Eris Vs. Eros

Here is my second tune to be posted to the interwebs: Eris Vs. Eros.

Three mythological names in one title may be a bit too much implicit meaning for a three-minute long computerized instrumental to live up to, but once I'd thought of the name there was no doubt that I was going to use it. Don't read too much into it. Titles are mostly a hook to catch someone's attention and give them a rough picture of the content. I feel it's appropriate that they should be only vaguely suggestive, though, because too much "meaning" up front prevents the audience from hearing the music with an open mind.

This brings to mind something that David Byrne wrote in the liner notes for the CD release of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts:

Byrne: In the West, anyway, the causal link between the author and performer is strong. For instance, it is assumed that I write lyrics(and the accompanying music) for songs because I have something I need to "express." And that as a performer it is assumed that everything one utters is naturally autobiographical. I find that more often, on the contrary, it is the music and the lyric that trigger the emotion within me rather than the other way around. By making music, we are pushing our own buttons, in effect, and the surprising thing is that vocals that we didn't write or even sing can make us feel a gamut of emotions just as much as ones that we wrote. In a way making music is constructing machines that, when successful, dredge up emotions - in us and in the listener. Some people find this idea repulsive, for it seems to relegate the artist to the level of trickster, manipulator, deceiver. They would prefer to see music as an "expression" of emotion rather than a generator of it, to believe in the artist as someone with something to "say." This queasiness is connected with the idea of authenticity as well; that, for example, musicians who "appear" down-home must be more real.

I was very happy to read that, because it matches up with my own artistic experiences and makes me feel that I'm on the right track. Writing music for me is an almost psychedelic experience. During the creative act, there is little conscious consideration of "meaning." There is instead a feedback loop of generating ideas and critiquing them, over and over again until the thing feels right and complete in its entirety. Meaning arises unconsciously, as the art that one creates tends to reflect one's feelings at the time, even if one is not aware of it.