Evil

Recently I ran into an evil person. Now, when we usually think of EVIL we think of some Mephistophelean monster…a gargoyle of stylish malevolence.

That is the poetic superstition. In reality, evil people are terribly dull. They are the opposite of creative. They have nothing but bitterness to offer. An evil person is just not possessed of panache.

They are not merely BAD. One may be bad and not necessarily evil. That’s a lot to get into and I’d like to skip it but there is no possibility of continuing until this is cleared up. Evil is the negation of good…not the opposite. Just as the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.

An evil person is first of all a narcissist. They enjoy conflict and they will pursue elaborate schemes to fulfill what they perceive as their needs. Their needs might just be trivial, but these goals are an idée fixe that outweigh, for them, every other consideration. Because of this, because they see themselves as the center of the world and their needs as all-important they will put these needs first. Indeed, they will follow their plan of attack to amazing ends. And along the way they will engender enormous anger.

You know the type. You’ve probably seen them before.

It is not wise to engage them in any way. If you fight them they’ll enjoy it. The truly evil like turmoil. They’ll push your buttons and make you miserable. And why? Because they are miserable and, as Leo Buscaglia said, misery doesn’t just love company, it demands it.

So what does one do? Here they are, they’ve ticked you off, slandered you, gone nuts with abuse. Do nothing?

Well, it depends. Sometimes, when they are truly dangerous, you have to deal with them. Don’t get angry. They adore that! They feed on that. Yeah, I know it sounds spooky and very I-buy-crystals-in-the-mall but the evil person loves causing pain and discord and they draw some weird sort of strength from your anger.

If anything, be happy. You are not them. They are people in pain. Their universe is limited, as a ragged cloak wrapped about their body. The horizon is close and there never is enough light. And you…you are not them.

When you have to, deal with them but don’t get angry. Take the high road. Don’t let yourself be tempted to get even, or to somehow rehabilitate them. Don’t let yourself be tempted to lie, or anything else that distorts or seems reasonable “given the circumstances.”

As a matter of fact, if you should, for a moment, stray from the straight and narrow, even just a little bit, they'll whack you over the head with it. They love the idea of you being one of them.

But if you can, leave them to twist in their own misery. Don’t give them the satisfaction of spreading their discord. I know this seems very metaphysical and not very practical…

Bombs to My Chest

BOMBS TO MY CHEST
by Scott Giles


see the light outside my head
the darkness of wet city streets.
we all made sacrifices...
i saw you.
sacrifices!

strapping bombs to my soul's chest
getting all misty over
time that you can't talk about.
what is easy, at least for now
what is easy, at least for now.

fading
fading untill we sleep...

see the darkness swimming in my head
the midnight of dark woods.
we all made sacrifices...
i saw you.
i saw you.
you know what i saw.

that time you can't talk about
thick as a lump in your throat.

and until then
until that time we are waiting for
i will keep my silence.

end of line
end of line

My Brother and I Stood on the Shore

My brother and I stood on the shore
And looked out to an ocean
We thought we saw.
But wasn’t the sea we knew.

Tumultuous, bitter, heaving mass
That hid beneath its brazen skin
Deeper thoughts and stillness.
Within its dark bosom sat the future.

And years later, the boy I no longer am,
Standing next to my brother, is innocent.
And I, the man I am, now dark and deep
As the sea’s indigo dreams.

Slowly I learn, and contemplate the
Cold air of the future I live in.
And slowly again, to speak in its presence.
But lessons are like promises.

Sometimes lost.

Sometimes stolen.

Sometimes abandoned.

Other times reserved.

My brother and I stood on the shore
And looked out to a future
We could not have guessed
But I was fortunate not to be alone.

Progress Report: Composing Halbierte Abbildung Part 1

How long will this piece go on? It was going to be somewhere around 10 minutes long. A little piece for orchestra based on a tone row. Nothing much.

It’s now over 30 minutes long and I don’t see an end in sight. And the end is now a thing. If you’ve got a work that’s relatively short you can end it well enough. But once an audience has invested 20 or more minutes into listening to a piece your finale has to be worth hearing!

A further interesting dilemma regards the formal qualities of the piece. It isn’t a symphony or an overture or a series of variations. Rather, the original row is put through a of progression of permutations and constantly developed. It’s sort of like a theme and variations…but it isn’t.

This new work is non-tonal. Terribly out of style! Non-tonal stuff is ancient, being of a kind with pleated pants, wide lapels and Go Go boots. Still, this was the style the music needed to be. That’s the piece. If someone doesn’t like it they can listen to something else. It doesn’t pay to get self-conscious.

