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Thank you Lauren for pushing me in the right direction. Inspired by Jonah Lehrer, Whitman, Picasso, Eliot, Proust, and all other the other artists that knew what it meant to be alive before scientists had gured out. This piece of music is about the Brain. And also about the Body. Actually, it's about what it means to be a conscious living organism. If one looks at it a certain way, our entire understanding of what it means to be alive is a lie. A big, giant, predilected, preselected, predetermined lie. If there is anything psychology has taught us so far, it's that our Brains lie to us. It chooses to ignore certain things. It adds things in that aren't actually there. It shapes itself so that it sees what it needs to see to protect itself. To protect you. To keep itself alive. So it lies. All day. Everyday. Even when we sleep. After all, what is a dream? I think Hamlet gured that one out in the end. For one thing, we always think we're right. We lived in bias. We live in untruth. We live in illusion. All of it, created inadvertently by Natural Selection, to protect itself. To keep itself going. For as long as possible. But some of us gured it out. First it was the artist. Then it was the scientist. They say that the businessman uses lies for personal gain. Considering that our lives are perpetuated in untruth, they've learned the right way to come out on top. They also say that the artist uses lies to tell the truth. They create their own worlds, own environments, own colors, pictures, words, sounds, movements, to say something that couldn't be said otherwise. That's how they gured it out before anyone else did. I Sing the Body Electric by Whitman is about the very special relationship the mind and the body have. Okay, so it's really about how the Soul and the Body are permanently bonded together. But we all lie. I just told you that. So I'll just tell you a little one to show you something: i S I N G t h e b o d y E L E C T R I C is about the Mind and the Body. One cannot exist without the other. It's impossible. We're gone once our bodies deteriorate to a state where it can no longer function. Our mind vanishes once our heart stops beating. We cease to exist as a Mind. Whitman knew this. The Body and the Soul, are the same thing. When one disappears, so does the other, like two particles in quantum entanglement, they are inextricably linked. And so everything you are, you are. In a sense. Okay so that was a little weird. But it's true. I swear... Your toes, feet, legs, joints, hips, stomach, intestines, hands, ngers, arms, nose... well you get the point. You don't exist as a being oating around, latching onto a body as a carrier (that is until we learn how to store a person on a computer, but I digress. And yes, you're wrong scientologists). You are you. You is body. You is mind. You is soul. And so the Body knows a lot of things. In fact, it sees more truth that your Mind does sometimes. You touch a hot stove and your body knows its a hot stove before you do. The second 'you' in that sentence is Mind. See. Get it? And so this is about the body and the mind. And how we can use both to gure out the truth in all of these lies that surround us. It starts with contact: sight, smell, sound, stroke, savor. And the Body knows. The Body sings. It sings to the Mind. But the Mind takes its time. And on the way, things get lost, things get added in. But it's okay. The Mind has a lot it needs to focus on. Because in the end, everything your Body tells you, explodes into to the Mind, into a beautiful, unfamthomable, consciousness. It explodes into You. And that you has way too many meanings.

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i S I N G t h e b o d y E L E CT R I C Performance Notes. This piece contains a lot of seconds. When they occur, performers should note that no note is more important than another. The shimmering effect of many of the close notes is used to convey the sense of electricity. The cascade in m.11 appears rhythmically difcult due to the separated entrances. This section does not need to be executed in perfect rhythm. However, the short fermata must be held, and the cascade falling effect must be communicated, as it is a returning idea. Same concept applies in m.138. The double choir section, beginning in m.85 consists of the regular choir with a parallel solo quartet. Depending on the size of the choir, each part in the solo quartet can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc. as per the performing choir.

You Are Here Just for reference. In case you forget.