Neo Antennae

Sunday Glass

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:00:00 +0000

I hope you'll take some time, if you'd like, to check out these videos of me and my friend Rachel Gallegos (who also just won the Jackie McGehee Concerto Competition with the first movement of the Mozart 5 and got to play with the New Mexico Philharmonic) playing the first two movements of Philip Glass's Sonata for Violin & Piano. We performed it at Sunday Chatter (formerly known as Church of Beethoven), which, if you have read this blog before, probably know is the place where I volunteer and is very, very important to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v68EMGL0BRc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CChKM1xSA40

I think we did quite well, and wore some cool dresses. The piece has many Glassy moments and qualities, but it is also much more romantic and varying, especially in the second movement.

With love,

Elena

A Pärt of Something Else

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 02:40:00 +0000

New England in the flesh, and the idea of "New England" with all that it implies, has always been something that lived only in my mind while growing up in a southwestern desert. It has primarily lived in history books, revealing itself through tales of the Revolution or passages of Walden. As of today, though, it became less foreign. I'm visiting colleges, the classic junior-year-spring-break activity, but I'm learning not only about possible venues of higher education, but about the birthplace of many of my favorite subjects in American culture, which sounds much more epic and monolith-like than it did initially. That is, until I started listening to music on the evergreen way from Amherst to Cambridge.
For some reason, my finger clicked on the Arvo Pärt annex of my iPod, somewhere I don't visit with as much frequency lately as "The Dharma at Big Sur" or "I Might Be Wrong" by Radiohead (I should let you know: I'm known for my too-long binges on very specific works). Immediately, I knew I had chosen the soundtrack to my trip, the first notes of "Da pacem Domine," the echoy fragments of a triad fit to worship, making everything feel like a water color. Pärt's music has a way of making itself a memory, and like a time capsule takes you back to the past, whatever that means at the moment. So, for me, in this place that both makes me think of "history" the class and "history" the concept, it turned the present from a concrete reality into a transparent lens.

Arvo

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer and has made a significant crater in the terrain of contemporary music. His music does not evoke the word "contemporary" as often as other living composers, though, due to its sacred categorization. While he began composing with influences from Shostakovich and Schoenberg, his works after 1976 focus on ideas surrounding Christianity. His numinous works are airy and spacious, usually beginning and ending in gradual silence. His works have also been inspired by Gregorian chant, the slowly moving, monophonic works of medieval music. He has been categorized as a minimalist or as a part of the "New Simplicy" movement, a European group that went against the avant garde movements of the 50s and 60s, but that tells you much less than his music itself does:

Pärt, along with his maturation into a sacred composer, developed a style of composition he calls "tintinnabuli," or "tintinnabulation." Straightforwardly, the term refers to his use of one triad spread over three or four voices, creating a cavernous, open sound, but also one he likens to bells. He says of the term:
"Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers - in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises - and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. . . . The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it tintinnabulation."
Leave it to little Arvo to create a composition technique that is both concrete and metaphysical. And, while I am no expert on his creation and have never really looked at a Pärt score, it's difficult not to read about tintinnabulation and feel a sense of it in his music after. Aside from his consitstent usage of spread-out triads, he constructs his pieces like answer seekers themselves. His unresolved, gradual, metastasis-like structures often begin with healthy amounts of silences and tones that drift away. Sometimes they seem to find answers, like in the middle of his vocal piece "Nunc dimittis," which crescendos and unifies to a triumphant C major chord before resting and returning back to the melancholy melodies of the beginning, eventually ending in the contemplative, hushed, separate voicing of the beginning, never resolving. Just like most answer seekers.
He has more intense, dramatic pieces as well, but they have similar themes as his more bare works. "Tablua Rasa" is his concerto for two violins and orchestra, and is, in terms of size, much grander than many other pieces. It builds itself on evolving cycles. The first movement, "Ludus," is composed of a theme with close, slightly dissonant notes from the violins that is repeated, gradually becoming more intense with each repetition. The second movement, "Silentium," marks each cycle with a prepared piano arpeggio that leads into a tragic collaboration of the violins, again eventually ending in silence after the theme is transferred to the bass section. The piece, when thought about from Pärt's religious point of view, might be trying to ask "why?", but it eventually drowns itself in the journey to answer itself, so similar to many people who try to do the same. Pärt is able to make listeners feel as though something has been revealed, even if that thing may be that the quest towards revealing is long and often undoable. In his more peaceful works, like the violin and piano duet "Spiegle im Spiegle," I finish listening with a greater sense of my own perspective.
Perhaps it is the opposite of obvious why New England and Arvo Pärt are connected in my mind as I write this. Some of the connection is from my overdone-metaphor-loving mind, but a lot of it is from one sentence of that bolded quote up there: "In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning."
This sentence could be applied to almost anything, but it really has me thinking about history and how the past relates to our actions. Here, in New England, where our country was grown out of tobacco farms and kept in wooden houses on mud roads and written in humid, confined rooms in Pennsylvania, "history" is big and statuesque, both literally and figuratively. But while those revolutionary years were happening, I am positive there were nights when people sat awake in their beds, having some of those dark hours, thinking exactly what Pärt says he sometimes does. In the present, it is difficult to understand the influence each action will have on shaping the future, and it is often difficult to see how the past has constructed those actions.
America, to keep with this theme, is a place that has both succeeded and failed in recognizing that everything outside "this one thing," the present, a given lifetime, does in fact have meaning. When we succeeded, we wrote our Constitution with the past of monarchacal England in our heads, and we built culture trends off the influence of those before. But we have also failed. We began the peculiar, or cruel, institution of slavery without the thought of how those we treated with such unbelievable disrespect resembled ourselves at points, and we have begun wars without thinking of their repercussions decades into the future. It's the clash between our longevities and our minds, our realistic selfishness and our ability to understand that the butterfly effect is true to a certain extent. So, as I sit here in a Cambridge hotel, I can understand that I wouldn't be here if my ancestors weren't able to come to a country that was founded on the land I find myself on. But I also sit here occupied by my thoughts of myself: where I'll go to college, what I'll have for breakfast tomorrow, and what I want to make of myself. Maybe Arvo Pärt can't make me understand "history" to the extent it deserves, but he makes me meditate. With that, I can at least recognize

MythBusters

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:57:00 +0000

As we on Earth began measuring another one of our orbits yesterday, I read a thin paperback called Myth and Meaning on a 737 trekking across a handful of states. The book, a collection of essays by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, puts the idea of myths behind many lenses in five chapters, the fifth (“Myth and Music”) being a comparison between Western music and myths. Lévi-Strauss says:

…it is impossible to understand a myth as a continuous sequence. This is why we should be aware that if we try to read a myth as we read a novel or a newspaper article, that is line by line… we don’t understand the myth, because we have to apprehend it as a totality… we have to read the myth more or less as we would read an orchestral score, not stave after stave, but understanding that we should apprehend the whole page… it is only by treating the myth as if it were an orchestral score, written stave after stave, that we can understand it as a totality, that we can extract the meaning out of the myth (44-45).

He goes on to describe the pieces that make up these two phenomena; while language has phonemes, words, and sentences, myths (presumably orally told) only have words and sentences, and music only has “letters” and sentences (chords as words are up for debate). Even though a myth is something that can be abstract, and music is certainly no easier to boil down to phonetics, each become seemingly understandable and sealed to manageable ideas with this comparison. With the description of linguistic terms, Lévi-Strauss calls music and myth “sisters,” both mediums that offer meaning and resolution through similar structures. However, just like the creation of myths died out, Lévi-Strauss’s comparison has as well in some ways. Music now, ever different from music yesterday, is learning to both be a totality and suggest an infinite world beyond itself.

Old and new pictures of Lévi-Strauss, equally kick ass.

Under airplane light and now in front of a computer, I agree with Lévi-Strauss in many ways. Much of the reason music is so enjoyable to listen to is its ability to tell full stories, finished resolutions of sound that we can experience in a given amount of time. Experiencing an idea from start to finish, and, perhaps more importantly, the idea having a finishing point in the first place, is extremely comforting. Along with fairy tales, movies, and myths, a large portion of all music is made up of pieces like this—“closed systems.”

Take almost any symphony with a conventional structure. Let’s use Milhaud’s Symphony no. 1 as an example (tip: listen to a lot of Les Six music in the winter with endless hot beverages). A sanguine, modernist work, the symphony has a structure like any basic movie plot; it lays a calm, impressionistic foundation, builds tension and conflict in the second movement with heavier and more intense brass, contemplates itself in the third movement with moody, smoky timbres and hints of resolution, and expels energy and action in the fourth movement, which ends in heavy snare and a triumphant blare from all the instruments. When listening to it, the listener is taken away like any listener to a great symphony should be—regardless of the things produced by his/her mind, whether they are images of a winter countryside or an underwater happening or an indescribable stew of good old fashioned feelings, the story is started and finished in that same mind. Meaning is extracted when the piece is looked at as a totality, an entire story.

Lévi-Strauss also refers to fugues as music with myth-like structures:

You have what we call in French ‘le sujet et la réponse.’ The antithesis or antiphony continues through the story until both groups are almost confused and confounded – an equivalent to the stretta of the fugue; then a final solution or climax of this conflict is offered by a conjugation of the two principles which had been opposed all along during the myth (50).

One of the most pivotal and utilized forms of music can be equaled to, basically, the form of the birth of history (what Lévi-Strauss calls myths in chapter four of Myth and Meaning). Thanks, Zarlino, Frescobaldi and the like.

In fact, Lévi-Strauss’s comparison of history and myths in chapter four (essay “When Myth Becomes History”) makes me think more about music as well. He discusses the differences between myths and history (the former being the earliest form of the latter), illustrating how myths were the replacement for history in areas without writing and were the product of oral storytelling, while history counteracted the production of myths with the emergence of written documents in the Renaissance. One of his sentences in this essay, though, refers to music without even trying:

Mythology is static, we find the same mythical elements combined over and over again, but they are in a closed system, let us say, in contradistinction with history, which is, of course, and open system (40).

The music he talks about in chapter five is, as he says, like a myth—a closed system. And, of course, much of music is closed. The double bar is the happily ever after, at least for the plot and area for extraction of significance.

But what if we want to compare music to life, not myth or story? Here is where Lévi-Strauss’s comparison stops being entirely accurate. Life, as we live it, is an open system, like the book’s description of history, which is the patchwork of lives. Like the Milky Way, we’ll never be able to take a full picture of our own life; we can only reflect on it and piece together the pieces we have.

While music according to Lévi-Strauss is a closed system as a whole (because of his comparison of it to myth), we have more pieces of the picture of music history to say this is not longer entirely true. He does touch on his future inaccuracy at the end of the essay: “It is quite possible that what took place in the eighteenth century when music took over the structure and function of mythology is now taking place again, in that the so-called serial music has taken over the novel as a genre…” (54). We can still examine what has changed with his comparison.

Part of the reason for Lévi-Strauss’s belief of the relationship between music and myth is because his book was published in 1978, the time period when Ligeti, Penderecki, Xenakis, and Crumb were pivotal figures in the music industry, Robert Ashley’s opera Perfect Lives and Glass’s Einstein on the Beach premiered, John Adams wrote his Gates piano pieces (ones that started his distinct style), and Steve Reich was composing important works of his career. While these events obviously were changing “classical” music’s definition during that time, they were not placed into history just yet. They were not far away enough to be looked at as part of the past.

MS Paint collages forever

Now, though, we can look at this time period as history—with indeterminacy already established, minimalism was beginning to change the form of music again, allowing pieces to flow in repeating waves and cells instead of lines or (somewhat) follow-able, fluctuating tones. This structure is much more like life in first person—each experience is met as a continuation of the last, and past changes in the landscape are only felt after understanding the permanent shift in the present. So many pieces composed in and since the 70s can end without resolution. In our mind, they can continue beyond the double bar. There is no “happily ever after,” because the after is unclear.

As it turns out, music can be, and is, an open system.

I have been listening to “Timber” by Michael Gordon recently, and, through the ensemble that plays Gordon’s piece, one by Nick Woodbury, “Bells.” Both pieces reflect the importance of open system styles, creating sonic spaces that develop and morph but never resolve or come to a definitive end.

(You should listen to some of "Timber" on WQXR)

Michael Gordon, one of the founders of Bang on a Can, has been a prolific figure in music. He and his music are influenced by legends such as Reich, and “Timber,” a recent commission by the dance ensemble Club Guy & Roni and percussion groups Slagwerk Den Haag and Mantra Percussion for six wooden simantras (slabs of wood that are basically prepared 2x4s), is no exception. As he says in his program notes, “I imagined that the six instruments would go from high to low, and that, through a shifting of dynamics from one instrument to the next, the group could make seamless and unified descending or ascending patterns.”

The piece is meditative. While multiple instruments can be detected, their blending makes for a wall of sound that fluctuates like a billowing curtain. The untuned simantras don’t necessarily tell a story, like a symphony or myth, but they create a world in which infinite stories could occur. Their dry, hollow timbre fills all empty spaces in the air and somehow creates rich new ones that are then filled again, like a fountain continually using its own water.

“Bells,” by Nick Woodbury, a member and co-director of Mantra Percussion, reaches a similar effect with different methods. With bells, airy drones, and what sound like melodica bursts, Woodbury creates cycles (or at least sounds that somehow feel like circles) that merge into a comprehensive, changing organism; only after living in its world of sound for a while, however, can it be reflect on and observed. When it ends after five minutes, though, unlike closed system pieces, it doesn’t really “end.” It rings, continues, and has a further life in mind of the listener. It becomes history, not in a sense of its place among other pieces, but in a continual trajectory that could be influencing things as it floats further away from the instruments, speakers, or headphones.

