Sample pages from Notes

Richard Minsky
NOTES
This is a free sample of Notes to give a sense of what is inside
If you would like to order a copy or learn more about this edition
CLICK HERE
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Stockport, New York
Richard Minsky
2014
5
Copyright ©2014 Richard Minsky
All rights reserved
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CONTENTS
Musical Chair
8
Freedom of Choice
17
Notes
18
Musical Theory
23
Phoneme Riffs
24
I Wanna Be Riveted
33
So Where’s the Theory?
45
Adventures in Ku-Ta-Ba Wa-Do
47
MIDI Compositions
58
7
Musical Chair
In 2006 a cherry tree went down in a
lightning storm. I cut it into logs and
took them to a sawmill, with the notion
of making a mud-room bench. One log
where the trunk branched was sliced
for the sides [photo on facing page].
In 2012 I was clearing out the attic
and rediscovered a small collection of
organ pipes acquired in the 1980s.
This was shortly after Yale bought a
little manuscript book of my notes from
the 1970s and 80s titled Musical Theory, and I had started producing a facsimile edition [see p. 23]. It all came
together in a flash: these were the materials for for my second reading chair that turns a book into a full-body
experience [see p. 17]. I did a pencil sketch of what that might look like, changed the title of the book to Notes,
and got to work.
8
Left: natural edge planks from a log cut specifically to be bench sides.
Above: planing and cutting the cherry planks.
Below: Assembling the parts.
9
16
Freedom of Choice
Three Poems of Love and Death by Lucie Brock-Broido
Notes is my second work that enhances the reading experience by incorporating the construction of
a specific chair with sound as an integral element of a bookbinding. Freedom of Choice (2009) was
developed for the exhibition Somewhere Far From Habit, sponsored by Longwood University. On the
inside of the head restraint are three electrodes, and one electrode goes to the leg. An MP3 player on the
head restraint plays my reading of the three poems, two of which concern shotgun suicides and one an
electrocution. On the back of the chair is a cabinet containing a 20 gauge shotgun, a Manila hangman’s
noose, a wakizashi sword, razor blades, poison and a hypodermic syringe.
Freedom of Choice : Three Poems of Love and Death by Lucie Brock-Broido
Richard Minsky, Stockport, NY, 2009.
Edition of 5, printed inkjet on J. Barcham Green 1976 handmade paper. Copy No. 1 [above] is bound in
dark teal goatskin with 23K gold title, chained to an oak electric chair built by Minsky. 73 x 26 x 24
Copies numbered 2 to 5 are bound in limp leather with gold title, no chair.
17
In September, 2014 I took a small
electronic tablet with a pipe organ
app on a Caribbean cruise, spending
most of it in the cabin composing
pieces for the limited set of 23 notes
in the collection of organ pipes
[see p. 8]. I liked the little notepads
that were in the cabin, and wrote
33 fragments on them. Some are
interpretations of existing melodies
varied to fit the constraints, others
are new. Given the format of the
paper it was easier to write the
names of the notes and a simplified
system for duration and chords
than to use five-line staff notation.
18
Photo by Barbara Slate
Notes
21
On returning to my studio I started playing the compositions on a MIDI keyboard, to work on variations and print them as sheet music. Some of the fragments worked well, others needed notes that
were not in the set of pipes. I decided to re-tune several pipes to different notes than their original
intention, making C#3 from C3, F#3 from F3 , etc. This changed everything. Some of the compositions
were still playable, others not, but a greater range of modulation became possible. I started composing variations of the unplayable tunes that fit the new set of notes.
22
The front endpaper of Musical Theory.
Musical Theory
Forty years ago I made a small blank book and
wrote the title Musical Theory on the first page.
For a couple of decades I jotted down ideas for
compositions and random thoughts. When Yale
University’s Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library
acquired it in 2012 I scanned all the pages and
began production of a limited edition facsimile.
After starting the musical chair [see p. 8]
and writing compositions limited to the 23 notes
of the pipes, the scope of the edition expanded
to include other related projects. The Center for
Book Arts scheduled an exhibition of Musical
Theory as a Featured Artist Project for October,
2014. By mid-August I realized that the title was
no longer appropriate and changed it to Notes.
The publication date for this book was set to
November 14 to coincide with the “Artist Talk
and Reception” at the CBA.
The front cover.
The images above and on the following pages are actual size.
23
Phoneme Riffs
evoke musical genres, like Cajun, Funk and Punk.
