Postcard From Heaven

Album notes

Twenty harps on a stage

The harpists are plucking or bowing the harp strings. Some of the performers are humming while they play. This imaginary ensemble is painting in sound the image of a vast sky. The sound takes over. Like the clouds in the sky, various sound textures appear and disappear. They create an impression of stillness, yet they abide by the flow. The heaven’s depth is defined by many different layers and patterns and the colors of clouds. Like clouds in the sky, some sounds are very far away, some a little closer, and some very close and clear. The sounds are coming from the various parts and sides of the stage.

The ensemble is performing without a conductor. As in any orchestral piece (this is an orchestra of 20 harps), one can hear all instruments playing simultaneously or divide the sound into smaller groups. Sometimes one can listen to a soloist. The performers are using a single page as the score. Each performer has three lines of printed music text as the individual part. Each is improvising on one of the 20 ragas written out for them by the composer. They are playing Postcard from Heaven by John Cage.

It was written and premiered at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 1982 and is since rarely performed. It has never been commercially recorded. Few have seen the score, including the Cage scholars. Cage fans and many contemporary composers seem to have heard about the piece. In my experience, my mentioning the piece’s name always brought out sunny smiles on people’s faces.

John Cage’s instructions

“Three double ragas, double because either part may be used for ascending or descending. One may move from one side to another of a single raga at “transfer points,” closed note heads. Where no such note heads exist, separate the use of one side of the raga from the other by silence. The associated numbers of talas based on which phrasing or durations or sounds or silences may be improvised.

Improvisation may be “melodic” and/or “percussive.” “Melodic” means proceeding stepwise, leaping only in the opposite direction, following a leap by a step or steps in the opposite direction, continually establishing, that is, the character of the raga. Ornaments are welcome. “Percussive” means single events preceded and followed by silence, or several events performed repetitively. These may be glissandi (the ragas permitting them), chords, and /or single tones; they may be produced conventionally or with an EBow (electronic means of setting a metallic string into continuous vibration). Dynamics are free.

The improvisation may be continuous or interrupted by silences, its total length to be determined by the players. It should begin and end with the use of all harpists of the EBow, for a period of between one-tenth and one-sixth of the total time length. Any unintended sounds (clicking of the push button, etc.) are acceptable though not to be sought.

Ossia: Hum ppp any one tone of the raga as long as the breath holds continuing after a new breath with the same or another tone of a raga.

Five pedal arrangements are given. Changes from one to another must be complete, but may take place at any time (during a passage, or between passages).”

Although clear and comprehensive, Cage’s notes still leave the performer with several creative musical and technical challenges. What does he mean by raga and tala? Cage writes a series of pitches in the form of diatonic pre-sets and calls them ragas. They deserve that name because, like those in Indian classical music, they are neither scales nor melodies but rather the combination of the two. (However, Cage’s ragas are void of the poetic or religious connotation of the Indian ragas. Cage’s ragas also do not involve any micro-tonal pitch bends).

Cage’s melodic sequences are at the same time varied: one sequence is similar but clearly different from the other. They are different because each has the precise order of steps, half steps, and smaller or larger skips “locked” within each raga as its proper tonal structure. Improvising on each of the ragas means creating a metamelody based on the raga itself. In this metamelody, the diatonic sequence of the pitches of the raga must be preserved while playing chords, glissandi, scales, trills, patterns, etc. I made a point of emphasizing specific note patterns characteristic of each of Cage’s ragas. This, according to Indian classical practice, brings out the “mode” or the “flavor” of each raga.

The other improvisational aspect of the piece is the rhythmic cycle, the tala analog in Indian practice. Cage writes a series of numbers under the staff with each of the ragas. Each number indicates the number of beats that form a rhythmic cycle. These cycles are to be applied to the improvisational metamelodies on the ragas and, more importantly, to the silences that separate them. Unlike the classic Indian tala, however, the composer does not insist on establishing a specific tempo, only on the number of pulses within each beat cycle. The frequency of the pulses is up to each musician. When playing together, this allows for the chance element to determine the rhythmic texture of the piece, more a layered fabric than a rhythm.

Cage directed that it be produced by an EBow, a small hand-held-electromagnetic device used by electric guitar players to sustain the vibrations of a string. However, to my grave disappointment, I found the EBow did not work well on the harp because the harp strings are spaced wider than those on the electric guitar, and the composition of the strings is different. So instead of having it custom made to fit the harp, I created the equivalent of using the EBow by employing live sound processing. I used the volume pedal and a plastic violin bow to create and record sustained sound layers. The volume pedal amplifies the sound after the attack so that the attack of the note can be avoided all together. At the same time, the main technical challenge is the most inspirational: creating the body of sound at the beginning and conclusion of the piece and the single sustained pitches by individual performers throughout the piece.

