Sometimes, Music

Music Education and Composition student. Composer-lyricist, conductor, arranger, educator, and reluctant performer(in training). Let's talk about music.

[sometimes-music]

rerendered flipbook by Cullyn Murphy

[sometimes-music]

performed by Mivos Quartet

OLIVIA DE PRATO, violin

MAYA BENNARDO, violin

VICTOR LOWRIE TAFOYA, viola

TYLER J. BORDEN, cello

D-Will, the chase-down block, and other orderly butterflies by Cullyn Murphy (2019)

[sometimes-music]

D-Will, the chase-down block, and other orderly butterflies. is a meditation on causation and retroactive investigation. An eventual trajectory and even the potential presence of trajectory is slowly revealed and immediately taken away once discovered. The piece’s form takes shape through a crossfade of specificity and intelligibility leaving both sides arguably ambiguous with a seemingly unpredicted result. In the title’s case, we are offered “D-Will” which refers to former NBA player Deron Williams, “the chase-down block” which refers to Lebron James’ infamous chase-down block to seal the 2016 NBA Finals, and “other orderly butterflies.” which refers to an organized “butterfly effect” and insinuates that both Deron Williams, the player, and Lebron James’ block may have also been seemingly inconsequential moments of impact in a larger scheme which greatly affected the resultant league today. I am amazed and obsessed with how these and other obvious or completely unrelated connections coalesce at unexpected awe-inspiring and devastating moments.

To Michael Stern for inspiration, hard work, and concerts.

Olivia De Prato, violin Maya Bennardo, violin Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola Tyler J. Borden, cello

[sometimes-music]

Reposting because I really like this piece still and am v happy about it.

[sometimes-music]

A "flashbulb memory," or an "exceptionally vivid 'snapshot' of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential news was heard." There are three central factors in determining the impressionability of this type of autobiographical memory: importance and distinctiveness of the event, consequentiality, and surprise, and proximity and personal involvement. Flashbulb | Proximity demonstrates these factors through material that is heard and unheard. Sound unexpectedly flickers in and out of focus to depict a similar stream of constant consciousness tethered by moments of intense clarity followed by the fogginess of false recollections.

Fifth House Ensemble

Charlene Kluegel, violin

Sixto Franco, viola

Herine Coetzee Koschak, cello

Alex Goodin, bass

Katherine Petersen, piano

Red Note New Music Festival, 2019

[sometimes-music]

D-Will, the chase-down block, and other orderly butterflies. is a meditation on causation and retroactive investigation. An eventual trajectory and even the potential presence of trajectory is slowly revealed and immediately taken away once discovered. The piece's form takes shape through a crossfade of specificity and intelligibility leaving both sides arguably ambiguous with a seemingly unpredicted result. In the title's case, we are offered "D-Will" which refers to former NBA player Deron Williams, "the chase-down block" which refers to Lebron James' infamous chase-down block to seal the 2016 NBA Finals, and "other orderly butterflies." which refers to an organized "butterfly effect" and insinuates that both Deron Williams, the player, and Lebron James' block may have also been seemingly inconsequential moments of impact in a larger scheme which greatly affected the resultant league today. I am amazed and obsessed with how these and other obvious or completely unrelated connections coalesce at unexpected awe-inspiring and devastating moments.

To Michael Stern for inspiration, hard work, and concerts.

Olivia De Prato, violin Maya Bennardo, violin Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola Tyler J. Borden, cello

[sometimes-music]

Recidivism is the tendency of a convicted criminal to re-offend. As of 2018, in the United States, the rate of rearrest within three years of leaving prison is at 67%. It is frequently cited that a reason for this high rearrest percentage may be due to the poor conditions of prisons and our justice systems’ prioritized focus on initial arrest rather than working towards preventing future offenses. Often former prisoners find difficulty in readjusting to ‘normal’ life again and do not possess the skills to cope with this change.

"Recidivism" takes shape through a similar trajectory. Material furiously spins and repeats itself as an act of atonement only to find that the ultimate goal is unobtainable despite the necessary punishment having been carried out. Once this arduous process is complete, it loses all support and falls into similar habits out of necessity or an unknowingness of what to do next.

