Train Sonor, a work in progress. This collection of compositions follows Saint Augustine's motto: TIME CAN ONLY BE PERCEIVED OR MEASURED WHILE IT IS PASSING. — Saint Augustine.

Saint Augustine (AD 354-430) was bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa from 396 to 430 and may have been the most important theologian of the early Christian church during the last days of the western Roman Empire. His best known works are the Confessions, The Soliloquies and the City of God.

trainsonor.blogspot.com :: Invitation to participate

I.

Train Sonor: For Marjan K. [January, 2008]

"Do we have a feeling of familiarity whenever we look at familiar objects? Or do we have it usually? When do we actually have it? It helps us to ask: What do we contrast the feeling of familiarity with? One thing we contrast it with is surprise. One could say: 'Unfamiliarity is much more of an experinece than familiarity'." — Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Brown Book (II), Preliminary Studies for the 'Philosophical Investigations', p. 127

Inspiration: The photography of Marjan Zahed Kindersley; Buddhist Chant; ...sofferte onde serene... (1976) by Luigi Nono; Why Patterns? (1978) by Morton Feldman; Chants de bagana (Ethiopia); String quartet No. 5 (1934) by Béla Bartók; The Brown Book (II) by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

II.

Train Sonor: Piano, voyageacoustique six [January 22, 2008]

In rail transport, a train consists of rail vehicles that move along guides to transport freight or passengers from one place to another.

Train of thought: the connections that link the various parts of an event or argument together; "I couldn't follow his train of thought"; "he lost the thread of his argument"

Internal monologue, also known as interior monologue, inner voice, internal speech, train of thought, stream of thought, chain of thought or stream of consciousness is thinking in words.

It also refers to the semi-constant internal monologue one has with oneself at a conscious or semi-conscious level.

"And yet, O Lord, we perceive intervals of times, and we compare them with themselves, and we say some are longer, others shorter. We even measure by how much shorter or longer this time may be than that; and we answer, 'That this is double or treble, while that is but once, or only as much as that.' But we measure times passing when we measure them by perceiving them; but past times, which now are not, or future times, which as yet are not, who can measure them? Unless, perchance, any one will dare to say, that that can be measured which is not. When, therefore, time is passing, it can be perceived and measured; but when it has passed, it cannot, since it is not." — The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine, CHAP. XVI. TIME CAN ONLY BE PERCEIVED OR MEASURED WHILE IT IS PASSING.

Inspiration: Early minimal music [Philip Glass, Music in Twelve Parts, 1971-1974]; Javanese Gamelan; Gyorgy Ligeti [Continuum, 1968]; Aka Pygmy music [Central Africa]; Fela Anikulapo-Kuti [Ransome-Kuti & The Africa 70, Confusion/Gentleman], Terry Riley [Shri Camel, 1980]; Alan Sondheim [dervish2]; James M. Drew [Almost Stationary]; John Cage [Bacchanale for prepared piano, 1940]; Confessions by Saint Augustine. The Dictionary of the History of Ideas :: TIME by MILIC CAPEK

III.

Train Sonor: voyageacoustique four [26:49]. [April, 2007] [simultaneous]

Sound map: double bass, ambient sounds, subway cars, subway gate sounds, subway announcer voice, trains, train arriving, street, cars, car horns, tunnel, voices, bells, birds, street festival drums, piccolo flute, piano cluster, percussive sounds, ambulance, rain, Max/MSP layers, Karlette VST (Tape Delay) plug-in.

Possible simultaneity with Argonauts part XVII (composition "essay one", 2006-07) and/or Six Instruments (1985-86).

