F.M.R.L. for solo piano (2020)

F.M.R.L. (ephemeral) is a contemplation of two texts I have found myself returning to as of late: Chöygam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Dharma Art, and Daniela Cascella’s F.M.R.L. In the former, Trungpa Rinpoche frames the concept of space as something present in even the most busy of experiences; how the moss covering a rock is not perceived in terms of its individual strands but its whole. This served as the genesis for the piece’s rhythmic and formal material. Cascella’s F.M.R.L., on the other hand, inspired the timbral and notational world of the piece. Where she attempts to write sound, I attempt to sound writing by taking the ephemeral (improvised sound) and fixing it in spacetime through notation. Working with my recorded improvisations and subsequent transcriptions as I composed, I sought to warp and, where necessary, invent notations that not only conveyed the basic parameters of each sound such as its pitch and rhythm, but also its timbre and the physical sensation of producing it. In doing so, I developed an embodied notation – letters of an alphabet you feel under your fingertips rather than on your tongue – through which the piece is communicated.

F.M.R.L. was commissioned and premiered by Andrea Lodge as part of Hypercube’s inaugural composition lab in November of 2020. The recording below features my own performance.