A concert-length diptych of metaphysical solos for violin, written for Christopher Otto, founding member of the JACK Quartet.

The works come out of my childhood curiosity about where I was before I existed, and are experiments—and invitations—to attempt to recover the feeling of pre-existence.

The two pieces reduce their musical elements into bare, elemental states that nevertheless remain musical images. Instead of sharpening awareness and presence, these images lead inward, aiming at the same kind of bodylessness and memorylessness experienced for an instant at the edge of sleep.

In Eden Melody, the violin plays a gentle melody in a rocking rhythm. Each note is tuned purely to the note that comes before it, the accumulating perfections causing the pitch to drift further and further as the melody loses its memory of where it used to be.

In Time Escape Harmony, the violin is tuned to the pitches A and D, which are also the only pitches throughout the slow sequence of chords. The stability of the music lays bare the magnified variations in voicing and timbre that become their own harmonic world.

The total program length is about 100 minutes, including a short break between the two works. Each of the pieces can also be performed individually under its own title. Ideally, the concert space is completely dark except for a lamp casting the violinist’s shadow.

How to Become an Idea was first performed by Christopher Otto on April 23, 2025 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, NY.