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bj-brooks.com has been updated! New music is coming soon, as well as a new approach to marching band music selection for custom shows.
Link to the Music
Symphony No. 3 Gödel, Escher, Bach
issuu.com
Symphony #3: Gödel, Escher, Bach is a meditation on human cognition. It was written in the spirit of Douglas Hofstadter’s seminal book of the same name that details, abstracts, and illuminates the ...I’m getting faster at this. Not quite as fast as my video shows, however.
The WTAMU Symphonic Band leaves in one week for a performance tour leading up to their 15th appearance at the Texas Music Educators Association Conference!
Come see the premiere of my 3rd Symphony by the wonderful WTAMU Symphonic Band in Canyon, Odessa, Floresville, San Antonio, or TMEA!The WTAMU Symphonic Band will be embarking on tour February 9 - 13 for performances in Canyon, Odessa, San Antonio, and Floresville, culminating in the ensemble's 15th performance at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention!
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The program consists of music by Mikhail Glinka, Walter Piston, Jimmy Dorsey, David Maslanka, Giacomo Puccini, and BJ Brooks and will feature saxophonist James Barger.
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We look forward to seeing many of our friends, family, and alumni at these concerts!
The WTAMU Symphonic Band will be embarking on tour February 9 - 13 for performances in Canyon, Odessa, San Antonio, and Floresville, culminating in the ensemble's 15th performance at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention!
•
The program consists of music by Mikhail Glinka, Walter Piston, Jimmy Dorsey, David Maslanka, Giacomo Puccini, and BJ Brooks and will feature saxophonist James Barger.
•
We look forward to seeing many of our friends, family, and alumni at these concerts!
The WTAMU Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Dr. Mark Bartley, is showcased in this high plains extravaganza featuring the music of Dr. BJ Brooks. On life's journey, we find True North when we join in something larger than ourselves... the Pathway to Polaris.
Movement 3- Bach
Concept:
Book I of J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC), BWV 846–893, and the first prelude (p1) in particular serves as the foundation of the third movement. Harmonies from p1 and melodies from throughout WTC are quoted throughout the movement.
Process:
The collection of notes in each measure of p1 are used in order throughout the duration of the movement. This slow harmonic development is juxtaposed with alterations of the consistent rhythmic texture from p1 realized as an energetic bass line, and as the first melodic motive. As the harmony emerges, other melodic motives from WTC are layered throughout. After the harmonic process completes, the end of the piece concludes with a measure by measure restatement of p1. The order of the melodic motives is derived by serializing p1’s introduction of all twelve chromatic pitch classes (C, E, G, D, A, F, B, F-sharp, B-flat, C-sharp, G-sharp, E-flat). The movement uses 48 melodic quotes in serial order from WTC. The order from WTC is therefore Prelude 1 in C-major, Fugue 1 in C-major, Prelude 2 in C-minor, Fugue 2 in C-minor, Prelude 9 in E-major, Fugue 9 in E-major, Prelude 10 in E-minor, Fugue 10 in E-minor, etc.
Movement 2- Escher
Concept: The M.C. Escher lithograph “Drawing Hands”.
Process: “Drawing Hands” serves as a visual metaphor for the structure of Movement 2- Escher. The right hand reaches left bringing references from movement 3 to the beginning of the work as the left hand reaches right and brings references from movement 1, though apparently inverted.
Preamble
Symphony #3: Gödel, Escher, Bach is a meditation on human cognition. It was written in the spirit of Douglas Hofstadter’s seminal book of the same name that details, abstracts, and illuminates the mystery of cognition.
In 1979 Dr. Douglas Hofstadter, Indiana University Professor of Cognitive Science and Comparative Literature, published his Pulitzer Prize winning Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, know colloquially as G.E.B. The incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel, proven with an ingenious use of recursion and self-reference, are illuminated by analogy in prose, the art of M.C. Escher, and in the music of J.S. Bach.