The orchestration is odd. It fits, though, a particular orchestra in Madagacar called The Royal Califa Philharmonic Orchestra.

I’m intrigued with using an orchestra that has so many bass instruments (including two euphoniums and two tubas…though I did not write anything for their two trombones. And why? Because…I didn’t have an idea for two trombones. A good rule of orchestration is: don’t use instruments as a matter of course. Use what is useful).

The work is called, Halbierte Abbildung, which simply means something about a bisected figure. The title, as far as I can figure, doesn’t mean anything. It does not describe the method of composition nor does it poetically relate to the experience of hearing the music. That said, I did not randomly pick a name!

For some reason this struck me as the title of this piece. Perhaps it does say something about the music, that subconsciously I did choose a name that somehow relates to the experience of either composing or listening to the music. If so, then the meaning is consciously lost on me.

http://www.myspace.com/califaphil

Can You Do Anything?

What can one do?

Anyone can accomplish whatever they want…just not whenever they want. Even simple things…like going to work, getting a job, buying a car…require effort. After a while one notices that so-called extraordinary things are no more difficult to achieve than the apparently mundane ones. One might as well do something extraordinary!

On TV and magazines they always make it out that only a few people have the ability to be great at something. They appeal to a defeatist attitude, which is seductive in its quiet message, “It’s all right to fail.”

Now, I happen to be of the opinion that it is all right to fail. What the hell: failure is a big part of life and, though not often pleasant…well, there it is. But the way that failure is popularly presented smells of provoking defeatism. It reeks of robbing people of their will. “This person is TALLENTED,” (whatever that means!), “…and you aren’t, so get back in line.”

To accomplish things one has to have patience. It is a matter of always practicing. One practices their life every day as a musician practices their instrument. Eventually, one becomes a virtuoso at life.

You have responsibilities? Excellent. In some ways this can hinder you but not as much as a lot of folks make out. Our responsibilities partially define us. Isn’t it often an honor to be relied upon?

When my daughter was born I felt liberated. Since I was fourteen my life had been about myself. When I became a father when I was 28 I was relieved of the burden of myself. My life was no longer about my comfort, my happiness, my anything. Now I lived for someone else.

I have lived an adventuresome life. This was not the end of my adventures, though it was the end of anything that I didn’t absolutely need to do.

And that made me happy.

Is Computer Art Legit?

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions do bad intentions send us to Heaven?

Whatever produces the work is good. To produce my art I may use paint, pen, computer, photograph…sometimes all of those. Whatever will realize the work.

I haven’t run into this yet, but I can imagine that some people may think that if you paint you are obligated to use paints. Painters shouldn’t “jigger” their work with computers and filters. Somehow that’s “cheating.” That mixing mediums is a kind of fake.

That’s true, as I see it, under two circumstances:

1. The artist is claiming that they didn’t use a mixed approach. This is a sort of gyp! Here you are looking at what the artist claims is a painting and it’s really a photo run through a bunch of filters. It doesn’t make the image any less beautiful (yeah, you can get philosophical and argue it does, but I’m not in the mood to examine that right now), but the artist is fabricating and misrepresentation is, obviously, not good.

2. If you see the creation of a work of art as a kind of game. In this case, the rules, determined by history or tradition (and what a fuzzy line there is between the two!), determine that painters paint. Photographers photograph. Computer geeks eat junk food and compile code (or whatever it is that they do besides play video games). To mix disciplines is to mess with the purity of the art.

Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for the argument of purity of art. Nevertheless, I am inclined to use anything to produce an image that I find beautiful.

Also, I do not see using any kind of tool, a camera, a computer, Silly Putty, as somehow inferior so long as it produces superior results. That is to say, tools are as good as their actual usefulness.

There is, even now in the 21^st Century, a kind of prejudice against anything mechanized in art. Photographic galleries and shows are far more rare than their painterly counterparts and most art photographers will tell you how crazy difficult it is to show their work.

This is unfortunate and unfair. Who will argue this point? The art photographer is an artist. They have the artist’s eye. They see composition, they frame reality, they even mess with exposure and color. It isn’t a case of CLICK and the camera does all the work. If that were true then your Aunt Matilda’s snapshots at your niece’s sixth birthday party would be just as good as any image of Ansel Adams!

So, given this, how much more illegitimate is a photograph, a mechanical image, altered through yet another machine…a computer? The insinuation is that anyone with a camera and a laptop can create what appear to be beautiful works of art. If that were so, then we’d be up to our ears in magnificent beauty.

