April 24, 2006
Nonken Interview
Theater blogger George Hunka has an interview up with pianist Marilyn Nonken. She's the one who did the Mode recording of Triadic Memories. I first came in contact with her playing when I heard a recording she did of a shortish Babbitt piece. She possesses the seemingly rare skill of being able to make his music poetic. The interview covers how she thinks about physically presenting herself when playing in order to make her performances more compelling. Good stuff.
April 07, 2006
Recent Reading
I think it's just a coincidence that I read Sexual Personae (Camille Paglia) and Opera, or the Undoing of Women (Catherine Clément) at the same time, but they ended up pairing very well together. Both of them discuss the sexual forces that motivate art (the art itself and its creation). They both share the pretense that they are stepping back and taking a broader look at the work they are considering than most other commentators. Clément sees misogyny from her vantage point. Lots of it. Paglia finds misogyny, but also transvestism, polyamory, vampirism, and an assortment of other behaviors that you probably don't discuss in most lit. surveys or music history classes.
To Clément, art is more or less a pissing ground for bitter, insecure men. Paglia sees a battleground for the irrational forces that society was meant to guard against. For her, misogyny is a fact of life. She isn't rushing to get the bumper stickers on her car, but she states that it's basically the reason Western civilization and culture exists. If women were in charge, we'd still be living in grass huts.
In case you haven't guessed, I found Paglia's arguments more compelling. They weren't always the most well-documented (many of her explanations boiled down to "because I'm Italian"), but when measured against my own experiences in and outside of art, they made the most sense. Clément seemed to be the truly embittered one, interminably pissed off that the operas she loved as a child turned out to mean more than she thought they did.
Perhaps less contentious ground was covered in Music Downtown, Kyle Gann's collected criticism from the Village Voice. Danny Felsenfeld did a thorough write-up for NewMusicBox on why unabashedly subjective criticism is a Good Thing, so I don't need to repeat what he already said so well. I only wanted to comment on one of the book's recurring topics. "Imagism" is Kyle's term for music that presents sonic images that stick into the listener's memory. It is a device not tied to a particular aesthetic movement: Fate knocking at the door of Beethoven's Fifth, the pure G major triads that occasionally surface in the "Thoreau" mvt. of the Concord Sonata, Stravinsky's instrumentation for the cadenzas in his Concerto for Piano and Winds (he doesn't recognize Debussy or Ligeti for their image-making abilities, but that's one feature of their music that's always stuck in my mind). Part of his presentation of the idea is that images help listeners immensely in making their way through a piece and that they're sorely lacking from Uptown music.
Feldman is cited as a preeminent "imagist," but in the process, Kyle makes an odd injunction of his Jewishness: "Within white culture, perhaps only a Jewish composer could have pulled off such a feat [reintroducing images to music]; not a hyperrationalist Jew like Babbitt, but a Talmudic mystic with respect for the unutterable" (263). Though Jews are "overrepresented" in music, Jews are less present in the visual arts. Kyle says that Christianity banished pagan images from its practices, though the stereotype of churches in my mind includes stained glass and visual depictions of the life of Jesus. I've never seen much visual art in synagogues, but I've seen more than one Torah proudly displayed for its highly disciplined caligraphy. We love words.
When you get into Jewish mysticism, as viewers of Pi may recall, words start to gain tremendous power. The golem of Prague was brought to life by writing emet (truth) on his forehead. Erasing the first letter changes the word to met (death) and puts the golem to rest. To me, Feldman's declaration of sound as the deity in his life and his desire to not "push the sounds around" are indicative of this deep respect of the power of language. Though perhaps Kyle was right to link this part of Feldman's style with his Jewishness, I'm not sure that the connection he made was quite complete. Sorry if it seems like I'm quibbling with technicalities here, but I think that's a Jewish thing, too.
One more point of comparison, on Feldman's "Jewishness":
To Clément, art is more or less a pissing ground for bitter, insecure men. Paglia sees a battleground for the irrational forces that society was meant to guard against. For her, misogyny is a fact of life. She isn't rushing to get the bumper stickers on her car, but she states that it's basically the reason Western civilization and culture exists. If women were in charge, we'd still be living in grass huts.
In case you haven't guessed, I found Paglia's arguments more compelling. They weren't always the most well-documented (many of her explanations boiled down to "because I'm Italian"), but when measured against my own experiences in and outside of art, they made the most sense. Clément seemed to be the truly embittered one, interminably pissed off that the operas she loved as a child turned out to mean more than she thought they did.
Perhaps less contentious ground was covered in Music Downtown, Kyle Gann's collected criticism from the Village Voice. Danny Felsenfeld did a thorough write-up for NewMusicBox on why unabashedly subjective criticism is a Good Thing, so I don't need to repeat what he already said so well. I only wanted to comment on one of the book's recurring topics. "Imagism" is Kyle's term for music that presents sonic images that stick into the listener's memory. It is a device not tied to a particular aesthetic movement: Fate knocking at the door of Beethoven's Fifth, the pure G major triads that occasionally surface in the "Thoreau" mvt. of the Concord Sonata, Stravinsky's instrumentation for the cadenzas in his Concerto for Piano and Winds (he doesn't recognize Debussy or Ligeti for their image-making abilities, but that's one feature of their music that's always stuck in my mind). Part of his presentation of the idea is that images help listeners immensely in making their way through a piece and that they're sorely lacking from Uptown music.
Feldman is cited as a preeminent "imagist," but in the process, Kyle makes an odd injunction of his Jewishness: "Within white culture, perhaps only a Jewish composer could have pulled off such a feat [reintroducing images to music]; not a hyperrationalist Jew like Babbitt, but a Talmudic mystic with respect for the unutterable" (263). Though Jews are "overrepresented" in music, Jews are less present in the visual arts. Kyle says that Christianity banished pagan images from its practices, though the stereotype of churches in my mind includes stained glass and visual depictions of the life of Jesus. I've never seen much visual art in synagogues, but I've seen more than one Torah proudly displayed for its highly disciplined caligraphy. We love words.
When you get into Jewish mysticism, as viewers of Pi may recall, words start to gain tremendous power. The golem of Prague was brought to life by writing emet (truth) on his forehead. Erasing the first letter changes the word to met (death) and puts the golem to rest. To me, Feldman's declaration of sound as the deity in his life and his desire to not "push the sounds around" are indicative of this deep respect of the power of language. Though perhaps Kyle was right to link this part of Feldman's style with his Jewishness, I'm not sure that the connection he made was quite complete. Sorry if it seems like I'm quibbling with technicalities here, but I think that's a Jewish thing, too.
One more point of comparison, on Feldman's "Jewishness":
Once there was a gentile who came before Shammai, and said to him: "Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot." Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding. The same fellow came before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying: "That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."vs.
My past experience was not to "meddle" with the material, but use my concentration as a guide to what might transpire. I mentioned this to Stockhausen once when he had asked me what my secret was. "I don't push the sounds around." Stockhausen mulled this over, and asked: "Not even a little bit?"
