steven yi :: music

On Sunday, June 22nd, Lisa and I went to Tai Chi camp early, catching a ride with Julius and Jane as we have done so in the past, picking up people who took a bus from the SFO airport as well as putting up signs pointing the direction to camp.  The weather was really quite gorgeous that day, and me being a bit anxious, asked Lisa if she wouldn’t want to take the usual small hike up the hill to the water tower, pushing a little to go sooner rather than later “in case the fog came in”.

After registering and dropping our bags off at the room, being hungry, we decided that rather than take the sandwiches we brought with us to the water tower to eat that we would just eat the sandwiches first in the kitchen area of our building before heading off.  The sandwiches were good but after eating them I got a bit of a sinking feeling in my stomach due to nerves.  I told Lisa that I thought my stomach wasn’t reacting well to the sandwich and she didn’t notice that I was just getting a bit nervous.

Just before heading up the hill, we packed some books to read for after visiting the water tower.  This was all inline with things we had done before at Tai Chi camp: registering, unpacking, having lunch, and going to read before the first dinner meal of camp when everyone had arrived.  So with books in tow, we walked up the hill, enjoying the beautiful weather.  We got to the top of the trail where the Water Tower was, sat down on a bench, and just spent a little time looking around at the beautiful scenery.  After taking a couple pictures and a little bit of just general talk about the wonderful view, I started to tell Lisa how much she meant to me, took the ring from my jacket pocket and presented it to her, asked her to marry me.  She very quickly said yes!  We hugged and kissed, continued to talk for quite some time, sat there in the midst of the beautiful landscape, and it was all very beautiful…

Today, Lisa and I are celebrating six years of being together.  It’s amazing to look back and see our relationship develop, from our friendship in college, to our times together when she visited me in New York, to moving to California and living life together.  We’ve had some great times and memories, traveled together to places I would hardly have thought possible years ago, and grown both as individuals and as a couple.  I’m happy to celebrate both our engagement and our time together and look forward to our time ahead.

This morning we woke up to find that the electricity had gone out.  Not having too much in terms of food for breakfast, we decided to take a walk to a local breakfast cafe, only to realize that the electricity had gone out for a larger part of our neighborhood than we had realized, finding the cafe closed. 

We thought perhaps the Peet’s by us would be open, so we started on our way to hear a screech and a crash and sure enough at the intersection two cars had gotten into an accident.  It sounded quite rough but luckily the one truck had hit the other car in the rear driver-side door and no one was hurt. I started to think though how much does society depend on electricity, seeing how the one power outage had made running many businesses in the area not possible, as well as seeing how not having street lights on could lead to such dangers. 

When we arrived at Peet’s, we had found that they did not have any hot drinks such as coffee due to the electricity outage.  We had gotten some iced tea and some pastries and sat there enjoying them, a bit hungry.  I was amazed at how quiet it was without all the ambient sounds of machinery.  Also, no overhead lights were on so the room was wonderfully lit with just natural light.  At one point a worker who had gone to another store that did have power had come in with hot water in a thermal carafe, enough to make pressed coffee.  I really enjoyed how things were just fine there, operating with just the very basics.  (I was reminded of the coffee chain in Poland called Pozegnanie z Afryka, something about the light in the room, the coffee…)

Back at home, we purchased some matches on the way so that we could light the stove to do some cooking.  Sitting there, it was a joy to just relax in the silence and just think about things.  I was reminded of how working away from the computer for music has often yielded some of the most fruitful work. The car accident today made me realize that some uses of electricity are really quite essential, but there are a great deal many things I’m seeing now that just don’t feel like they’re necessary to have on.

Today, after such a beautiful wedding of our friends Tom and Corinne at Tilden Park and the lessons learned from this morning, I’m looking very forward to taking the next 6 days away from computers and cell phones and other technology to participate in our teacher’s Tai-Chi  camp at Walker Creek Ranch, disconnected from it all. 

It is Sunday morning in Guerneville after a night of celebration of the 30th birthdays of my dear friends Alex and Julie. I had retired earlier than the rest last night being a bit exhausted from being sick this past week, and consequently I have woken up earlier than everyone. The sun is quite bright this morning, lighting up the fantastic view brilliantly. I sat outside briefly looking out at it all, listening to the sounds of insects all around, watching the bees visiting the beautiful flowers nearby and thinking how lovely it all is.

Inside everyone else is still asleep, so I took out the book Lutoslawski on Music by Zbigniew Skowron, a book Lisa was kind enough to check out for me from the university library. Only 20 or so pages in, having read the introduction and first essay of notes on large-scale form, I am already deeply drawn to Lutoslawski’s thoughts and considerations and have the expectation that this may very well be one of the most important texts I may read about composition and music.

This book is the first full collection of Lutoslawski’s writings and I am excited to be reading it now. In the past there have been a number of occasions where I have come across a book that seemed to have come at exactly the right time and addressed exactly concerns of mine. It has been some time since I had such a feeling but I am struck by this book now in this way.

