Crime & Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Parte 1
Capítulo 1
“…He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate of his lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalising himself by their hideous but daring recklessness. “
Преступление и наказание
Федор Достоевский
Часть первая
1
“…Идти ему было немного; он даже знал,
сколько шагов от ворот его
дома: ровно семьсот тридцать.
Как-то раз он их сосчитал, когда
уж очень размечтался.
В то время он и сам еще не верил этим мечтам
своим и только раздражал себя их безобразною,
но соблазнительною дерзостью.”
“Today I had the estrange sensation of, While remembering something, Feeling that I already lived it”
The Story
After writing theater music for about seven years I started my first composition and recording exercise without a script as a headline. The result: noticeably incidental. I created the main theme of soon-to-create stories without realizing it.
That first exercise ended as eight themes that tell, among others, an intense year of my life. I called it: Escritorio.
MDE (stands for typewriter in Spanish) is Escritorio‘s first theme and is inspired by the moment a writer, composer or artist starts to create, to make tangible any idea, when he concentrates a lot of memories and ideas and, by moments, feels fluidity at creating.
MDE drives the beginning of a series of introspections behind the piano, the guitar and a computer, as well as the production of themes at the solitude of my room. Every song I’ve recorded until today, foracantilado; El hombre que ríe; La uña, el martillo & The Impossible Thoughts or any other project owes something to MDE.
We live in a moment and in a country where we are surrounded by elements that disturb us emotionally.
We’re surrounded by so many changes, a crisis we may say. We’re surrounded by the unfair and the inexplicable. On a side, we find elements of satisfaction just by rising our sight. We’re in the middle of a social upheaval. We react with hunger, fear, joy and grief. Today we are dreaming what yesterday was repudiated and we are accepting as truth what yesterday was lie.
After two months of intense changes, including frustrations, achievements, exhaustion, rest, dreams, travel, music and noise; in the middle of a piano, a cuatro, and baby toys, I’m finally understanding:
I’m in shock …
and sometimes the commotion that moves slowly is the most violent of all.
“There is an hour just at evening when the plains seem on the verge of saying something; they never do, or perhaps they do-eternally-though we don’t understand it, or perhaps we do understand but what they say is as unstranslatable as music…” Jorge Luis Borges,Fictions
I.- Ir quitando, poco a poco, la estructura a la música para así lograr los paisajes anhelados. Composiciones que demuestren y hagan sentir el proceso de creación donde no veamos únicamente el acabado final. El resultado final sería el silencio. II.- Me encontraste, me abandonaste. No quiero verte hoy. No quiero verte más, al menos no olvidado. Soy el que necesita, soy el que quiere, soy el que extraña, soy el que cede, soy el que cela y el que cree, el encontrado, el abandonado. Soy el que se excita, el que te espera, el que olvida, el que reprime, critica y se entristece. Soy el que miente, el que juzga, el que teme. Soy uno, soy nada, el que pretende y alcanza, el que perdona, duda, se ofende y se extraña. Soy el que compone y drena, cierra los ojos y persevera, el que se perturba, se masturba y te sueña. Soy el que evade, no evade, te enfrenta y recapacita, te arropa y mira. Soy el que ama, el que drena, el que se engaña y odia, rechaza y reza. Soy lo malo, soy la tristeza, soy yo, el que piensa y camina. Quiero verte hoy, quiero verte siempre. III.- Persecu_ A veces queremos dejar huellas de nada. IV.- Me he perdido tantas veces… cada vez me cuesta más encontrarme. Entre la noche y cada pisada mía no defino los sonidos. Quizás no pretendo encontrarme. Espero a la mañana para buscar tus respiros. De noche los veo, ya no los espero en mi oido. Mañana vuelvo a casa. Cada vez me cuesta más encontrarme.
…as a whole-life-rite I walked into my room, took my needle; smiled once again at Sabato’s volume and left for the kitchen.
What hurt me the most was not being able to look at my baby anymore.
The Hypothesis
We think in the future. We think in the past – remember. I believe the changes of frequency and intensity of this notion makes us different from moment to moment.
Today, as I walk, I glance at the future more than the past. For this reason I made an hypothesis of life – my vision of life (See diagram below)
As we grow up our vision of the future increases, we tend to look back less, until a certain point when the past regains importance. Suddenly – maybe gradually – our thoughts decline. With death they reach infinity.
I took my hypothesis to Gerry Weil (Pianist and mentor) and asked him to make his own:
Interesting.
Our eyes, our rites, your room and rest, On Heroes and Tombs, Gerry and I are changing with everything that can be remembered, looked upon and unexpected.
Initial Vision
“While the road to otherness doesn’t stop being heard, I wake up with a normal day, trying not to think of some things and after thinking them I continue to follow my road.
Impatient to reach the line, sometimes I try to speed-up my steps. I’ll never know If my effort is in vain. I’ll always be another.
I love to look at the way back, even though I know there isn´t one. I can imagine the long travelled distances and the beginning seems so far… when it is so close.”
Background
Based on the book El camino de la alteridad(The road of otherness) by Antonio López Ortega is part of Escritorio (Track #6) and was part of a compilation of rock music in Venezuela by Gozadera Records.
“…I think of his music as a remembrance of a state to which every human being, at his prime, wishes to return, and within the same feeling of deprivation, the dark conscience of something now missing and once owned should be hidden away”. August Strindberg, Inferno
In 1993 I listened to Astor Piazzolla for the first time. It was like any other day of my teenage years: At Luis Fernando’s, guitar, Ice Tea, cigarettes & lot of talk. I remember taking a few Leonel Persecuta among them. We said something about opera – we weren’t at the disposition to listen to it at the moment – and walked back to the room. Two guys, age 14, a year from the death of this unknown man and 16 years on from that recording discover something that will change their lives without even knowing. For many years that followed “El Troesma” played songs like “Cité Tango”, “Pia-sol-la-sol” and “Persecuta” always enlightening and teaching me. Later on I stumbled onto Tango: Zero Hour, La Camorra as well as the need to listen to his music for the first time.
Ten years on from that late adolescent afternoon, as I began to write Escritorio, I began to listen to that recording and decided to make it part of my new reality; from my day to day to any old afternoon.
The Story
Inspired in an imaginary Silent Film Festival with live music and in the complaints I received for my handwriting over the years:
“They began to roll the film only after they made us read what was to happen. There seems to be certain rules; I believe that one of them demands that the text be written in letters legible by all. They would face a problem when an illiterate person takes part.
The text narrated the story of an anonymous who was walking on an odd day of the month. It described the psychological persecution of “anonymous” after he passed through the glance of another unknown.
The film is affected by the audiences knowledge of the story; The film’s singular purpose is to heighten tensions, deepen emotions.
They began to roll the film only after they made us read what was to happen. The last time I went this month (apparently it’s become habit) I closed my eyes during the music. I couldn’t see a single image, strangely, I am always walking with fear of turning around, fear of knowing that it is chasing me, fear of running, of opening my eyes and not understanding, not knowing what it was all about.
Composing Stories 