Other Thoughts

Listeners often mistakenly think that I am interested in beauty because I occasionally have passages of exquisitely beautiful music in my works. But I am only interested in beauty because it is "superficial," it is something so "on the surface" and impersonal that it doesn’t get in the way of what it is I’m really trying to express.

Recently there has been a great deal of repetition in my work. And each time something is repeated it is changed minutely. I am interested in finding the absolute smallest change I can make that will change the underlying experience of the music the most. This is what Morton Feldman and Chris Newman have both referred to as "non-developmental development" in my work—where nothing (in the music, that is) seems to be developing, yet the emotinal experience of the piece is moving ahead at a relatively good pace.

My focus is 100% on subtext. I want to create a music where everything is internal and sub-conscious; where nothing seems to be happening at all, and yet you are changing inside.

From "Why I like Anonymous Music"
© 1989 Bunita Marcus

< back to Archives