At the beginning of the 20th century the world of mathematics was in crisis. The 19th century had seen an increasing momentum towards mathematical abstraction. Mathematician’s formalization of foundational logical structures were constantly undermined by paradoxes within their constructed rigorous systems. An attempt to avoid the paradoxes and to streamline the logical process through the use of a relatively small number of symbols was written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and published in 1910. The Principia Mathematica used a specialized grammar that avoided certain paradoxes. It is a work of such logical complexity that it takes the book 362 pages to suggest ⊢:.⍺,𝛽∊1.⊃:⍺∩𝛽=ʌ.≡.⍺∪𝛽∊2 after which the authors note, “From this proposition it will follow, when arithmetical addition has been defined, that 1+1=2.”
The consistency and completeness of Principia Mathematica were all but settled until Logician Kurt Gödel published his incompleteness theorems in 1931. The theorems cleverly use a type of recursion and self reference in metamathematical logic to demonstrate that Principia Mathematica can indeed contain paradoxes. Thus Gödel proved that 1) for any substantive formal system there are unprovable truths, and 2) a system cannot on its own demonstrate its own consistency. Sufficiently complex formalized systems such as mathematics may either be consistent or complete, but not both.
Programme
Movement 1- Gödel
Concept:
The exquisiteness, complexity, and logical journey of Gödel’s proof is represented throughout movement 1. A chaconne of 6 chords starting with the outline of E-minor, arpeggiated as the pitches G, E, and B in the high winds, begins a series of twenty continuous variations. Self reference, recursion, and sonification are used throughout the movement.
Process:
Self reference appears in numerous ways including the arpeggiated GEB, groupings of notes on staves clustered to appear as the letters “GEB” on the score, harmony created by the untransposed pitches GEB played in unison, serialized melodies using the first movement’s introduction of all twelve chromatic pitches (G, E, B, E-flat, B-flat, D, A, F-sharp, C-sharp, F, C, A-flat), sonification (of a type similar to Gödel’s arithmetization) of the logical expression in Principia Mathematica that yields 1+1=2, aural and visual representations of Zeno’s paradox, and the use of the chaconne form itself as it insistently reuses the same 6 chords throughout.
From the premiere, Movement II.
Symphony No.3: Gödel, Escher, Bach. II Escher
youtu.be
Symphony 3, G.E.B. is meant to be heard with the following programme information in mind. BJ Brooks - Symphony #3 - G.E.B. Preamble Symphony #3: Gödel, Esche...From the premiere. Mvt. 1.
Symphony No.1: Gödel, Escher, Bach. I Gödel
youtu.be
Symphony No.1: Gödel, Escher, Bach. is meant to be heard with the following programme information in mind. Preamble Symphony #3: Gödel, Escher, Bach is a med...As we get closer to you UIL, good luck and and congratulations to the following marching bands that I have written for this year:
Burkburnett HS
Caprock HS
Dumas HS
Memphis HS
Midland HS
Pampa HS
Permian HS
Portales HS
Randall HS
Tascosa HS
Thurgood Marshal
Vega HS
West Texas HS
Wheeler HS
Congratulations Permian High School on your premiere of “We Choose to Go to the Moon” at the Music for All National Festival in Indianapolis!!!
Things are still great in Region 7! I just returned from Stephenville directing the Region 7 ATSSB HS Symphonic Band. The musicians well executed a challenging program and great memories were made! Thank you to the great organizers Brian Beeson, Michael Copeland, and Teresa Archambo for putting the right things in the right places at the right time for a terrific concert.
I had a great time conducting the Region I ATSSB HS Concert Band! Thank you to the great organizers Will Brewer and John Bratton for putting the right things in the right places at the right time for a terrific concert.
RE: My most often stolen music.
I see that your association is using the tryout material that I created . While I applaud your good taste in music selection, I would like to ensure that this material is properly distributed with copyright permission and without omission of authorship.
To whom may I direct this request?
Sincerely,
BJ Brooks
Congratulations Amarillo district honor band! It was a privilege to direct you!
Good luck today to all of the bands at UIL, those in particular for which I either wrote music or drill or both:
Boys Ranch HS
Bushland HS
Burkburnett HS
Caprock HS
Dumas HS
Gruver HS
Permian HS
Memphis HS
Midland HS
Randall HS
Tascosa HS
Vega HS
Wheeler HS
And a belated congratulations to Portales HS on their NM division 1 last week!
Way to go Bruce Collins and the WTAMU Band Camp Symphony band! You sounded great on “Paean”!
