A Closer Listen
How much of a person’s essence is imbued in the objects they collect? The more personal the object, the greater the usage, the more likely it retains a particle of the owner. When Brian Harnetty inherited his father’s workbench, typewriter, and an array of radios and miscellaneous hardware, he began to ask such questions. Could these objects speak of his father Paul, not only in associations, but in actual sound?
The Workbench is a single, 11-minute composition, offered in both primary and instrumental versions. While they seem similar, they bear unequal amounts of weight, which seems to prove Harnetty’s thesis. The instrumental version begins with wistful violin, which establishes a mood of mourning even before the piano enters. This is a tender composition; one need not know the subject in order to intuit its inspiration. Once the cello enters, the mood turns even more solemn, and for a time, the piano notes grow sparse, as if witnessing to the gap left by the loss of a life. In the third minute, the bass clarinet arrives to flesh things out, like memories rushing in, the treasury of experiences balancing the sorrow of loss. The center is akin to a folk dance. When the central melody returns, it is swifter and brighter.
A turn occurs late in the piece, with the appearance of a music box at 8:27. The very sound of such an object is nostalgic, and at the very end it is joined by a winding, humming noise that ends all too soon. The main version, to its benefit, is packed with such sounds, beginning with the ticking of a watch, a representative of time and memory. Instead of entering solo, the piano enters a ticking cloud. Then the first of a series of loving voice mails from Paul, supplementing the sparse notes, justifying their distance from each other. One of Paul’s most endearing features is that he typically identifies himself (“This is your dad”), even though such things should be obvious. But there’s also an (unintentional) sadness, in that the very presence of voice mail implies that the father and son keep missing each other, a la “Cat’s in the Cradle,” get-togethers needing to be rescheduled. This amplifies the experience of grief, which typically includes regrets for things unsaid, time not spent with each other. Did Brian ever call his dad back? We know that he did, this EP a final call.
Paul’s last voice mail includes moments of complete silence, after which the lush portion of the composition, mentioned above, begins. These moments suggest a deeper, longer silence to come, which makes the music box more poignant when it arrives. Toward the end, we hear the sound of Paul’s breath as he lies in hospice care: a man who once surrounded himself with machines, now surrounded by other machines he did not choose. The watch ticks once more as conversation is heard in the background, then only breathe and hum, ending abruptly. These final minutes are heartbreaking. On the EP, the instrumental version begins seconds after the main track ends, without Paul’s voice: a reflection of the routines that continue after the loved one has gone.
Paul spent his life fixing typewriters and extending the lives of other objects. In similar fashion, Brian now extends his father’s memory, enhancing it with a heartfelt tribute that will introduce him – via the objects he loved – to people who never had the chance to know him. The physical workbench has now become aural; we suspect his father would be proud. (Richard Allen)
Wed Jan 17 00:01:14 GMT 2024