INCANTATIONS for Guitar Duo

 These five miniatures were conceived after reading about Pablo Picasso’s assertion that painting was a magical act.  His exact quote is, “it's a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange hostile world and us.”

Magical thinking in art making had a direct  impact on the act of creation. 

He had a feeling for and  a conceptual use of supernatural themes, evident in his exploration of African sculpture.  His cultivation of magical considerations in his creative practice empowered him to see the other-worldliness of things and paint them with resolute purposefulness. This reimagining art-making enabled novel expressions through a broader, more fecund source of new ideas, techniques and strategies.

I mostly see art and music particularly, as evidence of humans being “supernatural”. 

This is not only because of the creative act itself, but also in the reception of the created thing by its audience - individuals and audiences may very well respond as if the artistic work has become part of their own world.  

In thinking about this, I decided to write some pieces that were expressed as if they might be a series of musical gestural spells. Form and structure are extemporaneous with momentary melodic mumblings and chants , declamations and shrieks. These can be accompanied  by rhythmic gesturing, fluctuating dynamics and a spirited use and reuse of materials. 

The approach is often episodic, abrupt and riddled with sparse outbursts of idea or emotion. Perhaps one can imagine the musician as magician who, in their musical “spell-making", coax a magical presence to emerge. These sonic apparitions are ephemeral in nature - here, and then gone, leaving behind haunted traces of their passing.