To stand at the Post Mark’d West, and turn to face West, can be a trial for those sentimentally inclin’d, as well as for ev’ryone nearby. It is possible to feel the combin’d force, in perfect Enfilade, of ev’ry future second unelaps’d, ev’ry Chain yet to be stretch’d, every unknown Event to be undergone,— the unmodified Terror of keeping one’s Latitude. Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon
For three weeks I’ve been working on a composition for solo piano. At first I thought that I was writing an etude exploring polyrhythms with or tangential to the number 11, e.g., 11 beats against 4 beats, 11:5, 6:5, 8:3, etc. When writing these rhythms, I work also on playing them. It’s fun to figure them out, however the party-trick nature of just writing complex rhythms wore thin soon.
Other thematic ideas began to emerge. Sometimes a title helps to give me ideas and push the pencil along. The phrase “in perfect enfilade,” that I read in Thomas Pynchon’s novel Mason & Dixon, surfaced from my memory somehow. “Enfilade” refers to lines of sight in aiming artillery down a straight line from end to end. The phrase in Mason & Dixon also refers to the straight, famous line that Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon plotted between Pennsylvania and Maryland in 1763-64.
In the novel, the concept of line carries a role in the discussion of ley lines, time-lines (“every unknown event yet to be undergone”), and a fictional account of the duo continuing to plot the line to a surreal western America in sight of the Rocky Mountains before they stop.
It’s a massive novel, like many of Pynchon’s, including historical personages George Washington, a hipster Ben Franklin (playing a pub gig on his glass harmonica in rose-tinted half-moon glasses). There are also references to 18th century composers WA Mozart (who composed for the Glass Harmonica, K. 617), Quantz, and Dittersdorf. So, all of this suggested moods, rhythms (beyond the mystic 11), musical quotations, etc.
This is all to say that having a story to tell or express can help to motivate your muse and push the pencil in perfect enfilade to your goal.
Benjamin Franklin's Glass Harmonica
Comments