Ugh!

I’m wonder which composers I should engage with?

Should I select the ones I like or should I select composers that, in a way, my music is related? For example, my music have ostinati, should I refer composers as Stravinsky, Andriessen and other recent composer working in this direction? Or is perhaps Berio’s strategy of cycling through a fixed set of pitches, used in his Sequenzas, Points on the Curve to Find... and other works (as the panel of my upgrade viva suggested).

If I want to select the ones I like, should I refer to Ravel, Debussy, Mahler, Stravinsky and/or Shostakovich - which are good composers, but perhaps a bit to ‘antiquated’ for the purpose of this research? Well, I was trying to engage with composers as Grisey and Murail - [but there’s no way I could compare Debussy, Ravel, Mahler or Shostakovich to Grisey and Murail - both French composers are way much more recent than the others]. What about Haydn, of all he is the most antiquated and modern at the same time.

Should I mention Schoenberg as well? Because, I used Gurre Lieder as an inspiration for one piece, is it means that I should listen to all his work and relate it to my research? Or should I just select some works from whoever composer I want and consider it relevant for this project?

What about most recent composers, I like the music of John Adams, should I mention it, or talk more about Michael Van der Aa? In which way they inspire what I’m doing at the moment? It can’t be only because I like what they’re doing or they did...it’s not enough.

Every composer I select must be connected, in a way, with what I’ve done so far and with what I want to do next.

So, what do I want to do next?

To explore rhythm:

So, in an autoethnographical way, how my experience, my music and whatever I’m doing at the moment reflect in the social and cultural environment I am inserted at the moment - Portugal or England?

How all these engamente with music of composers that can control rhythm, are or were able to control rhythm to compose fast music without being minimal composers; and how all these engament with music of composers that can control, transpose, transform or manipulate harmony affect my work and how all of these affect other composers, other musicians and other researchers doing or wondering in doing autoethnography.

How can I relate visual art, as installations and painting with all these? And what about other areas as Architecture, cinema or even cuisine??

I’m fucked!