Gene Pritsker

The Credit System of Truth

The great American philosopher William James talks about a credit system of truth in which we take for granted the knowledge of the world around us. For instance, as a child you learn what a car is, what it looks like, what it does, what its made of, etc. So, every time you see a car you do not need to re-examine all these aspects, you use a credit of truth to know about all cars what you learned about the first. I found this fascinating and made it a challenge for myself to translate this sentiment into music. In my string quartet a melody is repeated many times but each time its reality is a bit different, you think you know this melody at one point but the music around it and its structure are always mutated a bit to challenge your credit system of truth.