"F*!#face von Clownstick" - by Robert McClure

| F*!#face Von Clownstick (2018) for piano

Robert McClure

Program Notes F*!#face Von Clownstick was written as part of pianist, Nicholas Phillips’ #45Miniatures Project, protest works written about the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump. The title is a reference to the exchange of twitter insults between, then, candidate Trump and host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart. It is still my preferred nickname for #45.

The piece is constructed around the number 140, the previous character limit on Twitter, Trump’s favorite method of diversion and fear mongering. The piece’s 140 beats are divided into three large sections. These sections correspond to certain words I chose to describe Trump: Fear, Racist, Liar. When the numerical position of each letter in the alphabet is obtained (a=1, b=2, c=3, etc.), the numerical value of each letter of each word can be added together. The three words I chose add up to 140. The numerical value of each letter corresponds to the number of beats of the successive phrases (ex.

F=6, E=5, A=1, R=18 – the first large section is 40 beats long which is divided according to the letters of the word Fear).

I made a list of about 40 words that are associated with or were meant to describe Trump (special thanks to my wife and father for some of the more creative entries on the list). I noticed that in all of these words, the letters Q and Z were not used. So, I made a system of mapping the 24 letters onto the 12 chromatic pitches where each pitch, beginning with C, corresponds to two possible letters, A and M in the case of C natural, B and N with C#/Db, and so on. Thus, every word could produce a melody. Each phrase of the piece is populated with material based solely on these melodies. The words used to create the melodies were: Crook, Liar, Sad (used three times as it is his favorite way to punctuate a tweet), Flippant, Scumbag, Moron, Bigot, Orange, Childish, Shithead, Loser, and Pussy.

None of this is truly meant to be heard by the listener. It was just a little game that I wanted to try to see if it would produce musically interesting results. The audible commentary on Trump comes in three different ways. First, the piece switches focus at a quick pace, never staying on one idea too long before getting distracted with something else. In the middle section, built on the word Racist, several phrases feature two note gestures in unison at the extremes of the piano. Each melody in the center of the piano’s range represents a chromatic cluster. The notes at the extremes are those that have been excluded and pushed to the margins. Lastly, many of the melodic gestures are first presented by a single voice and then later joined by the bass/base, a comment on the flock of mindless sheep that voted this monster into office.

Remember that Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, has said that Mexican people were “rapists”, breastfeeding mothers are “disgusting”, and that you have to “grab ‘em by the pussy,” referring to women. He is a truly disgusting human being and characterizes the very worst of what America has become.

Duration: 2:00 ca.

Written for Nicholas Phillips as part of the #45Miniatures Project

F*!#face Von Clownstick Robert McClure

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