A balanced human being takes time to explore his own unconscious self. He does that by engaging in protracted self-exploration. Consequently, his conscious self is rooted in his subject. Lacan talks about how the ego, which is the focus of the objective, conscious self, is alienated from his subjective self. The separation between consciousness and subject is rooted in linguistics.
The subject organizes itself syntactically. It forms sensory associations which reflect meaning, whereas consciousness forms linguistic networks of meaning through the mother tongue and an objective approach to experience. In order for the conscious self to access the subject, it must listen carefully to the associations of meaning that the unconscious forms. The consciousness then discovers new depths of meaning within what is already familiar. The ego recognizes the roots of the objects of its experience, as well as their true, hidden meanings.
Exploring the unconscious subject is necessary. It is necessary for someone to know themselves intimately, and live a balanced, aware life. It is not possible to be truthful to others if, because of self-ignorance, you habitually deceive yourself. One must carefully observe and honestly assess one's emotional responses because these emotional responses reveal the true self.
This is a solo keyboard improvisation. It is mostly in a minor, although it wanders quite a bit.
This piece is "paratonal." "Paratonal" is my own term. It means that any given bar appears to be (mostly) tonal, however, the harmonic structure of the melody and the piece overall is far from tonal. It tends not to dwell on one key for long. There is a lot of suggested polytonality, as well as some unresolved dissonance.
You can hear a certain impressionistic influence, as well. This piece is not dissimilar to something Debbusy, Satie, or Ravel might have created. There is also a little bit of Stravinsky influence, as well as some Rachmaninov.
I use paratonality in this piece to express a certain familiar weirdness. This expresses the strangeness, yet familiarity of the unconscious mind. I also use a lot of close intervals (mostly thirds) to portray a hiddenness. This makes the piece sound very closed in.
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