jvjvx - Music of the Spheres
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This piece wasn't written so much as sculpted. I got a cheap version of a music program on my parents' old Macintosh computer and just splashed the notes onto the staff as if with a paintbrush until they looked and sounded nice. Then I gradually fitted all the pieces together until it all had a fairly consistent quality. Give it a chance. It may grow on you.
At the end, a second movement begins and then cuts off very suddenly. I had some great plans for that second movement, but they never ended up being realized. And one day that pirated music software just stopped working, so I wasn't ever able to do any more with it.
By the way, if you're wondering where the bizarre name came from, I decided I'd give the piece an indeterministic title by simply blindly typing at the keyboard (sort of the way I wrote the piece). jvjvx and some other gibberish is what came out. I kept the jvjvx part. But the alternate title is "Music of the Spheres" in honor of an ancient Latin philosopher, Boethius, who believed that the planets revolving in their orbit emitted heavenly sounds which, when heard by humans, enhanced their health and their senses and, thus, their enjoyment of life. These sounds he dubbed the "music of the spheres." And he could be right about it all for all I know.
Incidentally, I think we moderns know a lot less than we think we do. The ancients, including the aboriginal tribes of this continent, have much which we would do well to learn. They held on to precious fragments of knowledge gained over thousands of generation, cherishing it and memorizing it to tell to their children. In our Western culture, we look back at prior generations and assume they knew less than we do and were, thus, somehow inferior. But our lack of meaningful traditions reaching far into the past combined with our lack of contact with the very earth which gives us life leads us to lose touch with much that is important for all human beings.
Anyway, sorry for the lecture. I hope you're enjoying the music.
Dave Harris, Herndon, Virginia, April 16, 1999
Instrumental
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