Realizing the music

The realization of Cage’s instructions, detailed as they are, nevertheless confronted me with many possibilities. From the recording of the separate parts to final mixing and editing. After some self-debate, I accepted the fact that just as translating poetry depends on the translator’s language, cultural background, style, and skill, so does the transformation of score to sound. I decided to be myself. I knew I had to be guided by inspiration to bring out the whole meaning and scope of the piece’s poetic and musical aspects and Cage’s music in general.

I recorded each of the 20 harp parts as a separate track straight into a computer. By looking at the score while recording, I avoided mistakes in pitches and the “transfer points” from one to the other side of the raga. Then I listened to the previously recorded ragas while recording each new one.

Pamela Z’s voice was a significant contribution to this project. From my first studying of the Cage’s score last winter, I “heard” the hums as a salient rather than an optional part of the piece. I asked composer and singer Pamela Z to record the raga’s pitches as non-vibrato, pianissimo, as long as the breath holds, in very high and low tessitura utterances. Apart from her exceptional vocal technique, Pamela’s extraordinary musicality shone in improvising the humming notes. I liked those “solo harp and solo voice” tracks so much that I could not help but include six of them as separate sub-tracks.

I think that listeners of this CD should be able to get a taste of what an individual raga-improvisation sounds like—just as buyers of DVDs can first watch the movie and then later enjoy the “Extras” section. In the “great mix” of all of the 20 harp ragas (the first track on this CD), one can never hear each solo raga as a complete melody. I felt it was worthwhile to include six solo ragas as samples of the “building blocks” in their own right as the second track. This way, you will be able to hear Cage’s Postcard from Heaven both “thick” and also “thin.”

I want to thank Glenn Freeman, an outstanding musician, percussionist, and producer of Cage’s music on OgreOgress label, who inspired me to begin working on this piece.

The Story Behind this Recording of Postcard from Heaven.

As a precocious student of piano, harp, and composition at the Belgrade Conservatory of Music and philosophy at the University of Belgrade, young Victoria Jordanova got aquatinted with the work of John Cage at the American Cultural Center and Library in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

As a matter of policy at the time, American cultural institutions in socialist countries focused on the most innovative, avant-garde, daring, experimental, liberating, and creative in contemporary American art to showcase freedom of expression in American society. That approach inspired a somewhat different American dream than the commonly known ones. Young artists and intellectuals were dreaming about a cultural climate that gave birth to Abstract Expressionism, Happenings, Fluxus, Pop Art, Beat poetry, and other wonders they discovered at these libraries, rather than the economic prosperity of the American middle class. They believed the whole United States was Black Mountain College, New School of Social Research, or lower Manhattan.

For adolescent Victoria Jordanova, it was a fateful day. Her American dream was born, although her iconic American hero was John Cage, not John Wayne. The man who changed forever the way her beloved piano sounded. Who asked audiences to listen to silence (perfectly appropriate for a friend and chess partner of Marcel Duchamp). And finally, the man described his music as a play that “is an affirmation of life—not an attempt to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we are living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out the way and lets it act of its own accord.” (Hence his favorite Japanese Zen Buddhist saying Nichi nichi kore ko nichi -Every day is a good day.) Yes, he was a prince in that dream.

Nevertheless, Victoria Jordanova wanted to become a virtuoso harp player. Although she took an opportunity to go to the United States and study music at Michigan State University, she didn’t look for her youthful dream there. She pursued virtuosity as a harpist on a French Government fellowship at Paris Conservatory and later at Moscow Conservatory. She studied with the best teachers in the world, and her skills were getting more amazing every day, yet something was missing. She decided it was time to change her approach to music. She moved to Manhattan after she won a

fellowship from NYU for graduate studies in Musicology. She played contemporary music with the NYU Chamber Music Society, and she was teaching music. She completed her master’s degree and settled into a music teacher’s life routine.

Then, a few years later, her youthful dream reappeared in San Francisco by chance (according to Cage, that’s how most excellent things in life happen). She was attending an informal lecture and presentation by New Music composer Donald Swearingen at the (composer/media artist) Randall Packer’s loft, Pamela Z was there and a few other future friends. Their enthusiasm for the use of electronics and emerging digital technologies in music making reminded her of when her young imagination was set on fire by John Cage. Like if she was trying to make up for the lost time, she rushed to attach pickup microphones, digital sound processing devices, digital delay, and all gamut of Rock and Roll pedals to her harp. Her imagination and creativity were fully awakened, and with her extraordinary musicianship and virtuosity still, her harp became alive. A whole specter of sounds never heard before was being born. Ingeniously, she would use all kinds of objects to squeeze out new sounds from her instruments. She was suddenly living her dream.

