digging in the Sand

Well, finally I made it through Chris Bailey's entire dissertation,
text, materials (what I could understand of them) and music.

What a creative dissertation! We shouldn't even call it that, since
that detracts...

Although seemingly Chris never mentions why he calls the piece
_Sand_... or at least I can't recall mention of it, for *me* it
reminds me of walking on the beach and encountering various colorful
objects by chance. Certain sections have a sense of continuity that
seem almost like a horizon-like beach.

My wife and I both listened to this work (a bottle of wine can also
add to the experience -- one is adequate) and enjoyed it
tremendously. She mentioned what she considered the "random" nature
of it, and not in a deprecating way...

I explained to her some of Chris' ideas of "Flat Form" which would,
of necessity, include randomness but actually, after thinking about
it a bit I have a couple of questions about the work:

1) Is it true that Chris goes to elaborate lengths in order
to "achieve" randomness? That seems a bit curious, although I am not
opposed to it...

2) Certain sections *seemed* to have a compositional continuity. Is
that intentional, or did it just work out that way?? Personally, I
feel that adds to the piece, but since my *own* pieces tend to
operate along those lines, it's not surprising I would feel that
way... I, personally, like some of the *continuous* sections, maybe
about in the *third* section...

I especially enjoyed the "ragtime" section in about the 4th section.
Very cool. Seemed to be abstract enough to work into the whole well.

Great job, and lots of fun. It's also interesting to think about how
this thing was assembled, although I must admit I only understand a
part of that...

Nice the entire thing is up on a website, too for "easy access..."

Joseph Pehrson