Violin concerto #2 (Sound&Silence) beginning

the easiest thing a musician can do is write&harmonize a melody.Music is a human artifact but for me it is about sound and especially non-traditional harmonies,chord changes and even formal patterns. Unlike mid-century mastesr I believe motif and repetition are important but often in life there is not a pattern nor a repeating event to explain what we are experiecing.I understand some of that ideology but I enjoy motif and repetition so you will find it in much of my work.I love random noise too.I love mathematically calculated music too.My life changed whenI first heard Messiaens 20 loos at the infant Jesus and later the piano sonatas of PierreBoulez and Barraque and the work of Berioand Non as wellas reading Charles Ives memos.Essential reading if u want to say something that registers to the mind as being of and about the worl we live in N O W ! ! !
Charles Ives,MiltonBabbitt,Schoenberg,Webern,Berg,Stravinsky,BartokMessiaen,Toru Takemitsu,MeredithMonkPierreBoulez,JohnCage,Barraque,Stockhausen and many others and their students have allowed me to ask fundamental questions about music .
Music is a a human creation. For me the question is what is sound and how can I interact with it! All sound whether it is speaking to us humans needs and is worth investigating.Is it natural sound or is it formalized and filled with a content. there r so many questions worth asking that I set my self challenges each time I begin a work .Anything can happen -many things are happening so we make choices.What conditions those choices.How do we become free and make our own choices.I compose for me .If u like it fine .I don't care to please anyone .I can and have but that is not my primary purpose.Art for art's sake again.
Sound is a purely human event without ears there is no sound ;only vibrating molecules , so there must be the physiological human receptors of pinnae ,hairs to register frequency of pitch and vibration. Music is therefor about and for humans .It can be a natural construct .A piece of nature but it has meaning and purpose when we can feel and relate to it.You've heard many melodies so go ahead and try to find something else .That is the path that allows our life to be enriches and our path to be our own!
We must not only stop at what concerns us we should ask ourselves questions abut our likes and tastes for certain sounds ,triadic and quartal harmony are not all there is.Notice the sound of a faucet and the swish of water what other meaning s can these sounds have .How important is it that we recognize uses and sources.There r so many questions worth asking.I invite you to start a journey with my vocal piece Voices One. For me it is a new beginning exploring sound!
John Earl Martin III