Ben will be giving a talk on the Hexadic System and how it relates to the 13th century monk Ramon LLull. Llull’s influence on serial and combinatorial thought, poetics and hermeticism will be addressed. In addition he will be demonstrating the system in a dual with fellow guitarist Rick Tomlinson of Voice of the Seven Thunders fame – not to be missed!
Over the last two years, Ben has assembled a comprehensive system of musical composition. Designed to free sound and language from rational order and replace calculation with indeterminacy, THE HEXADIC SYSTEM is a catalyst to extinguish patterns and generate new means of chord progressions and choices.
THE SYSTEM builds all of the tonal fields, chord changes, scales, and lyrics on this record, creating the framework for the songs with which the musicians engage. Yet THE SYSTEM is open; within the framework, Chasny’s own personal aesthetics—such as the production mode of loud guitars, the order of songs, the editing of length—were all conscious decisions made to communicate the pieces. The ex- act same combinatorial patterns used on this record can create infinite results, depending on the choices of the individual. Ben’s years of study have produced an operational agent that has not only built all the songs on Hexadic but is also a system anyone can use to restructure their ways of habit.