Cheega
aga
aga
cheega
24
ah doo ack
ah doo
doo ah’ dodeeda
dee doo ah doo
wa do
doddle ah dooweah
do de addleah
dodleydo
dee ooh ooh wah
27
ooh doodle ooh
ooh doodle ooh
ooh doodle
ooh doodle
doodle oodle oodle oodle
ooh wha wha oodle
28
hah hicky hah
hicky ha ha
hicky hicky
wha doo
acka acka
doooo-wahdoo
ackaacka
dooo
,.
– .`
doo laaaaa
doe dee d o oooo
doe doo acka
___ ___
acka woooo
doe doo acka
do doo acka
acka ack
doo doo
whadooahdoo
ohhh whoho
___ ___
doooo
33
I wanna be riveted
Musical Theory also has song titles and band names. On May 5, 1981 I pulled from the
above spread and performed I Wanna be Riveted at the opening of my exhibition at the Allan Stone Gallery. The band was called Old Man Rivet and the Rivetheads. I had planned
to issue a 45 of it in an edition of 100, but the record pressing company refused to produce
the discs after listening to it. Then the tape recording disappeared.
Meanwhile I had printed the record jackets, designed by Pat Gorman, with a photo by
Peter Seidler of me performing as Old Man Rivet. Facing is one of the original sleeves,
printed on a Vandercook letterpress in 1981 at the Center for Book Arts in New York City
and varnished on an offset press at Open Studio in Barrytown, NY.
34
I Wanna Be Riveted
Richard Minsky May, 1981
I
want
to
between
be
riveted
my
eyes.
I
right
want
39
I Wanna Be Riveted
to
be
ri
as
a
sur
want
in side
40
ve
my
ted,
prise.
to be
ri vet
come
I
ed
brain.
I
want to
deep
be
So Where’s the Theory?
There isn’t one. Follow the vibes. People have been saying that since before
string theory, but now it has added meaning. Knowledge of our ignorance
has increased. How many dimensions, over what distance, do thoughts and
feelings travel? At what speed? We feel dark matter we can’t see through
gravity. We know it’s all around us. How does music interact with dark energy?
Some tunes make people dance. Others pull the heartstrings.
45
46
Adventures In Ku-Ta-Ba Wa-Do
Gerald Jackson, an artist whom I had always admired, showed me a book he had created with pages
of pastel color fields interspersed with pages of his poetry. I thought it would be a great project to
undertake as a small edition, and developed a method for creating color field images by printing
a flat linoleum block on the motorized 8x12 Chandler & Price platen press, using crumpled paper
and bits of paper collage as makeready.
To translate the handwritten poetry into typography and retain the intentionally varied word
spacing of the original, I hand set the text from foundry type in Goudy Oldstyle. To coordinate the
impression quality of the type with the color prints, I made offset plates from a proof of the typography and printed the poems on a Multilith at the nearby printing shop of Fred D’Alauro, from whom
I had gotten the C&P.
Peggy Kelly, one of my printing students, did much of the presswork on the color prints, handfeeding the paper after I did the makeready and Gerald had approved it.
The original manuscript had no title, and Gerald suggested Adventures in Ku-Ta-Ba Wa-Do,
based on one of the poems. As I read the book I heard music in my head, and moving through the
colors was like listening to an oratorio or opera.
I wrote a score, assembled a group of musicians, and booked time at Mercury Studios on 57th
Street, with recording engineer Chuck Irwin. The score follows the color sequence of the prints and
uses the poems as a libretto. The musicians had the color prints on their music stands, as the score
called on them to interpret the colors
We recorded four or five takes of each section of the work on 8-track tape, made selections, and
mixed down to a stereo master just under 40 minutes long. I had 100 copies made as LP records — 50
to go with the edition of the book and 50 to sell separately and to send to radio stations. I hand set
type for the record jacket, printed them letterpress in silver ink, and the musicians signed each one.
In 1973 the book, record and score were issued. I sent copies of the record to three alternative radio stations: WKCR (Columbia University), WNYU (New York University), and the independent WBAI.
All three played the recording in its entirety. In January 1975 we staged a performance based on the
recording at Ornette Coleman’s Artist House, on Prince Street in New York’s SOHO.
Installation photo at the exhibition Material Meets Metaphor,
Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University, 2010.
47
MIDI Compositions
Originally played on a Yamaha KX88 MIDI keyboard and uploaded to minsky.com in the 1990s under the heading “Post-Modem Music.” These transcriptions are inexact visuals intended as stimulation for improvisation. For
two years in the mid-1980s I played with the quintet of Agrupacion Amigos del Tango en Nueva York, which met
monthly in a church basement. That music inspired the two compositions presented here. If playing on a piano, free
use of the sustain pedal is suggested.
Tango
Richard Minsky July, 1995
transcribed November, 2014
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Tango
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Tango
60
Tango
61
Tango
68
Tango
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