(You should also listen to "Bells")

Myths will likely survive for centuries more, and by no means will music with definitive resolutions die out any time soon. However, as we are seeing each day, meditative, indeterminate, and minimalist music has a portion of the reigns, even if a small one. Our ears are becoming more courageous, accepting sounds that never truly resolve, but build worlds that can ring and continue in our heads long after the music has officially stopped. “Closed systems” are comforting—they let us ride trajectories that leave nothing unknown, and they let us understand the totality of a story that we can reflect upon and decipher with confidence. Despite this, we are no strangers to the unknown—we live. And when we all can start listening like we live, maybe the unknown will lose its ability to frighten us.

Vivian Fung: Dreamscapes

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 04:21:00 +0000

Many of us have attempted to train ourselves to lucid dream. Lying in our beds, we’ve tried to wrangle our thoughts into those of control, discipline, and predictability. Some, if not most, nights, though, we are left with bizarre, alien-like episodes that seem perfectly normal only until we wake up.

Somehow, though, despite our attempts at control, these beautifully strange dreams can stick with us, long after we’ve forgotten the story we tried to construct ourselves.

And, somehow, Vivan Fung’s new album Dreamscapes feels a lot like this. While only one piece on the five track album has the word “dream,” her abilities as a composer can take over the subconscious of the listener in any setting.

The Canadian-born composer’s works span from prepared piano pieces to string quartets, but she somehow finds a way to make each form sing new tones. Combining distinctive sounds of Western music with those of gamelan and other non-Western timbres, she equals something from a direction neither cardinal nor previously done. Dreamscapes is certainly no exception.

Like trying to control dreams, attempting to predict the direction of Fung’s works is futile. Throughout the album, with her Violin Concerto, her prepared piano pieces Glimpses, and her piano concerto “Dreamscapes,” melodies change instantaneously into rapid textures, otherworldly plucks of piano strings reverberate off of passing drones, and Americana brass back up gamelan-influenced violin lines. But the album is about more than mixing and contrasting—it’s about Fung’s ability to invent an entire world from a certain web of sound, and her knack for knowing exactly how to disintegrate it.

The album opens with Fung’s stunning Violin Concerto. Inspired by Javanese gamelan, the piece is a distinctly gamelan theme running through settings from around the world. Kristin Lee, the soloist who worked closely with Fung, does an impeccable job being both virtuosic and accurate with the demanding passages, and the Metropolis Ensemble (conducted by Andrew Cyr) moves well together, bouncing, traveling, and being able to release pressure all at once. Throughout the first half of the concerto, Lee is in control; she guides the orchestra and audience into desolate, high register moments, into chugging, brass-filled areas, all the while exploring the landscapes the orchestra reflects with the reminder of the concerto’s pelog scale influences. Almost exactly half-way through, the violin drops the orchestra, letting it quickly dissipate as the violin seems to travel down its range, leaping sideways to build, piece by rearranged piece, a museum of styles. It builds to a climax, navigating through the gamelan scales with violent tremolo. When the orchestra arrives, it becomes the leader with animal kingdom brass and distant strings lurking in the now-familiar scales. Lee comes back in focus with almost Chinese-sounding melodies, gliding over the orchestra with more grace than was introduced. Like the listener has learned, though, no one mood stays for long, and the concerto feels impressionistic for a few minutes before it releases again into period of thinness. The ending, identical to the beginning, is a palette cleanser and a mirror, so pristine it reflects the multifaceted body that preceded it. As the strings glissandi up, the violin holds out until a small gong-like instrument is played, letting go of every sound before it, seeming to resonate for minutes.

“Glimpses,” the second group of pieces on the album, uses a gamelan-like prepared piano to provide exactly that, glimpses, into three very differently woven moods. The first movement, “Kotekan,” is titled after a gamelan style of fast, interlocking parts. With some notes ringing with a hollow sound, some vibrating against metal, and some shaking like strict percussion, Fung slowly builds a syncopated fabric, each tone bouncing off the next, each release as important as the contact. “Show,” the second movement, fills the dents from the previous movement with a fluid, sometimes impressionistic wave still spiked with the textures of the prepared strings. The third movement, “Chant,” mentally abducts. Like a flying object, the piece passes by deep, resonating, buzzes from the strings as abstract strumming, wood knocking, and echoing phrases gently create a narrative to follow.

While “Glimpses” pulls us in each direction, tugging by the arm to each new window of sound, the album’s powerhouse “Dreamscapes” for piano and orchestra becomes an entire comprehensive world. Conor Hanick, the pianist for both “Glimpses” and “Dreamscapes,” plays the inside of the piano with as much dedication and confidence as he does the keys, allowing the listener to fully accept the strange, distinctly Fung atmosphere that quickly constructs itself after the opening sounds. The piece begins with surprising fervor that holds out, transitioning through micropolyphony, jazzy spells, and the exact theme from “Glimpses” movement “Kotekan,” which on strings sounds strangely regal. Like dreams, though, each setting is accepted. No matter how out of place a section seems through words, the listener’s subconscious is taken over by Fung’s ability to weave each theme, each melody, each cluster of tones into the same environment that the listener is fully immersed in. Hanick plays a large part in this hypnotizing quality. His playing, especially in sections with undefined structure and simmering mixing of tones, is restrained and resists the temptation to become over-powerful in the delicate balance; he is also able to release off of these moments into commanding periods. After an orchestral sigh, around two-thirds into the piece, the direction of the piece becomes steeper, denser, and more urgent. Eventually, everything begins to spread out as old themes are resurrected in simple versions. As the world we have come to know disintegrates, an alien-like glimmer resonates behind the still tentative piano, which eventually dissolves.

Many composers fuse genres. Many composers build worlds. And, naturally, many composers have dreams. But what sets Fung apart is her ability to take over the subconscious of the listener, to build a world so captivating that even the strangest of transitions happen seamlessly. Lucid dreaming may seem enticing, but being taken away to Fung’s world would probably take the cake.

Raise the Levels of the Boom Inside the Ear

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:43:00 +0000

It’s safe to say that most, if not all, humans have had an experience with an irresistible beat. Perhaps a piece of music playing in a store made you tap your fingers on the handle of your shopping cart. Maybe you found yourself nodding your head at a stoplight to a song on the radio. Around three weeks ago, in fact, I was at a jazz concert, and I found that my crossed leg had become a separate entity, bobbing to Davis’s “All Blues” with alarming intensity while still synchronized with my shaking head. It’s as if you’re a pinball, and the beat is the colorful, blinking walls and obstacles you simply cannot avoid bouncing off of.

When referencing the body-wrangling abilities of musical beats, it’s hard for rap to not find its way into the conversation. It’s the genre that is served on a platter of beats (not to be confused with a platter of beets, a very different phenomenon). Without a beat, rap becomes spoken word. It’s what sets the mood and keeps the heads nodding, and its twists and turns shape the lyrics. Unfortunately for the genre, the Billboard charts have painted the portrait of rap as a somewhat tasteless, image-focused section of the music community, gaining many haters of the mere idea of rap (h8ers? I promise to never type that word on this blog again).

But there is a subdivision of rap, one that spews not only quality lyrics and flow but also beats that have refined bass lines, pure jazz, and real developments. Alternative rap, developed in the 90s especially, set up the foundation for the quality rappers of today. Plus, along with their irresistible beats, one feels pretty awesome blasting their songs through open windows during late night drives (one = me).

ATCQ

The pioneers of respected alternative rap, in my opinion, are definitely the rappers in the group A Tribe Called Quest. From Queens, the group changed the outlook on rap, using intelligent metaphors, artistic verses, and, especially, tasteful beats. Close to all of their songs have strong, funky, beautiful bass lines. These are particularly pronounced in their album The Low End Theory, which produced many unbeatable songs as well as helped solidify the connection between hip hop and jazz, one that seems destined but surprisingly wasn't definite previously. Their song “Jazz (We’ve Got),” which samples Lucky Thompson’s “Green Dolphin Street,” is a perfect example of the Tribe’s ability to be both culturally aware and modern. The bouncing bass line begs to be rapped to, and the long pulses of the (I think) Hammond B3 organ keep the track on its cool course. The chorus, in which the members speak quietly “We got the jaaaazzz, we got the jaaaazzz,” includes Lucky Thompson’s saxophone jumping a perfect fourth and then chromatically descending down in between the original B flat. It’s slightly eerie, but mostly conjures images of smoky, black and white streets at night.

Another A Tribe Called Quest song that demonstrates their influential, groundbreaking status is their song “Electric Relaxation” from the album Midnight Marauders. The song samples Ronnie Parker’s “Mystic Brew,” a cool jam with a simple drum beat, a funky bass line, and three satisfying pairs of chords on guitar. When Tribe used the song, they transposed it down a couple of steps, added a heavier beat, and layered a sound effect over the chorus and select parts of the verses that I can only describe as something that would play as a guy with an afro and bell bottoms walked down the street. “Electric Relaxation” is one of the few songs in hip hop with a three bar loop. The beat is not only addicting, but shows that a hip hop song does not need gunshot sound effects or overly intense electronics to be irresistible—in fact, it’s usually better when it doesn't (the song also has my favorite lyric of all time, rapped by Q-Tip: “They know the abstract is really soul on ice, the character is of men, never ever of mice”). Other pioneering alternative rap groups during the late 80s and 90s include De La Soul, Jurassic 5, and Jungle Brothers.

A Tribe Called Quest’s legacy has inspired many new rap groups who are invading the mainstream with real instruments and attention to the poetry of the lyrics. Atmosphere, a rap group composed of rapper Slug and producer Ant, are probably the most popular group that currently carries on the values of groups like A Tribe Called Quest. Atmosphere’s beats are not based as heavily on jazzy bass lines, but other mostly acoustic styles, ranging from calm guitar to dense, singer-songwriter-like piano to distorted electric guitar licks. Atmosphere’s song “Sound Is Vibration” uses some slightly Debussy sounding harp chords, but paired with the drum beat and the held out pitches, it becomes a perfect foundation for Slug’s and Spawn’s verses.

Slug

Another member of the revival of alternative rap is Aesop Rock, an intense and sometimes abstract lyricist who raps in front of a variety of different beats. Slightly more experimental than Atmosphere, his lyrics are seemingly more incoherent, while the beats fit into genres less concretely. Instead of polished, revealing songs, Aesop Rock has the quality of a slam poet, somewhat everywhere, jumbles of sound and words, all coming together for songs that redefine what it means to be a hip hop artist. His song "Shere Kahn" is a calm, slow moving beat with many different flavors. It’s slightly African inspired, slightly orchestral, and slightly Middle Eastern. Much of the song is without lyrics, instead having random spurts of flute and bassoon, brass, oboe, whistling, record scratching, a female singer, and other bursts. When Aesop Rock does come in, however, he’s explosive. The song doesn’t bring to mind the hip hop that we’ve been conditioned to recognize, the world of gold chains and sagging pants, but reminds the listener that hip hop is an art, not just an image. The beat is so strange that it becomes irresistible after a few listens, your head bobbing in a sort of trance.

Aesop Rock

Alternative rap teaches us many things: hip hop doesn’t have to be a self-involved, shiny, misogynistic genre, beats can be made out of tasteful jazz and acoustic samples, and lyrics can be as poetic as the next spoken word artist’s lines. From pioneering, legendary groups like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul to members of the modern revival of alternative hip hop like Atmosphere and Aesop Rock, there are beats all around us that are irresistible and draw us in. If you start listening to these masters of rhymes and beats, you’ll soon find yourself bobbing your head, tapping your foot, wiggling your fingers. Or, if you’re like me, driving down the road with the windows rolled down, rapping the chorus into the night.

Loose Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 01:33:00 +0000

I'm quite sorry for not blogging for a long time. I'm currently writing a longer post, so stay tuned, but in the mean time, here's a watercolor I did of Bill Evans:

Don't Fret (ha ha... ha)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Maybe it’s the kitschy but abundant associations with campfires, or perhaps it’s the secret desire that we all (debatably) have to become professional flamenco dancers, but the sound of a guitar holds a certain amount of relatable energy to it, some kind of mysteriously familiar timbre. Air-guitaring is basically a developmental skill, and the instrument is often played by children and fantasized about by aspiring rock stars.

The guitar is looked up to as an instrument that can do anything and still be familiar and household. Music sometimes is not this; it's easy to look at music (especially composed, "classical" music) as a daunting, complex web when it really is just the familiar sounds we know woven together, most often. The guitar, being the superhero it can be, can take down these walls of bias and fear.

photo by Brian Richardson

I had a seemingly mundane experience a couple nights ago that showed me some truth to the simplicity of sound, and I hope my attempt at a metaphor here doesn't totally fail.

It was a warm summer night, and I had spent the last few hours listening to music, so I rolled the windows down in my car and drove the quiet, river-parallel street home. The large portion of the road goes along houses with large chunks of land in front of them, so there aren’t any major buildings or structures close to where I was driving. The sound of my car against the street was single-pitched and constant, only changing when I would slow down or turn.

But as I turned onto the road that leads to my house, the fields disappear and bigger, more solid fences become closer to the road. As I would drive past a wall or fence, the sounds of my car and the wind would bounce back at me, making a louder sound than when I would drive past open air. Since the walls were split up, it would make a sort of rhythm.

This reminded me that sound isn’t some tangible thing that spills out of instruments or a wall that orchestras create, but a simple thing, actual waves that can bend and disappear and reflect. I know this seems very far from the theme of this post, but it made me think about the guitar—the instrument’s vulnerability from the common, rural foundations it has in our culture and the universal knowledge of its workings and sound make it seem more of a person among us than something in an instrument shop. It’s like the difference between hearing, say, Obama speak at a conference and your aunt speak at the dinner table.

After all that attempted allegory, what I’m trying to say is that the guitar and all its cultural power can remind us how the sounds that create music, from rock to classical, are ingrained in all of us and aren’t as daunting as they sometimes can seem.

Shall we examine the guitar’s place in varying genres of classical/classical-leaning music?

