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Four/Memory: Multiple Histories is an exploration of the elasticity of material in a musical setting which is abstracted from the time constraints of real life (meaning that, for example, a seven-minute guitar work can depict a situation that may not take seven minutes to occur in real life). This is implemented in the work on two fronts: decontextualization of repetitions and multiple histories of the same musical event. In terms of the former, the work employs nonstandard use of repeats in an attempt to repeat the same material inside different contexts – this practice is comparable to using the "search" button on a stereo, and it is meant to expose the material itself to be only part of an environment, and not an actual tangible object. In terms of the latter, the stacking of many repeats vertically is analogous to the idea of experiencing the same event from different perspectives, or "multiple histories" of the same object. This work also deals with the idea of memory in its short-term and long-term forms. In this context, this refers to the fact that the long-term shape of the piece is defined by the inertia the individual sounds (short-term memory). Therefore, the individual sounds that make up the piece are mostly not remembered in the long-term, but they exist to uphold the general contour of the piece; however, "outliers" of this contour, are remembered because of their great deviation from the environmental homeostasis of the piece, and therefore are remembered in the long-term.
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