Part 10 of Music in Twelve Parts by Philip Glass – Maddening Absorption

Part 10 of “Music in Twelve Parts” does not intend to tell a story. Instead of developing a narrative, there is a play of variation and repetition. At first, I was convinced that I would still succeed in creating and shaping a story while the piece was playing but once the music had rung out, I was listening to it and waiting for a story line to flourish in my mind until I accepted that I was truly unable to imagine any plot that is compatible with the repetitive sounds and the almost indistinguishable alterations in them. I was admittedly frustrated and the longer I listened the more unnerving it was.

 

The series of the melody loops changes minimally which has my head somehow spinning. This sensation allows me to draw an interesting comparison between this musical piece and an art pattern, namely a spiral. The type of spirals that are familiar from optical illusion art. Like a moving spiral, the music is dragging me into itself. It is hypnotizing and delusive. All sense of time is suddenly lost because this piece feels endless, and it is difficult to estimate how long it has already been playing for. Everything starts swirling around in my head at a dizzying speed. In fact, the acoustic experience as a whole causes dizziness. I become disoriented with my thoughts and cannot properly connect the heard sounds to an explicit experience or memory.

 

Having had the association with the spiral, I inevitably thought of Junji Ito’s manga series Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror, not so much because of the plot but rather owing to the illustrations of various spirals and the emotions and behaviors they evoke in the characters. The spirals trigger strange conditions and actions in the characters who are inescapably drawn into the patterns. They are plagued by fixation, vertigo, and the feeling of increasing madness. The spirals are captivating and intoxicating. A noteworthy chapter is when several passers-by are not making headway from their positions because they are continuously spinning in circles. The mental picture of an infinitely looped video that presents somebody twirling is the only visual imagination I can project vividly in my mind while listening to Glass’s piece.

 

The alignment of melodic and rhythmic forms, that are repeated multiple times with minor modifications, and the avoidance of a suspense correlates with a more conscious sensory perception. Part 10 of “Music in Twelve Parts” consists of simplifications, limitations and reductions of the sound palette. Its minimal style and de-dramatization enhance the music’s effect on the psyche. As you listen to it, you are absorbed into the repeated but slowly, gradually changing tonal arrangements, you can no longer direct your perception toward a desired objective and your notion of time withdraws from reality.