Piece Description

Each interstitial in this series is a musical meditation on peace and the subject of the title. I have a daily practice of recording short pieces with one breath on hand-made, modal reed flutes. Preparation is rigorous. Execution, a spontaneous gesture. I meditate on peace during the performance of each piece and release the one performance from each recording session where my focus is most clearly heard. Occasionally, I'll make a special flute and use it only for one particular peace meditation. In that case, construction of the flute is itself a peace meditation on the subject of the title. The enveloping ambient sound field heard in these pieces comes from multiple electronic echo, reverberation and surround sound devices arranged to create an electronic sacred space supportive of the meditation. I enter this virtual "sound house of peace" via headphones and perform a session while present there. Subjectively, the experience is like entering a large mosque, temple or cathedral where sounds magnify, sustain and acoustically rise in a heaven-bound aural metaphor. The combination of hand-made flutes and electronic processing creates a modern spiritual technology with an ancient antecedent - the Tibetan prayer wheel. These mechanical devices focus and amplify meditative consciousness through the hand-turning of a wheel containing written prayers. Tibetans believe meditative focus combined with repetitive physical action causes a corresponding effect in the physical world through energetic resonance. There are other examples of mental/spiritual practice manifested through hand-manipulation of objects - Catholic rosary beads for example. I believe broadcasting these peace meditations would be functionally similar to the repetitive turning of a prayer wheel. The reed flute meditations are activated multiple times as they resonate within the heart and mind of each individual hearing them as the pieces are juxtaposed between news stories.