G æ t i r u S ý n t M é r Á K o r t i n u?

- For Percussion & Electronics -

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 01:09:17] all rights reserved

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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link: otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)

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"I believe the question perpetrated by Otacílio Melgaço has gigantic proportions. In fact, he puts us against the wall and triggers the question: Which is our place in the world today? How we should and can guide ourself taking as starting point the contemporary cartography? The sound pieces bring the passage of time in their titles. From the crack of dawn to the deepest night. Allegory of existence own. While we try to find ways and directions; the same time passes, passes and passes (the melting watches!) whilst we´re invaginated by a chronology increasingly hurried. The use of the Icelandic language may be, metaphorically, the exercise of a necessary distance (and deceleration). How is essential for planetary citizens to find a reflection of theirself through moments of isolation, remoteness - to retrace routes and reinterpret the cardinal points. Internal points of an intrinsic suture, I think. All I hear in this M.C.Escherian audio disc seems a compass rose for me. Moving. Uninterrupted. Turning. The phonograph album mentions the velocities that flow on a daily basis. From the most explicit/continuous to the abysmal/glacial. Speeds that repeat/perpetuate and paradoxically celerities turning into statues, diving into vacuum. Therefore, we should focus on. In reflective stillness. In favor of a proper reading. And so proper orientation. The map is not real. The world is. Through his creations and nothing musically more urgently impactful and seminal than the Percussion (under the identity of Timpani, Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Drums, PVC Pipe, Electronic Frequencies and some other surprises that will remain surprises...for those who have not heard the work - for now), ...through his creations while O.M. offers us ´boussoles´ and so we can better situate ourselves around the world, I'll echo a prolongation of the Melgacian primordial question: ´Can You show yourself on the map?´" (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"I agree with John McLaughlin, ´The mathematics of rhythm are universal. They don't belong to any particular culture.´ And every great artist dialogues with all mankind, right? Math + Culture = Rhythmicity;

>> intro

´What came to me as a revelation was the use of rhythm in developing an overall structure in music.´ (Philip Glass)

>> first segment

´G æ t i r u S ý n t M é r Á K o r t i n u?´

That´s the question. Or, translating from Icelandic to English,

´C a n Y o u S h o w M e O n T h e M a p?´

There´s a constant reverberation in each of the compositions herein highlighted and it´s impossible to get out unharmed. We spent to be part of them, as latitudes and longitudes that invite us to find out Where we are ... and, why not?, a bit of ... Who we are;

>> second segment

´Music, which should pulsate with life, needs new means of expression...´ and mapping;

>> third segment

A triadic thinking of Edgar(d) Victor Achille Charles Varèse:

´I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena;

There is an idea, the basis of an internal structure, expanded and split into different shapes or groups of sound constantly changing in shape, direction, and speed, attracted and repulsed by various forces. The form of the work is a consequence of this interaction;

I dream of instruments obedient to my thought and which with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm;´

>> fourth segment

This could be an Icelandic aphorism: ´Possible musical forms are as limitless as the exterior forms of crystals...´;

>> fifth segment

M a t t e r
F o r m
C o n t e n t

Otacílio Melgaço, through percussion instruments (and even the voice can be included here), handles this triumvirate as a sculptor. And there are a variety of sonic perspectives very well explored in the scope of his moulding:

volume sinuosity;

rhizomatic depths;

intangible amplitudes;

pulsating solidity;

incorporeal textures;

sweeping contrasts;

acousticity multidirectional;

pictorial sur(phono)faces;

poly-timbristic layers etc.

Munch once said ´I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw´.
Melgaço traces his coordinates directly from the rhythm of the music quivers. He composed and played the quivers he listened!

And, between this and that, his Pieces - for Percussion & Electronics - are a relief map!;

>> coda

From Iceland, natively, Björk Guðmundsdóttir: ´There's something about the rhythm of walking, how, after about an hour and a half, the mind and body can't help getting in sync.´

Mind´n´body´n´soul...

Walk on cartograms... With rhythmicity. We ought to walk in the pace of ´Gætiru sýnt mér á kortinu?´ ´Vissulega já´: it´s a ringing Atlas! Atlas of the most exuberant rePercussion..." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

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I - A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater (including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles); struck, scraped or rubbed by hand; or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, following the human voice.

The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, or a blown conch shell. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, but keyboard percussion instruments such as the glockenspiel and xylophone (which do not have piano keyboards) are included.

Percussion instruments are most commonly divided into two classes: Pitched percussion instruments, which produce notes with an identifiable pitch, and unpitched percussion instruments, which produce notes without an identifiable pitch;

II - Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. It is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the colonisation of the Americas. Icelandic, Faroese, Norn, and Western Norwegian formerly constituted West Nordic; Danish, Eastern Norwegian and Swedish constituted East Nordic. Modern Norwegian Bokmål is influenced by both groups, leading the Nordic languages to be divided into mainland Scandinavian languages and Insular Nordic (including Icelandic).

Most Western European languages have greatly reduced levels of inflection, particularly noun declension. In contrast, Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar comparable to, but considerably more conservative and synthetic than German. By virtue of its being in the Germanic family, which as a whole reduced the Indo-European case system, it is inappropriate to compare the grammar of Icelandic to that of the more conservative Baltic, Slavic, and Indic languages of the Indo-European family, many of which retain six or more cases, except to note that Icelandic utilises a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic also possesses many instances of oblique cases without any governing word, as does Latin. For example, many of the various Latin ablatives have a corresponding Icelandic dative. The conservatism of the Icelandic language and its resultant near-isomorphism to Old Norse (which is equivalently termed Old Icelandic by linguists) means that modern Icelanders can easily read the Eddas, sagas, and other classic Old Norse literary works created in the tenth through thirteenth centuries.

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
Wikipedia was the main source...

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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.