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MUSIC AND A SENSE

OF PLACE

MUSIC AND A SENSE OF

PLACE
BY DEBRA KAYE
ON NOVEMBER 19, 2018

Have you ever been arrested by sound—music, a

bird call or even a siren?  You might even notice, in
an Ivesian sort of way, the polymetric pulse of a city
or the rhythm of footsteps on the stairs (and their
canon with your own). These rhythms say something
about the life that created them. How different
they’d be in Bali.

A sense of place can be the impetus for a piece,

motion can be the catalyst.  Beethoven often took
long walks, I imagine both to clear his head and to
stir his thoughts.  When I walk down the streets of
New York City, I’ll sometimes find myself humming a
bass line vamp that accompanies my pace and
mood. It’s unconscious at first.  The soundscape
around me fits on this grid, often in syncopated
counterpoint.  The movement suggests music by its
weight, duration, tempo, direction and rhythmic
patterns. Everything is part of the music.

I think of those times when we harmonize with our I THINK OF

THOSE TIMES
urban environment as “citi-zen” and earlier this year WHEN WE
I wrote a piece for electric guitar, electric bass, drum
HARMONIZE
WITH OUR
kit and a pre-recorded audio track titled Citi-zen. URBAN
ENVIRONMENT
AS “CITI-ZEN”
The recording that accompanies the piece is my
vocal improv with the New York City night, vamping
and riffing into my phone’s recording app as I walk
down Broadway at a tempo of about 100 to the
quarter note, responding to the sounds I hear
around me. In the course of my walk, a bus
whooshes by, a dog yaps, sirens wail, there’s theater
talk, a trumpet plays across the street.  Live
instruments play along in a game of hide and
seek/cover and reveal. The recording is unedited; I
wanted it to express a natural occurrence, the
polymetric counterpoint of life.

The recording gave me the form of the piece.  I

wanted to do a five-minute piece, and so I stopped
recording when the time was up. But I felt it needed
something more, so I started recording again for
another minute. Near the end of that coda a woman
shouts, “It’s a full moon!”  That was the ending I
needed!  It happened to have been October 4, the
Harvest Moon, 10-4, the old ham radio code for “got
it!”  I welcome the random occurrence, the
synchronicity, improvising with life, making the best
of what’s come before as best I can.

My current work in progress is The Universe of Grand

Central for any solo instrument and a two-minute
cellphone video with improvised commentary,
filmed during “off-peak” hours in Grand Central
Station.  A solo instrumentalist plays along with the
video. We begin with a view of the ceiling, the
cosmos in all its astrological glory.  Following the
arching windows, the viewer descends into the hall
and its inhabitants, and follows them in their
crossings through the Grand Hall, their individuality
more pronounced in this quiet hour, after the herds
have already passed.

Sometimes a place can affect the music more

indirectly.  I lived for a time in the mountains of
Northern California.  The wide open spaces and
majestic beauty filled me with a sense of reverence.
The “emptiness” of the wilderness provoked a
fullness, the stillness roused my inner life.  As I
wrote, I looked to the mountains. Did the music ring
true?  Sympathetic vibrations between saxophone
and piano evoke this resonance.

The desire to remember the feeling of a place can SOMETIMES A

PLACE CAN
also be a catalyst. The Beauty Way for soprano, AFFECT
MUSIC MORE
tenor, and bass viols (2009) is inspired by my INDIRECTLY
residency at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New AND THE
DESIRE TO
Mexico.  In Taos, 8000 feet above sea level, closer REMEMBER
to the heavens, I observed the mercurial play of light THE FEELING
OF A PLACE
and shadow and experienced a sense of wonder CAN ALSO BE
A CATALYST.
that I never wanted to forget. Time slowed down. I
was off the clock; there was only morning, afternoon,
and night.  I was in the Timeless Zone.

I was fascinated by the place. It’s a cultural

crossroads of Native American, Mexican, and
Spanish influences, and then in the 20th century,
the artists colonized it.
There, for the first time, I had the opportunity to walk
on one of the few places in the United States that is
still nominally acknowledged as “Native” land, and
which is also completely off the electric grid.  With
beauty all around me, a Navajo blessing came to
mind.  You may have heard it.

Now I Walk In Beauty

Now I walk in beauty

Beauty is before me
 Beauty is behind me
Above and below me

Returning to New York City was culture shock at

first. Walking through crowded Harlem streets, I
could envelop myself in the aura of those summer
walks by singing the Navajo tune.  I was soon
discovered. Through the sirens and screeching cars,
I heard a man singing a gospel version of “This Little
Light of Mine.” We smiled at each other, each
continuing our song.  Integrating these experiences
(and these tunes) became the impetus for the piece.

I later found that the beauty way is described as a

feeling of joy, bliss, and safety, a state of grace. 
There are no battles with people, nature, or our own
nature. It recognizes those times when we are in
harmony with all that is.

The Native melody is very similar to the traditional

English round, Hey Ho Nobody Home, and I
wondered if these tunes had ever met and
influenced each other.  It seemed interesting that
the words of the two songs seem to be opposites
and represent a positive and negative aspect.

The Beauty Way is in rondo form. It begins with the

original Navajo tune in canon. The B section is a
fantasy on the original material that leads to a
darker aspect and the return of the Beauty theme in
combination with Hey Ho Nobody Home.  Next,
again, there is a development section, but this time
it leads to a more positive aspect, culminating when
the Beauty theme returns, this time in combination
with This Little Light of Mine.  The goal of the piece is
to establish the feeling of the beauty way, to fall out
of harmony and to find the way back.

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The sound world of New York

composer Debra Kaye merges her
eclectic background and interests.
Her natural impulse to storytelling,
training as a classical and jazz
pianist, dalliances in the world of traditional folk
music and dance, from Dylan to mambo; Bulgarian
 to Celtic–and studies in momentum and flow
(Dalcroze Eurhythmics) that add a visceral quality
to her music.   Recent highlights include
commissions from the Howland Chamber Music
Circle and Portland Youth Philharmonic, and five
premieres in 2020 including three zen poems for
shakuhachi, viola and cello commissioned by...
Read more »

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