The place where I’ve been immersing myself in stringed sounds lately is Pat Metheny’s solo music, sort of jazz-folk-alternative stuff. After obsessing over his interpretation of “Electric Counterpoint,” I found a record of his at the store I go in about once a week. The record was New Chautauqua, his 1979 album of solo work—the instruments included are electric 6 and 12 string guitars, acoustic guitar, 15 string harp guitar, and electric bass, all played by Metheny. His playing is ethereal, and he has the ability to make a dense jumble of notes the clearest thing you’ll ever hear with his rapid picking and spot-on emphasis. His solo stuff, unlike the Pat Metheny Group’s more traditional jazz sound, is dreamlike and something you would listen to on a road trip in a beat up truck across the desert. The sounds of the guitars in his pieces are both grottos of amazement and comforting because of their familiarity.

Check out the title track for a classic, feel-good jam:

Or “Country Poem,” my favorite, for a nostalgic piece that calls for a far away, long ago home:

OOORRRR another one of my favorites, “Sueño con Mexico,” a gentle, flowing piece:

Another group of music that has to be mentioned is the classical guitar repertoire. From the Renaissance to the present, stringed instruments like the guitar have been common instruments to write for, and their familiar, relatable quality is constant throughout. In the Baroque era, composers like Gaspar Sanz and Francesco Corbetta were guitarists while composers like Robert di Visée or Sylvius Leopold Weiss were lutenists. During the Romantic era, the guitar began showing up in landmark composers’ works, such as in Paganini’s virtuoso pieces for the instrument, like his Capriccio No. 5:

…that inspired Steve Vai’s “Eugene’s Trick Bag” for the movie “Crossroads”:

The 19^th century was the “Golden Age” for guitar, with composers who wrote specifically for the instrument, bringing it into the spotlight. Francisco Tárrega, a Spanish guitarist and composer, wrote some beautiful music during the period, like his “Capricho Arabe."

It’s haunting and sounds traditional at first, which it definitely is because of Tárrega’s influence on the rest of the guitar repertoire, but the flares make it seem like a spontaneous humanoid or whatever a guitar can be that’s close to a human. This is what a lot of classical guitar repertoire does—it brings the common landscapes of classical music to a medium that often reminds us of modern experiences, which can remind us how proverbial the music we call “classical” really is.

And then there’s one of the coolest nooks in which the guitar can reside, contemporary music. I’m not talking about rock or indie or the places people can find guitar instantly, but the family of music that is ingrained in violins and pianos but accepts the guitar so perfectly. Both acoustic and electric guitars melt seamlessly into the different sounds of today’s music. An example I came upon while watching “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is “Phone Call” by Jon Brion, the rock musician and composer. The trembling outlines of C sharp major to F minor sound toy-like, as if they would come out of a windup toy from a different planet. Against the stability of the strings, it’s a beautiful little piece:

Mark Dancigers is one of the most prolific guitarists in the contemporary world right now. He’s in the NOW Ensemble, composes, and does many side and solo projects. He’s most often on electric guitar, and the rebellious flavor that has come to be associated with electric anything mixes with the traditional orchestra instruments like richness and acidity (either can be either)—opposite, perfect. Take the excerpt from his “Concerto for Electric Guitar and Orchestra” with the Princeton University Orchestra. The way the notes bend up and down from the strings is like sound waves themselves. Or his anchoring position in Judd Greenstein's "Sing Along":

The guitar really isn’t unlike any other instrument. It has strings that need to be tuned, virtuosos, and pieces composed for it. But the cultural position of the guitar, one that resides so close to people who don’t even play it, can help it bring the pieces it’s included in out of the daunting roles they’re sometimes given. After all, even we classical fanatics fantasize of rock star dreams.

Hello to the period of not finding angles of random hexagons on graph paper.

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 05:04:00 +0000

As of today, after the brutal (not really) geometry final of my sophomore year, I am on summer vacation. For the first few days, this means finishing Six Feet Under, but after that it means music camp, a writing camp at Kenyon College, and much listening, blogging, and some string ensemble writing as well as the composing of the score to my friend's film (and backpacking if the entire Gila National Forest doesn't burn down).

For now, here are some pieces that seem very summery to me (two of them are coincidentally on the same album, which is a very good one that you should definitely buy, Big Beautiful Dark and Scary from Bang on a Can):

For the feeling of first realizing it is summer (this has also been my constant driving soundtrack of the week)(and doesn't the section starting at 2:17 make your heart hurt in a great way?):

For realizing all the creative things you could have probably done before but now have absolute, free reign to accomplish:

For the strange, mysterious feelings of summer, the parts with lulls and unawareness of dates:

I can't find a video for it or a place where you can listen to it fully, but here's the link to a limited amount of listening: http://www.allmusic.com/performance/shadow-bang-theater-piece-mq0001925950

For the times when you do so little you start realizing more:

And for the times when you just feel good about life:

Bist du verrückt, Gelb, mein Sohn?

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:00:00 +0000

I’m quickly realizing that maybe school needs to get out at, like, 10 am so we can all keep up with the newest Metropolitan Opera mini-scandals.

As of yesterday, the now-infamous Peter Gelb has struck and un-struck the press with another disapproval of criticism.

Gelb

Lepage

Gelb has been the Met Opera’s general manager since 2006, and in the past few months, it seems he has received nothing but criticism. The company’s “Ring” Cycle productions have been the talk of the opera/music community for a while due to the previous promises of greatness and grand staging. Despite the buildup, the Met’s cycle (more specifically, Robert Lepage’s staging) have been called distracting, disappointing, “puny,” and, in one of the most negative sentences I’ve seen Alex Ross write in a while, “the most witless and wasteful production in modern operatic history.”

The set everyone seemed to hear about

The reason for a large fraction of the Met’s recent criticisms, however, is not necessarily the production itself, but Gelb. “Revolutionary,” the word Gelb used to describe Lepage’s work on the productions, has been repeated by many with raised eyebrows and exclamations of “really?” Gelb has continued this over-laudatory behavior in past weeks, which one can only liken to the parent of the child whose mommy says “they’re good at everything.” You know, the one whose kid always seems to win the board games.

On three separate occasions, Gelb has contacted the source of negative reviews and complained, resulting in their retraction, deletion, or discontinuation. At the beginning of May, Olivia Giovetti of WQXR posted a negative rant about Gelb and the Met’s productions on the Operavore blog of the radio station’s website. WQXR pulled the piece a mere day after its publication. While executives of the station say it was a decision due to their own dissatisfaction with the piece, Gelb’s strange hypersensitivity begs to differ. The New York Times reported him saying: “I told [Laura Walker, president of WNYC] I thought it was objectionable… It was an awful and nasty piece, which in my opinion was totally unjustified.”

And now, just a few weeks after the WQXR incident, Gelb has fashioned another guard for a mouth of criticism. Opera News, a widely read opera magazine, published a well-written review by Fred Cohn critical of Lepage’s staging of the final installment in the cycle, “Götterdämmerung.” The magazine then announced it would stop publishing reviews about the Met altogether, with pressure from Gelb to do so. However, just a day later, Gelb retracted his decision, saying he “think [he] made a mistake” (New York Times). Seeing as Opera News is published by the Met Guild, it seems only logical that the magazine would have to report on the productions of its mother organization; Gelb thinks the opposite. Again, from the article in the New York Times by Daniel J. Wakin:

Mr. Gelb said in an interview on Monday that the decision was made “in collaboration with the guild” but that he never liked the idea that an organization created to support the Met had a publication passing judgment on its productions. Worse yet, he said, is a publication that “continuously rips into” an institution that its parent is supposed to help.

His pseudo-reasoning is also humorous (from the same article): “Clearly the public would miss Opera News not being able to review the Met, and we are responding to that.”

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but criticism is usually negative. It’s also a large part of putting on a production, or doing anything in life. So it’s a little frustrating when we see a man like Gelb, someone who is supposed to be leading the Met in the best direction he can, wasting his and our time with his immature handling of criticism. If you are going to put on a production, especially in one of the most famous venues in the US, you’d better be prepared for criticism from the most common and strangest corners of the internet and papers. This is almost inevitable and cannot be stopped. It’s pretentious and pathetic to ask for criticism to be removed, for you are only masking the problem with a mask made of glass. A better solution would be to tweak the performance that is creating the negative reviews rather than the reviews themselves.

In the next 4 years of Gelb’s presumed stay at the Met, the company has said they will be performing 62 productions, 17 of which are new (including Nico Muhly’s “Two Boys"). That is an ambitious and heavy load. I can only hope that Lepage’s future staging will garner more positive reactions, if he continues to partner with the Met, and Gelb learns to open his eyes from the filtering squint they seem to be in nowadays.

Criticism?? SEIZE IT, SIGFRIED.

How It's Made

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:30:00 +0000

I painted my nails 2 days ago.

WHOAAAA, you guys. Don’t get too excited.

Alright, alright. It really wasn’t that exciting. After getting a Schoenberg record at my local record store and listening to Nadia Sirota’s channel on Q2, I painted my nails with Hauptstimme and Nebenstimme symbols (H on the left, in regards to the dominant hand) and thought, why is it so strangely satisfying to manifest our love for music in non-sonic ways?

I'm mainly into this photo because I look like I'm emerging from the depths ofThe Schoenberg Shadows.

Like Andrew Ford said in his recent spot-on essay about why we need music, music is the most abstract of the arts. He discusses that most everyone is able to “think musically,” and this is why music is loved by everyone and is an art that (for the most part) requires no expertise to enjoy and experience.

As Ford and most music lovers iterate, we love music because of its ability to adapt to any situation, to go with us everywhere, and to be the art that reaches the core of our ability to feel. But there are some times when even the aficionados of wordless, pictureless art want something visual or constant to hold on to. Something partially tangible we can recognize in the sounds we hear through the black foam of the speakers.

To me, this seems like a reason, while definitely not the main one, composers create new musical theories. I’m not talking about the basic organizers of music, but the newly formed, purposefully-engineered systems or modes that composers weave through their pieces for listeners and theorists to analyze. When listening to the third movement of John Adams’s “Naïve and Sentimental Music,” “Chain to the Rhythm,” for example, it’s a fulfilling thing to look at the score and watch the cells of the chain go by. While most of the music lover’s satisfaction of listening to this movement will be from the chugging strings and cries of brass, denying enjoyment from seeing and understanding a concept of the piece is difficult.

In the mid-20^th century, many new theories were created, seemingly, for only academic or rebellious reasons. But I have a feeling that being able to represent sound with rules or specific notation was satisfying for the composer. It certainly is for the listener. Whether simple or complex, these patterns offer some definitely awesome connectedness.

One of the pioneering composers in the 20^th century, Béla Bartók was also a pioneer of composition techniques. Bartók was influenced heavily by folk melodies from Magyar and Asia, but incorporated influences from modern composers during his time, such as Debussy and Strauss. This combination makes Bartók’s music rich with tones that humans naturally respond to as well as the flavors of modernism that call for more than just one listen. He’s a braid with one strand traditional, one strand modern, and one strand pure creativity (with countless other strands weaved in, so he would be... a rope?). Bartók achieved this balance with different methods, one of them being the axis system. The axis system relates notes through “axes,” or poles that represent relationships between notes through various pitches they share as relatives; these pairs of notes can then be used as substitutions for each other. For example, Eb and A are related through their common minor thirds C and F#. Eb and A are a tritone away from each other, as are C and F#. There are three axes: tonic, dominant, and subdominant that, together, include the 12 tones of the chromatic scale. Each axis has a primary pole and a secondary branch (the relationship between two notes), each of which has a pole and a counterpole (the two notes in that branch).

Béla, looking molto bella(o).

A wonderful, wonderful diagram from Erno Lendvai's essay entitled "Symmetries of Music: An Introduction to the Semantics of Music," published 1993 by the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemet.

For Bartók, the axis system allowed for tonal substitutions in his compositions, which probably account for a lot of the reason he can sound traditional and modern at the same time. Bluebeard’s Castle, his gorgeous/creepy one-act opera, uses the system not only in singular notes and chords, but in the relationships between different scenes and themes, as pointed out by this webpage on the system. It’s actually quite mystical how everything is related—the Night Theme and Light Theme both end on, start on, and utilize F# and C (respectively). The relationship between the flower-garden and lake of tears (both areas that lie behind doors in Bluebeard’s castle) is the same, only using Eb and A. There are many other examples of the system throughout the work—they can be found in countless, small chord relationships. And, as Chris McGovern pointed out to me on Twitter, the opera’s endless connections continue with a bunch of people (3) with B-alliterated names involved.

Another concrete idea to describe an aspect of modern music is micropolyphony. In a way, the “concrete” term (is it strange to quote a word I just typed approximately 4 seconds ago?) is used to describe the seemingly abstract—those dissonant chords that slowly shift over time, creating a buzzing-bee-hive effect. György Ligeti, the composer who developed (and frequently composed with) the texture, used a dream he had as inspiration for the technique:

As a small child I once had a dream that I could not get to my cot, to my safe haven, because the whole room was filled with a dense confused tangle of fine filaments. It looked like the web I had seen silkworms fill their box with as they change into pupas. I was caught up in the immense web together with both living things and objects of various kinds—huge moths, a variety of beetles—which tried to get to the flickering flame of the candle in the room… Every time a beetle or a moth moved, the entire web started shaking so that the big, heavy pillows were swinging about, which, in turn, made the web rock harder… The succession of these sudden, unexpected events gradually brought about a change in the internal structure, in the texture of the web. In places knots formed, thickening into an almost solid mass, caverns opened up where shreds of the original web were floating about like gossamer. All these changes seemed like an irreversible process, never returning to earlier states again. An indescribable sadness hung over these shifting forms and structure, the hopelessness of passing time and the melancholy of unalterable past events. (from Richard Steinitz’s book György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination)

(is it safe to say that little György was destined to be an avant-garde composer since childhood?)