"This was the year he rode the subway to the ends of the city, two hundred miles of track. He liked to stand at the front of the first car, hands flat against the glass. The train smashed through the dark. People stood on local platforms staring nowhere, a look they'd been practicing for years. He kind of wondered, speeding past, who they really were. His body fluttered in the fastest stretches. They went so fast sometimes he thought they were on the edge of no-control. The noise was pitched to a level of pain he absorbed as a personal test. Another crazy-ass curve. There was so much iron in the sound of those curves he could almost taste it, like a toy you put in your mouth when you are little." — Don DeLillo, Libra (1988), p. 3

"What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled." — Saint Augustine, Confessions, book 11, 28

Inspiration: Libra by Don DeLillo; New York Subway; Central Park in the Dark (1906, 1909) by Charles Ives; Confessions by Saint Augustine.

IV.

Train Sonor: [Self-Portrait] weaving and unweaving [2007]

1. Prelude. The Beauty of Ruins [19:33]. Part one: guitar patterns, ambient recordings [suburb], birdsong, percussion frog, elecronics, Spongefork 3, GarageBand 2.0.2 (50). Part two: percussion [glass], percussion frog, CellSynth 1.7, MetaSynth 4.0, fLOW 2.0.

2. Chant. a) Purification b) Negotiations and Discourse [39:25]. Voices, shell crunch noise, ambient recordings [suburb], Karlette VST (Tape Delay), Max/MSP layers.

3. Final Notes [03:57]. Gong, Spongefork 3, birdsong, ambient recordings [suburb].

"As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his image." — James Joyce, Ulysses, Shakespeare and Company, 1922 (Penguin edition 1992, reprinted 2000, ISBN 0 14 118280 6), page 249 [Episode 9 - Scylla And Charybdis]

"The beauty of ruins? That they're no longer good for anything. The sweetness of the past? Our memory of it, since to remember it is to make it present, and it isn't present nor even can be - absurdity, my love, absurdity." — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, p. 278

"In everyday language the word 'poetic' is now surrounded by a fog of misunderstandings. Hence, by reaction, the instinctive distrust of all such cliches as 'poet of sounds' and 'poetic music'. We must overcome this handicap, eliminate the element of the picturesque (to which the idea of 'poetry' has quite wrongly been restricted) and set out to discover the idea." — Pierre Boulez, Poetry - Centre and Absence - Music. In: Orientations, p. 184

LISTEN: Chant [a heterogeneous space]

"An assemblage also implicates processes of deterritorialization, movements of deterritorialization. An assemblage implicates territories, each of us chooses or creates a territory, even just walking into a room. Deleuze's hypothesis is that each of us is apt to seize a certain type of charm, a perception of charm, i.e. in a gesture, a thought, even before the thought is signifying, a modesty, a charm that goes to the roots of perception, to the vital roots, and this constitutes a friendship." — L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze [pdf], avec Claire Parnet

"There is no space or time out here, or in here, or wherever she is. There are only connections. Everything is connected. All human knowledge gathered and linked, hyperlinked, this site leading to that, this fact referenced to that, a keystroke, a mouse-click, a password - world without end, amen." — Don DeLillo, Underworld, p. 825

Inspiration: Underworld by Don DeLillo; Orientations by Pierre Boulez; Ulysses by James Joyce; The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa; Buddhist Chant; The Well Tuned Piano 81 X 25 by La Monte Young; HMCIEX (1984) by John Cage.

V.

Train Sonor: Sirens, voyageacoustique five [May, 2007]

[if you like to embed the player into your Blog or Website, this is the audio flash player html code]

"Compendium of shreds". Field recordings: rain, water, wind, thunderstorm, found noise. Software: flow tracks, Max/MSP, Spongefork_3_2_2 tracks. Instruments: piano, prepared piano, voices.

Sirens is affected by James Joyce's Ulysses, Episode 11, Sirens. Possible simultaneity with voyageacoustique four: Train Sonor (2007) and/or Argonauts part XIX (composition "essay two", 2006-07).

