll probably want the text in front of you; it can be found at www.barryseroff.net/democracy.

The Origin Story

In 2001 I was working on a setting of William Blake’s A Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In the midst of composition the towers came down, making it very hard for me to focus on composing anything. So the piece sank away, but the last line of the work stuck with me; For everything that lives is Holy. 9/11 inspired me to seek out the sinews of American culture, and this little quote seemed to ring clearly through the voices of many quintessentially American artists. Whitman’s celebration of the ‘roughs’, Emerson’s Self-Reliance, Ives’ attempts to create equality of genre, Cage’s attempts to create an equality of sound itself. Also, it is the cornerstone of the Quaker belief system, a religion I have had much experience with. Quakers believe that God resides deep in the individual, and if we wish to communicate with Him all we need to do is listen (not as easy as it sounds, of course). I found after setting that the work very much mirrors the spiritual life of the Quaker as a generality as well as being a depiction of the feeling that comes over you when one is called to speak in meeting. Finally, it serves as the basis of our politics… if we have faith in our own Holiness, the best governance is self-governance. If we have the freedom to listen to the spirit within us, we can know how to best serve God and Man. So I sought texts that seemed to reflect that fundamental idea, both American and otherwise, and tried to arrange them in a way that told a story about the human spirit and its development through Holiness. This is what I ended up with.

First Movement

By living in a free society, we are given the chance to explore the potential of our holiness. Our first instinct is to pursue happiness, and it is for that reason that joy became a central theme. Thus, Blake’s Infant Joy is the opening number. Innocent, untainted joy, with no restriction or even cause. This is how we are brought into the world, and when we start exploring it we know little else but the joy of discovery. This brings the second poem, a Haiku a very dear friend of mine quoted from memory: Everywhere I Look/ Cherry Blossoms, Crimson Leaves/ Seem to Appear. This is us opening ourselves to the world for the first time, and yet we are left with a tinge of doubt implied by the word seem. This doubt led me to consider the method in which we experience the world. Our awareness of the moment is ever fleeting, and yet it’s the only thing that gives us the confidence to know that we are alive. Our presence in time begins with the uncertainty of the future, fleetingly passes within our lens of awareness and recedes into the dubiousness of memory. Emily Dickinson’s A Light Exists in Spring puts moment in the forefront. It says basically this:  When we are young, we are acutely aware of a presence beyond what we are able to perceive. She describes it as a feeling that cannot be denied by any scientific inquiry; it exists beyond reason as a deeper awareness of the beauty of the world without a real understanding of what that is. As we get older this awareness gets lost in memory until we are unsure if it ever existed in the first place. Meanwhile, life continues, but the joy as first defined by Blake is left in the past. It becomes something new, an overpowering force best described by Whitman, but first we must doubt. This is where Earth’s Answer Pt. 2 comes in. I believe Blake intends these questions to be rhetorical, but for me it read as a serious questioning of that which we assume to be true. The weight of this questioning both ‘freeze(s) my bones around’ and also ‘frees love with bondage bound’. The bane of our own awareness causes both hardship and self doubt, but also allows us to experience love deeply and with a newfound confidence. We are able to explore holiness through experience long after the blind awareness of youth has passed. This newfound love, free of fear, allows us to experience the Joy that Whitman talks about in The Mystic Trumpeter. Whitman’s joy is transcendent, life-defining. Overbearing, the music suggests; this is explored in the second movement.

Second Movement

Where the first movement is all about affirmation, the second begins with denial. ‘The Blood of Christ in itself is no more effectual than the blood of bulls and goats’. Salvation cannot be found simply through faith; action must be taken worthy of holy beings. George Fox furthers this by denying the centrality of the scriptures. While the Word can provide solace, it is not the end all and be all of how to live a good life. This undermines Whitman’s all encompassing joy and makes it into something that gives the individual great responsibility. Fox accepts the holy spirit as the source of all the good we do and the source of all Truth, but this truth is to be earned by listening to the spirit within us. But what of evil? Hate? This issue is addressed by Blake again, in Earth’s Answer pt. 1. The poem is told from the perspective of an outsider, who comments on the ways which we squander our innate spirit. We have this gift, and yet it manifests itself as selfish, cruel, and jealous, more often than not leading down the path of war, hatred and violence. It turns Whitman’s joy into merely a denial of these things, but they must be accepted and dealt with, otherwise joy is nothing but self-delusion. How, Earth asks, can the virgins of youth and morning that Infant Joy and A Light Exists portray bear this suffering and manifest themselves as they do in the first movement? Joy itself is finally corrupted in Nietzsche; it becomes an obsession that overtakes everything else, a self-perpetuating parasite that sucks any meaning that can be garnered from our existence. We long to return to the initial spirit of youth. Matthew reminds us of the innocence in the first movement, that it need not be so complicated if we accept the world as it is, as a child would. There is evil in the world, we can fight against it but we cannot deny or question it. We can only accept. This is where moment reasserts itself. The transition between the 2nd and 3rd movement is improvised by a solo performer, and alone gives us a true, honest moment for both musicians and audience. The music was composed years ago, the texts are often much older, but this transition is happening NOW, attempting to capture the moment as it happens, redirecting our attention away from the complexities of human behavior and to the beauty of the now.

Third Movement

The question of how to make sense of the world and put it in the context of the spirit still remains unanswered. In the end, it’s all about awareness. When we go out and look at the sky, and think how beautiful the universe is, it is not the stars that are the source of beauty, it is our own ability to recognize it. These are the moments that make a life well led, when we are able to silently stand in awe of beauty of the universe, and recognize that it is a reflection of the spirit that exists within ourselves.

Right here.

I am very happy to announce that Democracy has been booked at Issue Project Room for March 25th 2010. You don’t want to miss this. Here are two clips to get you warmed up. They are from the fundraiser last October.

Infant Joy:

I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer:

My former student, Nick Anton. Check out his solo at 1:57.