Much of micropolyphony has to do with the multiplication and ever-thinning of the pulse. Stephen Taylor wrote in “Chopin, Pygmies, and Tempo Fugue: Ligeti's ‘Automne a Varsovie’”,

In many earlier [Ligeti] works, the pulse is divided into two, three, and so on--even thirteenth-tuplets occasionally appear. The effect of these different subdivisions, especially when they occur simultaneously, is to blur the sonic landscape, creating a micropolyphonic web of sound. The smallest common denominator of all these subdivisions is a microscopic fraction of a beat; no one can hear it, much less count it.

Ligeti took these strange, otherworldly flavors, created clouds of sound, and developed a technique around it. It gives understanding to the force while not taking any of the magic away from it. It’s satisfying. This technique is still ubiquitous today, being used by composers like Haas or Penderecki.

The last example I’ll talk about is set theory. I don’t even know if I really understand yet, but it’s pretty damn cool, so we’re going for it. I would like to preface this section by saying that if I got anything drastically (or minimally) wrong, please let me know! Here's a lovely website for understanding this idea.

Set theory was developed because of the complete redefining of music organization that Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg brought to the world. Because the traditional organization methods of tonality were completely expelled by the Second Viennese School, music theorists such as Howard Hanson and Allen Forte analyzed the work of modern composers and, quite mathematically, created ways to order and manipulate pitches; these are the techniques that created the 12-tone pieces we know today.

The basic beginnings of set theory are pitch class sets. Basically, any group of notes on the scale can made into a pitch class set. There are 12 pitches, starting with C, numbered 0-11. A popular set class during the explosion of the Second Viennese School was The Viennese Trichord, also known as 0, 1, 6, or C, Db, Gb.

These set classes are then inverted and transposed (or, how you would say in math, reflected and translated). Inversion is done by switching the direction of the set class’s intervals, and transposing is done by moving the entire set by a certain interval. From there, the sets can be put into handfuls of different formulas and forms. Normal form and prime form are two examples of ways to organize a set class into specific sizes or positions, while an interval class vector is a space between two notes that are inverted onto each other.

Here’s a blurry-not-iPhone-cell-phone-picture of a page in the 90s textbook that every high school seems to have, the page that encompasses the idea that all these musical set theory rules seem to adhere to:

Did I mention the blurriness? And would you look at the early-90ness of that mathematician? I also believe you were not allowed to appear in textbooks of the past decades if you did not own overalls or fluffy hair.

These three examples make up only a miniscule fraction of the various theories, modes, symbols, and techniques that emerge every decade in the field of music. They are created to rebel. They are created to redefine or enlighten. Maybe a couple of them are created just to mess with us. But, all in all, most are satisfying to understand, because they allow our love for music to be somewhat visually or logically manifested. It’s a small part of the brain that craves that, but without that part, we wouldn’t have genius shows like this one:

Don't tell me you've never seen this...

CDs that were recently released, and I also think you should be listening to them right now.

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:00:00 +0000

(see title)

In no particular order:

Secret Pulse - Zack Browning

Browning, a composer accurately described as "way-cool," likes squares. So much, in fact, that the five pieces on this album are based on varying squares in the universe (the 5x5 Magic Square of Mars, the 9x9 Magic Square of the Moon, and the 3x3 Lo Shu Square). This album is perfectly varied, perfectly represented by top notch ensembles, and perfectly presented. When you hold it, it just feels right as a collection of music. The title track is like an energetic, genre-crossing ensemble mixed with a 9bit video game and a trailer for a Transformers movie. It's wonderful.

The Eleanor Hovda Collection - Eleanor Hovda

This four CD collection of the late Eleanor Hovda's music is like a museum. I was not particularly familiar with her work before I began listening to this collection, but it is one of those things that can get you obsessed with a composer. The four discs are Ariadne Music, Coastal Traces, Sound Around the Sound, and Excavations. Her music is organic, windy, and open with some episodes of order, such as in the Etezady-like murmurs in the piece "Snapdragon." This is a lovely tribute to her and definitely a collection worth owning.

Krzysztof Penderecki / Jonny Greenwood

I'm honestly not sure if this album has an official name or not, but nonetheless, it is lovely. Penderecki and Greenwood are so similar in terms of musical ideals, but their approaches to similar goals are completely different. Penderecki's famous sound of somehow controlled chaos, creepiness, and bugs balance with Greenwood's more organized, sometimes-tonal-sounding (but still dispersed) timbres. Greenwood's "Popcorn Superhet Receiver," while not a new work, is the stand-out piece for me because of its constant sense of beauty rather than experiment. And, as I've stated before, I have a really large crush on Jonny, largely because of this. And this.

Still Sound - Bruce Levingston

Levingston is often thought of as a contemporary maven. His foundation Premiere Commission is an organization that promotes the commissioning of works for himself and other musicians, and he collaborates with the contemporary violinist Colin Jacobsen often. But what really, in my opinion, makes someone's experience with contemporary music really show is their ability to mix it with pieces from other periods. Still Sound's bulk is by the composer Augusta Gross, but the contemporary piano pieces are surrounded by other glassy, watery works by Pärt, Chopin, Satie, Schubert, and William Bolcom, another modern composer. His playing is seamless and enticing. This is a perfect family of sound and mix of time.

...Eco de Violín - Colin Sorgi and Jooen Pak

I like this album for two reasons:

1) It is teaching me about a section of music--new Latin American--that I'm not too familiar with but should be. You can hear small influences of Latin music, but only in some of the spacing between notes or flavors of small percussion.

2) Is that cover gorgeous or WHAT.

The music itself isn't what I would call the most interesting stuff I've heard, but it's enjoyable. This isn't an album I would return to over and over again, but it's a good introduction to this area of music.

White Ladder - David Gray

Let's just disregard the fact that this is neither new nor fits in with the rest of my selections... but I started listening to this album again recently, and it brought back many nights of dancing when I was about 6 because my mom was obsessed with Gray back then. And now every trip in my car is backed up by "Please Forgive Me," a masterpiece of a song. If I could force every home in America to have this on their shelves, I would. Trust me.

Tip-Toeing Around

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:40:00 +0000

The Spring for Music Great Arts Blogger Challenge has ended, and I got fourth! This is basically the most awesome thing ever. Thank you so much if you voted or read my blog because of it. Here's a post about a new White House initiative, and a "what's goin on right now" post is coming up, along with CD reviews.

It’s a pretty cool feeling when you suspect Obama is reading your mind. Disregarding realistic explanations, I’m going to stick with that suspicion.

I recently finished participating in a blogging competition called the Great Arts Blogger Challenge, one that focused on culture blogs and was held by the Spring for Music festival. The other bloggers and I spent our weeks waiting for prompts to respond to, obsessively (maybe that only applies to me) checking our emails for the question to answer with 1,000 or so words for the next week’s voting. The competition’s prompts seemed to focus on the fate of the arts in our modern world, having us talking about Secretaries of Arts, culture capitals, or “saving the arts,” sometimes utilizing paintings or pictures of cats.

All of this talk about the fate of the arts got a lot of us bloggers writing about arts education. It reminded me how important my arts education has been up to this point—when I was 6, I was pounding out syncopated beats on small percussion instruments. When I was 12, my classmates and I were required to be in the school musical. I may have had only nine words in that production (four of them were the same, but trust me—they were crucial), but I learned stage presence, how to harmonize in a chorus, and the importance of practice, not to mention improving my sight reading. I accompanied a chorus on the piano for the first time when I was 11 for my school’s annual choir concert at the choir director’s insistence of featuring student musicians. They sang Ode to Joy, and pounding out all those octaves felt pretty awesome.

It’s easy to take these things for granted. After writing the answer to the prompts, I realized that a large population of kids in the US right now aren’t playing instruments or learning how to read music. And that is unfair, depressing, and depriving. As I stated in my post about having a Secretary for the Arts, every kid should have the opportunity to discover something in the arts they love—usually, this is impossible to avoid—because having a passion is one of the most comforting things to rely on when going through childhood or adolescence. I think all of the bloggers, and probably most of the population, can agree that the ideal situation would be an exceptional arts program in every school.

Then, lo and behold, I see this post on the New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog, saying that the President’s Committee has created an initiative to further arts education in some of the nation’s lowest-performing schools and impoverished . It’s called the Turnaround Arts Initiative, and it will have celebrity artists (Turnaround Artists) “adopt” the schools and work with them, as well as implement programs that, the website says, will “increase the likelihood of successful school turnaround, engage their community, and raise the visibility of their achievements.”

The first (and main) reaction to this initiative: AWESOME. Finally, we have an updated, current government proposal to support arts education instead of reforming past acts. Just the fact that this has been started shows that priorities are being considered (isn't it something like 93% of people think the arts are important to education?). Plus, what kid wouldn’t be psyched to have Yo-Yo Ma come to his/her school (probably a lot, but maybe that will change after the two years)? There will be no harm done by this project, and the kids that will be able to experience it will benefit tremendously.

But, I have some concerns with this initiative, more in its tentative attitude and execution of its goals than the goals’ intentions.

The website emphasizes that Turnaround Arts is going to “test the theory” that arts education is important in schools. It’s as if the creators of the initiative are worried that having more arts in schools will fail, and if it does, we’ll just go back to the way it has been. The arts seem, to me, as important at English, science, or manners. It puzzles me a bit that we are spending money and time deciding if they work when we should be going ahead and implementing them everywhere because they do. No Child Left Behind showed us how many holes can be left in a child’s education with the lack of attention to specific subjects—we should be rushing to implement arts programs in schools everywhere by now. Plus, the initiative argues that the arts will help kids with their academic education—nowhere does it say that the arts can be careers themselves. Kerry Washington, one of the Turnaround Artists, said, “Arts are actually how we can help them get the real work done.”

Kerry Washington (photo from lukeford.net)

SJP (photo by Christopher Peterson)

Another concerning factor of the initiative is the dependence on celebrity mentors, or Turnaround Artists of the schools that are a part of the initiative. Among the artists are Sarah Jessica Parker, Yo-Yo Ma, and Chuck Close. If the purpose of this initiative is to move towards improving arts education throughout the country, it seems a little reality-show-esque to call upon celebrities to lead the way to this goal. Now, the Turnaround Artists will definitely impact the people they work with and most will be incredible teachers, and it shows something about the people participating that they are committing to this project. But if Turnaround Arts is only in practice for two years, how much impact on the schools are these celebrities really going to have? Perhaps they will be remembered by one generation of the school’s students, and maybe they will be able to inspire a handful of kids towards arts related paths, but the only point of using celebrities is to, perhaps, bring attention and pseudo-validation to Turnaround Arts. We can’t be sure of how much time the celebrities will spend with the schools, and we can’t be sure if there will be any lasting impact on the structure of the institution’s arts programs. The website says the Turnaround Artists’ involvement will “take many forms, including participating in performances, master classes and community events at the school.” Who am I to say what will happen in the future, but it seems like they will come, make an impact on the school’s status during those two years, and finish, leaving some small changes and many utterances of “remember when Sarah Jessica Parker was here?” I hope to be proved wrong, but for now I'm skeptical.

What we should be doing is installing permanent arts teachers whose main career focus is the school they teach at. I’ve never had a teacher who visibly made a lasting impact on the structure or personality of a school who had only been there for two years. In fact, the types of teachers that do that are usually at schools for decades. Let’s talk about Gregg Breinberg. Let’s talk about Phil Hardymon.

Don’t get me wrong. The intentions of the Turnaround Arts Initiative are commendable. But the toe-in-the-water approach seems useless. We as a nation know that the arts are important and serve as more than just supplements to other academic subjects. We know that arts education is necessary in every school of every city. And yes, we know celebrities are cool, but it seems frivolous to depend on two-year-mentors to turn schools around. Implementing arts education in America is going to take a while, but the arts matter. Would this niche of the internet, the one you’re reading, exist if they didn’t?

Great Arts Blogger Challenge: Capes, Kryptonite, and Other Things

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:50:00 +0000

Please read this, hum The Final Countdown, and VOTE FOR ME IN THE FINAL ROUND in the Spring for Music Great Arts Blogger Challenge!

Two nights ago, I went to a concert focusing on the composer John Kennedy. He has been the resident conductor of the Spoleto Festival for years, and also directs Santa Fe New Music. There were premieres of a few of his pieces, including his “iPhone 4tet,” in homage to John Cage for his centennial. But my favorite of the pieces was his string quartet “To the Power and Beauty of Everybody,” a melting, warm piece based off the poem of the same name by Kenneth Patchen, the beat poet who influenced people like Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti. The first paragraph of the poem goes like this:

IF A POEM CAN BE HEADED INTO ITS PROPER CURRENT

SOMEONE WILL TAKE IT WITHIN HIS HEART

TO THE POWER AND BEAUTY OF EVERYBODY

And then there was a stanza like this:

In the purest thought

When vanity and desire of all mortal ends

Have been submerged

We may join the thinking which is eternally around us

And be thought about

For the common good

We can only be humble before it

We can only worship ourselves because we are part of it

He later goes on to describe that this “it” is the silence after art, “the singers and dancers,” “coming from where it came from.”

So when I read this poem after receiving the question for the final round of the Spring for Music blog challenge:

“Save the arts? Really? Why do so many people think the arts need saving? Do we need to save the arts, and if so, what does ‘saving’ them mean?”

…I thought, while in good nature, something seems wrong here. With this idea of “saving the arts.” It seems exaggerated, in a way, like that idea shouldn’t exist. But when the silence after Kennedy’s piece was so thick and overflowing with those little sighs people always give off after impactful sounds or certain phrases in spoken word, I realized the question just needed to be turned around.

The reason so many people think we need to “save the arts,” if that accomplishment is even possible at our own hands, is because the arts save us.

The only picture I can think of to go with this post at the moment. COINCIDENTALLY, this drawing is by Alex Ross, I think, the comic book artist. I would like to see him write a piece for the New Yorker and for Alex Ross to write a comic book, for a strange experiment.

