DRAM: Notes for "Robert Ashley: Automatic Writing"
"Automatic Writing," "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon," and "She Was a Visitor" were all composed before the days of extended liner notes, so these remarks, without recourse to help in the form of reminders, should be understood as purely anecdotal. I try not to retain an analytical attitude toward (or analytical understanding of) works finished.
"Automatic Writing" was composed in the recorded form over a period of five years, during which time I was fascinated with "involuntary speech." I had come to recognize that I might have a mild form of Tourette's syndrome (characterized in my case only by purely involuntary speech) and I wondered, naturally, because the syndrome has to do with sound-making and because the manifestation of the syndrome seemed so much like a primitive form of composing-an urgency connected to the sound-making and the unavoidable feeling that I was trying to "get something right,"-whether the syndrome was connected in some way to my obvious tendencies as a composer.
I have not kept up with the literature on Tourette's syndrome, but I have the notion, gathered from conversations with friends who are psychologists, that Tourette's syndrome has evolved into a kind of catch-all for many kinds of involuntary behavior. The psychologists are probably right, but for my purposes such a general definition is not useful. My understanding is that Tourette simply had the problem of wanting to leave the party for a few minutes to go into the other room and curse. That was what was happening with me, and I noticed (as a composer) that I always said the same thing; I always uttered the same phrases.