Sirens gallery and Aural diagram [by Peter Lichtensteiger]

"BRONZE BY GOLD HEARD THE HOOFIRONS, STEELYRINING IMPERthnthn thnthnthn.
Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. Horrid! And gold flushed more.
A husky fifenote blew.
Blew. Blue bloom is on the
Gold pinnacled hair.
A jumping rose on satiny breasts of satin, rose of Castille.
Trilling, trilling: I dolores.
Peep! Who's in the... peepofgold?
Tink cried to bronze in pity.
And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call.
Decoy. Soft word. But look! The bright stars fade. O rose! Notes chirruping answer. Castille. The morn is breaking.
Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.
Coin rang. Clock clacked.
Avowal. Sonnez. I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. La cloche! Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye!
Jingle. Bloo.
Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum.
A sail! A veil awave upon the waves.
Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now.
Horn. Hawhorn.
When first he saw. Alas!
Full tup. Full throb.
Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring.
Martha! Come!
Clapclop. Clipclap. Clappyclap.
Goodgod henev erheard inall.
Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up.
A moonlight nightcall: far: far.
I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming.
Listen! [...]" — James Joyce, Ulysses [Episode 11, Sirens]

"Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two divided by half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus two plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always find out this equal to that, symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn't see my mourning. Callous: all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you think you're listening to the ethereal. But suppose you said it like: Martha, seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall quite flat. It's on account of the sounds it is." — James Joyce, Ulysses [Episode 11, Sirens]

Odysseus heard their lovely song. For he, following Circe's instructions, stopped the ears of his comrades with beeswax, and ordered that he should himself be bound to the mast, so that he could hear the voices of the SIRENS, who then sang: "Draw near ... illustrious Odysseus, flower of the Achaean chivalry, and bring your ship to rest that you may hear our voices. No seaman ever sailed his black ship past this place without listening to the sweet voice that flow from our lips, and none that listened has not been delighted and gone on a wiser man. For we know all that the Achaeans and Trojans sufferer on the broad plain of Troy by the will of the gods, and we have foreknowledge of all that is going to happen on this fruitful earth." [The SIRENS to Odysseus. Homer, Odyssey 12.184]

Inspiration: Ulysses by James Joyce; Counterpath. Traveling with Jacques Derrida by Jacques Derrida/Catherine Malabou; Gesang der Jünglinge (1955-56) by Karlheinz Stockhausen; Mass of Notre Dame (1360) by Guillaume de Machaut; Oiseaux exotiques (1955) by Olivier Messiaen.

Sirens links:

Homer, The English Works, vol. X (Iliad and Odyssey) [1839] Edition used: The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury; Now First Collected and Edited by Sir William Molesworth, Bart., (London: Bohn, 1839-45). 11 vols. Vol. 10.
readprint.com: The Odyssey. By Homer, Book XII
readprint.com: Charles Lamb, The Adventures of Ulysses
readprint.com: James Joyce, Ulysses [Episode 11, Sirens]
Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler [adelaide.edu]
Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Alexander Pope [adelaide.edu]
James Joyce, Ulysses [adelaide.edu]
Encyclopedia Mythica™: Argonauts
Encyclopedia Mythica™: Odysseus
Encyclopedia Mythica™: Sirens
Encyclopedia Mythica™: Argo
see also argonauts | klangschiff [6 CDs]
search: sirens in The Odyssey

Impressum: Web site desgn by Ralph Lichtensteiger & onclicknyc.com. Photography © 2008 by Ralph Lichtensteiger [Camera: Canon IXUS 860 IS]. Fonts: Modern No. 20 [by Edward Benguiat] and Helvetica [by Linotype Design Studio]. All compositions on this web site © 2008 by Ralph Lichtensteiger, musique trouvé, Frankfurt, Germany.

Acknowledgment: first of all to Todd Weinstein (USA) for his support and friendship, Marjan Zahed Kindersley (UK) for her wonderful and inspiring photography; Alan Sondheim (USA) for his outstanding animations.

Copyright: This website, including all images, words, sound files and graphics, are copyright © 2008 by Ralph Lichtensteiger. All Rights Reserved. For Review Only. No Rights Granted. Please feel free to download any of the images for your personal review only. However, you may not manipulate, modify or crop the images in any way. Also, you may not reproduce, copy, redistribute or use the images for any purpose without the expressed written permission of Ralph Lichtensteiger.