The title, NoHowOn, alludes to Samuel Beckett’s work of the same name. A classically framed Beckettian paradox, the activator, “How,” is framed by “No” and its reflection “On.” It is this “How” that acts as a switch transforming the words that surround it into each other. Beckett’s syntax is pared down to the bare essence of language. In this music, there are activators that act analogously in terms of behaving as switches turning music on and off. These activators are either sustained notes or trills — the pared-down bare roots of musical gesture. A discourse of switches turning on and off ensues... only, in the end it becomes unclear if a switch is being turned on or off... The final note is a contemplation on my notion that how long one perceives phenomena influences what one sees. Like observing a stream. Initially we understand what we see as code related to codes identifying the larger classification, stream. The longer we look at it, we realize that there is current flowing, forming ever changing eddies — we see more difference in the present than the initial static identification of a singular whole. In this same way, in hearing the final note, it is hoped that one goes through a series of gestalt understandings of that phenomenon — initially, we might expect another fast section, a resolution of the note, then we realize that the pitch does not change, but timbre and dynamics are constantly in flux.

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