“Based on our present chromatic system, a tempered system of 12 sounds, these modes are formed of several symmetrical groups, the last note of each group always being common with the first of the following group. At the end of a certain number of chromatic transpositions which varies with each mode, they are no longer transposable, giving exactly the same notes as the first.”
– Olivier Messiaen, Paris 1944
Tonal Organ Life. (organ sonata in 7 mov.) is literal. You have an organ that sustains a human’s life and the tonality (if you will) of each organ’s function within the rest of this human’s systems. If one were to directly perceive Rob Magill’s music literally and figuratively — the entirety of the album is lyric-less — a focal inquiry might be: “Which organ is he referring to in the title?” Specifically in terms of when his brain starts and stops, Magill continues to churn out music cyclically with a variety of instruments and players; yet on this album, he is confined to himself and a single instrument (which isn’t particularly rare for him), highlighting the significance of functionality within his melding of this organ.
Music has taught me a lot about heartbreak, and since much of Magill’s lyrical work dwell upon gloomy, lugubrious, melancholic, and at times wistful themes and motifs, my first impression leads me to believe that this organ functions as his heart, an idea supported by the shape in which he creates these long, weighted, heavy drones of similar tones, as if they served as a direction on a musical road map, approximating how a heart beats differently during and after tragedy. While always falling back on the same scaled notes he starts with in each movement, Magill accentuates the emotion of Tonal Organ Life. with every note. The organ tone itself is heavy in patience, as one finds themselves feeling exhilarated from one moment (positive or negative, heightened or dwindled) to the next. Yet, Tonal Organ Life is all melodic and self-controlling, both in scale and in harmony, serving as the blood coursing through the veins and into the brain itself.
As I’ve come to be friendly with Rob Magill — g-chatting with him in passing and receiving emails about his new works — what compels me most about his music are the mental aspects. Not in the sense that there’s a spirituality or “soul” to it, but that Magill more or less uses music as a therapeutic outlet. Being less literal and more scientifically direct, Tonal Organ Life. (organ sonata in 7 mov.) is about brain function. It’s not that the heart doesn’t feel weight, but it’s the brain that sustains this mental feeling and distributes it throughout the body’s system. What listeners are hearing, then, is Magill’s interpretation of his entire functioning self: the brain controlling his body and fingers against the instrument (the musical organ), propelling thought from his mind’s eye into deep and lightly keyed notes that oddly harmonize, similar to an eye that catches its own toe, curious of how one part can see the other move.
And it’s worth highlighting Magill’s use of the word “sonata.” In music theory, a sonata is “one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music.” This definition brings the figurative to the physical: since the sonata is the performance of totalizing concert music, the organ is an addition to the total performance within the living human system. Knowing that Magill uses music (and painting and photography, as all his album covers were made by him) to his therapeutic advantage, it’s easy then to see how the instruments he plays are actually extensions of his body and self. Tonal Organ Life. (organ sonata in 7 mov.) is Rob Magill, the musical organ being the physical organ his body is missing for absolute completion of self. Here, within Magill’s own brain and heart, he flows blood to sustain his life, only to succumb to music as his vicarious healing integer. Tonal Organ Life. (organ sonata in 7 mov.) encircles only to alleviate tension: his pain and suffering, his happiness, virtue, and talent — it all comes through the challenge of listening and then placing what it all means to him, alone.
More about: Rob Magill
