Lee Hom's " Forever 1st Day " Album Diary

89/08/26~89/09/01 @ Part 12

Dear Friends,

Due to an overwhelmingly positive response to Lee-hom's weekly diary, I have decided to continue writing. It has already been over two and half months on the internet at www.sonymusic.com.tw and a month and a half for Taiwan's Xin Bao. Thank you all for supporting this effort, which simply began as a result of my frustrations when talking about the music in my new album "Forever's First Day". Since the first few weeks, in which I wrote in detail about my musical concepts and events in my album, it has become more of a venue to communicate with my readers and fans directly without being filtered through any reporters. It is also a venue in which I can keep in touch with everyone, seeing as recently, I have been spending so much time overseas. Thank you for reading and making this a worthwhile and meaningful exchange.

This week, I spent quite a lot of time reading biographies. In between when the director yells, "cut!" and "action!", there often lies an abundance of spare time, and this week, I've been indulging in books. My hotel in Hong Kong is connected to shopping mall, so I don't even have to step outside in order to make my way to the bookstore. So far I have been reading books on the so called pioneers of 20th century American classical music: Charles Ives, Edgard Varese, Henry Cowell, and John Cage. I don't want to bore you with too much technical detail about why these guys are considered important figures in classical music's history, but I want to bring this up so that you can understand more about where I'm coming from as a musician.

You've got to respect and admire a man like Charles Ives. Although he was a genius, and composed jaw-dropping music, he was supremely depressed and a recluse for most of his life. In 1947 he won the Pulitzer Prize for music.for a piece he had written 40 years earlier. In other words, he was pretty much unappreciated, his accomplishments unknown to the world, who only discovered his greatness towards the end of his life. I find it amazing that Ives had the integrity to work on something that he alone knew to be new and unique in the face of alienation and harsh criticism. And when he finally was recognized in 1947 by the Pulitzer Prize panel of judges (and subsequently by the rest of the world), Ives stood at the podium, award in hand and defiantly cursed, "awards are the symbols of mediocrity!". Although outwardly sour, people close to him attest that he was actually ecstatic about having been recognized for his accomplishments after all these years.

I am no Ives. However, this month, something very Ivesian happened to me, CNN interviewed me about a song composed over two years ago, called "Frozen Dreams" on my "Revolution" album. They were interested in me because "Frozen Dreams" was the first song ever to be composed over the internet. Like Ives, after completing the song, I knew I had done something new, something that maybe possessed enormous potential. I was excited! To my dismay, at the time, most people didn't think it was such a big deal. It was written about and talked about in the press as a news point, but never really dealt with as an important development in the meaning of the word "composer", traditionally an individual, now, in the case of "Frozen Dreams" can be an amalgam of internet surfers. Now, over two years later, CNN thinks it's news. I find that pretty funny, but of course I'm happy that the story was done, albeit eventually.

In the meantime, I am moving on, trying to infuse my music with more new ideas. Why? I guess for the same reasons that Ives chose not to compose in the style of Brahms. One, because it's been done before, and two, because I want my music to be my own form of self-expression, not someone else's.

Have a great week,
Homeboy