I hope I don’t sound like a reverend or something, but I think everyone who calls themselves an artist can testify to that idea, even if the wording is dramatic. Every time humans “save” something publically, whether it’s the whales or a small business, it’s about more than that specific thing that’s being rescued. It’s about the idea that thing represents, the countering of the force that brings whatever it is down. But it’s also about how it makes us feel to “save” things. When humans want to start a campaign to save something, it’s targeted towards making the donors feel good about themselves and hitting the nerve that identifies with the cause.

It’s the same when people try to save the arts. Like I said in my previous post for this competition, the arts are what make us human. The ability to collectively identify with one idea or moment can bring someone out of any disheartening situation. It can save someone. So when we try to save the arts, we’re doing more than being empathetic towards ensembles, composers, poets, or painters, and we’re doing more than just trying to keep sound waves in the air—we’re fighting for our own right to receive those sound waves.

Now, the effectiveness of what humans so far have done to try to “save” the arts is a different story, and we need to think about whether or not “saving” them is possible or necessary.

First of all, what are we trying to save them from?

The reason “saving” the arts seems like such a strange idea is because part of the answer to this question ^^right up there^^ is “time.”

Arts and their usage in the present are probably the best mirror of our culture. No one piece of art is going to speak equally to different generations, and that’s something that I think we as artists or art lovers just need to accept. Zachary Woolfe’s article in the New York Times about three months ago about the failure of the New York Philharmonic to program enough contemporary music (as well as female composers) is a perfect testament to this fact—if you’re an organization that represents a constantly moving field, you going to be ridiculed for trying to stay in the past (and only the past). “Relevancy,” like Greg Sandow has written about, is the idea that many ensembles and institutions are riding on to stay afloat. The SONiC Festival’s multi-venued program, the transition from big opera houses to the prevalence of smaller companies like Gotham Chamber Opera or Ensemble Parallele, or symphony program-worthy orchestration on the albums of Sufjan Stevens or Sam Amidon are all examples of the virus-like spreading of the arts. The arts that some think are ending. Hell, even Pitchfork picked up on some of this (to a certain degree). (To Nico Muhly—I did read that little fine print at the bottom of your latest post, and look. I’m not saying it. I’m only linking it. No Te Deums, please?).

The arts as an entity are not dying and needing to be saved, they’re just changing like any other aspect of culture does.

However.

How can we explain fine arts’ transition into the background of culture? They may not be drying up and ceasing to exist, but I think most can agree that classical music, poetry, or fine visual art are not as popular as they were centuries or even decades ago. Philadelphia, Syracuse, Detroit, Louisville, and New Mexico have all either lost symphonies or have symphonies in dire trouble. Public radio and many of the things me and my fellow finalists talked about in our previous posts are losing funding or are being threatened with no funding at all. The Grammys don’t broadcast the classical awards on television. If I make an announcement about an upcoming concert at my school’s assembly, I can bet I’ll either get some “hipster” comments or sort-of-but-not-really-jokingly sympathetic, in a way, looks from my friends.

So, when we want to save the arts in this regard, what are we saving them from?

Ourselves.

The reason that the fine arts are being labeled as either arcane or irrelevant is because of our tendencies as humans. As long as we know, humans categorize things. We get distracted. We like to fit in to one group of people. We make preempted judgments. A lot of the time, these qualities are enemies to fine arts, and all of these qualities are amplified in modern times with technology. We are now constantly entertained. The fine arts don’t always aim to be “entertainment,” and this can drive away consumers because of boredom or subtleties that aren’t in popular culture. I personally consider the electronic musician Aphex Twin fine art, and just look at this comment thread on his song “Flim” that the dubstep artist Skrillex posted on his Facebook. The commenters hated the song because there wasn’t a drop (the moment in a dubstep song when all the heavy bass comes in, usually after a buildup and quick cliff hanger). I’m not ridiculing them—dubstep is fun to listen to, and when it’s your main source of music and you’ve been trained to follow the short-attention-span path of it, other electronic pieces seem boring or, as the last commenter put it, “light.” This is one small example, but it parallels many, many others.

Addressing our tendency to categorize brings up this Sequenza 21 article, one that has another telling comment thread. We like to know what we like as humans, and genres of music help us do that. However, for classical music and other fine art genres (let me be clear that I don’t think “fine art” is the right way to describe these types of art, but it’s the only one I can think of), genre-assigning is not usually a helpful thing. If humans didn’t categorize music and other types of art, we would be open to so many more artists, bands, or composers. I’m sure that many people who like pop music would love the likes of Tristan Perich, Tyondai Braxton, or Sarah Kirkland-Snider, but because these composers are under the giant umbrella of “classical,” they are shut out by people who “don’t like classical music.” But even when we try to create these ultra-specific genres like New Synthetists or Indie-Classical (only referencing, Nico), we just get lost in the complication of categories and classifications.

In conclusion, “saving” the arts is something we don’t need to do, because they don’t need saving. They change, they spread out, they become something new every second. However, fine arts are receding into the background of popular culture, and those of us interested in them have felt this desperate need to “save” them for years from that position. Why? Why do we, as humans, feel such an animal-like connection to the arts that we want them to be at the forefront of everything? Because they save us. They give us life and emotion. I talked to a couple of artists I know about this question, and here were a couple of the things I heard.

David Felberg, Associate Concertmaster of the New Mexico Philharmonic, Co-Artistic Director of Chatter:

“There’s always a struggle for fine, fine art. They’re definitely worth saving, because as you said, they save us. It brings us to a higher level of plain of existence, and it transcends the everyday. People are hungry for that, even if they don’t know it.”

My friend Brennan Rose, a French horn player in the Albuquerque Youth Symphony:

“The arts gave me something to do that was really high mentally. I’m concentrating, like, 95% of my brain on music when I’m playing it. And for me, it gave me something that I can put passion into and all my focus into. In school, you’re using your brain, but you’re only using part of it. With music, it gives you something that you can focus your brain on but put your artistic side into.”

Rich Boucher, local poet who was on five national poetry slam teams:

“You want to save the arts because life is not only about going to work, it’s not only about walking a line that’s difficult to walk, it’s also about the things you don’t need but want. Without art, I actually think that it would be a very hollow experience. Imagine going into a museum and there’s nothing on the walls. Imagine going to a concert and people are sitting there and listening to nothing. Art gives so much.”

Pamela Michaelis, former owner of The Collectors Guide and board member of Ensemble Music New Mexico:

“It seems to me that the arts are kind of like the wind and air. They’re alive. The arts will survive. We have to learn how to manage the people who manage the arts, the organizers. But the arts, in spite of everything that we do to screw them up, the arts will survive.”

I’m not posting these to have others make my argument for me. I just think these show how integral the arts are, and how people can’t live without them. People ranging from a poet to a violinist. People from an opera singer to a musicologist to an opera expert to a teenager.

So how do we “save” them? We make art. We love art. We write about art. And when we deal with money or arguments for/about art, we think about the art.

Great Arts Blogger Challenge: An Educated, Supported Orange

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:03:00 +0000

Here's my third post for the Spring for Music Festival's Great Arts Blogger Challenge. I want to sincerely thank everyone who's voted for me, and I encourage people to vote again starting Monday! Let's bring Neo Antennae to the FINAL ROUND/countdown.

We’re reading A Clockwork Orange in my English class right now. Usually, every year, there’s one book that everybody can’t wait to read. This one in particular motivates everyone to call each other “droog” and “chelloveck” or wear long underwear and bowler hats the next Halloween.

My favorite part of the book isn’t the plot, though, but Alex’s (the 15-year-old protagonist) description of things like music:

“And then, like a bird of the rarest spun heaven metal, or like silvery wine flowing from a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed.”

In A Clockwork Orange, Alex is violent and destructive, but he has an appreciation for the arts. Well, more like an obsession or addiction to them, as is evident in the quote above. Throughout the book, the reader both disapproves of and loves Alex. Yes, yes, music is a symbol for his free will, but a large reason that we still love him after all the unforgivable deeds he does is this glimmer of hope, his understanding of beauty and good.

I promise, this does have to do with my answer to the prompt of Spring for Music’s Great Arts Blogger Challenge.

Candidate for Secretary of the Arts

Only... not.

Many countries have ministries of culture. Does America need a Secretary of Culture or Secretary of the Arts? Why or why not?

What I’m trying to say is this: as demonstrated by Alex in A Clockwork Orange, music or any other form of culture and the appreciation for it are things that really make us human. That ability to connect to something so instinctively and strongly is a quality I’m sure every person on earth shares. Something so engrained in our species needs to have an integral part in our governing.

Originally, my answer to this question was “yes,” then it changed to “no,” and now it’s back to “yes” again.

If the government is supposed to represent our country and the people in that country, why do we not have a Secretary of Culture? Someone to represent the millions of artists and organizations that need funding and support? Someone to represent this thing that makes us all human?

The “no” period in my thought process for this question came from, I think, the most obvious argument against a position like this. Art is something that can be inspiring, heart wrenching, satisfying, or infuriating. Politics are not these things (except infuriating, a lot of the time). It’s instinctive and protective to want to keep the arts away from Washington. I wake up to NPR every morning and automatically push the snooze button if I hear “Rom-“, “Sant-“, or “Ging-“. To people who either make a career out of the arts or are just simply lovers of them, the idea of mixing them with something that’s usually associated with arguing and unhappy people is repulsive. Other countries have some oppressive ministries of culture. In China, the minister of culture in 2011 posted a list of 100 songs that had to be removed from Chinese download sites. They outlawed “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, people—they’re messing with classics. Even if a US culture representative didn’t go to this extent, the fact that SOPA became such a big deal means that monitoring the internet is not far off the government’s to-do list.

A symbol of doom, to many

While these thoughts ran through my mind, I realized that a “yes” answer to the prompt outweighed the “no.” Yes, I do realize that many responses to this question will be "no" because of the seemingly doomed future of any political venture. But let's not talk about the political likeliness or the actual process of establishing this position. Let's not be our cynical, government-hating selves. Let's talk about people and human necessities.

Almost exactly a year ago, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy. I had gotten to know many of the musicians during the past year before the filing. Out of nowhere, this family of musicians I had come to appreciate seemed to crumble, leaving most of us arts lovers in New Mexico with disbelieving expressions on our faces and a sense of emptiness. I know that sounds dramatic, trust me, but that’s how it really felt. Of course, we still have great organizations like Chatter or Santa Fe New Music, but this seemingly-solid, or at least should-have-been-solid, institute was more fragile in real life than it was in my head. Some blamed the board for the collapse of the NMSO, but it made me think of the unparallel ranking of “the arts” in the minds of actual people and of governments (thankfully, we now have the New Mexico Philharmonic, a new orchestra made up of many of the same musicians as the NMSO and has been sounding amazing). While the National Endowment of the Arts provides support, they are limited and have controversial choices for grant recipients. If we had a Secretary of Culture, we could see recognition and elevation of groups and organizations that we love. To me, and to a large population of the country I’m guessing, the arts are more important than many of the things the federal government is spending money on.

Now, a Secretary of Culture probably would not vastly change the spending of the government’s budget, but perhaps it would remind Washington of what’s really important

There’s something else that a Secretary of Culture could do that also has to do with A Clockwork Orange. In the novel, Alex’s music tastes are an anomaly. He walks into a record store to buy a Beethoven album, and he acknowledges the trashy-leaning tastes of the youth he lives among. While the book was written in the 60s, it was set about 40 years in the future—about now. And I’m afraid the author, Anthony Burgess, got that “anomaly” part of his future right.

Arts education in America today is something that I can speak much more intimately towards than government funding. I was fortunate to go to an elementary school with a stellar music program. We learned what the instruments of the orchestra were, how to play many percussion instruments, the basic aspects of music (rhythm, beat, syncopation, etc.), and we were all pretty immersed in Bobby McFerrin. It's safe to say I wouldn't be where I am today with my love for the arts without this education. I do, however, know that this is certainly not the case for most of the children in the country during their elementary school years. Quincy Jones, the record producer who has for years been lobbying for a Secretary of Culture position, said,

"A month ago at my high school in Seattle, I asked a student if he knew who Louis Armstrong was. He said he had heard his name. I asked him about Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. He didn't even know their names. That hurts me a lot."

Quincy Jones wants YOU to establish a Secretary of the Arts

Many adults accuse my generation for being culturally ignorant and void of good taste. Some of the time, however, I don’t believe this is the fault of my peers. Many public school programs don’t have the money to pay for consistent music classes, and even if they do, most don’t spend money on educating students about jazz legends or iconic operas. The music tastes of many teenagers and kids today are handed to them by radio stations and iTunes top 10 lists. While there is sometimes great music from these sources, not much of it shows kids the history and evolution of the arts. We learn about the history of our country and the landmarks in literature—why isn’t arts education a required course? If the lack of cultural knowledge has been going on for decades, the younger half of the US population is bound to become less and less knowledgeable about classic culture as these culturally unaware kids become parents to culturally unaware children. Sure, we live in a world where you could just Google any aspect of culture, but education makes learning about these figures and historical moments understandable and fundamental. Instead of having to go look for something that a kid might know nothing about, education would show him enough to become inspired himself. A Secretary of Culture could make strides towards better arts education in the US, even if it’s by small steps.

Dudamel with young musicians--El Sistema, a youth music program in Venezuela, is overseen by the government. It's the reason we have Dudamel toay (photo by Leo Ramirez/Getty Images)

Another necessary result of quality arts education is the psychological benefits. The arts make us happy. That statement is simple, but it’s one of the truest sentences I know. If a child never was exposed to the arts before entering the classroom, learning an instrument or hearing a piece of jazz he never knew existed could be life-changing. Not only would he have a passion in life, but he would do better in other subjects and have a community of peers waiting for him outside of school. Doesn’t every child have the right to a passion? Coming from experience, I can say that being passionate about something is the thing that makes me grateful to be alive, to live on an earth where I can pursue it. For many people, the arts can be this passion, and education can foster it.

