syros sound meetings

Portals: A poetry preview from my new album

Homecoming, my new album of musical poetry, will feature woven layers of acoustic violin and spoken word poetry. Below is the poem that goes with track 2, "Portals," which I wrote after being inspired by the beautiful doors on the island of Syros. Here is a rough video captured at a live demo presentation I gave at the Syros Sound/Word Residency.

Doors in Ano Syros, Greece

Doors in Ano Syros, Greece

Portals

First day here, I’m staying at a local’s house. The night is warm for exploring.

I take a picture of the front door before heading out.

A clue.

To find my way back.

I love the doors on this island, Syros. Can’t stop taking pictures.

There’s a royal blue one, a dark bold wood, turquoise with brass handle. Even chipped edges look just right against stark white walls.

Every house begins with a door.

Every door is a portal to a house.

Portal to a home.

I think about my own apartment door, identical to the hundreds of other doors in my building.
Is my door a portal too?

Last month, two neighbors mistook my door for theirs. In the middle of the night, I heard the clanking, scraping of misfit key entering lock.

This would not happen here in Syros.

Not to the faded aubergine nor the freshly-painted tangerine.
Not to the shy lavender or pastel pink with periwinkle trim…

How do I make my door a portal? What if a portal only happens when a house becomes a home?

I have a ways to go.

Is home really a home if it has one hundred clones?

 

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This work was written by Chrysanthe Tan during Syros Sound Meetings' Sound / Word Residency (Ano Syros, Greece, July 2016).

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17 Notes to Self: Greece Edition

Most touristy photo possible. No selfie stick required! 😉

Holy moly, I went to Greece & it was ALL OF THE THINGS & then I got back and didn't know how to process it until weeks after my return, so that said...I don't mind that this blog post is 3 weeks late, because let's face it: 

It takes time to separate real lessons from nostalgia.

So please remember this stuff, future Chrysanthe:

  1. Pack more shirts next time you travel in the summer. Fewer jackets.
  2. If you have an absurdly large suitcase, make sure your AirBnb apartment has an elevator -- or at least not a perilous, narrow, marble spiral suitcase.
  3. Embrace JOMO (Joy of Missing Out). Remember how you skipped the final group outing, and how it was totally okay. You saved yourself from developing insidious, unintentional resentment, and your non-participation didn't affect your relationship with your colleagues. 
  4. Whipping out your violin and jamming with the performing musicians at a cafe is never a bad idea, especially if it's a Vamvakaris song.
  5. Remember how upset you were about the slow album progress at first. Then fast forward to the final days when you had all those new revelations and ideas that wouldn't have been possible to implement had you rushed the process. Stop freaking out about productivity the whole time.
  6. Just accept the siesta hours. They're not gonna go away, no matter how much you wish they would. Seriously though, Syros is a ghost town from 1-5pm, and there's no use fighting it.
  7. Pay attention to the status of your luggage at international layovers. Apparently, bags don't always automatically meet you at your destination. Thank god for the one incredible Philadelphia Airport employee who gave my suitcase a second chance to make it through with me.
  8. Bringing Lysol spray, a power strip, Tupperware, and tons of batteries = the best idea ever. Good job. Pat yourself on the back and do it again, always.
  9. Set small, manageable, imaginable goals, because it's really easy to feel disappointed and lost when you're deep in the middle of work. You're never sure if you're living up to your expectations if you don't set a realistic, concrete expectation to begin with. You always fall into the vicious cycle of progress without acknowledgment, which certainly contributes to your rampant artistic malaise and insecurity.
  10. People don't ALWAYS suck. Remember that you actually had some nice moments. Highlights: learning Greek phrases from my colleagues, interviewing people about home/having a couple of unexpectedly deep offshoot conversations sparked by that, randomly hanging out with the drunk Greek band at Apano Hora. 
  11. Never forget the time you got really lost on your run and found your way back operating on pure instincts (!?!?). Your instincts aren't always broken after all!
  12. No matter how hot the climate of your destination is, dress for the Arctic on the plane.
  13. Always have cash on hand for cabs. Drivers don't always take card like they do in the US.
  14. Remind my cat-sitter that he should refill the litter when it gets low...I shall never make this mistake again...
  15. Staying with an AirBnb host who is actually present can be nice if you're new to a city and want insider tips. I learned so much from Eugenia, my Syros host, and she even came to my presentation at the residency!
  16. Speaking of presentation, why do you always think you're a terrible public speaker and articulator? You walk around telling everyone you can't talk, you're too awkward, no one will understand your gibberish, but maybe it's time to acknowledge that sometimes you're actually very good? Your Syros residency presentation is where you found the sweet spot in terms of preparation + confidence + trust in the moment. You were certainly prepared -- that's for damn sure -- but not over prepared. Your material was very strong. You had all the goods, so there was no need to feel like an imposter. And your usually annoying tendency to think everything to death came in handy when having to speak about your process and inspiration. (I have acquired a few minutes of footage from the presentation, which I'll be privately sharing with my patrons.)
  17. Being in a different time zone than everyone back home is the best thing ever. I LOVE BEING OUT OF REACH and missing out on live updates. I wouldn't want to be without internet at all, of course, but catching up with things on my own time is really one of the secrets to calmness.

