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One Hour Minute (OHM) is an on-going project that began in 2021. The concept is simple: compose and fully produce one minute of music in exactly one hour of time, preferably using the first idea that comes to mind. Equal parts creative exercise and therapeutic practice, OHM has become the perfect vehicle to test fresh approaches to composing, generating ideas, and experimenting with various methods of recording and editing, all with a focus to remain in the moment- to just run with it. 

Spanning the 100+ minutes of music created over the first year, certain idioms, sounds, and forms began to emerge as unintentional and subconscious developments of past material. Instructive and educational, to say the least. Oh well, just run with it! 

One stylistic feature that presented itself over and over was the characteristic feeling of this music serving as a soundtrack to a scene in a film that does not yet exist. The sense of miniature storytelling was simply too strong and innate to dispel. Run with it!

One Hour Minute, volume one serves as a “best of” compilation of the musical minutes created throughout 2021. Only slightly cleaned up and dawning fresh, somewhat evocative titles, these twenty tracks pull from a wide variety of styles and sound sources, from driving garage rock, to post-minimalist contemporary chamber music, to musique concrète sourced from cell phone recordings of a lawn care crew, to EDM, to Spaghetti Western film music. 

Each piece tells a bit of an untold story, and the listener is invited to mentally connect and construct any number of imaginary vignettes and scenes from the resulting flow of one minute to the next. Run with it!

Loose, ethereal, and meditative. Strings serve as a cognative dissonance that permeates the thoughts of many who might turn to or relate to this psalm. 1) There is a dark shadow of guilt, anger, shame, and confusion (all somewhat dark thoughts) that come with the realization or notion that God has forgotten about us. 2) There is a comforting resonance with the notion that many others share this same feeling, so our void of God (or any sense of loneliness) is temporarily, and underwhelmingly, filled with the warmth of shared experiences.

Julia Fox, soprano
Ingrid Capparelli Gerling, violin
Zelda Faith, viola

Engineered and mixed at SugarHill Studios by Matt Wilhelm and Hugo Martinez

This piece was composed for Duo scordatura, commemorating their 10th season. It was premiered at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall on March 12th, 2016.

© Copyright 2015 George Heathco (ASCAP). All Rights Reserved.