"Space 2251: An Electronic Symphony"
Space 2251: An Electronic Symphony is meant to be a journey that develops and evolves throughout the piece. This is the symphony in it’s entirety, complete with a new video. (Go to the video page—it’s better with the video).Space 2251: An Electronic Symphony is meant to be a journey that develops and evolves throughout the piece. This is the symphony in it’s entirety, complete with a new video.
About "Space 2251: An Electronic Symphony"
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The Movements
Lyrics
I. Floating
This is the first movement, Floating, of the seven movement electronic symphony about space. This movement compels one to experience the sensation of floating in three dimensional space, not having the usual anchors of gravity and cardinal directions. We created most of the sounds you will hear. Enjoy the sonic experience, and allow the music take you to another dimension.
Instrumental
II. Endless Space
Let my flute take you to places… Space is so vast, undiscovered, uninhabitable and yet may be our last chance for survival. Where is home? Can we think for ourselves and not go where others tell us we should? This movement (II of VII) also gestures to silence, an often forgotten element of music, highlighted by John Cage, Debussy, Miles Davis, the Japanese in their making of the Dotaku bells and other composers, who work with silence as a way of stretching and contracting the sense of time.
Endless space
How does one find home?

Is it necessary

To stop floating

To go where others go?

There is no true north when whirling round the sun

Moving elements, swirling in the eternal

How do you hear sound in a vacuum?

Sometimes silence is a great comfort
III. Personal Space
Movement III of VII. This movement is about the push and pull of wanting closeness and yet differentiation. Notice the intervals in the vocals and flute parts are very narrow, connoting enmeshment. It also nods to the quantum entanglement, which posits that particles can be linked, and influence each other faster than the speed of light, no matter how far the distance (wow!). Actions performed on one, affect the other, which Albert Einstein called, "spooky action at a distance." Could it be that the actions we take affect others, no matter the distance? Should we think more carefully about how we care for, or hurt, other living beings?
I want space, but only part-time

I can’t be your one and only lifeline

The only constant is change and motion

If we block it, there’ll be an explosion

Then we get stronger don’t be scared

The fire grows hotter when there is air

The quantum entanglement

We’ll always connect
Past, present, and future

A boomerang effect
IV. Superluminal
Movement IV of VII. It seems to me that the last great frontiers are: space, microbiology, deep earth (the deep sea and the earth’s core) and the brain—large, small, deep and complex. Scientists are contemplating whether superluminal speeds are possible, i.e. faster than light.
If possible, superluminal speeds would mean that we have to deal with the concept of time travel, which most physicists agree is not possible. Still, telescopes are time machines in a way, as we look upon light that has travelled many light years to make it to our eyes, and thus, we see the state of the object when it emitted light in the past, not what it is in the present. Isn’t it wonderful to explore new frontiers? Life is beautiful.
Do feelings have shape or mass?

Life goes by way too fast
Is it coming or has it passed?

There’s no way to forecast

How do you measure what you do not know?

The future was so long ago

Never ending stairs to the unknown

There is no real above or below

Superluminal, faster than light

Black hole swallowing daylight

Large, small, deep, and complex

Frontiers of what is next

Universe wasn’t made for us

Our hubris is treasonous

Where's time stored, does it really exist?

Memories on a waiting list

Telescopes are time machines

Past, future, in between

The Freeling is mutual
It’s all unusual.
TKTKTKTKTKTK (we are beyond language here…)
V. Rise of Life
Movement V of VII. This movement is about how life is created from elements that mix and mutate, and finally, over vast time, form into life. You will hear a twelve tone row; there is no real tonal center, and all the elements are at play in the primordial soup. The ability of molecules to copy themselves through RNA and DNA was a key factor in the origin of life, and the repetition of the 12 tone row echoes this process of self-replication. Bill and I created all the sounds you hear. Enjoy!
Instrumental
V.I Chaos
Movement VI of VII. “One may be compelled to search when there’s a paucity of stimulus, and forced to search when chaos is upon us.” I wrote that line about climate change, but how fitting in the time of Covid. Many things we see coming, but don’t take action until it’s too late. On the musical side, I had so much fun writing this movement. There is no meter, no tonal center. You don’t know what’s coming next or how to make sense of it. It’s chaos. Bill and I created almost all the sounds, which are absorbing and unique. This movement is unlike anything you’ve heard before. Experience the chaos and where it takes you…
One may be compelled to search
When there's a paucity of stimulus
And forced to search
When chaos is upon us
V.II Endless Space (Reprise)
Movement VII of VII. This is the only part of the symphony that repeats—coming back to where we started, but different lyrics connoting being changed by the journey. The vocals and flute are doubled an octave below to reflect that the traveler is not alone, even if it is her observer or grown inner self that accompanies her. “Once you see something, it cannot be undone.” I felt that way when I saw how animals are treated in the unending pursuit of meat production, and it also fits regarding climate change and the devastation that is coming. In this cacophonous world, sometimes silence is a great comfort. Sometimes silence. Shhhh…
Endless space
How does one find home?
Is it necessary
To stop floating
To go where others go?
Once you see something, it cannot be undone
Moving elements swirling in the internal
How do you hear sound in a vacuum?
But sound can leap across a vacuum
Sometimes silence….shhhh