ALMA LOOP

Song Book No.1

2019
The ALMA LOOP song books are scores/poems/diary entries for

performance by any number of participants. The songs may be performed in

any combination under any kind of circumstance.

April 15, 2019

Youth

A violin sounds a D sharp then E then A flat for five minutes before the phrase

"H;KVK" is said repeatedly for one half-hour by three people completely

unknown to the old man in the white beard. He stamps his feet in befuddlement

for ten minutes and then gets on the bus at Fruitdale.

Pittsburgh

After a long cool drink, some people who live down the street start a song that

begins in the D minor chord of a guitar and ends in the B minor chord of a

piano. Between these two moments, they ask the man who fell down previously

in the evening to hum a low tone and the woman and man who came from

somewhere else just a while ago to bang on a gigantic cardboard box as the

amber summer sun then slowly sets.

Exclamation

An old man with a long white beard in a blue suit stumbles onto the stage and

falls to the ground. He stays there for three minutes, breathing heavily. An arm,

perhaps his left one, stretches out in search of something unattainable at that

moment and the sound of this fruitless search is heard by all. He stops his quest

and the arm becomes limp and the breathing returns and becomes a kind of

mumbling. The mumbling goes on for six minutes. At last, the old man rises to

his feet, but only to fall again and again and again, the sound of which is

amplified and manipulated by an unseen person at a audio mixer. This stops

when the man stands suddenly bolt upright and in fact he says - "Bolt Upright" -

for two more minutes. When he stops speaking he moves to a thing left on the

ground that awakes an interest in him and he picks it up and blows fervently

into it, producing a sound that will barely be heard by anyone else.
Turn

Slow Jane needs what Sassy Sue gave her last Tuesday so Sassy Sue will sing a

song with a B#minor chord. The B#minor chord longs for what any Cmajor

chord can do, but then is instantly dissatisfied by the lack of warmth. The

Cmajor scale stomps away in anger and we hear it's giant steps echo down the

hall. This never-ending echo will be the memory for Slow Jane of the place only

Sassy Sue could take her.

Last

Just after sunup, a hot feeling courses through a lifeless thing. Continue in this

vein for 12 minutes before succumbing to a fever. Please don't let yourself fall.

Falling is something for the two women holding your hand to do. If this falling

does not break the fever, one of the women can play a melody consisting of every

note in a Mixolydian scale for 3 minutes at an impossibly fast speed.

Hard

Maybe its the way you can clap your hands like a bird fluttering its wings that

makes you want to make this motion for ten minutes before moving on to

playing an A and a G# at the same time then a C# twenty times. After a spell of

silence, you play the melody of the song Careless Whisper by George Michael as

best as you can remember before hitting that A and G# again as hard as you can.

Most

More than a minute after the buzz has started, a woman of fifty and a man of

sixty come from a place they never wanted to leave to stand on the right side of

the stage and vocalize around an F# for half an hour without ever landing on the

F#.
Afternoon

An old man takes off his long white beard and replaces it with a short black

mustache, instantly becoming a version of what he once was long ago. He is so

happy he whistles a major triad. Looking into the audience, he stops whistling

and begins to hum a slow tune of a few notes. He takes the time to encourage the

entire audience to hum this tune. Once everyone is humming, he can now go

back and whistle his major triad. At some point, the audience will grow listless

and stop caring and the young man with the black mustache will blindly carry

on whistling without them, exiting the stage only when he discovers a resonant

frequency for his whistle.

Thistle

The army marches into the sea.

Like

"Yes, yes, he did call and I let him know what he should do with you." is sung

like this -

Utopia

First let the little boy play an A flat then a C followed by a G and please hold the

G for what seems like forever before reaching up to a higher C#. After which,

make the little boy wish that the listeners will all go away someday. Third,

amplify the sound of the little boy being forcibly removed from where he is

standing and someone calls the cops.

Tuesday

For some reason, Jim lacked what it took to win the job and what he lacked was

to be found only in the sound that a string pulled tight and plucked can make.

Please do this for Jim, say, for ten solid minutes. If Jim cannot make his way to

the top by this particular sound, place a contact microphone to the string and

amplify the sound with a great deal of echo, but never reverb. Jim should be by

now reaping the benefits of these actions and he dances with joy. But, a demon

all in red and breathing flames will come to Jim and roar about his eternal

damnation, drowning out the sound of the vibrating string, stopping his dance

and thus ending Jim's life.

Maybe

In the blue moonlight, a baby lifts its head and looks out into the new world and

every time it does big chunks of symphonies rattle the room.

Follow

Sticks the size of your arm can be used by the two women on your left to make

the sound your heart makes after the day is through. The sun sets slowly again

and tells you what time you have left to make another sound, this time from the

rock you found on the stage floor. The sky above you is now nearly black, and

the women are still scratching and maybe there is time enough to throw the rock

down, utter several phrases someone close to you once said about your lack of

emotion or money and then you hear the women sing E sharp. Then the women

sing an A with a vibrato wide enough to throw a cat through. After this is a

silence. The silence grips the wrist. The silence stains the floor. The silence runs

into the next room. The silence loves a lover. The silence is a needy son of a

bitch. The silence likes to party hard. The silence owes tons of money. The

silence is world famous. The silence betrays only you.

Turn

Buzzing sounds ever so slowly fuzz before turning into a liquid.

Delay

One hundred times the air is made to reel with the sound of an instrument no

one knows how to play. The old man and the baby sing together a song found on

a tiny radio. One hundred times the earth is made to quiver with the sound of a

world famous choir. The old man and the baby sing together a new song found

on a tiny radio. One hundred times the bodies of the old man and the baby are

made to shudder with the sound of a couple fucking.

Sent
Air

Listen to the mockingbird.

Final

From what we can tell at this moment, the lady standing in the rear of the stage

is puckering her lips and whistling a song that reminds us of a place we knew

long ago. She moves a bit, with tiny steps, towards the center of the stage and

stops her whistling. At that moment, we notice a man is off to one side of the

stage and he blows a horn in such a way that the horn sounds like a child

screaming or a giant ape eating a grape or willow branches snapping.

Limp

Opening the folded piece of paper slowly and close to the ear creates a multitude

of sounds for the baby. And it crawls slowly across the stage afterwards.
Future

Jan hits her head with a spoon and Lacy hits her head with a knife. Jack looks

on, disapprovingly. Jan comes round from the coma the spoon made and Lacy

takes the knife and stabs Jack for the hell of it. He says -

"O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.

K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.

O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.

K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.

O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.

K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.

O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.K.O.OK.O.K.O.K.

O.K. O.K. O.K. O.K. O.K. O.K. O.K. O.K. O.K. O.K."

as he bleeds.
Hole

A very high pitch is joined by still a higher pitch while an even higher pitch

ascends into the noon time sky.

Last

The old man takes hold of someone’s skin and it crackles under his touch. The

skin belongs to a guy who lost everything. But he’ll be alright and we know that

by the way his breath goes from loud to soft, from quick to slow. The old man

still holds onto the loser’s skin, out of habit perhaps, even though the loser says

out loud “I am a winner!” and the sky flares into blinding white.

THE END
ALMA LOOP


2019