Derek Granger commissioned non-poem 8 for solo alto saxophone. He premiered it in April at the Texas Regional North American Saxophone Alliance Conference. The work uses found material from my own compositions as well as a variety of themes from my forthcoming book of rhythmic etudes. It is jarring and unsettling.

non-poem 8 is the eighth piece in a collection of pieces written for ensembles and instrumentalists smaller than large ensembles. The previous statement is intended to be vague, as these limitations we have imposed upon the concept of ‘ensembles’ is false. In the case of non-poem 8 the definition is easy: it is for one individual player; specifically, Derek Granger. It is a great honor to write music for others, and with them in mind. I know Derek only superficially, but I respect him as a musician and saxophonist. Moreover I respect his commitment to that which is not commonplace, and celebrates the saxophone. The categorized title ‘non-poem’ first started as a way out of the trap of writing ‘program’ music. But again, this gets vague too quickly. At times I’ve written music about a rooster, a mouse and a little red hen, and also about jokes by George Carlin. But in each instance, the original content served a different purpose in its influence upon the resultant musical outcome. And in our fractured society, I question whether or not the real question is simply: whether or not the listener has the capacity or desire to hear absolutely, or that which is beyond the definition of ‘program’ or narrative. e.e. cummings wrotesix nonlectures, but in the end, they were still as poetic as his poetry, but they also talked about poetry. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another person I revere, stated, all too clearly that “a poet should not discuss the craft of poetry or the process of creating it.” And he also said “If you have nothing to say, don’t say it”… and I’ve never really quite known whether or not he was intending to directly confront John Cage who said “I have nothing to say and am saying it”. In the end you’ll hear Derek play, and programmatically or not, I hope that his expression of humanity through my computerized scribblings encoded to paper, give you a moment of human contact and repose that we very sorely need to help prepare our minds and spirits to rail against the wild dreams of the unrestrained religion of language learning models, and ‘artificial intelligence’.