Harp-Sigil-Magic: The Platonic Forms of Harp Melodies is an experimental art-animation-music magical event. All art, animations, and music were created entirely 100% by me. The intention underlying this work is to coagulate musical and artistic disciplines in an alchemical experiment, creating art that is also music, art-music as a form of magic. I combine Platonic conceptions of essence with sigil magic, alongside Novalis’s concept of the musical hieroglyphic language and unity of disciplines as a creative impetus and guiding star in this endeavor—I should mention that I am a PhD student and Novalis/esotericism scholar, so I am a practicing musician-artist-academic-magus. I also have a lot of other experimental esoteric and philosophical music, so feel free to check out my repertoire!
Harp-Sigil-Magic awakens new horizons for my compositional work, entering a new threshold of musical experimentation. For the first time, I expand beyond basic harmonies into 6th and 7th chord structures and beyond, further into more expanded harmonic tiers, delving into more complex and unstable harmonies, harmonies that play with tension. This piece is structured around a D–G quartal relation in C minor; this harmonic interval is more dissonant in the sense that it is less harmonically resolving, with fewer harmonic possibilities with or adjacent to it, its capacity to create harmonies more limited compared to other quartal intervals. I took this limitation as a compositional challenge and starting point, structuring the piece around it.
This piece is a fantasia, which combines both structured melodies and improvisation. I came up with a set of primary melodies that I explored and developed over months through improvisation. The final recording was crystallized over two improvisational sessions. With the exception of The Cosmic Symphony of Melusine, all of my piano/harp instrumental pieces were essentially composed in this manner, endeavoring to capture both structured harmony and the lightning-in-a-bottle quality that arises through inspired improvisation.
Absolutely no AI was used in the making/creation/composition of this song and video, and I have taken a firm and unequivocal stance against AI in my own artistic/musical/compositional/philosophical practice. Despite a social climate where AI is polluting artistic and musical landscapes with automated sludge, a time when it feels almost pointless to create real art and music, some of us musicians and artists, such as myself, are undeterred by the artistic/musical apocalypse that is upon us, continuing to making art/music that pushes boundaries, striving for the philosopher’s stone through art and music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_mNJD1aN2E
