When I started my senior year of college, I needed to complete one more piece to fill my senior composition recital. I went into my first composition lesson with two ideas: one for a performance piece of just two performers sitting on stage, each holding a box with a single cricket inside, the other for a string quartet that would be different every time it was played. It wasn’t my intention when I presented those ideas that the cricket idea would make the otherwise outlandish string quartet more palatable to my composition professor, but I suspect that I wouldn’t have been able to move ahead with that project if I hadn’t come up with an even weirder alternative. The string quartet became my favorite piece to date, but the cricket idea has languished ever since.
The idea is built around an old trick used by farmers, campers, and other outdoorsy types to estimate the temperature by counting cricket chirps. As cold-blooded animals, it makes sense that their activity level would be affected by the ambient temperature, but Snopes has a pretty good article on the subject, for those of you who don’t want to take my word for it. Anyway, as I was falling asleep one night in the summer of 2009, I could hear two crickets from my window, their slightly different chirping rates generating a complex polyrhythmic pattern. It occurred to me that what I was hearing were microclimates, small areas that differ in climate from the surrounding area. In this case, proximity to our warm brick house or a cool, mossy patch of soil may have altered the crickets’ body temperatures ever so slightly, changing their rates of chirping. The temperatures weren’t very different, and in fact, the less different the two rhythmic rates are, the more complex the polyrhythm. I thought this was a fascinating phenomenon, and set to trying to figure out how to use it in a piece.
My concept left the concept of microclimates and the idea of cricket chirping rates relatively unadorned: in a performance of the piece, two performers would sit on stage, each holding a box containing a single cricket. Hopefully, their slight differences in the body temperatures of the performers would effect the chirping rates of the crickets, creating a complex polyrhythm that might even change throughout the performance of the piece. I say might because I don’t know — the piece never really left the planning stages, but that hasn’t stopped me from planning it to death.
I had tinkered with the idea of soundproof boxes and using microphones, but it turns out that, as a general rule, if something doesn’t transmit sound efficiently, it also won’t transmit temperature changes efficiently. I decided, then, to use thin aluminum boxes that would allow both temperature changes and sound to pass through relatively unfettered. This simplified one aspect of the piece, removing an electronic component, but it added a question of how to start and stop the piece; if there’s no mic to turn on or off, how do you start and stop the sound?
My answer was that the aluminum boxes should be carried on and off stage in larger, soundproof boxes. The piece would begin when the performers removed the aluminum boxes from their containers, and would end when they returned them. I initially conceived of making those boxes out of whatever dense wood I could get my hands on. Serendipitously, as I was returning to this idea at the end of the summer, I discovered that my new job has a pretty impressive wood shop, and more than a few skilled woodworkers willing and excited to help me with whatever projects I could come up with. I immediately set to drafting plans for the wooden boxes, which you can see here. Of course, I don’t have drafting software, so those plans were actually made in Word, which I think is hilarious.
After finishing these plans, one of my handy coworkers suggested that the best material would actually be vinyl decking material, which is super dense and super cheap. The only issue: it won’t take adhesives, so my biscuted and glued design wouldn’t work. It was back to the drawing board, which is where the project stalled out. I still plan on completing this project, which is unusual for Sharing Something, but it has still been a good long time since I’ve made any effort to do so. There are all kinds of excuses, but I just need to start doing it if I want to get it done. Hopefully, posting the idea here will get me motivated again.
po•seur•pho•bi•a 
Do you ever feel like sharing these ideas allows you to let them go at all? I’ve been considering starting an “idea exorcism” section on my blog, where I share all the all-too-formed ideas I know I’ll never be able to turn into something real – be it because I lack a certain skill set or because of intellectual property laws. These would be the ideas I can’t stop thinking about, so even when I’m trying to direct my thoughts to writing my own shit, I can’t stop thinking about the Darkstalkers game I would make. Or whatever.
That’s a real example. I tried to sound dismissive of it just now, but that one’s real. I’ll never be able to make it, but if I can describe it and post it on the internet for whomever to read, maybe I can get it out of my head.
By the way, I’m not suggesting that your ideas are the kind a body should be abandoning. I like this cricket piece a lot. But why not embrace the microclimates part of that equation by putting the performers in different places in the performance space? And why stop at two performers? Could the piece not grow to incorporate more performers (and crickets) and then shrink back down to one? There’s just so much here! I really think it’s a neat idea. ALSO I understand it a lot better than your string quartet which – while neat – I don’t totally understand.
“Idea exorcism” is at least partially the intent of this feature, though I haven’t necessarily given up on this idea (or No Batman, for that matter). There are certain ideas that I’ve given up on, and others where I could just use some fresh eyeballs, but all of these ideas have gotten to the “shit or get off the pot” point of let’s just pick one already. While I am occasionally possessed by an idea I completely lack the skills to implement (see: every electronic piece I’ve ever worked on, ever), those ideas generally just end with me just thinking how much cooler my version of a film adaptation of Lord of the Flies would be, or whatever. The point is, sharing these ideas can either allow me to let go or help me recommit to the project, both of which are better than just letting it fester. Either way, I would love to read about your vision for a new Darkstalkers game or any other projects you need to get out of your head.
Idea exorcism it is then,
I was also thinking that it might be fun to start a wordpress or tumblr that solicits other people’s ideas for exorcism. It’d be a place where could go to read about whatever visionary ideas people simply wouldn’t be able to bring to reality. And maybe you would be able to hook up with people who had the resources or know-how to execute the idea. YES: writing about this blog idea here in the comments section of your blog is a form of idea exorcism.
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