March 25, 2006
Performance Alert
This coming week, Eastman is playing host to a Women in Music Festival. On Monday the 27th, I will be making a contribution in the form of my piano version of Joni Mitchell's "Blue Motel Room." Since it is among her songs that lean strongly in the direction of jazz, my version will be partially improvised. I'd rather not be in the business of staging museum-quality reproductions, anyway. CD players do such a much better job at that sort of thing.
Before signing off, the theory nerd in me wishes to share a few observations about the song. "Blue Motel Room" falls into an AABA form (played twice). One interpretation of the harmonies spells some of them as triads with extensions. This style aids readability, but it disguises some of the progression's inner logic. Another way of spelling the chords uses descending parallel triads with altered bass:
The chords make more sense as a linear descent than if you tried to attach Roman numerals to them. There is still some tonic-dominant polarity lurking about, though. The bass for the second-to-last chord jumps up to ^5 and has a clear dominant functions. The chord itself is a funny hybrid, a subdominant-as-dominant, but with ^5 in the bass.
Why is the linear descent broken up? What would happen if a d harmony was substituted for the F/G there? I have two thoughts on why she made this decision. First of all, it gives some contrast to the progression. If it was one long linear descent, you'd lose a sense of tonic after a while. The resolution to C at the end would feel like less of an achievement.
The other possibility is that the tonic always seems in danger of slipping to Bb. Bb and Eb appear in enough of the harmonies that it would be very easy to modulate there if you tried. When I was first working out the voice leading for the changes, I made some inadvertent modulations to Bb major. Sticking in the F/G chord makes it clear that, at least for the time being, the song is staying in C. The resolution to the tonic at that point feels like an act of restraint, well-suited to the insecure lyric there: "Will you still love me / When I call you up when I'm down."
The unstable tonic seems to explain why the B section opens with a BbM7 chord. With this move, the lyrics change from personal insecurities to demands and accusations directed at the unnamed lover. She's no longer holding back quite as much. The lyrics in all of the A sections stick to personal reflections on the emotional strain of being away from home and the man in question (a conflation of emotional and physical dislocations is a central theme of the album). The B sections get more specific about the relationship in question (but only slightly — still more restraint): "You and me, we're like America and Russia...", "You lay down your sneaking round the town, honey / And I'll lay down the highway."
One last thing. No fancy analysis, just my amazement at the range of expression you can get by altering the delivery of a line:
Before signing off, the theory nerd in me wishes to share a few observations about the song. "Blue Motel Room" falls into an AABA form (played twice). One interpretation of the harmonies spells some of them as triads with extensions. This style aids readability, but it disguises some of the progression's inner logic. Another way of spelling the chords uses descending parallel triads with altered bass:
| Triad: | C | F | Eb | d | Db | c | F | C |
| Bass: | C | G | F | F | Eb | Eb | G | C |
The chords make more sense as a linear descent than if you tried to attach Roman numerals to them. There is still some tonic-dominant polarity lurking about, though. The bass for the second-to-last chord jumps up to ^5 and has a clear dominant functions. The chord itself is a funny hybrid, a subdominant-as-dominant, but with ^5 in the bass.
Why is the linear descent broken up? What would happen if a d harmony was substituted for the F/G there? I have two thoughts on why she made this decision. First of all, it gives some contrast to the progression. If it was one long linear descent, you'd lose a sense of tonic after a while. The resolution to C at the end would feel like less of an achievement.
The other possibility is that the tonic always seems in danger of slipping to Bb. Bb and Eb appear in enough of the harmonies that it would be very easy to modulate there if you tried. When I was first working out the voice leading for the changes, I made some inadvertent modulations to Bb major. Sticking in the F/G chord makes it clear that, at least for the time being, the song is staying in C. The resolution to the tonic at that point feels like an act of restraint, well-suited to the insecure lyric there: "Will you still love me / When I call you up when I'm down."
The unstable tonic seems to explain why the B section opens with a BbM7 chord. With this move, the lyrics change from personal insecurities to demands and accusations directed at the unnamed lover. She's no longer holding back quite as much. The lyrics in all of the A sections stick to personal reflections on the emotional strain of being away from home and the man in question (a conflation of emotional and physical dislocations is a central theme of the album). The B sections get more specific about the relationship in question (but only slightly — still more restraint): "You and me, we're like America and Russia...", "You lay down your sneaking round the town, honey / And I'll lay down the highway."
One last thing. No fancy analysis, just my amazement at the range of expression you can get by altering the delivery of a line:
March 09, 2006
Looking for some sightreading?
I'm not anymore. Daniel Wolf posted at Renewable Music to say that Larry Polansky has a number of PDF scores available for free perusing and printing, including the massive "Lonesome Road." I wish more composers would make their music this readily available.
I've made it
Courtesy of Site Meter, I have a limited ability to see who passes through these pages and what might've led them here. For the most part, people wander in from other blogs. Searches also draw in a number of people. Because search terms are embedded in the referring URL, I can see what they were. Earlier today, a search for "blondie cartoon incest" led someone to this (what I thought) family-friendly blog. I'm assuming my earlier post on R. Crumb was responsible for this. Ignoring this visitor's sexual predilections for the moment, does it really only take one mention of R. Crumb to bring out the deviants?
Piano tuning fun has continued, albeit with a slight break for Midterm Mayhem!! Curiosity led me to getting out the library's copy of the greatest book ever (OCD sufferers are advised to stay away). Further curiosity led to some experimentation with the Thomas Young (well-) temperament of 1799. It didn't take long to realize how superior non-equal temperaments really are for playing tonal music. Keys really have distinct characters, intervals in general sound better, etc., etc., etc.
I'm wondering now about an issue in listening to tonal music: modulation. In all of my music history classes that covered tonal music, discussions of significant modulations always prompted someone to ask, "I can't hear this. Could people back in [whatever period] really pick up on it?" Each time, regardless of prof., the same answer: "Well, listeners then were much more attuned to these harmonic procedures."
Something about this answer always seemed...fishy. My current theory: it's hard to notice modulations within equal temperament because every key sounds the same. A temperament with distinct key characters makes it easy for listeners to notice modulations. When the quality of the tonic suddenly changes, you know you're in a different key. Do you even need relative pitch to figure that out? Consider the beginning of the Debussy prelude, "Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir":
When the piece modulates to Ab major, this melody, with identical harmonization, comes back. While the modulation is handled with the utmost smoothness, modulating by semitone definitely falls outside the bounds of common practice tonality. In the context of equal temperament, though, any modulation made with enough common tones sounds acceptable. Is it significant that Debussy chose a new key that neighbored the tonic on the chromatic scale instead of the circle of fifths? If you think of modulations as large-scale dissonances, then you get keys that clash by semitones instead of fifths.
I'm guessing someone could pull out more links between equal temperament and Debussy's harmonic practices. Thinking more generally, what are other ways of "dealing" with working in equal temperament? You can...
