My Name Is John Mackay (2003) for Organ, Percussion & Tape
(Duration: 17')
We all know that cultural icons and the repetition of their images leads to a desensitisation towards them, a blurring or fuzziness as to their real meaning or substance; there begins to be a coolness in their medium's message.
What occupied me in this work was the iconography of musical gesture, things we hear repeated customarily in music: crescendos, anti-climaxes, loud passages following soft, cadence, thematic transformation and so on; the building blocks of Western music. All of them signs to the listener that things are progressing 'the way they should be'; our musical memory switches to recall and the neurones find an easy, well used connection. But, as time goes by, do they continue to affect us as before or do they gradually, with age, loose their potency of meaning? Does this over-familiarity breed a musical contempt? Are they a 'necessary evil' in order to provide us with 'real musical effect' or can it be done in other ways?
In My Name Is John Mackay my icons are present in all parts, organ, percussion and tape. The repetition of each gesture does its best to desensitise us but at a certain point in the piece there is an unusual event. I won't go into too much detail... although I'm all for 'unravelling the processes behind the making of things', in this instance explaining its purpose would diminish the impact; suffice to say that in amongst all the musical iconography there is a voice attempting to connect, trying to break through the cool haze and clarify the musical message in a different way... but in the process, does John Mackay simply become yet another musical icon?
This piece is dedicated to Simon Nieminski and Alan Emslie with much admiration and thanks. My thanks also to John Mackay for his invaluable contribution.
Premiered in July 2003 at St. Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh.
MP3
My Name Is John Mackay
Below is an extract from the score:
