Brady Cranfield & Josh Rose, I IV V I | 2010 | 30min | Sound Performance | Canada
I IV V I is a performance of a thirty-minute minimal composition for electric guitar and bass based on a simple, common three-chord cadence. The title refers to a sequence of chords based on the notes in the scale of any key in music. That near ubiquitous sequence, very familiar to most listeners, forms the basis of many blues, rock and pop songs. I IV V I, and other basic, common chord permutations like it, struck us as reminiscent of Sol Lewitt’s conceptually-driven minimalist sculptural permutations of basic cubic forms. Our composition presents the oddly logical and modular formalism of popular music as a similar kind of conceptual investigation. To further emphasize the formal and formulaic character of that investigation and to give it a physical, bodily aspect, our composition takes on the style of drone-based metal music, stretching the cadence, in the key of C, over thirty minutes (for durations of five minutes, five minutes, fifteen minutes, and five minutes, respectively).
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Brady Cranfield is an artist, musician and teacher based in Vancouver. He has presented work at the Or Gallery, the Western Front, The Contemporary Art Gallery, The Charles H. Scott Gallery and Artspeak in Vancouver. He is the founder and co-organizer, in collaboration with Kathy Slade, of The Music Appreciation Society, an ongoing public art project. He is also a member of the bands Womankind and Leviathans.
