- Program Notes
- Program notes for Signos fijos, signos mutables:
Signs are everywhere. Whether literal or metaphorical, they always seem to speak to us, guide us even. Some of them appear as frozen, unchangeable entities. Others undergo transformations, evolving into new shapes and silhouettes, which in turn lead to new phenomena and experiences. The musical discourse of this piece resides within the boundaries of this context — it unfolds and moves forward between fixed and mutable signs. These signs are presented to us in a dispersed manner, as distant and detached incidents, which only bear logical significance when looking back at the path they've already laid out. When the mind arranges various disjointed temporal spots in such a way that it can create a narrative out of it, the signs begin to interact between themselves, taking on diverse meanings. Even though they are separated by time and space, some of these are repeated (either contiguously or over large temporal spans). Others bear some resemblance to previous ones but are rather perceived as variations of past perceptions. Even further, others would seem to make no sense within the delineated route. In the end, this proves to be false as everything within the borderline of the road is interconnected. When we are conscious of the similarities and differences planted throughout the path, a new level of awareness can be reached — we begin to notice that all of the separate messages are part of one big story with diverse plot lines.
On the purely musical aspect, this composition draws inspiration from various sources throughout the history of Western music. The multiplicity of temporalities has been pointed out in the late works of Beethoven, Stockhausen made extensive use of this idea with his 'moment form', and Debussy's 'Jeux' is a sweet cocktail of musical crossroads. 'Spatialized music' can be traced back as far as the Venetian school of the late Renaissance. Rhythmical nuances like the ones found through the piece are as old as music itself, although 'delay' technology was surely in mind when composing them. In this discourse, there are not many contrapuntal lines in the traditional, melodic, sense. Instead, there is counterpoint of material between the instruments, with a focus on gesture-types that can be followed as they bounce from one guitar to another or are juxtaposed. The spectrum of the whole may be regarded as having an introspective, almost dream-like, quality on one end and a very explosive and straightforward attitude on the other. These two 'tones' make up the temper of the piece, which could be described as 'mentally unstable'. A match between the continuous, serious, resonant, and homogeneous against the disruptive, dry, wry, and heterogeneous is held here. As the music unfolds, the listener is drawn to a temperamental soundscape that gravitates between serenity and sudden outbursts. All this back and forth reaches its peak when four different time grids are heard simultaneously, reinforcing each other in a common temporal ground while battling for aural supremacy. In the end, the cumulative intensity that emanates from the music is slowly dispersed among the instruments.
- Recording Notes
- The composer (Juan Virgilio Colón) was the recording engineer for the audio and owns the full rights to it.
- Record Label
- Quadrivium Records
- Performer Credits
- Eren Tanyeri, Héctor Vázquez Gil, Brandon Kempf, Héctor Alfonso Torres