Piano tuning fun has continued, albeit with a slight break for Midterm Mayhem!! Curiosity led me to getting out the library's copy of the greatest book ever (OCD sufferers are advised to stay away). Further curiosity led to some experimentation with the Thomas Young (well-) temperament of 1799. It didn't take long to realize how superior non-equal temperaments really are for playing tonal music. Keys really have distinct characters, intervals in general sound better, etc., etc., etc.
I'm wondering now about an issue in listening to tonal music: modulation. In all of my music history classes that covered tonal music, discussions of significant modulations always prompted someone to ask, "I can't hear this. Could people back in [whatever period] really pick up on it?" Each time, regardless of prof., the same answer: "Well, listeners then were much more attuned to these harmonic procedures."
Something about this answer always seemed...fishy. My current theory: it's hard to notice modulations within equal temperament because every key sounds the same. A temperament with distinct key characters makes it easy for listeners to notice modulations. When the quality of the tonic suddenly changes, you know you're in a different key. Do you even need relative pitch to figure that out? Consider the beginning of the Debussy prelude, "Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir":
When the piece modulates to Ab major, this melody, with identical harmonization, comes back. While the modulation is handled with the utmost smoothness, modulating by semitone definitely falls outside the bounds of common practice tonality. In the context of equal temperament, though, any modulation made with enough common tones sounds acceptable. Is it significant that Debussy chose a new key that neighbored the tonic on the chromatic scale instead of the circle of fifths? If you think of modulations as large-scale dissonances, then you get keys that clash by semitones instead of fifths.I'm guessing someone could pull out more links between equal temperament and Debussy's harmonic practices. Thinking more generally, what are other ways of "dealing" with working in equal temperament? You can...
- ...reshape functional harmony to work more effectively within the constraints of equal temperament (à la Debussy).
- ...build a harmonic system around the understanding that all 12 tones are equal (à la Schoenberg).
- ...downplay functional harmony, instead constructing music around rhythm/timbre/texture/etc. (take your pick).
March 01, 2006
What makes a composer?
The latest "issue" of NewMusicBox is out, with Joan La Barbara getting the interview love this month. The article didn't have any big surprises*, but it did have an interesting quote:
---
* No big surprises, unless you didn't know that she was a composer as well as a singer. If this is news to you, make haste to UbuWeb and listen to 73 Poems.
So I was really intrigued by the idea of working with living composers, with people that I could have a conversation with, discuss ideas, use my brain in a very different way. Contemporary music fulfilled that for me. I could discuss [a piece] with a composer while the music was still being written and have an influence on what the piece was going to be. Actually my last vocal teacher, Marian Szekely-Freschl, said to me, "You must work with composers. You must help them because they don't know how to write for the voice." And so I really felt as if this was one of my responsibilities. And then as I was working more with composers I realized that I had ideas of my own that were not going to get heard unless I became a composer, so these things developed sort of simultaneously.It's kind of an assumed notion that divine inspiration/in-born gifts are necessary to be a composer. It's nice when people give you that wide-eyed impressed look when you tell them you write music, but it's a shame that so many people see musical creation as an off-limits activity. Every now and then, you're lucky and hit on an idea that makes you feel like a capital C-Composer, but most of the time I see composition as something that one does either because music/sound is your native language, or because you're so opinionated about music that it was only a matter of time before you tried your hand at it.
---
* No big surprises, unless you didn't know that she was a composer as well as a singer. If this is news to you, make haste to UbuWeb and listen to 73 Poems.
February 21, 2006
What is art for?
I have the answer! Er, an answer, via Louis Andriessen, who gave a masterclass this afternoon as part of his visit this week to Eastman. He cited Kierkegaard's definition of irony (pardon me if I botch it), where actions and events have multiple plausible causes, and one is made strongly aware of this unresolvable multiplicity. He gave (wait for it...) Stravinsky as an exemplar of this virtue. Stravinsky frequently takes ideas in unexpected directions. This puts the listener in a bind, not altogether sure why this happened or what the composer's motivation for the whole thing was.
The purpose of this ambiguity is to get you to ask questions, not to provide easy answers. Andriessen said that art's role should be in reminding you to ask various important questions that you might otherwise neglect. Art focused on conveying emotion/feeling (à l'Allemand) will always reduce down to the same syrupy sentimentality.
While I don't let my internal Angst-meter give the final verdict on a piece of art, I don't hold the same level of disdain for emotional expression. Sometimes emotionality is the only tool available for posing certain important questions. The vulnerability that's in so many Kenneth Patchen poems makes you ask if you're always true to yourself. Probably Andriessen's contention was more with putting in emotion for its own selfish sake. No problem there. The world doesn't need any more whiny break-up songs.
Elsewhere on the sentimentality front, I received a startling newspaper clipping in a recent dispatch from home. In the arts section of the 2/12 edition of the Boston Sunday Globe, they devoted 3/4 of the page width and the entirety of its length to a couple features and smaller factoids on Arnold Schoenberg. Levine's decision to program a series of all-Arnie concerts was responsible for this wholly remarkable level of coverage. Further in the section, the title of one of the articles informs us that "Programming proves a boon for modernists." After this victory, what lies next for this wily lot of lunatics and rabblerousers? I'm seeing "Modernists implicated in opera house bombing" plastered across the front page.
The purpose of this ambiguity is to get you to ask questions, not to provide easy answers. Andriessen said that art's role should be in reminding you to ask various important questions that you might otherwise neglect. Art focused on conveying emotion/feeling (à l'Allemand) will always reduce down to the same syrupy sentimentality.
While I don't let my internal Angst-meter give the final verdict on a piece of art, I don't hold the same level of disdain for emotional expression. Sometimes emotionality is the only tool available for posing certain important questions. The vulnerability that's in so many Kenneth Patchen poems makes you ask if you're always true to yourself. Probably Andriessen's contention was more with putting in emotion for its own selfish sake. No problem there. The world doesn't need any more whiny break-up songs.
Elsewhere on the sentimentality front, I received a startling newspaper clipping in a recent dispatch from home. In the arts section of the 2/12 edition of the Boston Sunday Globe, they devoted 3/4 of the page width and the entirety of its length to a couple features and smaller factoids on Arnold Schoenberg. Levine's decision to program a series of all-Arnie concerts was responsible for this wholly remarkable level of coverage. Further in the section, the title of one of the articles informs us that "Programming proves a boon for modernists." After this victory, what lies next for this wily lot of lunatics and rabblerousers? I'm seeing "Modernists implicated in opera house bombing" plastered across the front page.
February 19, 2006
Tuning Lesson, and more
Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. A minor wave of schoolwork, plus wanting to finish off a substantial song cycle that I've been working on for a while (more on this later) have kept me away from the ol' soapbox.