Longleash

Pala Garcia, violin John Popham, cello Renate Rohlfing

Loretto Project 2018

Sound recording and engineering: Chris Kincaid.

[sometimes-music]

I'm just trying to download things on the internet. LEAVE ME ALONE, ROBOTS.

[sometimes-music]

More music! I wrote this piece for a reading session with JACK Quartet during New Music on the Point and they obviously knocked it out of the park.

So, here is my string quartet about why we should cancel football.

[sometimes-music]

Linguistic Anthropology is the study of how language influences culture and social life. Studies in this discipline help comment on identity, social ideologies, and socialization in general. Understanding the total implications of language in these scenarios is daunting and, at times, arguably subjective. Music takes a similar space in our cultural makeup. We frequently claim that music is communicative or even a language without acknowledging that this communication more realistically comes from a combination of history and metaphor.

Linguistic Anthropology sifts through this combination through a circuital collage of musical and textual associations with a single source; Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life and Others. This collection of stories includes Story of Your Life and Tower of Babylon, both of which discuss the acquisition of language. With this starting off point, Linguistic Anthropology makes textual connections from Kafka to The Simpsons as well as musical connections from Phil Spector to Luciano Berio. We are not supposed to discretely hear this through a line of associations, rather this should serve as a meditation on accrued culture over time.

Hillary LaBonte, soprano Brad Balliett, bassoon Louise King, cello Will Yager, double bass Niki Johnson, percussion

New Music on the Point Premiere 2018

[sometimes-music]

You don’t control me.

[sometimes-music]

Crossing my fingers that this gets a lot of performances.

[dotted-half-note]

good luck sightreading this one

[jquijote999]

I HATE THIS SO MUCH.

[sometimes-music]

:) I hate YOU so much.

[jquijote999]

Thank you. I hate me too. :)

[sometimes-music]

*gives hug*

*hates selves*

*friend ships*

[sometimes-music]

Crossing my fingers that this gets a lot of performances.

[dotted-half-note]

good luck sightreading this one

[jquijote999]

I HATE THIS SO MUCH.

[sometimes-music]

:) I hate YOU so much.

[sometimes-music]

Agony by Cullyn D. Murphy (b.1993) performance at Boston Conservatory at Berklee College for the New Music Gathering on May 18th, 2018.

Agony is the compressed musical depiction of the Law & Order episode bearing the same name. Law & Order is one of many long-lasting crime shows filled with archetypes packed into a familiar, repetitive, form. Agony takes advantage of this pervasive genre by performing the seventy-page screenplay as quickly as

possible along with choreographed percussion to demonstrate narrative and progression in an abstract pairing. In this way, the audience should not necessarily understand the drama explicitly, but instead, in broad, brush strokes and generalizations.

[sometimes-music]

Get sad.

[sometimes-music]

Crossing my fingers that this gets a lot of performances.

[the-book-reaper]

What the fuck.

[sometimes-music]

It is unceasingly funny to me how many people think that I would 1. actually put this in front of performers and expect them to play it. 2. expect anyone to actually identify the pitches to get the joke. The red herring worked too well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This isn’t your chance to complain about “modern composers.” It’s your chance to read a simple rhythm and understand a quick joke! Yay!

[sometimes-music]

Crossing my fingers that this gets a lot of performances.

[dotted-half-note]

good luck sightreading this one

[wumbleberry-fc]

YOU ABSOLUTE MONSTER!!!!!

I HAVE BEEN STARING AT THIS FOR A FEW WEEKS UNABLE TO ZOOM IN AND READ IT, AND NOW THAT I HAVE DONE SO, I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT OH MY GOSH THIS IS LITERALLY THE WORST I CAN’T BELIEVE I INVESTED SO MUCH TIME WANTING TO READ THIS ONLY TO FIND OUT WHAT IT ACTUALLY WAS AND I AM SO PISSED OFF RIGHT NOW GAH!!!

[sometimes-music]

❤️❤️❤️

[sometimes-music]

Crossing my fingers that this gets a lot of performances.