Thinking - Writing - Composing
Thinking and Writing
Otherwise known as research, I delve into various topics that entice me in, especially Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt; an entire musical ecosystem that encompasses Sikh devotional musical praxis and contains within it thousands of novel compositions, both percussive and vocal. I believe that garnering an understanding of this once wide-spread, though now nearly extinct tradition, can greatly impact the musical world, and how it relates to heritage music, at large. This fascination has resulted in thousands of pages of transcriptions of original notations. I also write about music, using the process as a way of helping me get my head around one topic or another.
An example (2021) of the extensive transcriptions I had the fortune of preparing for Bhai Baldeep Singh. It is an older version, incomplete and without diacritics. There are over a thousand pages of sheet music I have been able to transcribe as of 2024. I hope to publish a paper on these transcriptions.
A text (2023) about ‘The Future of Music’ I wrote for a friend of mine’s journal (The Vital Anjan).
The brief for Towards Dhiān (2023), a current audiovisual project that I put together with Nihal Singh (joṛī) and Maike Zimmermann (live visuals).
Composing
I always begin writing with the express intent of attempting to solve a particularly compositional or sonoric problem.
A video of a composition (Encephalon III, 2017) for a=b=x=y and orchestra days.
A video of the television production (Noc i Mgła (Nacht und Nebel) 2020), I curated and wrote music for. My favourite piece of solo music that I have written can be heard from 0.00 to about 1.30, followed by a duet I wrote for cello and violin. There is one other composition of mine that featured in this film.
Short fragment of a performance of Towards Dhiān (2023).
A recording of me playing prepared piano on top of a recorded dhrūpadi rabāba (the rabāb associated with Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt) played by Luigi Hari Tehel Singh, the eldest son of Bhai Baldeep Singh who hand-carved the instrument back into existence.
I also have music that I’ve written and left incomplete, or that has never been performed.
A piece written for two pianos (2022), based on a tīkā (a kind of vocal exercise) from Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt.
An incomplete (2022) string quartet. I wrote it to try to solve a technical problem, and gave up after getting into peculiar, monodic, organuum-like texture. I also did not write any of the articulation, dynamics or bowing that I originally intended aside from the first theme. The theme is taken from a heritage composition from Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt.
If you are interested in performing something by me or comissioning a work, please use the Join me form.
