Author: Scott

Composer of music and sonic art. Percussionist, guitarist, computer musician. Composition/theory/electronic music professor. Husband and father. Catholic. Food and beer enthusiast. Perpetually dissatisfied with the contents of my sock drawer.

New album PENTECOST

IHM 021 cover06f
A new release from Irritable Hedgehog. PENTECOST collects five electronic compositions of the from the past five years, including two fresh-out-of-the-tank pieces and new versions of three others. You can pick it up on the Irritable Hedgehog website.

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by Scott
“But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: ‘Behold your Music!’ And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it. And as they looked and wondered this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew. And when the Ainur had gazed for a while and were silent, Ilúvatar said again: ‘Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.”

And:
“And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Silmarillion”

  

“Everyone creating is a member of the family,
Passing down genes and ideas in harmony.
The players and the cynics might be thinking it’s odd,
but if you rewind the tape, we’re all copying God.
Copying God. Copying God.
Copying God, copying God.
Add your own piece, but the puzzle is God’s.”
Jack White, “Zoo Station Zebra”
by Scott

Ainulindalë

“Then Ilúvatar said to them: ‘Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.’

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.”

Happy Birthday, J. R. R. Tolkien.

by Scott
“Emphasis flips backwards and forwards between the Pythagorean mathematical purity of music and the materiality of its manifestation; and both are always present, they tangle with each other in a fascinating way.”
Henry Brant, “Spiritual Music: ‘positive’ negative theology?”

  

“Form would not be beautiful unless it were fundamentally a sign and appearing of a depth and a fullness that, in themselves and in an abstract sense, remain beyond both our reach and our vision… [it] is the real presence of the depths, of the whole of reality, and it is a real pointing beyond itself to these depths.”
Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics” (volume 1, “Seeing the Form”)
by Scott