Great art will always require imagination and skill.

I am reminded of Jackson Pollock. His paint drips, which sell for millions of dollars now, seem to be easy enough to produce. Hell, just put the canvas on the floor and dribble the paint. Easy money.

But if you try to produce a do-it-yourself Pollock you quickly find that you get something that doesn’t look like his work at all. Why? Because he had the eye of a master artist. He knew composition and technique. Can you fake a Pollock? Yes. You can also fake a Van Gogh. You can make a fake Pollack, but it isn’t easy.

So, is computer art…for real? Does a “cheap” process, an untraditional one, cheapen the outcome? Are computers evil? At the end of the day the only thing relevant (to me, at any rate), is the expression. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions do bad intentions send us to Heaven? In the end all that matters is results.

Dr. Scott Giles

Music: Holst The Cloud Messenger

The Cloud Messenger

The Cloud Messenger Op. 30 is an engaging work for choir and orchestra. It is perhaps the biggest of the "Indian" works Gustav Holst composed between 1895 and 1914.

The work is based on the epic poem by Kalidasa called the Meghaduta. Holst was a Sanskrit adept and scholar of Indian occult (as was Scriabin). His translation of the Meghaduta took him seven years. The Cloud Messenger is about an exiled poet who sends a cloud to the Himalayas with messages of love to his wife.

It was first performed on March 4th, 1913, with the London Choral Society and the New Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the composer. It failed to make an impression, though, and has largely been absent from concerts since its première. Although the public wasn’t thrilled with this lovely work, other composers such as Vaughan Williams thought highly of it. Its general unacceptance was a blow to Holst, who considered it the best piece he had written at the time. Its failure sent him into a yawning depression from which he emerged to compose The Planets.

The Cloud Messenger is reminiscent of Wagner in some respects. True, Parcifal held a fascination for Holst, but the bleak opening of The Cloud Messenger is more suggestive of the Prelude to Act Three of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, particularly in the use of double reed instruments and the somber chords moving slowly through the thin orchestral fabric. The harmonies, though obviously chromatic (as Wagner’s harmonies famously were), move in less linear fashion and, though inventive, the music is not so Teutonic as Wagner’s but is firmly rooted in the choral tradition of England.

“I found myself in thought transposed quite easily and without volition to a region of great remoteness,” was composer Arthur Bliss’s reaction when first hearing it. The only recording available is with the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Richard Hickox [Chandos CHAN 8901 ASIN: B000000ALV reissued in 1999 as a two disk set ASIN: B00000IYN5 and packaged with a bunch of other works by Holst].

It is difficult to evaluate this performance as there are no other recordings to compare it to and the score is not readily available but one would guess that the dynamics are not wide enough. The big outburst of the choir at the invocation to the cloud probably should have been louder while the Contralto solo delicately accompanied by wood winds and a solo viola is likely supposed to be much softer. Obviously, I'm just giving my impressions or, rather, talking off the top of my head.

A solid performance of Holst’s The Hymn of Jesus rounds out the 1992 version of the CD. This is a polite, solid presentation but, again, it could have done with a broader dynamic range.

The Cloud Messenger is a fascinating work sure to impress with its grandeur and invention. For anyone who would like to hear more of the music of the man who wrote The Planets this is an obvious choice.

Dr. Scott Giles

Holst, Imogen: A Thematic Catalouge of Gustav Holst's Music. London:
G. and I. Holst Ltd., 1974

Palmer, Christopher: Liner notes. Cloud Messenger / Hymn of Jesus.
Music of Gustav Holst. Chandos, 1990

Art

On February 14 2003 Gabriella Wilken-Ranellone and I created a kind of visual style we brazenly entitled Vidimancerism.

The idiom is an electronic one, utilizing computer manipulation of images to achieve a highly controlled and distinctive tonal verisimilitude.

I also use more traditional methods in my work. The picture shown here is an oil and recalls a kind a fauve impressionism.

Who the Hell Am I??

Well, I'm Scott Giles. I'm a composer, writer and artist who, like many people, has opinions on his craft (and everything else), and who, like many, wants to get paid for his work.

Even more important than the money (there are, after all, some things that rate higher...a few, anyway) is the work itself. I love my work.

I want to write film scores. (I just want to get that out there for anyone who makes movies and...well, you get the idea).

If you would like to know more about me, please visit my other site:

http:www.myspace.com/scottgilesmusic


Dr. Scott Giles