Where Did He Go?

Oh dear. It looks like Roscoe has wandered off somewhere. I found the previous entry on his typewriter, and apparently he was true to his word and has left for who knows where. This can only be trouble, particularly since I don't own a car to go look for him in at the moment.  That means I'll have to start calling around to some police stations in Connecticut asking if they've picked up a disoriented hundred-year old man at the bus station lately.

Dogs might be overkill for this

Fall Weather

Autumn has once again arrived, and by happy coincidence my enforced (but unnecessary) bed rest ended yesterday.  If I had to stay recumbent for one more day I likely would have abandoned all pretense at good-humor and destroyed some of the various valuable knick-knacks I have lying around the place.

I can see why they say tiger is an aphrodisiac   

Ed has done his best to be helpful, but the poor man just couldn't figure out the right mix of tea leaves for my daily Himalayan 茶. Also he could never figure out which were my morning slippers and which were my evening slippers, even though there's a clear difference on the tread if you look carefully in the right light.

Early Music

That buffoon of a doctor at the VA hospital ordered me to stay in bed for a few days after I got home, so I haven't had much of a chance to get anything useful accomplished.  All I have to show for the past week is a set of short piano pieces written to explore a musical system based on algebraic quotient rings, and the results are far from ideal.

It seemed like it would work in principal

However, all this time off my feet has given me a chance to thumb through some old journals of mine, and I think it would be worthwhile to share some of the more interesting passages I find with the world at large.  Of course, if I ever happen to pass away -- which is by no means a foregone conclusion -- these writings will be available to biographers, but in the meantime, here is an entry from back in the seventies:

A Brief Side Note

In his last posting, Ed seemed to imply that I bit him when he tried to help me up.  That is exactly what I did.  The thought that I would need helping standing up from anyone is utterly preposterous, although the paramedics made it difficult for me to do otherwise.  My residency in this hospital is purely cautionary.

These things have multiple uses

In the Navy, You Can...

Spending the last few days at the VA Hospital has brought back some long-repressed memories of my military days.

Also repressed memories of bad modernist architecture

"What's that?"  you ask, in that obnoxious, shocked tone of voice I'm sure you use in such cases, "Roscoe Willis, masterful composer, humanitarian, and committed socialist, spent time in the Navy?"

Why, yes, of course I did.  I daresay I'm even proud of it.  (Excellent guess about it being the Navy, by the way.  The Army wound up with Sam Barber, much to their disappointment, I'm sure.)  After all, this was during the Second World War, when for one brief moment, all of us, regardless of political background, were united in the common cause of killing Nazis.  I did my part by writing some music designed to increase our boys' enthusiasm for said killing.  My oratorio "Let Freedom Ring," while perhaps not up to the level of some of my later masterpieces, received a number of stirring performances, including one on the deck of the USS Yorktown accompanied by the Marine Band and several rounds of anti-aircraft fire when a Japanese Kamikaze attempted to interrupt the concert.

Luckily I decided not to wear my good tuxedo

Minor Fall, Everything OK

I figured news of this would probably get out sooner or later, so I'll go ahead and let everyone know that Roscoe is just fine; this evening he tripped over a five-pound weight he'd left lying by the bed and took a nasty little fall.

These things can be deadly

Fortunately I came by about a half hour later on my way back from the New York Public Library, where I often spend my day when I've got research to do for an article, and sometimes when I don't. I tried to help him up, but he seemed a bit delirious, so I decided just to go ahead and call 911. He didn't suffer any serious injuries and is resting for a day before he goes back home. Meanwhile I've been treated for some shallow bite wounds in my calf and ankles, but likewise it appears that I'll be fine.

In fact, I think I saw him writing something down for the blog, so hopefully we won't go too long without another Roscoe Willis gem. Meanwhile, it might be time to get him something to press to get help if this happens again.

Can't remember what the thing is called, though

On Setting Texts

Recently, as I have been working on my latest piece, a Biblical oratorio for unmixed voices and four antiphonal Balinese Gamelan ensembles (the provisional title is Oombayahamanasqotsi, which is a composite word I derived from several native languages of the aforementioned island -- the meaning of which I will leave for any competent linguist to decipher), I have been forced to grapple with one of music's most challenging elements: text-setting.

Simply writing music to fit a text is fairly trivial, of course, but I expect more of myself than a mere illustration or accompaniment to the words of some other individual -- in this case, King David, or as biblical historians now generally acknowledge, some underpaid hack that was forced to ghostwrite psalms for him while he carried on with vulnerable foreign immigrants' women.

Administrative

Hello, all.

My name is Ed MacMillan and I thought I might as well introduce myself as well. I graduated in '08 with my PhD in Musicology from Wesleyan University, with the dissertation "Elements of Aleatory Procedure via Graphical Ambiguity in Roscoe Willis's 'Ink Blot' Compositions 1959-1961."

Before that I did my Masters at Princeton and my undergraduate, which was actually in construction management, at Case Western Reserve. That's a long story, so Roscoe asked me not to take up any space here with it.

Above all, I just want to say that I'm honored to have the opportunity to moderate this blog for Mr. Willis. I came to know and love his music about a decade ago when our university orchestra took a stab at playing "Knifewerk"; it certainly proved to be beyond their abilities, but I for one was hooked, and tracked down a recording at the nearest Tower Records. The rest, as they say, is history.  Meeting him this past April was particularly exciting.  Since I graduated from Wesleyan, I've been doing itinerant freelance writing for some musical journals and looking for a professorial post somewhere -- preferably tenure track, but -- well, again, let's not forget who's blog this is. I hope you all get as much out of Roscoe's wit and wisdom as I have.

Greetings, Fellow Truth-Seekers

I imagine a few of you might be somewhat surprised to see my writing posted here on the Internet, or "World Wide Web," as some of you apparently call it; let me assure you, first and foremost, that it is in fact I, Roscoe Willis, legendary composer, theorist, lecturer, teacher, guru of various eastern philosophies, and personal fitness expert, that is writing this article.  About six months ago, I happened to meet a strapping young musicologist and long-time admirer by the name of Edward MacMillan, who was so nice as to drop by my East Village loft for a cup of Himalayan Tea and an interview for Contemporary Sounds.

The Loft