To listen to my piece, click this link and download it. If it sounds like crap/static, it's not because the file's messed up. It's just because that's what it sounds like.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1EW_PU9B5GBU2hEX3RpVXp6WFE
And then I wrote a paper about it.
“God Hears You” has a lot of meaning behind the noise. It functions as a tape loop, but it goes in reverse of the typical tape loops of Terry Riley. That is to say, rather than starting with one track and adding more until everything is more or less a drone or vibration, this piece starts out sounding like a drone, then voices drop out one by one until all that’s left is a single voice.
The loop is Amber [last name] saying “You know what, like, God hears you,” in the context of a mostly one-sided conversation where I started recording and instructed her to tell me about some of her experiences or encounters with God. She took it from there. There are 29 tracks of equal volume going at once at the beginning of the piece, and they drop out one by one until only one voice is left, repeating the phrase.
I wanted this piece to be symbolic of the confusion and clouded view of the world and of God from a person who does not understand God or the relationship they can have with him. Everything is a blur and God is not easily heard or understand. As the voices or tracks drop out, a clearer voice slowly emerges from the woodwork, and the person begins to understand. The end of the piece symbolizes a conversion moment, when the message God is trying to convey to the person becomes clear with no obstructions, and their eyes are opened. They get it, and they want that relationship with the Lord.
When I was listening to the recording of Amber’s entire “speech,” I toyed with several phrases I wanted to use for this piece, including, “It’s in John,” “He must become greater,” “God made me,” “breath of God in me,” “encounter God,” “second chance,” “right to the heart,” “He cares,” and “give hope (to these people).” I chose the phrase I did based not only on the meaning but on the inflection of her voice: on the way I thought it would sound when it was repeated over and over. Amber didn’t appreciate that she had said “like” in the phrase once she heard the piece in its completion, but I thought her verbal tic as well as the “you know what” adds to the “conversational” feel of the phrase. She wasn’t just reading a script. In fact, I thought the phrase “you know what” emphasized even more the idea that she was trying to convey that God hears us and wants to know us.
Although not all minimalist pieces appeal to me in sound (and neither does this one, particularly), it has special meaning for me. A friend of mine recently came to Christ, describing her experience as her eyes finally being opened, so I have been thinking about that analogy a lot lately, and have applied it to my piece. Although this was probably the easiest composition project to put together, I put much more thought into the meaning itself than I have for any other piece I have written for theory.
I wanted this piece to be symbolic of the confusion and clouded view of the world and of God from a person who does not understand God or the relationship they can have with him. Everything is a blur and God is not easily heard or understand. As the voices or tracks drop out, a clearer voice slowly emerges from the woodwork, and the person begins to understand. The end of the piece symbolizes a conversion moment, when the message God is trying to convey to the person becomes clear with no obstructions, and their eyes are opened. They get it, and they want that relationship with the Lord.
When I was listening to the recording of Amber’s entire “speech,” I toyed with several phrases I wanted to use for this piece, including, “It’s in John,” “He must become greater,” “God made me,” “breath of God in me,” “encounter God,” “second chance,” “right to the heart,” “He cares,” and “give hope (to these people).” I chose the phrase I did based not only on the meaning but on the inflection of her voice: on the way I thought it would sound when it was repeated over and over. Amber didn’t appreciate that she had said “like” in the phrase once she heard the piece in its completion, but I thought her verbal tic as well as the “you know what” adds to the “conversational” feel of the phrase. She wasn’t just reading a script. In fact, I thought the phrase “you know what” emphasized even more the idea that she was trying to convey that God hears us and wants to know us.
Although not all minimalist pieces appeal to me in sound (and neither does this one, particularly), it has special meaning for me. A friend of mine recently came to Christ, describing her experience as her eyes finally being opened, so I have been thinking about that analogy a lot lately, and have applied it to my piece. Although this was probably the easiest composition project to put together, I put much more thought into the meaning itself than I have for any other piece I have written for theory.
God bless.
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