Music in 12 Parts

Music in 12 Parts
2021-11-3

I wrote this in my journal in pen on 2018-08-06. It's there among
sketches and graphs and jotted dreams. I've reproduced it here
exactly as it was written, excepting the correction of some
spelling errors.

There's something quite special about Philip Glass's "Music 
In Twelve Parts." I first stumbled across sections of the 
piece when I f got a record player and inherited my dad's 
record collection, untouched since, perhaps, the nineties. 
Among classical and Jazz and strange Latin flute music,
I discovered "Music In Twelve Parts — Parts 1 & 2." It was a 
strange record, even before the needle touched it. Its
sleeve, a red-and-white patterned and minimalist thing
reminiscent of Sol LeWitt's less strictly linear work, was 
premonitory of the hypnotic nature of the music it contained
and protected from the dust of years, of moves and forgotten 
storage — Am I hamming this up too much? Whatever; it's fun —
The record itself was devoid of the song divisions I'd grown 
familiar with on other records: each side contained a sole track — 
long enough to nearly fill the space available.
     And the music. Timeless and repetitive, trance-like or perhaps 
magic, full and rich. I'm listening now — Part 3. The piece is, as 
advertized, split into 12 parts, each one between ten and
twenty minutes long. Each piece belongs with every other, but 
they're all different. The sounds come from, I believe, a few 
electric organs and a few voices. But even if you could
pick them out, this information wouldn't change the experience
— and I use that word very deliberately — that the music creates.
     The music is rhythmic and very repetitive. It's soft in feeling, 
but it's not quiet. A pattern or arpeggiation or cry or motif
will repeat fo many times from one voice while another voice
may shift its pattern slightly. These staggered transitions
                                                   one
result in a single journey through each "Part," no ^transition is
identifiable. But as this journey is walked, things change. 
At moments, I realize the sounds I'm listening to are

significantly different than a few minutes ago, but I
was never aware of them changing. This reminds me of growing 
up — physically — and the way the mind and consciousness 
adapt to the slow, steady change of the body they inhabit 
and, at times, control. There was no clear transition mome- 
nt at which I sprouted facial hair, or pubic hair. Yet there
certainly exist identifiable points in time when I clearly did
and clearly didn't have hair in those places. This seems to
me a contradiction, but I feel its truth — and it's reflected in
Glass's work. And the strangely unbroken pattern of grooves on that record re-
                                                                        flect this, too 
     I've listened to this music — especially parts 1 and 2 since
I only recently found parts 3–12 online — while studying, reading,
writing, thinking, trying not to think, falling asleep, and I'm 
sure during other activities I can't remember. I wrote all
of yesterday's entry while listening. The
music fills whatever space it's played in. This is something that 
I think differentiates it: there are no gaps in the sound. Between
               human
the organs and ^voices, and woodwinds of some kind I believe, 
there's no silence during the Part. When struggling to desc- 
ribe this music to a close friend, this aspect of it was all
I could lucidly communicate to her. This property I venture to 
guess this property of the Parts meshes with my mind well, 
focusing me. Distraction is easily avoided when the music
I fall back on while my computational-mind recoils from
the strain of focus is so all-encompassing and surrounds
me so completely, even taking root in the air around me: 
seeming not to only exist in the speakers it's sourced from
                              filling
and my ears that hear it, but in the room. Perhaps this
is why I've read and written to these pieces so much,

without really being conscious of it.
     This brings me to the most shiveringly good — or at
least affecting — part of the experience which is listening to 
Music In Twelve Parts: the end. The ends, really. Each
Part ends or transitions into the next abruptly, in
glaring contrast to the veiled, slippery illusions of transitions 
change within each Part. And this abruptness is often
heralded by the most subtle of building of energy in the
music — though there's no change in the notes or pattern 
themselves. Was this build-up written on the sheet
music for the Parts? Is it a subconscious result of the
real musicians playing this intense, even arduous, music
feeling and preparing, together, for the end? Is there any 
change at all?, do I only retrospectively hear a subtle x rising 
energy after I know the Part has ended?
     Many times the end of a Part — notably 12 and 2 —
has produced in me a body-sensation of chills and euphoria
                       gently
which I can't help but ^compare to an to an orgasm.
The effect is replicable and stunning. I suspect the POWER
of these inter-Part transitions and endings can be attributed 
to at least in part to the repetitive nature of the Parts. 
Over minutes, the Part shifts slowly and nearly imperceptibly
like sands in a tide. And suddenly the Part ends and the 
beginning of a new Part is upon me: the sun has risen
above the horizon line and the sands are bathed in
gold and red. Though they're the same sands, or slightly 
changed by the waters, I now see them with new eyes.
Where before, I saw in the dusk, I saw patterns in their 
coarsenesses, textures, and grits swirling, and reflections 
and refractions of the soft sky in the shallow water

over them, now I see heights and great valleys made 
sharp by the angled dawn light, a million sparklings off 
ripples caused by these peaks.
     Are there moments like this in life? Moments when 
the stealthy creep of life and of growth gives way to
a shining sunrise of revelation? Can we, I, access these 
moments? Control them? Create them? Or is it all I can 
do to enjoy the shiver and crawling skin that the change 
between Parts brings, to spread my arms and bask in
the first morning ray? And to look around, to listen 
closer, and see what's new. What's been revealed this 
time. — 2018•8•6

Yesterday while writing my undergraduate Thesis in Computer Science
I was listening to “Music in Twelve Parts” (now it's on Spotify).
It still has a strangeness and a beauty for me. Three years later,
I'm inevitably embarrassed by my own writing. Despite style, enough
of it still holds for me -- both the power of the music and the
memory of writing this -- that it belongs here.