A couple days ago, I began my self-instruction in the art (definitely not a science for me just yet) of piano tuning. It seems like something all pianists should try at least once. Getting to encounter temperament as a practical rather than historical/theoretical issue gives one a much different understanding of the matter. What made the experience especially wonderful and occasionally overwhelming to me was the very intense tactile relationship I got with sound. I say tactile, because with so much of my musical life spent in front of a piano, I tend to think of music as something one interacts with through touch. Instead of "touching" a quantized set of pitches (12TET), I could push around the 12 tones to wherever I wanted them to be. It's the same as the difference between homebrewing/making your own bread and going store-bought all the time.
NB: If I post in a few months about how 12TET is unbearable sewage to the ears and how I've started composing in a new and wholly impracticable scale of my own devising, this is where it all started.
Random observation: Kyle Gann's posts on "metametrics" haven't been picked up too much by people in the (post-)classical end of the blogging world, but they've found (at least) a couple big admirers in the jazz world. Will post-minimalism and totalism find second lives among jazz composers?
The song cycle I just wrapped up sets six poems from Facts for Visitors. It's a pretty big piece (the biggest for me yet) — 18' of songs and interludes for tenor/fl/ob/hrn/bass. The texts deal primarily with "miscarriaged" relationships, damaged either through personality conflicts or something more unusual. The narrator usually involves himself in the relationship in a peculiar way. "Everything" (the first poem I set), describes a "relationship" between two people who never met. The narrator implies that they might've become close if they did actually meet, but they were both "victims of circumstance."
In the texts (particularly in "Everything"), the narrator is more attuned to the little behaviors that push around these relationships than the people who are affected by them. The way I read it, had these people been more attuned to each other, they would have been more likely to live happily ever after. The sequence I used starts off with a relationship at its most disconnectedness (description of problem), moves into the consequences of not paying attention to other people (development and climax), and finishes off with an example of two people who appear to connect for a moment (resolution/conclusion). This progression is the definition of tried-and-true, but I'd rather be understood than be clever. I initially had some structural ideas that better reflected aspects of the poetic content, but they were more easily seen than heard.
While I deal with getting this project performed, I think it's time to spend a little time in R&D (i.e., doing lots o' piano music). Big/bold/dramatic/rhetorical is fun and satisfying to put together, but now I'd like to go after something a little different.
A couple days ago, I began my self-instruction in the art (definitely not a science for me just yet) of piano tuning. It seems like something all pianists should try at least once. Getting to encounter temperament as a practical rather than historical/theoretical issue gives one a much different understanding of the matter. What made the experience especially wonderful and occasionally overwhelming to me was the very intense tactile relationship I got with sound. I say tactile, because with so much of my musical life spent in front of a piano, I tend to think of music as something one interacts with through touch. Instead of "touching" a quantized set of pitches (12TET), I could push around the 12 tones to wherever I wanted them to be. It's the same as the difference between homebrewing/making your own bread and going store-bought all the time.
NB: If I post in a few months about how 12TET is unbearable sewage to the ears and how I've started composing in a new and wholly impracticable scale of my own devising, this is where it all started.
Random observation: Kyle Gann's posts on "metametrics" haven't been picked up too much by people in the (post-)classical end of the blogging world, but they've found (at least) a couple big admirers in the jazz world. Will post-minimalism and totalism find second lives among jazz composers?
The song cycle I just wrapped up sets six poems from Facts for Visitors. It's a pretty big piece (the biggest for me yet) — 18' of songs and interludes for tenor/fl/ob/hrn/bass. The texts deal primarily with "miscarriaged" relationships, damaged either through personality conflicts or something more unusual. The narrator usually involves himself in the relationship in a peculiar way. "Everything" (the first poem I set), describes a "relationship" between two people who never met. The narrator implies that they might've become close if they did actually meet, but they were both "victims of circumstance."
In the texts (particularly in "Everything"), the narrator is more attuned to the little behaviors that push around these relationships than the people who are affected by them. The way I read it, had these people been more attuned to each other, they would have been more likely to live happily ever after. The sequence I used starts off with a relationship at its most disconnectedness (description of problem), moves into the consequences of not paying attention to other people (development and climax), and finishes off with an example of two people who appear to connect for a moment (resolution/conclusion). This progression is the definition of tried-and-true, but I'd rather be understood than be clever. I initially had some structural ideas that better reflected aspects of the poetic content, but they were more easily seen than heard.
While I deal with getting this project performed, I think it's time to spend a little time in R&D (i.e., doing lots o' piano music). Big/bold/dramatic/rhetorical is fun and satisfying to put together, but now I'd like to go after something a little different.
February 05, 2006
A rose by any other name...
William J. Schafer:
[Harry] Nilsson and [Randy] Newman represent a musical literacy alien to the funky scuffling spirit of Liverpool or Memphis. Their music is basically classical—it catalogs and orders the scattered materials of pop musical culture.Robert Ashley:
If a piece of music is under three minutes long, it's rock. Over three minutes, it's classical.While not that useful for critical discussions, I'm in favor of Duke Ellington's system:
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
January 28, 2006
Completism/iPodism
Zoilus has a little round-up of articles on the influence of the iPod on how people listen to music. One of the pieces takes the issue of music as a commodity in a slightly different direction. Basically, as more and more labels release alternate tracks, old bootlegs, and complete sessions of albums, our enjoyment of the original releases is reduced.
If you're one to fetishize albums — spending hours staring at the cover art, reading and rereading the liner notes, forcing your friends to listen to the same tracks again and again — I can see how this situation would be a problem. To maintain your obsession with the album, you have to keep yourself in a perpetual state of ignorance about how it was put together. You may say you want to know "how it all happened," but by exposing yourself to the banality of the circumstances, the mystery will disappear completely.
If you give into the temptation to hear the original demos and studio sessions, you can't romanticize the process of creation any more. It becomes evident that the music you love was birthed through hard work. As the PopMatters writer pointed out, you realize that the Beatles recorded a lot of duds. When you hear the official release of SMiLE, you wonder whether it was worth the 30-year wait.
The article does not touch on the segment of the music listening population that wants to know what it takes to put out an album of legendary status. You know, wouldbe songwriters, producers, and probably a few composers. Beyond the simple lesson that hard work and dedication go a long way, you can piece apart the sessions and learn how the tracks were put together. You can examine multiple versions of songs and figure out what made the final version so great.
Artists in other media get copious opportunities to pick through the creative process. At a big retrospective exhibit of a major painter, you usually get to see sketches for his magnum opus, along with any canvases he may've done that didn't pass muster. Do people who see these "lesser works" go up the ticket window and ask for their money back? Pop music fans should be thrilled that this kind of opportunity is now available on such a large scale.
As far as the impact of iPods go, I don't think the situation is as dire as it's made out to be. Among any population of self-proclaimed music lovers, you'll have two groups: people who say they like music, and those who actually do. The people who only say so are put up to it by the same social pressure that foists any other kind of fashionable behavior on them. The other group, whether they're into it for the artist worship or the admiration of craftsmanship, will never give into a music-as-wallpaper lifestyle, no matter how much technology gets thrown at them.