My mind for composition has felt quite blocked for some time, both in regards to my general view on music and composition and in particular in regards to the concerns of large-scale form of the piece I have been working on, off and on, for the past couple of years. I believe this was in large part a result of the circumstances of our previous apartment, as already in the week since moving to the new apartment I have felt a great joy in being able to really listen to music again. Having mostly settled in to the new place, I have begun to collect myself to work once again on this piece, though I have been feeling a bit slow to engage again with the material and the form.

Reading and thinking about Lutoslawski’s words this morning has my mind racing and feeling a degree of activeness towards music that is exhilarating and refreshing. Recently I have been reflecting quite a bit on my life, about time passing, and composing in general, and many other things. Perhaps too with my friends entering their 30’s–a milestone I will be observing myself at the end of this year–I have been looking at areas of my life that may be taking up too much time and others that may be neglected. This morning, sitting here in the quiet house, I am filled with thoughts on music and composing and am glad to be spending my time on this. I am looking quite forward to reading more of this wonderful book and seeing where all of these thoughts will take me ahead.

We successfully moved this past Monday and Tuesday from South Berkeley to North Berkeley.  So far the new apartment has been pretty much everything I could have hoped for in addressing the issues of the previous apartment.  The general baseline quietness is wonderful, and having this kind of silence only underscores the amount of sound we were around in the old apartment. The apartment is much smaller but feels much cozier for it; when we lived in Warsaw we found we enjoyed the smaller apartment so much, and certainly again finding a small but well partitioned apartment is much more preferable than one with too much space…

The area is certainly much more affluent and therefore feels quite different than our previous neighborhood.  A less gritty place, the people seem to not have the same kind of worries as those in the previous neighborhood. Seems to be many more smiling faces and warmer characters here, which I am finding myself fond of…

One of the greatest joys of living in this apartment so far is how much more nature there is around.  We have lovely trees right outside our windows that are often frequented by birds and squirrels.  The animals in the area seem very friendly and not afraid of people, which I think says something about the kind of people who inhabit the area. Taking walks here, I found myself once looking around at the trees, the people, the buildings, and all around with a certain deep observation and curiosity that seems to have been missing for the last year…

Live Oak Park, only a very short 5 minute or so walk from here, is a really wonderful place.  Living closely to a park reminds me of the apartment we rented in Warsaw next to the Old Town and the Ogród Krasińskich.  It’s been great walking to and through the small park, and the Picnic Area 2 has been quite excellent for practicing tai-chi in: under the cover of beautiful trees, the ground a comfortable soft dirt, a small stream ahead bubbling away a beautiful sound.  A very peaceful space…

Yesterday, while on the train to the airport (Lisa is on her way to Warsaw for a three-week research trip), we looked at a video I had taken of the old apartment.  I had taken the video just as a reminder of what the old place was like for future reference. We were both amazed at how quickly we had lost any connection with the old apartment, as well as how quickly we had connected with our new apartment and neighborhood…

Already I feel rejuvenated being here.  The past few months in the old place were of such distress that I hardly did much personal work, but the peacefulness here has been excellent and I am now collecting my thoughts, reviewing where I was with all of my personal work, and slowly returning to these very meaningful endeavors…

When we first moved back to California and had moved to Berkeley, we had a few weeks of time to search for an apartment.  The apartment we found was above a restaurant and our initial impressions were good.  With only a few days left to find an apartment, we ended up going with the apartment we are in today.

At first it was alright in the apartment, with most of our concerns simply just adjusting back to life in America, as well as sorting out all of our stuff from storage as well as setting up the apartment.  After quite a lot of cleaning and some furniture purchases, things were mostly alright.

Over time though, the restaurant downstairs would start to play their music louder and louder, longer and longer into the night.  During the day became the worst time to be around as they played their music easily five times louder than they would during the evening when the restaurant was open.  During that day time when the restaurant was not yet open and preparing food for the evening, the music would be loud enough that you could not only feel the bass through the floor, but one could feel it in the air itself.  The first few times happened here and there, over time becoming a regular occurrence, the only variable being whether it would be very loud or unbearably so.

The incessant pattern of the bass over hours and hours of exposure (I would have to endure quite a bit as I work from home), made us both quite exhausted. Feeling at times tired, at times angry and frustrated, our misery over the situation made for an environment impossible to be either focused or inspired in.  Besides the music, the family which owns the restaurant often argues amongst themselves (very loudly).  Just being around that kind of tension tiring and nearly impossible to do any

So a couple of months ago we decided to move.  At first we had been so distressed we were set to break our lease and simply find an apartment and move immediately.  After a couple of weeks of apartment searching, and applying for apartments, an apartment we found quite ideal and one we really wanted to get worked out!  We signed the lease a few weeks ago and in just a few more weeks we’ll be moving out from here and into a slightly smaller, cozier, and much quieter apartment in a very different part of town (moving from South Berkeley to North Berkeley, up by the Gourmet Ghetto). 

So each very loud day that passes by, I look more and more forward to moving.  So many days here where no music could be worked on, no peace of mind could be had.  I have accepted in my mind for the past couple of weeks that I would not be able to work on music but would only work on programming and other tasks that don’t require so much quietness.  I am looking forward to getting back to composing, reading quietly at home, and just enjoying life and peaceful quietness.