Posts

Final blog post

https://www.instagram.com/gastonstrumpet/ This term, my project of improvising on the trumpet for 1 minute allowed me to express my artistic spirit in a way I hadn’t done before. These simple nuggets of creativity made it easier to create, in that the goal was less daunting and more manageable. Doing this project also gave me a space to create without judgment, which I have always struggled with. The only requirement is that the music had to be 1 minute long. This limit freed me up to explore in non-judgmental ways, because all the pieces were equally valid. In one example , I played around with randomly overlaying related improvisations to create a new texture. It may have sounded dissonant, but it was entirely new. This initial exploration led me to create the last post, “farewell, farewell forever”, in which I improvised with a chorale from the 1600s and made it my own. This idea was also inspired by the Jurgenson text, in which he says, “photographic images, even after digital mani
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insecurity of truth

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdrUOapDml_/ In Jurgenson’s discussion about digital manipulation, he says “photographic images, even after digital manipulation, always draw inspiration from both “scribe” and “poet” at once, varying in proportion depending on their subject and audience” (99). I have taken this interplay of poet and scribe and applied it to music. In my post, the scribe is the written music, which I, the “poet” interpret in a way that is both false and true simultaneously. I took the first two melodic lines and played each note as written, but I did so completely without a rhythmic pulse. This arguably falsifies the music, and shows me using my poetic intuition to manipulate it, similar to how a photo can be digitally manipulated to change its meaning. Since I use the same notes that the composer wrote, I challenge, along with Jurgenson, the notion that “scribe designates fact and poet fiction” (99). Is my music any less real just because I played it in a way that wasn’t in
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https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cdg0kMJDYSO/   For this week’s assignment, my Instagram posts deviated a little bit from what they usually are. Notably, the link above redirects to a post where I am not performing something improvised, it is not meant to be a minute long. This video is a snapshot of a moment in rehearsal, much like a social photo would be a snapshot of a moment in someone’s life. Jurgenson says “the social photo is a mirror reflection of your conscious awareness of the moment as a moment, placing you both in the moment and outside the moment, manipulating it” (85). My post captures this idea effectively. Just as a photo, I can come back to this video periodically and experience that moment from an outside perspective. But it also gives me a chance to relive that moment and remember. This potentially contributes to the way I view myself as a musician and helps me understand my identity.
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https://www.instagram.com/tv/CdW-CMKDPYP/   For this post I focused on the idea that “social media uniquely demands an identity that is pure, performative fiction” (Jurgenson 70). This idea relates not only to this post but also to my general project. By purposely not focusing on using my Instagram page as a self-promotion platform, my use of social media is pushing back against this idea. In my post, the viewer gets a view from my music stand as if they are in my practice room watching me practice, which gives the performance a more personal kind of authenticity. However, I am still constructing a performance, and it is still on social media. This relates to the “conflict between the self as social performance and the self as authentic expression” (Jurgenson 70). In my post and my whole Instagram, I am walking that line and doing both and neither simultaneously by portraying seemingly authentic performances through the scope of social media. 
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https://www.instagram.com/p/Ccv0mh-jWxg/?hl=en Instagram has forced me to think about framing, not only in the image itself but also in the caption. Live performance has always been the focus for me in my musical pursuits, so framing isn’t something I typically consider. The pandemic, along with this class, has caused me to begin performing digitally, which introduces many artistic layers that are not present in live performance. For this Instagram post, there are a few frames going on, one being the caption. As the authors say, “the caption of a picture is a frame that guides interpretation” (Lupton/Phillips 100). Throughout this class my captions have varied, from no caption to long captions that describe what I’m playing specifically. My captions have tended to be kind of blunt and descriptive, but with this post I took a different approach and used one word, “Renewal” to give the listener a clear concept from which to listen. Captioning this piece with a different word, say, “Mourn
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Nostalgia

https://www.instagram.com/p/CceYOhMDHvN/   Much like photographs, an audio recording is also nostalgic in that “it views backward, and its inclination is to preserve…It promotes calm over change and solid stillness over fluid movement” (Jurgenson 26). I played the first half of the melody to “I Didn’t Know What Time it was”, a ballad by Richard Rodgers, played by jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter in 1963 on an album called Ugestu by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. The recording I referenced represents a time in my adolescence marked by moments of bliss and personal discovery, as my passion for jazz music ignited rapturously. Playing this song brings me back to those memories. Reading about the different aspects of nostalgia and the act of documenting a moment in time has made me consider audio recordings in a new light. Jurgenson prompts me to wonder about what is beneficial and what is dangerous about a recording to me as an artist, as it can keep me bogged down in the comfort of the
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Balance, rhythm, and texture

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CcMWMyFD9sI/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link There is balance in the interplay between silence and sound, long notes and faster, shorter notes, quiet playing and loud playing. I find myself instinctively exploring this balance in all my improvisations, reflecting how “balance is a fundamental human condition: we require physical balance to stand upright and walk; we seek balance among the many facets of our personal and professional lives; the world struggles for balance of power” (Lupton/Phillips 29). Similarly, my music making requires balance, and I am in a constant struggle to stretch and maintain that balance. My clip also had a subtle rhythm and pacing over long periods of time. This was present in the repetition and development of distinct musical phrases that each had a clear beginning and end. Filming through the water bottle created a distorted texture that is different from the rest of my videos so far. I’m not sure how much it added to my work, but
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