TATTOO

Another tattoo is never going to make me younger, or tougher, or more relevant. It won't reconnect me 10 years from now with some spiritual crossroads in my life. No. At this point I think my body is like an old car. Another dent ain't gonna make a whole lot of difference. At best it's a reminder that you're still alive and lucky as hell. Another tattoo, another thing you did. Another place you've been.”

– Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown, Season 6 Episode 7: Borneo.

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I have seven tattoos as of writing these notes in April of 2025. I am almost always thinking about when to get the next one: permanent etchings on my body to signify a place I’ve been, a person (or, in one case, pet) in my life, or periods that have changed me. Ostensibly, tattoos hold meaning. All of mine do, but I am also becoming increasingly interested in tattoos for the sake of tattoos. The feeling I get after each one is that I am getting closer to a more accurate version of myself. Like a sculpture that takes form by chiseling away at a formless mass, when those needles dig into my skin and I come away with art on my body, something truer emerges into focus.

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TATTOO is indeed a metaphorical representation intended to take on the shape and meaning of tattoos through music, but it is also a literal representation of the tattooing process. In other words, the form reflects an actual tattoo: split into two parts, one might hear Part 1 (obliterate all prior things) as the line work of a tattoo, whereas Part 2 (shadow work) is the shading of those lines. Even further, tattoo-like gestures and textures permeate this music through repetition of rhythm and melody, harmony that evolves from a single pitch to more colorful chords, and a spaciousness akin to the constant starts and stops of a tattoo artist embedding ink into your body.

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Then, there is the music from the performer’s perspective. Considerable time and thought went into crafting the visual embodiment of this music to ensure that these textures and gestures come to life in an intuitive and organic way. Throughout this piece, graphic and spatial notation are used to obfuscate the metric pulse inherent in most music: my goal here is to free the performer from feeling a pulse until it’s necessary to do so.

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The composition begins with little musical information (there is no meter, tempo, or rhythmic detail): the performer sees a single pitch with a textured line in gradient that indicates how to perform this pitch in time-space. For the first quarter of the composition, musical information is gradually filled out; first, with small rhythmic gestures filtering in, then tempo (marked “when applicable”), followed by meter, until finally the music appears mostly in traditional notation. This is a tattoo manifest in music, an image coming into focus before your very eyes (or in this case, ears) through time.

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When I first began to imagine this music, the images in my mind were like those moments in films where some sort of montage full of people flashes through a character’s mind: I pictured my loved ones, my closest friends, mentors, and colleagues. Certain memories kept returning as I worked on this piece — not dramatic milestones, but quiet moments that seem to linger.

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Sitting on a porch in Owensboro, Kentucky, alone, listening to the rain the morning after a concert.

Having tacos in the high desert with a longtime good friend.

Going back to a bar in Tampa after years away, and picking up with the bartender right where we left off.

Hours at a standing bar in Fukuoka: craft beer, Chinese food, and feeling right at home with new friends.

A wedding in the Irish countryside that went late into the night, sharing a cigarette with the bride’s brother.

An afternoon in Okayama, Japan — only there for a few hours wandering around, but I think about it often.

Any given morning walk through a foreign place, watching the city wake up and slip into their day.

July 4th in Big Sur with my wife — no fireworks, just stars and the sound of the ocean.

Dinner after dinner at the same restaurant in Tampa, eventually becoming friends with the chef.

A tiny café in Beppu, under the train tracks, where we found a connection despite the language barrier.

The last week of my dog’s life — doing what I could to help her feel safe and at peace.

Our wedding, in the backyard, with a few close friends and the night stretching on.

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I can’t explain how, even though these fragments don’t form a narrative, exactly, they carry a certain kind of gravity. This thread runs through TATTOO, not as something spelled out in sound, but as an undercurrent — always moving, just beneath the surface.

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Finally, I need to speak to the process of composing TATTOO and how integral the experience has been to my inner creative world. No one asked me to write this music (a first in my professional life). Not only that, or perhaps because of that, TATTOO took me three years to compose. Most of the time spent writing this piece was full of dissatisfaction… more time being spent “fixing” the piece than actually putting notes on the page. I think this is an experience most composers encounter, but for the first time, I felt an urge in my creative life that something wasn’t “right.” The music didn’t feel good, and I wasn’t sure what to do.

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It was only through time and space, working a little on the piece for a couple of weeks at a time, then returning to it months and months (in some cases, a year or more) later that I gained the clarity necessary to figure out what to do. A lot about TATTOO is quite different from music I have written prior; still, a lot isn't that different at all. The entire time I was composing this piece I felt urged to push past some intangible wall to arrive at a point I have not yet been before, and at least I feel as though I have succeeded. The achievements of TATTOO are less about the musical outcome, and more about resultant changes to my self as a creative being and landing in a space that my music has been pushing me to occupy for some time now.

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TATTOO is a meditation on these things and more; an invitation for performers and audiences alike to enter a space where they, too, can reflect on the threads that have led them to the person they are today; a ritual in sound and silence; and, an instrument of projection to uncover their own hidden truths.