Unfortunately, as it often happens in life, as Victoria recaptured her dream, her former country was living the nightmare, dying in a cruel, bloody civil war. The central Yugoslavian Federal Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina was the site of the worst horrors of war. At the same time, an accident happened at the French American School in San Francisco where she was teaching. The piano movers dropped a piano. The piano fell through two flights of stairs and was lying broken in the lowest hallway of the school. Trying to see if there was any life left in the instrument, Jordanova played a few notes. The sounds coming out of the piano intrigued her; they were different and dark, in line with her feelings. She became obsessed with the sound and decided to record an improvisation dedicated to her beloved now dying old country. She mixed in a layer of harp improvisation and, by chance (not exactly Cagean chance, but still chance), recorded a child’s voice singing an innocent tune during her broken piano performance.

The result was published one year later by the CRI label of New York as Requiem for Bosnia and Other Works; in addition to Requiem, it included several solo harp pieces. Critics were raving about the CD. Jordanova was compared to Mozart, Verdi, Britten, and Eliot Carter. Tim Page of New York Newsday selected her CD as one of the ten best classical recordings of the year. Since that time, Jordanova has had numerous performances in most iconic New Music venues. Her music was performed by ensembles such as Bang on the Can All Stars, California E.A.R. Unit, Zeitgeist, etc. She published several CDs of her music that won the acclaim of critics and audiences alike. She mastered techniques of digital recording and editing and the craft of the music producer.

In 2005 Jordanova received an e-mail from Glenn Freeman, the producer for OgreOgress productions. He asked her if she would be interested in recording John Cage’s Postcard from Heaven for one or up to 20 harps. The piece was performed only once in Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis in 1982 and was never published as a recording. She was recommended as a person uniquely qualified to accomplish this recording by herself. As she was discussing technical details of production, studying the score, and experimenting with techniques recommended by Cage (like the use of EBow on harp strings), she didn’t recognize the obvious signs immediately––It was Cage, it was a harp, better yet 20 harps, it was a postcard from the Prince of her youth, only seemingly coming more than 20 years late, but finding her right at the time when she was ready. It was destiny. Fortunately, it didn’t take too long for an intuitive person like Victoria Jordanova to realize that.

Jordanova called Glenn Freeman and told him she had to do this on her terms and publish it as the first CD on her new Arpaviva label dedicated to celebrating the new life of old instruments. The new life Cage gave to the piano by preparing it, or the new life Jordanova gave her harp by liberating its sound potential with new technologies. Mr. Freeman was delighted. As a true admirer of Cage’s work, he didn’t care who would get the credit as long as Postcard got recorded and published.

After almost a year of work, Postcard from Heaven was ready for release. This label and CD result from a lifelong dream of one Victoria Jordanova and a homage to one and only John Cage. Victoria Jordanova recorded all of the harp parts, and her friend Pamela Z contributed to performances of all the vocal parts. Jordanova edited and mixed everything by herself, controlling every aspect of the production from the beginning to the end. This is the first published recording of the work—the CD 001 in the catalog of Arpaviva Foundation Inc.

The story would end here if something else didn’t happen. One night not too long ago, I had to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Victoria gave me the CD of just finished the final mix of Postcard from Heaven and Six Solo Ragas to listen to while I drove since I didn’t have a chance to hear it before. Once on the open road, I pushed the play button. The sounds projecting a unique sense of space and color filled the car. The beauty of it surpassed everything I’ve heard before. A certain spiritual power that sublimated mysticism of Jordanova’s Eastern Orthodox heritage, John Cage’s Zen Buddhist beliefs, and Pamela Z’s spiritual background turned the car into the cathedral floating over Highway 5 through the night sky illuminated by millions of stars. I played the CD five more times before I reached Los Angeles. The music was only getting more luminous and spiritual power more overwhelming, and I was in real danger of finding God that night for the first time.

Now I know you think I’ve got it all wrong. It’s all about the aesthetics of chance. Cage determined the number of possibilities for each aspect and then used chance to select a particular possibility: the number of possibilities would be related to one or a series of numbers corresponding to the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching, or something like that. Or it is just Cage’s tongue-in-cheek cultural reference to the harp as an instrument––20 harps had to be heavenly. Or he was experimenting with the possibilities of a raga as a form.