If you're one to fetishize albums — spending hours staring at the cover art, reading and rereading the liner notes, forcing your friends to listen to the same tracks again and again — I can see how this situation would be a problem. To maintain your obsession with the album, you have to keep yourself in a perpetual state of ignorance about how it was put together. You may say you want to know "how it all happened," but by exposing yourself to the banality of the circumstances, the mystery will disappear completely.
If you give into the temptation to hear the original demos and studio sessions, you can't romanticize the process of creation any more. It becomes evident that the music you love was birthed through hard work. As the PopMatters writer pointed out, you realize that the Beatles recorded a lot of duds. When you hear the official release of SMiLE, you wonder whether it was worth the 30-year wait.
The article does not touch on the segment of the music listening population that wants to know what it takes to put out an album of legendary status. You know, wouldbe songwriters, producers, and probably a few composers. Beyond the simple lesson that hard work and dedication go a long way, you can piece apart the sessions and learn how the tracks were put together. You can examine multiple versions of songs and figure out what made the final version so great.
Artists in other media get copious opportunities to pick through the creative process. At a big retrospective exhibit of a major painter, you usually get to see sketches for his magnum opus, along with any canvases he may've done that didn't pass muster. Do people who see these "lesser works" go up the ticket window and ask for their money back? Pop music fans should be thrilled that this kind of opportunity is now available on such a large scale.
As far as the impact of iPods go, I don't think the situation is as dire as it's made out to be. Among any population of self-proclaimed music lovers, you'll have two groups: people who say they like music, and those who actually do. The people who only say so are put up to it by the same social pressure that foists any other kind of fashionable behavior on them. The other group, whether they're into it for the artist worship or the admiration of craftsmanship, will never give into a music-as-wallpaper lifestyle, no matter how much technology gets thrown at them.
January 19, 2006
Joining the Fray
Two fine bloggers have been discussing how fiction and reality bounce off each other in art. Reality shows are an extreme example of a diluted/deluded reality, but some things can build on reality without being emotionally manipulative. R. Crumb uses autobiography because it feels more real to audiences when the artist and narrator are integrated. Same with many good singer-songwriters.
Alex Ross's problem with with James Frey is that an essential truth was favored over a literal truth. The real problem is not in this shift in balance, but in the ultimate quality of the essential truth (which at least one analyst found quite damaging). Of course, the issue with my example is that Crumb's literal truths should not be taken at face value either. No one writes an autobiography without making choices about what they leave in and what gets taken out. For Crumb, however, the value of his essential truths outweighs any vagaries in the literal ones.
Also, an addict's memoir that wasn't quite an addict's memoir? Whoda thunk.
Alex Ross's problem with with James Frey is that an essential truth was favored over a literal truth. The real problem is not in this shift in balance, but in the ultimate quality of the essential truth (which at least one analyst found quite damaging). Of course, the issue with my example is that Crumb's literal truths should not be taken at face value either. No one writes an autobiography without making choices about what they leave in and what gets taken out. For Crumb, however, the value of his essential truths outweighs any vagaries in the literal ones.
Also, an addict's memoir that wasn't quite an addict's memoir? Whoda thunk.
January 18, 2006
Tangle of Influences
I just got introduced to the work of R. Crumb. Anyone who has avoided his work for whatever reason needs to go and start reading it now. He's this amazing talent who just seems to have sprung up out of nowhere — no art school or formal training, no apprenticeships with big names in the business. There seem to be a lot of parallels between the careers of Crumb and Frank Zappa. Both of them are associated with '60s counterculture, despite the fact that both of them loathe hippies. They're both self-taught and work in the "low" arts, but have attracted the attention of many "high" artists. They also seem to have similar down-to-earth, no-nonsense attitudes.
One continuous feature in Crumb's work are all these old-timey cartoon archetypes: dancing movie theater snacks, people-like animals who wear shirts but no pants, the general layout and lettering in much of his work. He often transforms these stock tools of his trade into a means of cultural criticism. The targets of his criticism are artifacts of the present, though, not the archetypes which he has such deep affection for.
He maintains the appearances of these archetypes, but puts them in unexpected situations. This juxtaposition isn't made for its own sake, however. It's used to call attention to the assumptions that you may have about about these characters. These expectations fit into a broader cultural context which is usually covered with a patina of normality. When Crumb draws black people as racist stereotypes or puts together an incest story with Dick and Jane-style characters, he is suggesting that perhaps we shouldn't be accepting these images as part of the status quo.
Comic archetypes are reinterpreted in another way in Daniel Clowes's Ice Haven. It has a large-scale narrative, but it's broken down into very short strips. Basically, it's like you opened up the Sunday comics and each strip centered around an individual character, but you find they all lived in the same town and interacted with each other. The individual parts dip into the lives of their respective characters, but together, they form a larger story.
The characters in the strips are not your usual funny pages fodder, though. They're the black sheep of Dagwood and Blondie's extended family. You get six frames of a depressed kid staring at the ceiling and Family Circus-style single frames about grade schoolers contemplating murder. Clowes's work isn't a simplistic shockfest, either. He has a story to tell, but his preferred tools are usually employed in tamer settings. He takes to Sunday comics — as much of a throwaway form as you get — with novelistic aspirations.
If you check out your local comics shop, you'll notice that Crumb and Clowes aren't the only ones who like dipping into past images and forms. However, there's a big difference between the shallow nostalgia practiced by most of them and the deep love demonstrated by the much smaller group that these two fall into. The collection of images and ideas that they all chew over and redraw are the backbone of their medium's tradition. The artists even have a typical persona. They're "weirdos." They like drawing "sick" and "twisted" things.
Artistic media come attached with a set of cultural norms for the things they communicate, the ways in which they're communicated, and typical behaviors for the artists themselves (the sum of these norms usually goes by the name of "tradition."). They've got well-dressed farm animals with ukuleles, we've got polyphonic masses. As Feldman pointed out, the central point of interest from Machaut to Boulez is the construction (an observation he made to contrast music with the other arts). You can probably fill in the rest.
The question for the artist: how much of a weight does tradition bear on your work? Are you regurgitating its practices, building on them, or finding new ones (if that's even possible)? Crumb and Clowes provide examples of artists who can make new, personal work that is close to their tradition, but not close enough to suffocate it.
One continuous feature in Crumb's work are all these old-timey cartoon archetypes: dancing movie theater snacks, people-like animals who wear shirts but no pants, the general layout and lettering in much of his work. He often transforms these stock tools of his trade into a means of cultural criticism. The targets of his criticism are artifacts of the present, though, not the archetypes which he has such deep affection for.
He maintains the appearances of these archetypes, but puts them in unexpected situations. This juxtaposition isn't made for its own sake, however. It's used to call attention to the assumptions that you may have about about these characters. These expectations fit into a broader cultural context which is usually covered with a patina of normality. When Crumb draws black people as racist stereotypes or puts together an incest story with Dick and Jane-style characters, he is suggesting that perhaps we shouldn't be accepting these images as part of the status quo.
