Writings About Music

Equally Precious

Regarding the question of what is the primary motivation for being involved with music, my overriding belief has been that creating a new composition transmits through the miracle of detailed sound ways to stimulate improvements in how we navigate life, and those who help facilitate the hearing of such inventions are equally precious for the quality of our existence.

 

 

My first composition, worked on in tenth grade with Adele Berk, who studied with Edgar Varese, is titled Promenade des Tortues, featuring a clarinet timbre. The ostinato figure played by a clavichord timbre together with the exotically modal nature of the piece seems to anticipate my later usage of Indian ragas.

 

 

A new composition, Azure Rivers, also includes clarinet, following the appearance of kemanche and trumpet hues. This appears to be a new raga I invented (discovered), finding its unusual melodic characteristics irresistibly inviting.

- Michael Robinson, October 2017, Los Angeles

 

© 2017 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

 

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer and writer (musicologist).