Sir Golden Lucky - No Ha Je -back Bitter- -

The first unit is the most accessible. “Sir” implies a British or colonial honorific, often used ironically to elevate a common noun. “Golden Lucky” is redundant yet pleasant—golden being a color of wealth and enlightenment, lucky being a state of chance-based fortune.

In Cantonese and Mandarin cultures, “Golden Luck” (金運, Jīn yùn in Mandarin; Gam wan in Cantonese) is a common concept in feng shui and New Year blessings. Adding “Sir” Westernizes it, creating a character: Sir Golden Lucky could be a folk hero, a gambling mascot, or a nickname for a flamboyant, successful businessman in a Hong Kong cinema comedy.

Visualizing “Sir Golden Lucky,” one imagines a man in a gold lamé suit, holding a winning lottery ticket and a brass monkey statue. He is absurd, enviable, and slightly kitschy.

(Tempo: Vivo ossessivo, like a tarantella on a broken ankle — 140) Sir Golden Lucky - No Ha Je -Back Bitter-

The title is a chant. A nonsense syllable. A spell. No Ha Je — three knocks on wood, three beats of a heart, three steps back in a labyrinth.

Form: A round for three voices — but only one voice sings, the other two are shadows on a delay pedal. The piano becomes prepared: screws and erasers between the strings, creating a metallic, percussive rattle. The rhythm is 7/8 — counted: No (1) Ha (2) Je (3-4) No (5) Ha (6) Je (7).

Insects join the orchestra. A music box (cracked) plays a descending scale in Dorian mode at half speed, out of phase. Halfway through, everything stops except a single snare drum roll that grows louder, then cuts. The first unit is the most accessible

In the silence, a whisper: "No Ha Je."

The movement resumes, reversed. The trumpet plays the gavotte melody from movement I upside down.

(Tempo: Maestoso ironico, dotted half = 60) (Tempo: Maestoso ironico, dotted half = 60) He

He enters on a hobby horse with tarnished reins. The melody is a gavotte played on the trumpet with a harmon mute—closed, then opened with a plunger, like a sneer. The left hand on the piano plucks the strings inside: a low Bb that wobbles and decays. He wears a crown of painted cardboard, and his medals are bottle caps. The key is B-flat minor, but every cadence lands on a bright, wrong F# major chord (the "lucky" slip). The rhythm hiccups: a courtly step, a stumble, a spin.

Lyric (spoken over the gavotte):
“Luck, sir, is a golden bell that rings before the fall.
I’ve counted every clover leaf and never breathed at all.”

The movement ends with a trill in the highest octave of the piano—a single, repeated note like a blinking cursor. Then silence.

Wear headphones. The low end contains sub-bass pulses that mimic a human heartbeat slowing down. Mixed in are the sounds of slot machines, weeping, and a single repeated piano key (C#) that gradually detunes. The final two minutes drop all music except for the sound of someone chewing bitter melon—uncomfortably close-miked.