Comic archetypes are reinterpreted in another way in Daniel Clowes's Ice Haven. It has a large-scale narrative, but it's broken down into very short strips. Basically, it's like you opened up the Sunday comics and each strip centered around an individual character, but you find they all lived in the same town and interacted with each other. The individual parts dip into the lives of their respective characters, but together, they form a larger story.
The characters in the strips are not your usual funny pages fodder, though. They're the black sheep of Dagwood and Blondie's extended family. You get six frames of a depressed kid staring at the ceiling and Family Circus-style single frames about grade schoolers contemplating murder. Clowes's work isn't a simplistic shockfest, either. He has a story to tell, but his preferred tools are usually employed in tamer settings. He takes to Sunday comics — as much of a throwaway form as you get — with novelistic aspirations.
If you check out your local comics shop, you'll notice that Crumb and Clowes aren't the only ones who like dipping into past images and forms. However, there's a big difference between the shallow nostalgia practiced by most of them and the deep love demonstrated by the much smaller group that these two fall into. The collection of images and ideas that they all chew over and redraw are the backbone of their medium's tradition. The artists even have a typical persona. They're "weirdos." They like drawing "sick" and "twisted" things.
Artistic media come attached with a set of cultural norms for the things they communicate, the ways in which they're communicated, and typical behaviors for the artists themselves (the sum of these norms usually goes by the name of "tradition."). They've got well-dressed farm animals with ukuleles, we've got polyphonic masses. As Feldman pointed out, the central point of interest from Machaut to Boulez is the construction (an observation he made to contrast music with the other arts). You can probably fill in the rest.
The question for the artist: how much of a weight does tradition bear on your work? Are you regurgitating its practices, building on them, or finding new ones (if that's even possible)? Crumb and Clowes provide examples of artists who can make new, personal work that is close to their tradition, but not close enough to suffocate it.
December 28, 2005
American Romanticism
One interpretation of history places Romanticism as a reactionary movement to the Enlightenment. After the French Revolution backfired, an elitist, anti-egalitarian philosophy must've made a lot of sense. The artist-as-prophet mentality of the Romantics has its remnants today, including the somewhat disdainful attitude that so many composers show towards their audiences.
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the Enlightenment did not fail. For many, the American Revolution was a sign of the solidity of its ideals. Romanticism developed in this country, but its proponents (Emerson, Whitman, Ives) were raging populists. "I love to go to hear Emerson, not because I understand him, but because he looks as though he thought everybody was as good as he was." They had "prophetic" visions, but they also felt them to be within the reach of the common man.
Along with the composer-audience relationship, there is also the composer-performer relationship. The overly-exact notational habits of many 20th century composers did not help this one much. Some composers still think that it's okay to hand a performer an unplayable score and just have them "deal with it." Composer knows best. Lou Harrison on this issue: "Write what you want. Sooner or later a generation of musicians will come along who haven't been told that it's impossible to play. And they will play it!" He has some of the mindset that says that composers are only beholden to themselves, but he doesn't completely discount the capabilities of his performers. American Romantics may not believe in compromising themselves, but they never lose faith in their audiences.
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the Enlightenment did not fail. For many, the American Revolution was a sign of the solidity of its ideals. Romanticism developed in this country, but its proponents (Emerson, Whitman, Ives) were raging populists. "I love to go to hear Emerson, not because I understand him, but because he looks as though he thought everybody was as good as he was." They had "prophetic" visions, but they also felt them to be within the reach of the common man.
Along with the composer-audience relationship, there is also the composer-performer relationship. The overly-exact notational habits of many 20th century composers did not help this one much. Some composers still think that it's okay to hand a performer an unplayable score and just have them "deal with it." Composer knows best. Lou Harrison on this issue: "Write what you want. Sooner or later a generation of musicians will come along who haven't been told that it's impossible to play. And they will play it!" He has some of the mindset that says that composers are only beholden to themselves, but he doesn't completely discount the capabilities of his performers. American Romantics may not believe in compromising themselves, but they never lose faith in their audiences.
December 22, 2005
Meme of four
Four jobs you've had in your life: software tester, newspaper columnist, programmer, marketing intern
Four movies you could watch over and over: A Woman Under the Influence, Opening Night, Julien Donkey-boy, Ghost World
Four Two places you've lived: Newton MA, Rochester NY
Four TV shows you love to watch: King of the Hill, Good Eats, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Four places you've been on vacation: Chicago, southern California, southern France, Gaston County NC
Four websites you visit daily: Sequenza21, Ars Technica, Wired News, my school's library catalog
Four of your favorite foods: peanut butter, dried apricots, barbequed meat (the slow-cooked kind, not the kind that pours out of a bottle), anything that requires sauteeing onions
Four places you'd rather be: is music a place?
Four movies you could watch over and over: A Woman Under the Influence, Opening Night, Julien Donkey-boy, Ghost World
Four TV shows you love to watch: King of the Hill, Good Eats, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Four places you've been on vacation: Chicago, southern California, southern France, Gaston County NC
Four websites you visit daily: Sequenza21, Ars Technica, Wired News, my school's library catalog
Four of your favorite foods: peanut butter, dried apricots, barbequed meat (the slow-cooked kind, not the kind that pours out of a bottle), anything that requires sauteeing onions
Four places you'd rather be: is music a place?
December 10, 2005
Criticising in Context
I've been mulling over this rather extended debate going on in el blogosphere. I was having some trouble crystalizing my thoughts on the function of musical criticism, when I found a neat & tidy(ish) interview quote that did some of the heavy lifting for me:
He gives the issue a slightly political bent, but I suppose that's part of his personality. Looking at it more generally, it's an issue of context. The quote could easily be rephrased to say that we commonly neglect religion, race, gender, whatever, in discussions of music. Context is the difference between a chord with an added sixth signifying kitsch or signifying prayer.
The NYT review of An American Tragedy was itself criticized for what some saw as a slew of short-sighted omissions. What I want to know is why didn't it discuss the context of the premiere more? The first paragraph:
Alternatively, you can go in the opposite direction and only discuss context. Pitchfork is an easy target, but a failing of a lot of rock criticism, particularly when you get into indie rock circles, is favoring "hot or not" "issues" over whether or not the music's any good. As usual, a median between the two extremes, "objective" and "subjective" reactions, is what should be pursued.
Returning to the Rzewski quote, his final point is worth taking note of: in the production of music, you witness an intersection of a multitude of extensive and interconnected social relationships. Jeremy Denk posted some thoughts on a review of a Richard Goode recital. The issue was that the critic was harsh on Goode, faulting him for making an unusual (perhaps daring?) performance. In playing the music, Goode was continuing a thread of relationships that began with the authorship of the music, led through all of his experiences with the piece, touched on whoever may've been involved in those experiences, and took a stop at his recital.
Rather than contemplate and consider this very extended train of thought, the critic (at least as Jeremy suggested) cut it off with a cold and slightly ambivalent response. Speaking from my experience as a performer, you know whether or not you played well on any given night. It's flattering and all to get compliments on how you did, but really, no one needs to tell you. Similarly, I'll know if I lost control in any spots. Saying that someone "[let] his passion surge ahead of his judgment" ... what does that really mean to a reader? I'm not being dense here; how much does that statement inform a reader's understanding of what went on that night?