Culture is what makes us human. While our species has created politics, militaries, and social issues, the arts are something so natural that they take no effort to connect millions of people. So why does culture not have a seat, or more appropriately, a throne, in the US government? A Secretary of Culture could not only bring arts organizations funding and support from Washington, but could make progress in advancing US arts education in schools. Of course, the actual process of creating this position, electing someone, and getting it started would be difficult and controversial, but let’s not look through the perspective of a politician here. This position is something that the people of America need, and that should be more important than the threat of annoyance and arguments.

Alex from A Clockwork Orange has qualities that many would categorize as evil; he’s violent, destructive, and narcissistic. But his love for music gives a glimmer of hope, makes him a human that the reader can empathize with. In a novel about free will and the possibility of a government that can take it all away, the arts symbolize choice and humanity. A society like A Clockwork Orange is probably the last one America would want to have, and the arts need an important place in our country’s makeup in order to stay away from one even remotely like that dystopian society. Maybe we also need a national “Listen to Beethoven with Your Droogs” day. I would miss a day of school for that.

Great Arts Blogger Challenge: Wordless Connections

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 21:57:00 +0000

Hey guys.
This is the second post for the Spring for Music Great Arts Blogger Challenge! I have no idea who voted, but if you did, high five and thanks. If you like the post below, go to the contest page and start voting on Monday again! Voting closes Thursday at noon.
Love,
Elena

We live in an aggressively visual age; images dominate the popular culture. But which art form has the most to say about contemporary culture, and why?

Because of the internet, I am able to say what I have to say. Right now, as I am writing this, I’m able to show the entire world my opinion. It’s instantaneous, free, and unfiltered. A couple of decades ago, I (and the millions of other people on the internet this second) would not be able to do this. There are even differing opinions about this blog competition (some of which I understand and agree with). Contemporary culture makes having something to say and saying it easy.

Art usually beats out the internet in terms of most effective outlets for opinions. Through all the different forms of art, perspectives are successfully absorbed. But if we are going to be talking about an art form that says something about culture, we have to be careful of contradictions.

Contemporary culture is characterized by aware and connected populations. If something happens in Tokyo, people in France will be tweeting about it in a couple of hours. #instantaneousknowledge, people. This constant sharing of information and ideas allows everyone on earth to have an opinion about pretty much everything. I mean, the internet houses everything from awesome letter archive sites to Santorum-deprecating Tumblrs. Contemporary culture also brings universal experiences. Ten people who all speak 10 different languages can be learning about, understanding, and forming ideas on the same thing at the same time.

If the culture of the entire world is jam-packed with opinions, it seems a little inappropriate to pick an art form that itself delivers an opinion on culture. That would just be another singular perspective. So, an art form that has the “most to say” about current culture would actually allow others to do the… saying? themselves.

Dallas Symphony

For me, this art form is instrumental music. This term may seem broad, and you would be right. It is. It could mean Beethoven, Aphex Twin, Christian Wolff, or Oscar Peterson. But wordless music accurately reflects the attitude of our culture. It does this by allowing listeners to interpret it in completely different ways, like we do with things that circulate the web, television, or newspapers.

Instrumental music doesn’t have the language barriers of lyrics. And, like the ability technology gives to experience many things by proxy, instrumental music transports everyone to similar places. It’s how listeners react to those places that’s different. It’s impossible for two people to view one song or piece in the same way. Instrumental music is also immediate—your brain doesn’t have to figure it out or translate it. As soon as music hits your ears, you feel it and understand it for yourself.

It’s in these ways that instrumental music mirrors contemporary culture. For example, when the Arab Spring was in full swing (poetry, man), people from around the world were involved. People were able to read news updates every hour, express their views online, and discuss the events with others. Or take Kony 2012, the anti-LRA campaign that took off on Youtube. While everyone watched the same video and took in the same information, it sprouted countless responses, ranging from support to criticism to parodies.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir

These types of experiences are reflected in music. The Icelandic composer AnnaThorvaldsdottir released an album called Rhízōma last year. Many people have listened to this album—it’s pretty awesome. Its echo-y, creepy, ghostly tones bring every listener into the same realm of dark landscapes. But each listener has a different experience. Read some of the reviews on her website. While all complimentary (one of them is mine, high-five for self promotion), they come from completely different perspectives. Some say the album is simple, others say it’s challenging. Some pay attention to the details of each note, and others focus on the large orchestral sweeps.

Does this make sense? I HOPE. Perhaps an aural reinforcement would help.

Here’s “Hrím.” Now, perhaps someone is also on this here webpage, listening to the same piece at the same time you are. You’re both in this world Thorvaldsdottir has created. But perhaps that other guy is envisioning a desert, and you’re seeing the sounds in a watery way. You can experience this piece at the same time, even though you may be in different countries, but it gives you the ability to decide what it means to you.

That’s pretty contemporary.

And here's a lil' drawing/painting I did to illustrate the brain connectedness that instrumental music brings. I doubt this strengthens my argument, but it shows my ability to concentrate different sections of the orchestra to singular colors, as well as my strength in the "lumpy brain" category of art.

My Mavericks

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:46:00 +0000

There comes a time when you're studying for a test on World War I, and you're making a list with bullet points on Microsoft Word, and you get to the sixth indented roman numeral and you realize you have to stop. So this is happening.

WQXR's Q2 has been having musicians and composers create "Maverick Mixtapes" in honor of the San Francisco Symphony's "American Mavericks" concert series (I left San Francisco 4 days before this festival started... don't we all hate time and obligations sometimes?). Shara Worden, Dan Deacon, Owen Pallet, and many others have created wonderful mixtapes including pieces from composers they believe to exemplify an American Maverick.

I'm going to post my own Maverick Mixtape, even though I'm no professional composer. This is why I love the internet (less self-centered posts will be coming, including the response to the Great Arts Blogger Challenge's second prompt and a review of a couple concerts from the John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium).

John Luther Adams: In the White Silence

John Luther Adams is perhps the composer who pulls off "nature inspiration" better than anyone. While this 75 minute piece would not fit in a radio program (and I probably wouldn't start with it, realistically), we're going to break some broadcasting rules here. "In The White Silence" is meditative yet active, and achieves stillness without monotony. While listening to this piece, the translucent, glassy, colorful appearance of tissue paper comes to mind (that seems more romantic than it sounds). The constant changes of texture are subtle, and it transports you to Alaska-like landscapes without even knowing Adams's connection to the state.

Henrey Cowell: Tiger

For some reason, this piece is so... tigery? I wondery why. Cowell's solo piano works are so strange, and yet they stand out from all the other strange, dissonant pieces. William Blake's "The Tyger," the poem the piece was based on, creates a sinister yet magical feel that is perfectly reflected in this piece.

David Lang: this was written by hand

Lang's entire album this was written by hand gives the piano those bare, watery pieces it needs. It's incredibly difficult to pull off successful simplicity like Lang does with "this was written by hand" (the piece, as well as all the others on the album). "this was written by hand" has contemporary fugue spurts that are beautifully melancholy. They cascade into satisfying pauses and uneven dribbles.

Steve Reich: Double Sextet

This piece is a force of nature. I heard it performed live recently, and it captures attention through out the entire duration. The rolling piano pulses grip the listener from the middle, and the the heart-wrenching breaks from this pulse are insane. This is probably one of the most satisfying pieces to listen to. That feeling of leaning into the sound is frequent.

Timothy Andres: Bathtub Shrine

Andres (photo by Jonathan Waiter)

"Bathtub Shrine" is, to put it generically, gorgeous. From the crying strings at the beginning to the low, phantomy transitions, Andres creates clouds of sound that is addicting (I've probably listened to the YSO play this more than 10 times while doing homework). The painting of sounds is seamless. Andres, on his website, says "Bathtub Shrine" has the effect of "a giant bathroom." That's some pretty awesome and literal description right there.

Nico Muhly: It Goes Without Saying

I'm not really sure why this piece is so maverick-y, but it just IS, MAN. The thoughtful, suspenful, singular clarinet notes at the beginning of Muhly's "It Goes Without Saying" make the piece seem incredibly human. They dance around the harmonium, and their clicks give it a feeling of language, of communication.

Roshanne Etezady: Inkling

This piece is so perfect, it's my ringtone. Etezady's piece for saxophone quartet redefines the instrument. Instead of relying on its ability to cry out and be jazzy, Etezady uses the instruments for their tone and their ability to create a quartet with inseperable components. It's soft, pulsing, and perfectly formed.

Jonny Greenwood: Popcorn Superhet Receiver

The family of constant dissonant pieces don't necessarily hold a special place in my heart, but Greenwood's piece definitely does. It moves with purpose and direction, and the chords at the beginning give the piece character instead of chaos. Oh, there is definitely some chaos, but it feels controlled and reliable, like the purposeful destruction of a building. Plus, I have a weird crush on Jonny.

Feldman: Rothko Chapel

Feldman's "Rothko Chapel," with its strange instrumentation and sometimes-terrifying drones, is incredibly maverick-y. Rothko's paintings and the space of the chapel can be felt in the canyons of sound the piece create. Feldman, in my opinion, is the most successful composer of music like this--you can be captivated by a single sound for 5 minutes and not even know why.

Aphex Twin: Jynweythek

I KNOW APHEX TWIN/RICHARD JAMES IS NOT AMERICAN. I just have to put this on here. I'm sorry.

Great Arts Blogger Challenge - Capitalization Without Representation

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Dear awesome people who read my blog:

For the next couple of weeks (hopefully), I will be participating in the Spring for Music Festival's Great Arts Blogger Challenge. To start, I had to respond to the following prompt. This post and my blog will be linked on their website, I will be placed in their blog bracket, and voting will begin Monday. If I get enough votes, I'll move on, get another prompt, and repeat this process, hopefully the maximum amount of times. If I win, I get some green as well as tickets to the Spring for Music Festival in New York City at Carnegie Hall. I wrote about this festival last year, and just the thought of this makes me overly excited--BUT, just the chance to have my work seen by a diverse group of people is exciting as well! If I advance, I hope you (regular readers of my blog) will make like reality show viewers and vote for me. Tell you friends and neighbors. Thanks guys.

Albuquerque

photo by kaysha on Flickr
New York (see the difference?)

New York has long been considered the cultural capital of America. Is it still? If not, where?

As a teenager in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city widely spread out along a valley of desert, hundreds of miles from any major city, I’m immersed in a general mood of disdain for my surroundings. Some remarks I here almost daily are:

“There’s nothing to do here!”

“I hate New Mexico”

“Why don’t we have an American Apparel?”

“I don’t even like green chile.”

Naturally, many eyes of Albuquerque citizens look east toward New York City, for obvious reasons. In every aspect of culture, the Big Apple is the hub. Fashion, food, theater, movies, etc.; everything seems to be in the upper right-hand corner of the country. For a while, I believed this too. I convinced myself that the reason for my inevitable uncoolness was because of my separation from this city, one that holds a similar feeling to Dorothy’s Oz for many people.

This feeling only worsened as I became more obsessed with contemporary classical music. The bios of most major composers said “currently lives in New York,” and most studied at Julliard, other New York schools, or Yale, a couple of hours away. Most of the members of ensembles such as the NOW Ensemble, Bang on a Can, So Percussion, and JACK Quartet reside in New York. Venues and festivals such as (le) Poisson Rouge, the SONiC Fesival, the Ecstatic Music Festival, and the MATA Festival are held in the city. I honestly could go on and on, but you get the point—on paper and in person, New York still seems like the culture capital of the country.

But, when naming the capital of something, it is important to realize what that “something” is. What is culture?

My best friend, Dictionary.com, says culture is:

cul·ture

[kuhl-cher]

Noun

1.the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.

So, culture is based on the overall feeling of a place. When I hear “culture capital,” it makes it sound like culture is a commodity, something you can buy in bulk at Costco. For New York to be the true capitol in this sense, it would have to embody all of America, right? And while NYC comes very close, it’s truly impossible for a culture capital to exist. This may seem cynical, but it’s empowering when realized.

Every city, town, or village has a culture. This is inescapable—if humans inhabit a place, they affect the overall feel of the community with their personalities, their businesses, their food, their opinions, etc. Even the smallest town in, say, Arkansas, has a culture. Maybe there’s a band in that town that plays at a bar every week. Everyone knows their songs and can sing along—this contributes to the culture of that town, and will make it different from any other city in Arkansas.

For a more personal example, I’ll use Albuquerque.

A couple of months ago, a classical music organization called Chatter had a concert. Chatter puts on concerts every Sunday morning, and about twice a month at night. I’ve been volunteering with this organization since 2009, and it’s probably the most important thing in my life. Through it, I’ve met friends and musicians, and I’ve learned about a world of music that I wouldn’t have without it.

This particular night was a focus on Native American composers. I was taking tickets for it, and I noticed many of the audience members were Native American. A man who sat beside me told me how he read about the concert in a local arts newspaper called the Alibi. I could tell he was new to contemporary music, but he was excited and clapped enthusiastically between each movement, something that probably wouldn’t happen at a concert in New York. The coffee that was being served was from a company called Fat Boy Coffee, based in the mountains just east of the venue.

The music started with a piece for timpani called “Taloa’ Hiloha,” or “Thunder Song” by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. It was booming, rhythmic, and infectious. Next we heard “Katcina Danses” for cello and piano by the legendary composer Louis W. Ballard. Ballard’s name isn’t plastered over New York-based websites, but he has won numerous awards and has been an incredibly influential Native American composer.

We then heard a piece by Celeste Lansing, a 16-year-old Native composer from Utah. A while back, I got to interview her and write about her music. Finally, we heard a world premiere of a piece by Raven Chacon, an experimental composer and Albuquerquean. His piece was echo-y and reminded me of a more organic, weathered version of many famous indeterminate composers’ pieces.

