Symmetric Gardens
Keyboard Study
Duration: 3:18
Released: January 26, 2025
Symmetric Gardens is a reaction to the work of Erv Wilson (1928-2016), a music theorist (and gardener) who spent his life exploring and mapping a vast universe of beautiful musical-mathematical structures.
Wilson worked almost completely outside of academia, focused on directly serving the creativity of composers and listeners. Speaking as a person who’s creative flow never seems to feel completely accessible until I can see, touch, and breathe the organizational structure of my materials, he cuts a saint-like figure in my mind.
I believe it’s only a matter of time before his work is more widely known.
I like to think that Erv would have encouraged composers to learn by doing — working toward comprehension of his concepts through the act of actively creating music with them. In that spirit, I started working on a study to explore some of his tuning concepts (specifically the scale structures he called “moments of symmetry”).
You maybe recognize the first few measures if you happen to know a previous piece of mine, but wow… that didn’t last long. This one took on a life of its own real quick.
This piece was originally published here, on Music and Math and Feelings. At that link you can add the track (and all my new releases) to your favorite podcast player.
The follow-up post, which dives deep into the beautiful and organic musical structures from which this piece draws its materials, is below ⬇️