Contextualizing the playing, though, talking about it in relation to the pianist's past performances, common practices on how the composer's music should be played, what kind of relationship the performer had with the audience... these comments can make up for not being at an event. They continue the discourse that started way back whenever the piece was written. They, to me, are the makings of good criticism.
We study the history of music as though it starts with Gregorian chant and goes to [Machaut], Monteverdi, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Stravinsky, Schönberg, etc. But rarely do we learn when we study those things. What these people were really thinking about, aside from musical questions. We talk about them and listen to their work as though they only thought about music, and were not subject to the conditioning forces of the society in which they lived. As though that was something unimportant. Whereas, it is known in many cases that these composers were very often passionately concerned with social and political issues. Beethoven is certainly a case and point, or Chopin, or Wagner just to name a few, so it becomes a confusing question when we try to think how music, which we are accustomed to thinking of as a fundamentally abstract form of communication, how that can be a vehicle not only for feelings, but for ideas. I think that perhaps, in order to answer a question like that one has to examine not only the imminent characteristics of a piece of music, one has to imagine the piece of music as consisting not only of notes or sounds, but as a process of communication involving groups of human beings on a very basic level of course involving the collaborative activity of composers, performers, and audience, but also as a larger process of communication which involves a much larger and more general context.(Rzewski, again)
He gives the issue a slightly political bent, but I suppose that's part of his personality. Looking at it more generally, it's an issue of context. The quote could easily be rephrased to say that we commonly neglect religion, race, gender, whatever, in discussions of music. Context is the difference between a chord with an added sixth signifying kitsch or signifying prayer.
The NYT review of An American Tragedy was itself criticized for what some saw as a slew of short-sighted omissions. What I want to know is why didn't it discuss the context of the premiere more? The first paragraph:
For a company of such international standing, the Metropolitan Opera has had an inexcusably timid record of commissioning operas in recent decades. Consequently, when the Met presents a new work, the stakes are almost impossibly high.The context of the production isn't really touched on until the conclusion, when Tommasini does a simple tie-in to make the piece feel rounded out. What of the fact that the Met has commissioned so few new operas? Is the mantle of Great American Opera still worth aspiring to, or has it dwindled to a pointless pursuit in our present cultural climate? Is the choice of libretto significant in any way? What audience is the opera reaching out to? Should anyone else care?
Alternatively, you can go in the opposite direction and only discuss context. Pitchfork is an easy target, but a failing of a lot of rock criticism, particularly when you get into indie rock circles, is favoring "hot or not" "issues" over whether or not the music's any good. As usual, a median between the two extremes, "objective" and "subjective" reactions, is what should be pursued.
Returning to the Rzewski quote, his final point is worth taking note of: in the production of music, you witness an intersection of a multitude of extensive and interconnected social relationships. Jeremy Denk posted some thoughts on a review of a Richard Goode recital. The issue was that the critic was harsh on Goode, faulting him for making an unusual (perhaps daring?) performance. In playing the music, Goode was continuing a thread of relationships that began with the authorship of the music, led through all of his experiences with the piece, touched on whoever may've been involved in those experiences, and took a stop at his recital.
Rather than contemplate and consider this very extended train of thought, the critic (at least as Jeremy suggested) cut it off with a cold and slightly ambivalent response. Speaking from my experience as a performer, you know whether or not you played well on any given night. It's flattering and all to get compliments on how you did, but really, no one needs to tell you. Similarly, I'll know if I lost control in any spots. Saying that someone "[let] his passion surge ahead of his judgment" ... what does that really mean to a reader? I'm not being dense here; how much does that statement inform a reader's understanding of what went on that night?
Contextualizing the playing, though, talking about it in relation to the pianist's past performances, common practices on how the composer's music should be played, what kind of relationship the performer had with the audience... these comments can make up for not being at an event. They continue the discourse that started way back whenever the piece was written. They, to me, are the makings of good criticism.
December 03, 2005
Giving Up to Time
I'm an inveterate improviser. I can't sit down at the piano without experimenting with something: chord progressions, a piece I'm learning, or something new entirely. For me, the impulse to improvise is distinct from the compulsion to compose. I won't say that things I learn from one activity don't find their way into the other, but the music that arises from each is very different in character.
In an interview, Fred Rzewski distinguished the two activities by saying that when improvising, one is engaged in continuous reinvention. Composition, however, has a memory. When composing, you reference and reconsider past ideas, attempting to make them into an integrated whole. Building on this thought, the memory in composed music is in the music itself. And by music itself (here at least), I mean notation. When I contemplate this conceptual networking, I inevitably refer to what I've previously written down. This fixed, visual presence exerts its own force over the progress of a piece.
Though the final act of performance exists "in time," the work leading up to it, to some extent, does not. The idea of creating a hermetic, self-explanatory score is a false notion, but it persists nonetheless (a realization is impossible without a Western musical education and an immersion in its very specific culture). The seduction of the self-sufficient score is that the music gets placed out of time. It can be performed today, in two hundred years — whenever — using the information provided by the notation.
The act of composing is, in many ways, a resistance to the passage of time. It's saying, "You can take me, but you can't take this part of me, this music." Improvisation says, "I know you're going to take me, and I know you'll take my music, too." Defiance against time would just be completely delusional here, because its effects are so immediate. The music is gone as soon as it enters the world. Improvising has its own kind of dare and danger, but it also can allow one to face up to the realities of living in a way that is harder to achieve within the realm of notated music.
In an interview, Fred Rzewski distinguished the two activities by saying that when improvising, one is engaged in continuous reinvention. Composition, however, has a memory. When composing, you reference and reconsider past ideas, attempting to make them into an integrated whole. Building on this thought, the memory in composed music is in the music itself. And by music itself (here at least), I mean notation. When I contemplate this conceptual networking, I inevitably refer to what I've previously written down. This fixed, visual presence exerts its own force over the progress of a piece.
Though the final act of performance exists "in time," the work leading up to it, to some extent, does not. The idea of creating a hermetic, self-explanatory score is a false notion, but it persists nonetheless (a realization is impossible without a Western musical education and an immersion in its very specific culture). The seduction of the self-sufficient score is that the music gets placed out of time. It can be performed today, in two hundred years — whenever — using the information provided by the notation.
The act of composing is, in many ways, a resistance to the passage of time. It's saying, "You can take me, but you can't take this part of me, this music." Improvisation says, "I know you're going to take me, and I know you'll take my music, too." Defiance against time would just be completely delusional here, because its effects are so immediate. The music is gone as soon as it enters the world. Improvising has its own kind of dare and danger, but it also can allow one to face up to the realities of living in a way that is harder to achieve within the realm of notated music.
