Burners, End to End (2016)
After being drawn to music by a tape of Beethoven’s Fifth and a Disco Duck record given to me by my grandfather, hip hop music and culture are what really sent me over the edge at a young age. In my life as a composer I have written a few pieces consciously influenced by rap music (though you wouldn’t know to hear them!), but I’ve never addressed the influence of graffiti writing on my notation style. As a teenager I developed a passable language as a graffiti writer. I wasn’t serious about the crime aspect, making most of my art in sketchbooks and on skateboard ramps. I guess that makes me a poser, but nonetheless there is an undeniable connection between my approach to notation and the graffiti art I did years ago. The title is partly a reference to the Company Flow song “End to End Burners”, but more directly refers to the graffiti term “end to end burners” which means painting a full side of a subway train with elaborate murals. My favored graffiti style is wild style, in which writers obscure the legibility of letters by adding edges, extending serifs, fracturing lines, interlinking letters, and manipulating the perspective in simulated three dimensions. The notation in Burners, End to End uses multicolored contoured lines that indicate finger and bow position and pressure. These are superimposed over string assignments and rhythms written in black ink. The score layout brings to mind various groupings of graffiti covered train cars.
(nine pages, 8.5x11, color)