If you're curious for some footage from the Syros Sound/Word Residency, here are several video diaries I posted during the trip. They are linked here in chronological order. 

Carob tree, yellow split peas, midnight snack hunt, impromptu drunk musician hang

Ocean views, Greek coffee, emo art thoughts, cats, vegan food.

Cats, class, colleagues, cooking, emo art thoughts

Mysterious rye bread, Greek coffee, musical preview, midnight Vamvakaris concert

Sanitizer, salepi, spoken word, sleepy composers, deadly delicious rye bread

Water, hills, bread, split peas, work, emo art thoughts

Last day of the residency, colleague presentations, group improv performance

Athens, Acropolis, travel lessons, perilous staircase

For more blog posts about this trip and my new (in progress) album, click here.

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Doors as Portals to Home

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One of the first things I noticed upon arrival in Syros was how uniquely beautiful each door is. I love walking and taking photos while I admire the wide plethora of colors and constructions: faded turquoise, royal blue, bold dark wood, forest green, a shy lavender, pastel pink with periwinkle…

Seeing all these doors has added a new dimension to my thoughts about what makes a home, as doors are portals to a home.

My first day in Syros (when I was staying elsewhere on the island), I took a photo of my host’s front door as a way to remind myself which house to come back to at night. I do this everywhere I travel.

My apartment door in Los Angeles is identical to the door of hundreds of other units on the premises. Last month, a confused couple tried to open my door with their own key simply because they mistook my door for theirs.

This would not happen in Syros.

I’m not sure where these thoughts are going, but my brain is spinning, thinking about doors being portals, signifiers, symbols, invitations to a home. What does it mean if your portals looks identical to all the other portals? How important is differentiation or customizability in establishing home?

Is a home really a home if it has one hundred clones?

For what it’s worth, the day after my neighbors tried to enter my unit, I went out and bought a doormat. I think it helps. Perhaps my subconscious already knows how to make a home.

This post originally appeared on the Sound/Word residency blog.

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Scoring Scripts vs. Annotating Music

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At the beginning of each composition, there's a brief down point in which I wonder "Do I know how to do this anymore? What if my last piece was really my last?"

In the creation of my musical-poems, my question is always this: Which should come first -- the music or the text? All week, I have been jotting down ideas, collecting notes, basically being a data collector. I have themes, musical motifs, photos, annotated receipts, 3 hours of field recordings, and pages of journal notes about all the things that make me think of "home." 

Since I am writing a concept album, the question of whether text or music comes first seems more pressing than usual. I want the pieces to flow together, so I do have to be mindful of beginnings and endings, as well as the overall sonic and textural arc. At the same time...this also applies to the text. It seems almost as if this album will end up as one continuous story, should the listener choose to regard the work in this way. I do want each piece to stand alone as an entity independent of the others, but I can't ignore the fact that when put together, there will be a verbal/textual narrative. 

Balancing tones and weights is a delicate act. 

By tones and weights I mean the heaviness and emotional charge of not only topics but also renderings of such. For example, one piece on this Homecoming album will likely center around addiction and mental health struggles/shackles while another will be about cats. When I wrote my MFA poetry manuscript a few years ago, I dealt with this range by splitting my book up into 3 distinct sections, but it made more sense, since I was dealing with a significantly higher volume of words.

I guess all of this is my procrastinatory way of saying that I feel stuck and confused today. These are the approaches I've considered taking: 

  1. Writing out all the text first, in track order, as if it were a screenplay. Then "scoring" the text afterward.
  2. Opposite of the first one, that is, writing the music first and fitting the text in afterward.
  3. A hybrid approach in which I focus on one piece at a time, or switch off between tasks.

My favorite interpretation of the meaning "experimental music" is that which acknowledges the scientific, literally experimental process in which the music can manifest. 

My brain tends towards the analytical, so as much as I'd like to throw caution to the wind, I almost must think about the above things while producing my work. I know many of you reading this are probably thinking it doesn't matter; just start and see what happens. In the end, you are right. 

I hypothesize that approaches 1 or 3 would be best. After assessing my mental and physical resources and restrictions (a big one being that a large portion of my best workday period must be dedicated to quiet siesta time), it seems that I should go for #3. That way, I can use the mandated siesta time (2:30-5:30) to write text and the other hours to record my violin.

Crossing my fingers. Let the experiment begin (or continue).

This post originally appeared on the Syros Sound/Word Residency blog.

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