I look back on this concert now and realize how incredibly Southwestern it was. When I say “Southwestern,” I don’t mean it in the way gift shops would (turquoise, tribal designs, or cacti dotting a flat plain of desert). I supposed you had to be there to get the real feeling.

With location and community-specific culture like this, it’s impossible for there to be one place that can be the capital of it all. The U.S. has around 25,000 “places,” (whatever that means). Each inevitably has its own culture, including New York. New York definitely has a lot of “culture,” in terms of the arts, diversity, and personality (much of which I’m jealous of), but that’s what makes it specifically New York and nothing else.

I walked outside after the concert in Albuquerque was over. The door to the venue faces the Sandia Mountains. The radio towers at the top of the peaks gave off sprinkles of light, and the dry cold of December had brought patches of snow only to the tops of the peaks.

You couldn’t get that anywhere else.

You Have 11 Days! (PARMA Student Composer Competition)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:53:00 +0000

In 11 days, the submission period of the 2012 PARMA Student Composer Competition closes. This is definitely an opportunity worth taking!

The competition, which is the first in a series of annual competitions for student composers, is sponsored by PARMA Recordings (the parent of Navona, Ravello, and Big Round Records) based in New England. Ten winners will be selected, and the grand prize winner will have their piece recorded by PARMA, put in the 2012 PARMA Anthology Of Music: Student Edition, and distributed through Naxos. This is a chance for a large audience to hear your work—Naxos is the industry leader. Most of the CDs on my shelf have the blue pillars of the logo on the back cover.

Here are the guidelines:

· Composer must be enrolled in a composition program or studying privately with a professional composer

· Composer must be 30 years of age or younger

· Piece must be written for up to five performers

· Piece must be ten minutes or less in duration

To enter, fill out the submission form and send in a PDF of the score with an MP3 or MIDI recording. One work per composer, please.

Here’s the link to submit: http://parmarecordings.com/studentanthology/

Good luck to all of you who submit! I hope to be listening to your pieces soon.

Brooklyn Rider: Seven Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Whether conscious or not, it is difficult not to prepare for the music you are about to hear. You might be in an audience or listening to music on your iPod, but chances are your eyes will try to find the name of the upcoming piece. If you just heard a piece from the 20^th century, seeing Brahms’s or Schumann’s name will most likely cause an involuntary shift in perspective.

So when I listened to Christopher Tignor’s piece “Together Into This Unknowable Night,” composed in 2008, transition to Beethoven’s monumental String Quartet No. 14 opus131 naturally and without a change in perspective (or look at the back of the CD, for that matter), I knew the quartet and album they came from were special.

The quartet is Brooklyn Rider, and the CD is their recently released album Seven Steps. The unforgettable group from New York, composed of Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen on violin, Nicholas Cords on viola, and Eric Jacobsen on cello, definitely lets the concept of “variety” run through their veins: not only do their albums include selections from different times and genres, but they’re as collaborative and creative as they are interpretive—they work with other musicians, Colin Jacobsen often writes music for the quartet, and Seven Steps’s title track is the group’s first collaborative composition.

Brooklyn Rider’s Seven Steps uses Beethoven’s showstopper as just that—but instead of the contemporary pieces simply filling space, they work with the colossal piece. The number seven figuratively appears in multiple forms throughout the CD. The Beethoven quartet is seven movements, “Seven Steps” is divided into seven parts, and the number seven relates not only to Beethoven’s later life, but life in general (Buddha allegedly took seven steps at birth).

It’s rare when the programming of a body of work contributes almost as much as the music itself, and this aspect of Seven Steps is a sort of lesson. Sounds don’t have to be labeled as “old” or “new” and heard as such. Brooklyn Rider reminded me that when music is being played, it’s always in the moment, no matter what century it was created in. Maybe this seems obvious, but in a forward-thinking and trend-obsessed world, it is often forgotten. Seven Steps engulfs the listener in the music and pure fun of listening to it. The labels we have been trained to remember and assign melt away.

Brooklyn Rider, being cool

The bulk of the album is Beethoven’s opus 131. The piece is known for its enormity (in both size and importance), but Brooklyn Rider’s successful interpretation is sincere and approachable. The piece's movements range from a melancholy fugue to a high energy scherzo with a theme difficult to stop humming after a listen. The sounds that wriggle into the deepest parts of the brain put the listener inside the work, deep inside the conversational movements. Brooklyn Rider’s attitude pairs well with this. While listening to the quartet, you can almost see their eyebrows rising and their moving shoulders interacting with each other. This approach is refreshing--you feel like a part of the action instead of an onlooker. However, there are moments, such as the calm, descending transitions in the second movement, when the organic feel of Brooklyn Rider sounds odd with the tight and particular structure of Beethoven. There are phrases that sound too casual, too linearly thought out.

The CD starts with the title track, “Seven Steps.” It’s not surprising the piece was composed by Brooklyn Rider—the immediate folk influences, the suspenseful bow bounces, and the overarching sense of collaboration make you grin and brace yourself for what's coming next. It’s incredibly easy to listen to, probably because it was partially improvised. While the different sections have widely different themes and flavors, none adhere to a certain “genre,” and it becomes its own type of music. “Seven Steps” is like a person, quaint in some ways, intense in others, with countless personality traits.

“Together Into This Unknowable Night” by Christopher Tignor, the second track on Seven Steps, brings the quartet into a cloud of similarly-moving lines. The sounds, metallic and adventurous to calm and melancholy, are backed up by distant electronics and voices. While each instrument is recognizable and can be separated in the listener’s head, the piece feels much larger. The emotion produced cannot be taken in one dose. There is not much variance in the structure of the strings, and this can get redundant if you try to focus on the quartet separate from the meditative nature of the entire work. The section that causes a gaping mouth (in the good way) is the last few minutes, when the strings are exhaling, dissolving into the distance, and the recorded voices echo in the distance. The piece is human, but also celestial.

Music never goes unlabeled, and these groupings often cause perspectives to change when listening to pieces from different genres or time periods. By doing this, we restrict sounds from living with each other and from mingling the “old” with the “new.” Brooklyn Rider’s CD Seven Steps breaks these culture and time barriers by giving us a collection of music that not only is performed exquisitely and is exhilarating to listen to, but redefines the aspects of periods. Sure, Beethoven’s opus 131 is a colossal, classical period work, but it blends instinctively with contemporary pieces. Brooklyn Rider may be creating the new attitude and role of today’s string quartet, but they’re also showing us how to simply listen, without presumption.

--- -- - --, --- -- - --, --- -- - --, --- -- - --

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:38:00 +0000

Stevie (by me)

          "I discovered that the most interesting music of all was made by simply lining the loops in unison, and letting them slowly shift out of phase with other."
-Steve Reich

          This exemplifies what I love about Steve Reich. In a world where people want to control everything and anticipate every event, Reich allows his music to follow the flow of nature (even when he's using electronic sounds!). Perhaps this is why, when listening to his music, we feel at our most vulnerable and pure. Our bodies inevitably pulse with the music because it hits at the very core of ourselves. It lifts our mind from the self-created responsibilities of being on top of everything, of mentally being in control of each aspect of our lives. His harmonies and rhythms follow a path that is sometimes predictable, but the naturalness of them give us the choice of simply following them--instead of deciding to listen, it's our natural response.

          Happy 75th year, Steve!

Starry Borrower

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:28:00 +0000

I should add that, two days after I posted the original below, The New York Times came out with an article about the "Sidereus" scandal, complete with comments from both Golijov and Ward-Bergeman. You can reach the article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/arts/music/osvaldo-golijov-fracas-over-sidereus-overture.html?pagewanted=2
Ward-Bergeman's comments on the second page are especially thought-provoking, and definitely make me think about the "scandal" in its entirety again. I still stand by my opinions, but I think this other perspective is necessary to get the full picture.

I suppose I'm a little late on the bandwagon on this one, but, hey... isn't Golijov sometimes?

By now, almost every large classical website has been plastered with the music of Argentinean composer Osvaldo Golijov; however, unless there is a Golijov fan page I am unaware of, all of the mentionings of the composer have been about his commissioned orchestral work “Sidereus” and its undeniable similarity, or perhaps its identicalness, to Michael Ward-Bergeman’s piece “Barbeich” for hyper-accordion.

A couple of weeks ago, the Eugene Symphony performed Golijov’s “Sidereus.” The piece, which was co-commissioned by 36 orchestras in honor of Henry Fogel (the former head of the League of American Orchestras), is a work around 10 minutes for orchestra that has a strong backbone of brass and intricate string melodies. The problem is, these melodies, or rather the majority of the idea of the piece, are nowhere near original. Truthfully, it is difficult to find material in the work that is.

Golijov above, below Ward-Bergeman

Golijov has borrowed and collaborated from other composers and musicians before, such as in his 2001 piece "La Pasión según San Marcos." He has a reputation of being late with commissions or turning in pieces that are shorter than expected, and his recent (but not finished) string quartet "Kohelet" is surfacing concerns. Critic Tom Manoff and trumpeter Brian McWhorter were the two listeners in the audience of the Eugene Symphony that realized the parallels between "Sidereus" and "Barbeich" (Manoff had remastered a recording of “Barbeich” in his studio).

“Barbeich” is a haunting, layered work about four minutes long. Pulsing chords and bass notes, ones that are rich and harmonically satisfying, back up a pulsing melody of a descending D natural minor scale. These components are joined by other symmetric layers and a floating melody. “Sidereus” sounds like an elongated arrangement of “Barbeich” for orchestra, with smoother passages and some plays off Ward-Bergeman’s original piece (the first two minutes are comprised of original-seeming billows and mood-building sounds). Alex Ross wrote in his piece for the New Yorker Culture Desk:

For example, the sixteen-bar passage that the trumpet plays starting at bar 65 of “Barbeich” is duplicated in almost every detail in the piccolo trumpet and trumpet parts starting at bar 166 of “Sidereus,” with various doublings elsewhere in the orchestra.

While law suits initially come to mind, Golijov used the music with permission from Ward-Bergeman, a long-time collaborator. Ward-Bergeman said in an email to Manoff, “I wanted to confirm that Osvaldo and I came to an agreement regarding the use of Barbeich for Sidereus. The terms were clearly understood, and we were both happy to agree.”

Many writers are debating whether or not this is plagiarism—blatantly using the melodies, harmonies, and tempos of another work while the composer of that other work is aware and alright with it. Dictionary-wise and moral-wise, the answer is shaky. While Golijov certainly did not deny the collaboration between him and Ward-Bergeman, he also does not publically attribute the composer as a major factor. The byline on the Eugene Symphony website says, simply, “Golijov.”

Watch this video from the awesomeness of Sound Notion

Because the legal matters of the “Sidereus” case are not pursuable, the question of ethics arises. What is the limit of borrowing? Are pieces bound to complete originality (and is this even possible?)? Golijov has a reputation of borrowing ideas from other composers, so the “Sidereus” scandal, while more shocking and undisguised, is not surprising.

The issue seems to focus more on attribution and credit than the action. If Ward-Bergeman already wrote the outline, essentially, for “Sidereus,” why is Golijov being commissioned and paid? Music that comes without pure creation is music that already lives in the cloud of potentiality from the previous work. Undeniably, melodies and ideas will be directly quoted. For example, John Mackey publically based a melody from his orchestral work “Aurora Awakes” on a U2 song. The difference is, Mackey took his piece in a different direction than the original pieces he borrowed from; he can still be credited with creating the vast majority of his work.

Then again, does pure originality truly exist? While Golijov might have based his piece on Ward-Bergeman’s, almost all pieces in the history of music can be compared to others, whether that means the atmosphere, melodies, structure, or other aspects.

Here are some comparisons of pieces that are considered acceptable:

The beginning of Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” and Adams’s “Century Rolls.”
Nico Muhly’s “Mothertongue, Pt. 1: Archive” and the Glass’s “Einstein on the Beach.”
Hanz Zimmer’s manipulation of Edith Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” for his “Inception” score.
The multiple structural parallels in Debussy’s String Quartet in G, Op. 10 and Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major.
The melody in Liszt’s “Totentanz” and the last movement of Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique,” both quoting the ancient Gregorian chant “Dies Irae.”

And countless, countless others (most of these happen deep within pairs of Classical and Romantic symphonies).

Influence is unavoidable and often subconscious. Each note we hear we’ve heard before, and each sentence of music could have already been played, either in a previous piece or coincidentally pounded out by a small child on the piano. However, this is not discouraging. Composers have an unfathomable amount of previous work to build on and redefine. Music comes from the minds of humans who all live in the same world, and the potential of all future music lives in that world, among us. Perhaps a lawn mower will start, and someone walking by will place crescendo in the snare of their upcoming piece. A historical event could produce a dense feeling that is let out through a piano.

However, despite this leeway with borrowing, attributing “Sidereus” to Golijov still makes me raise my eyebrows in a doubtful way. I’m not one to decide what is ethical, but Golijov is still on thin ice, ice that has to strengthen before his new violin concerto will be played by the Berlin Philharmonic in April. Let’s hope we are not reminded of the “Sidereus” instant, or, perhaps I should say, of another piece.

Left Brain / Reich Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

“Feeling” certainly seems like a verb that is constantly practiced. In fact, this might be proven to be true. However, with common means of communication, it is truly rare when the essence of how we feel is described. There are words to label how we feel, such as “sad” or “excited” or “pleasant.” But a feeling is always something unique, and these constants of identification are yet another way to bring attention to only what is immediately going on around us. With words, it’s often impossible to describe exactly how we feel.

Feelings, despite their complexity, can be realized through simple methods, and one of them has proven to be Steve Reich. Still celebrating his 75th birthday year (his birthday was in October of 2011), Chatter 20|21, a branch of New Mexico’s concert collective Chatter, will be a perfect area to find true feeling at their Reich retrospective concert titled “Left Brain / Reich Brain” on March 3^rd.

