Digitiphony - a composer's thoughts

My reasons for writing a Digitiphony

Digitiphony

"Di - ji – ti- fo – nee"

A musical form comprising of several movements or parts that incorporates elements of both digital

(generated by computers and virtual instruments) and symphonic (orchestral) instrumentation.

Since I was at school in the 1970's I have felt schizophrenic in my musical life. My early musical education included learning the violin from the age of 9 and singing in church and cathedral choirs - this latter had a profound musical and spiritual effect on me. However, whilst studying O and A level music in my teens I discovered 'Rock and Roll' and joined a band - my 'classical' music mentors frowned and said it would be 'bad for my ear' (they obviously had not noticed I had two). This was like a red rag to a bull - by that age I was reactionary and rebellious. I re-doubled my efforts in the Rock arena and neglected my studies in the Classical arena. By then I was learning the trumpet instead of the violin - one day I threw it against a wall (it wasn't even mine) in a fit of angst, had my music bursary withdrawn as a result, failed my Music A level and headed single-mindedly into bands and all that went with them.

The musical schism this created in me has haunted me for the bulk of my musical career. I hope that writing my first Digitiphony ("Digitiphony" by U. Kay Hytz) has set me on the path towards healing this rift within myself. Musical genres, styles and forms are, after all, a fallible human attempt to know and categorize the unknowable; all illusion. Music is just music - infinite, spiritually essential and uplifting, but always resistant to attempts to exploit, understand or explain it.

m l dunn 2008

...to find out more about Digitiphony on the UKH website go here