A Note from Mark Gould; The Everyday Life of a Composer; A Composer’s Journal Entries: November 3 - 9, 2007

Saturday, November 3

Was rereading Mark’s e-mail of October 2nd. He had written: "One passing comment - Schoenberg was always stressing the equality of the twelve notes, but, so far as I can tell, no theorist has been able to prove that such an equality exists."

I immediately e-mailed Mark:

Hello dear Mark! I was rereading an old e-mail of yours, and just had to respond. Hoping it will further some discussion. Best to you, in all your endeavors. Laurie

You wrote: "One passing comment - Schoenberg was always stressing the equality of the twelve notes, but, so far as I can tell, no theorist has been able to prove that such an equality exists."

Perhaps not within the modes or scales, certainly not ... But isolated from a modality or tonality, from a modal or tonal center: of course all tones are equal!!! To write music with all notes equal, is another thing. I am not sure that it is possible. Or even a true goal. However: there is a sound one can achieve with twelve-tone music that does not exist in any other musical framework.

Thursday, November 8

Diana is uploading more tracks from my CDs on www.Artistopia.com so that people can listen to them and download them if they wish. (If you wish to do this, just type my name in Artistopia's search feature. If your computer is as old as mine, you might have to wait until the songs download until you can listen to them.) I decided to add one more song from the Early Songs CD and several tracks from the Visions CD.

Have begun to think about the solo piano piece(s) for Rene. Robert Spear wrote back about the Prayer to St. Michael cycle , with some ideas. Must call a choir in Rochester that contacted me about performing and recording it. Now that the weather is cooler, I am feeling stronger and thinking about possible rehearsals and concerts. The Cornell group said they might perform a few of the Images on their spring concert; some things are beginning to fall into place, after a very long drought.

Friday, November 9

Seem to be losing the ongoing battle with my cold: today it feels like bronchitis. Drinking tea and resting. CSMA set up a concert for Images for early June, a benefit concert for the school. I need to write Myra to see if she and Laura are free then; and find the other two musicians.

Between the Images and the Songs cycle, Myra already has hundreds of pages of score to learn. Instead of writing a new solo harp piece, I think I will first write the piano piece for Rene; already starting to inwardly hear snatches of piano pieces. I’ll wait until there are enough of them and then start scribbling them down on manuscript paper. If I write a cycle for piano at least I can play them myself, I won’t have to find other musicians ... Or pay them.

And yet there is no joy for me quite like hearing others play my music, to have it magically appear in the air without my doing anything but listen.

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