I want this as a tattoo, please

Steve with the signature hat

Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning piece “Double Sextet,” as well as “Clapping Music” and his revolutionary string quartet “Different Trains” will be played at the Chatter 20|21 concert. Chatter, which in and of itself is an organization rich in passion and dedication to its audiences, has been building up to the concert with small performances of Reich pieces, such as “Marimba (Piano) Phase” and “Vermont Counterpoint” (future dates of Reich performances by Chatter are March 11 and May 20).

Reich’s music is the repertoire almost every musician points to when the topics “minimalist” or “20^th and 21^st century in general” are brought up. Centering on heavy pulses and simple yet mind-blowing shifts in large groups of instruments, Reich is arguably America’s greatest living composers and one of the greatest of all time. What makes him so great? Well, it’s hard to describe, and there’s where the trouble with language comes in again. Perhaps that’s why Reich chose music.

Unlike the sweeping, plot-like melodies of Romantic and Classical pieces or the sometimes disconcerting sounds of the Second Viennese School, Reich’s music is incredibly simple in form. However, Reich accomplishes more than many regarded composers before him did. Through his meditative and naturally harmonic sounds, Reich digs deep into the mind listeners and releases the tangled mess of senses, memories, and stories. What emerges when listening to his music is a balanced, clear mind that allows one full access to their subconscious self. What surrealist painters tried to reach through scattered, subjective object collages, Reich achieves through long periods of pulsing and perfectly placed tension and resolution points.

“Double Sextet,” written in 2007 and commissioned by the ensemble eighth blackbird (capitals purposefully omitted), is a work in three movements for violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and vibraphone. Each movement in the piece includes four harmonic sections in the keys of D, F, A flat, and B. The first movement, “Fast,” starts with a locomotive beat from the vibraphone and piano and long sweeps from the other instruments. In this movement, the vibraphone and piano establish themselves as mother and father presences in the piece. The pulses in “Slow” are more subtle and less like roads and more like fences. The third movement, a second “Fast,” has a beat that brings one’s heart level up—it’s inspirational and confident. The bass notes of the piano morph it from a valley to a precipice. The piece plays with the natural human response of leaning towards sound; that moment when a close-in-pitch note is added to a chord and instantly the eyebrows of the listener crinkle together.

“Different Trains” is one of Reich’s landmark pieces (and won him a Grammy). The piece is based on the sounds and meanings of trains during World War II. When Reich wrote the piece, he traveled from New York to Los Angeles frequently to visit his parents during the war. He realized that if he were in Europe at the same time, because he is a Jew, he might have been riding Holocaust trains. The pulsing of the strings is undeniably train-like, and looped tape of interview excerpts from various people in Europe and the US before, during, and after the war (the movements are consequently titled “America-Before the War,” “Europe-During the War” and “After the War”). Each melody in the movements, usually a small fragment from one of the instruments, is derived from the pitch of the voices in the interviews. The combination of man and machine is primitive and revealing. The sounds work together, and yet the allusions to the war create realizations that counter these aural acceptances.

These pieces, with their simplicity and consistency, strip away the ever-changing plot lines and melodies of pieces of previous centuries, leaving only the natural responses. Because the constant pulsing of notes doesn’t leave much room for storytelling, the listener strays away from creating images or other related thoughts. Through Reich’s methods, “feeling” as a verb can be truly practiced and recognized. My personal example is with “After the War.” For me, the sounds from that movement create the pure feeling of resolution and yet knowing there is a long way to go. Words can’t adequately describe the feeling, and the only image I can think of would be standing on a road that goes further than the eye can see. But with the sound, the feeling itself is created.

Storytelling is a common template of music because it’s comfortable—we are guided through the way we are supposed to feel when we listen. However, the separation of true feeling and the world that sometimes covers it up is an experience that everyone needs, and listening to Reich is a way to do that (among the thousands of other things his music can do to you). Chatter 20|21, along with including some of my favorite musicians, will surly bring all the passion of Reich that he deserves in his 75^th year of life. I can feel it.

Colbert's obviously not happy with his fellow Steven (only watch the beginning)

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A Large Problem that One Blog Post Cannot Fully Encompass (but I tried)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:49:00 +0000

The Problem

I remember driving in my car once and having a stack of classical CDs that I’d been wanting to listen to, but in that moment, I really wanted to listen to Pearl Jam. I ended up listening to them, belting all the lines of “Even Flow,” but for a second, I felt a tinge of guilt for choosing rock over classical. Immediately this feeling passed, and I scoffed at the idea of one genre being the one I “should have” listened to.

This feeling must have come from somewhere, however, and I think almost every classical musician can agree where: the stereotypical bashing on pop, rock, hip-hop, and many other genres from classically trained musicians. This arcane opinion is, well, arcane, but despite all the genre-mixing in the last couple of years and the obvious talent of many non-classical musicians, there are still people who believe all pop music is evil.

(DISCLAIMER: I have a couple of friends who I recently bantered with about some indie musicians—this does not count as “all pop music.”).

Now, don’t get me wrong—there are definitely artists who gain success simply out of dying their blue hair, speaking party-oriented word over and over (and over) again, or playing G, D, E minor, and C on their guitars. But finding quality, complex music in non-classical genres is about as easy as playing this four-chord music.

Many aspects of incredible, popular music are easily heard. Part of the problem, I think, is the will to listen.

The Example

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Genghis Barbie in concert. The French horn quartet from New York City plays arrangements of classic pop songs from the past decades, ranging from Queen to Toto. All of the members are masters of the instrument and have 26 combined years of conservatory training, but the word “pop” still causes people to say things like “Sorry ladies; all flash, no substance” or “the horn will never be a disco/party instrument!” in comments under their videos. The reason I can speculate that it is only the word “pop” that’s doing this is, well… just have a listen:

Though Seal might is classified under R&B, his music is still in the popular genre. Inside of his song is the guide for this arrangement, one that wanders, resolves, and still has the infectious quality of an R&B song. At their concert, Genghis Barbie played Queen, Lady Gaga, Toto, Leonard Cohen, and Sisqo. But they also played Schumann’s “Ausgewählte,” and it blended in with the rest of the program seamlessly. I wasn’t pulled into a different world of sound; in fact, it was almost indistinguishable from the other pieces.

Despite the obvious talent of both Genghis Barbie itself, the arrangers, and some of the artists they play arrangement of, they still receive comments like the ones above. Some of them have to do with the clothes they wear (but who wouldn’t want an excuse to wear orange spandex? Really?), but many have to do with the conversion of an instrument so comfortable in the concert hall to one that emits melodies people hear on the radio.

The Reason for the Problem

“Quality” as an independent entity is one of the most abstract ideas. The definition of “quality” for purely classical or pop musicians is very different. Oftentimes, a classical performer is dubbed as a quality performer if they have good technique. The ability to rip through arpeggios and effortlessly land on the resolving note is something that would constitute someone as a “good” musician. Of course, there are countless other factors to the quality of a classical musician, but the aspects seem much more definable because of two distinct reasons:

1) Classical music focuses on the abilities of the instrument or performer, even if this means the voice.

2) It is most common for a musician to either be the composer or the performer at one specific time, not both.

These factors put more focus on the actual playing itself and the specific roles of the people involved, making the “quality,” we like to believe, easier to detect. If quality is easier to detect, shouldn’t classical music be of higher quality because we are able to weed out the low quality music? Well…

However, pop music (encompassing all non-classical genres) seems to measure quality in a different way. Quality is more subjective for pop music because:

1) The vocals, one of the largest pillars of pop music, are more conversational and emotion inducing through describing situations (rather than through poetry or the specific tones of the voice)

2) The music of pop music (stereotypically) is meant to create an atmosphere rather than be the direct guide through the story, as in classical.

Therefore, the determination of quality is more up to the individual—this makes deciding who is a good musician more difficult (unless we follow the criteria more often followed in classical). As a result, pop music is more easily insulted and harder to defend. A pop musician could use one chord progression throughout an entire song, but the song could be called great because of the successful construction of passion. Does this make the song bad? Certainly not. Does it make it good? Who knows?

The Solution, or Rather What Everyone Should Realize

Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which you should read if you truly want to find a way to understand quality for yourself), wrote something that, if understood, could make everyone’s mind open to all music:

“Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.”

If everyone removed their prior perception of quality, or even their judgments of pop or classical music, the true essence of all music could be brought out. Quality will always be impossible to define wholly. Sometimes, pop musicians will be virtuosos at their craft, and sometimes contemporary classical music will call for one, continuous note from a performer.

The 21^st century is the prime time for genre crossing as well. As Stephen Gosling and John Schaefer said in the SONICFestival’s video, composers of “classical” (those quotes don’t prove my point enough) music are incorporating Indie music vibes, Indie musicians are using orchestral, complicated arrangements, rappers are performing with philharmonics, and some of the most popular artists out there (Adele, anyone?) are remarkably talented. The point is, there is simply no way of determining whether or not a genre is good or bad, and most definitely no way of knowing that a song is bad because of the genre it has been assigned to.

America, Your Moment of Zen

Maybe this is all happening to us (again, Pirsig):

“It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.”

And Finally, Some Suggestions for Good, Popular Music

Voyage

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:06:00 +0000

Dear Philip Glass,

First of all, happy birthday week, and I wanted to say a couple of things to you. Thank you for making me a more patient person, one who can now go into that moment of purgatory between consciousness and the dreamworld when listening to music that is not only yours, but Reich's, Adams's, Andres's, and many others. Thank you for composing a piece that I can play at the piano when I'm feeling too busy or unfocused and automatically calm down. Thank you for giving the world a movie that I could watch with my dad when I was 10 and realize that movies didn't have to center on interactions between humans. Thanks for making "classical" music something that everyone loves, even if just a little. And thank you for making sound the simple thing that it is, in the most beautiful way possible.

Sincerely,

Elena

drawing of philip (by me)

Seasons Don't Fear the Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Elena) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:12:00 +0000

First of all, I would like to address the personally-saddening fact that I haven’t been blogging recently. This is going to change starting NOW! I’ve been writing applications for four different writing camps this summer, and that’s taken up a lot of my typing energy, as has mock trial and my new internship at UNM’s newspaper. Thanks for reading; this blog isn’t looking to die anytime soon.

As I sit here and type this, I’m watching and listening to Julliard’s live broadcast of their Focus! Festival that celebrates John Cage’s 100^th birthday year. After the intermission, in an impromptu move, they played an audio recording of John Cage speaking, called “John Cage speaks.” In his delicate, tenor voice, he said:

“I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry as I needed it. This space of time is organized. We need not fear these silences. We may love them.”

The first sentence of that quote is one of the most famous Cage quotes, but the sentences that follow are just as important. They create a rule to live by that not only applies to the listening of Cage’s music, but the rest of our lives.

At the Focus! Festival, Cage’s Third Construction, for percussion quartet, was played. This was the second time I had heard this piece in the past week. The first time was truly live, with the conch’s actual sound waves running through my ears at Sunday Chatter’s Cage/Reich percussion day. It was easily one of the most breathtaking performances I’ve ever seen—and I am talking about all performances. However, before this piece, three people got up and left. They had heard Living Room Music by Cage and Marimba (Piano) Phase by Reich. Living Room Music has indeterminate instrumentation, employing any object from one’s home. This particular performance included a lamp, a map, voice, and other objects.

Cage, as well as other composers of the like, is famous for being someone who induces walk-outs like these. Wolff, Feldman, Tudor, Brown, and countless others lived by the paradox of achieving so much with music that so many hated (and still do, as demonstrated by the three I saw). This music is well-known, and there is no need to explain its philosophy, but the reactions and realizations it brings are infinitely telling. It’s puzzling, but at the same time, this family of pariah sounds shows us more about our cultures than most forms of music labeled as “beautiful.”

When Cage says “We need not fear silences,” he is, to some degree, talking about sound. Sound is a blanket of comfort. We turn on the TV or radio when we are home alone, some use white noise machines to sleep, “awkward silences” between people are hurriedly filled with small talk.

An aural example of the fear of the “silences” of music occurred at the world premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Fresco in 1969, when the Bonn musicians rebelled against the music. The piece was meant to last four-and-a-half hours, using the orchestra in four different places in the foyer of the performance hall. The musicians were said to stand by their beloved classics and, with “glissandos no faster than one octave per minute,” were puzzled and captured in the silence of unfamiliarity and fear. The musicians were furious with Stockhausen, despite the fact that he described to them his vision (“music internally animated through the concentration of the musicians”). On the day of the performance, the musicians left a hand-painted sign on the warm-up room, reading: “We are playing, otherwise we would be fired!” During the performance, the musicians were taunted by audience members, and many left only an hour in. The concert was stopped about 20 minutes short.

Scandals like this show how the fear of the unfamiliar can bring out the bitterest side of humans. Even the notes of an acclaimed composer can be rejected because they aren’t arranged in comfortable ways. Contemporary music is being accepted more as time goes on, but there are still the ones who walk out of theaters or question the need for it.

However, Cage is also talking about life in his quote, we can assume. Silence is a synonym for worry and unfamiliarity. Humans hate being in different situations in which their personal boundaries are pushed. The poetry that Cage talks about comes through his acceptance of these moments of silence and fear. Because time is balanced, he says, silence is just as important as sound. This is musically known, but in life, uncomfortable, idle, or hard times are thought of as unnatural and evil. Perhaps we need this silence, however, to understand and appreciate the sound. Often, when we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone and come out successful, the results are more rewarding than any familiar deed. Ideas, literature, art, opinions, and thousands of other concepts are improved when people initiate. Initiation cannot be done without the acceptance of the silences of life.

After the intermission of the concert where the three people left, Cage’s Child of Tree and, of course, Third Construction itself were played. Not only did these patrons miss out on a particularly musical cactus and a life-changing performance, they missed out on the opportunity to accept the silences in life. Does this mean their lives are unbalanced, as Cage said? No. Their silences just took the form of the absence of the performance.

Do not fear the cactus