November 29, 2005
Subversive Songwriting
Randy Newman seems to me like a completely unlikely person. Whereas so many singer-songwriters work in the heart-on-the-sleeve, confessional mode, his songs are mostly cynical and distant. His voice is nothing to write home about, plus his appearance doesn't scream "big star." Somehow, these factors add to his music. His songs about sexual deviants and con artists wouldn't be as powerful if they came out of a more conventional personality.
His ability to create rhetorical distance between author and narrator is right up there with Stravinsky. A song like "Rider in the Rain" is so absorbed in being "cowboy music," but this involvement is matched by a feeling that it's all an elaborate conceit. Newman uses this rupture to test your trust in the narrator. Because the writing is so disquietingly conventional, you examine it all the more closely for the cracks in the facade. He forces you to think about how genres are used, what images are conjured up by particular instrumental forces, and the weight you give to the words of singers. His voice is that of an outsider, always shrewd and subversive.
Andriessen and Schönberger wrote in The Apollonian Clockwork about how when Stravinsky wrote a Mass or a Requiem, it became an ür-Mass or ür-Requiem, a summation and a stepping beyond of the genre. When Randy Newman writes a song, he (and the song in a way) are so aware of the genre's conventions that a similar kind of commentary is embedded in it. Tom Waits has often been described as a "meta-songwriter," but I think that Newman is far more deserving of the title.
His ability to create rhetorical distance between author and narrator is right up there with Stravinsky. A song like "Rider in the Rain" is so absorbed in being "cowboy music," but this involvement is matched by a feeling that it's all an elaborate conceit. Newman uses this rupture to test your trust in the narrator. Because the writing is so disquietingly conventional, you examine it all the more closely for the cracks in the facade. He forces you to think about how genres are used, what images are conjured up by particular instrumental forces, and the weight you give to the words of singers. His voice is that of an outsider, always shrewd and subversive.
Andriessen and Schönberger wrote in The Apollonian Clockwork about how when Stravinsky wrote a Mass or a Requiem, it became an ür-Mass or ür-Requiem, a summation and a stepping beyond of the genre. When Randy Newman writes a song, he (and the song in a way) are so aware of the genre's conventions that a similar kind of commentary is embedded in it. Tom Waits has often been described as a "meta-songwriter," but I think that Newman is far more deserving of the title.
November 19, 2005
Peter Garland: Americas
A few things are worth saying about this set of essays. Garland has a couple loose histories of the use of percussion and the piano in American music, but the majority of the collection is devoted to his journals and appreciations of fellow artists. The writers and composers featured often rejected the mainstream culture of the 20th century for a life of wandering and solitude (Paul Bowles got a pretty extensive write-up).
A number of these people, Harry Partch in particular, also tried to rekindle an animistic attitude towards religion (or as Garland would argue, religion in general). Garland feels quite strongly that religion died in the 20th century and that our collective quality of life has suffered for it. In order to revive the kind of religion that Garland thinks everyone should have, a prominent spiritual leader would have to be embedded in local communities. This person would help mediate social relations and in general make sure everyone was happy.
The key is being embedded in the community. Garland's identity as a lonely wanderer is a bit at odds with this. The tone I read in his essays suggested that he was going to set down his ideas, but that they'd be understood and implemented at a later time (beyond his lifetime?). This attitude just screams Romanticism. He's of course entitled to his opinions and how he wants to express them, but I can't help but feel he could find a means of expression more in tune with his thoughts.
Also, I would question whether or not there are other institutions today that accomplish the same social functions as his conception of religion would. When someone posts a discussion topic over at the Composers Forum or any other online forum, doesn't that act serve to bring people together and increase their understanding of one another? I'm also not sure how religious figures today fail at this role. If anything, the rabbis and ministers I've come in contact with seem more concerned at doing this kind of service than anything else. Think of the character of Eccles in Rabbit, Run. He puts an incredible amount of energy into trying to straighten Rabbit out.
The thing I really took away from the book was a better feeling of the tradition running through the American experimental tradition. It's easy to portray Partch, Cage, Cowell et al as only being united in their defiant attitudes, but Garland shows there's more to them than that. There's a full-page headshot of Varèse with his trademark I-could-kill-you-just-by-thinking-it look, but there's another shot showing him sitting next to Cowell, who's playing the shakuhachi for him. Garland shows that even though the styles of these composers are quite individualized, they influenced each other quite a bit in the development of their ideas.
A number of these people, Harry Partch in particular, also tried to rekindle an animistic attitude towards religion (or as Garland would argue, religion in general). Garland feels quite strongly that religion died in the 20th century and that our collective quality of life has suffered for it. In order to revive the kind of religion that Garland thinks everyone should have, a prominent spiritual leader would have to be embedded in local communities. This person would help mediate social relations and in general make sure everyone was happy.
The key is being embedded in the community. Garland's identity as a lonely wanderer is a bit at odds with this. The tone I read in his essays suggested that he was going to set down his ideas, but that they'd be understood and implemented at a later time (beyond his lifetime?). This attitude just screams Romanticism. He's of course entitled to his opinions and how he wants to express them, but I can't help but feel he could find a means of expression more in tune with his thoughts.
Also, I would question whether or not there are other institutions today that accomplish the same social functions as his conception of religion would. When someone posts a discussion topic over at the Composers Forum or any other online forum, doesn't that act serve to bring people together and increase their understanding of one another? I'm also not sure how religious figures today fail at this role. If anything, the rabbis and ministers I've come in contact with seem more concerned at doing this kind of service than anything else. Think of the character of Eccles in Rabbit, Run. He puts an incredible amount of energy into trying to straighten Rabbit out.
The thing I really took away from the book was a better feeling of the tradition running through the American experimental tradition. It's easy to portray Partch, Cage, Cowell et al as only being united in their defiant attitudes, but Garland shows there's more to them than that. There's a full-page headshot of Varèse with his trademark I-could-kill-you-just-by-thinking-it look, but there's another shot showing him sitting next to Cowell, who's playing the shakuhachi for him. Garland shows that even though the styles of these composers are quite individualized, they influenced each other quite a bit in the development of their ideas.
November 17, 2005
A Literary Echo
From "More Light," Morton Feldman:
Will blog later on this Garland book once I get through it. It's got its share of thought-provoking bits, particularly on the idea of tradition among quote-unquote maverick composers.
In effect, what I am suggesting is not that music should explore or imitate the resources of painting, but that the chronological aspect of music's development is perhaps over, and that a new "mainstream" of diversity, invention and imagination is indeed awakening. For this we must thank John Cage.From "Oaxacan Journal" in Americas, Peter Garland:
In benign and far-reaching ways, he has helped and influenced all of us . . . Listening to any of the sets of records he edited for Folkways, Music of the World's Peoples, will give a sense of his continuing legacy: if, in this century, the past, present and future have been unlocked, and the variety of the world's cultures opened to us, we have Henry Cowell, more than anyone else, to thank.
Will blog later on this Garland book once I get through it. It's got its share of thought-provoking bits, particularly on the idea of tradition among quote-unquote maverick composers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
