Musical Assumptions

A enlightening (and intimidating) performance

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:21:00 +0000

How can something that looks so simple and is so satisfying to watch be so difficult to actually do?

Musical Prodigies

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:51:00 +0000

Every once in a while I explore the musicians under the age of 8 or so who have parent-made videos up at YouTube. Here's a little tour of the spoils of the day. The operative word here for many of the posting parents on YouTube is "genius." I prefer to think that musicality is something that is normal, particularly in a very young child who spends most of his or her time using sounds to label and explore the ever-expanding and always-interesting world of life before school and socialization.

This video of Nini's first lesson offers great insight into how really young children learn to play. Notice the Nini's mother is singing in solfege while she is playing. Nini seems genuinely pleased with what she can do, which makes this one of my favorite videos. Then we have Emily Bear who is certainly adorable and accomplished. She has remarkable stage and camera presence, and has already, at the age of six, made her way (by way of her parents, no doubt) to television and even the White House. She already has her own commercial website and has already made recordings of her own music that she sells there. I will be playing a Mozart concerto with her in April, at which point I imagine that she will be seven.

This violinist who was fearless at four has served as an inspiration to many of my beginning students. Now she is seven and seems to be equally fearless, though the musical excitement of her four-year-old crescendos may take time to get back. Her progress is preserved on YouTube for all to see. I imagine that we will all be able to follow the progress of this four-year-old pianist who gets his mature sound with the help of a nifty underfoot pedal-extending device.

I suppose that in order to "make it" in the competitive musical world of the future a lot of current parents of young children seem to think that getting an early cyber leg up is the way to go. Only time will tell.

Call me old school, but I think that growing as a musician is a kind of private matter--something to be shared with family, friends, teachers, and immediate community. The kind of musical sincerity that a lot of children enjoy (because they are young, musical, and sincere) is usually something that they themselves grow out of. Many of the teenagers and young adults I know, who were small children not too long ago, long for the innocence and irresponsibility of childhood. Many of us spend our "mature" adult lives trying to find that spark that some identify as our "inner child." Maybe that's the root of adult fascination with child prodigies. Childhood, musical or otherwise, is something that none of us can regain. It is something that slips away before our very eyes and ears.

My Own Public Radio

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:06:00 +0000

A couple of years ago I wrote this post about my experience working in classical radio.

Back in the 1980s the trend in public radio stations was to play music that was "scientifically designed" to appeal to the suspected audience, and stations tended to play music that was familiar as well as music that was not too long. Back in my radio daze in the 1980s, fresh from Boston and New York, where I cut my teeth (or should it be ears) on the best radio known to man or woman, I built up a library of eclectic music written by relatively little-known composers. All the selections that I programmed for the 30 hours per week of classical music on our radio station were pieces and performances that I really cared about, and towards the end of my radio life we had a large enough library to keep all of our music in about a six month rotation. It was wonderful when people stopped to talk with me in the grocery store to talk about some piece or some performance that had been on the radio that morning. Unfortunately too many of those people are no longer alive, or they have moved away. But I digress.

Since the elimination of classical music from the radio station in my community, I have been listening to the two public radio stations, one to the south, and one to the north, that we can reach in our area. I have been rather impressed over the years with the number of pieces that I have heard that are new to me, even though some of the newer announcers drive me a bit batty with their, misinformation and sometimes unwelcome comments. Then again, I have devoted a good deal of time being critical of radio announcers, both professionally and as an informed and educated musician.

I was particularly struck by one quick comment this morning that an announcer made between pieces and PSAs (which are NPR ads) stating that everyone knows that orchestral musicians make good salaries, particularly in larger cities, but many of them are out of work or have other jobs. Then the announcer pressed a button and happily played some more music. Why did she just drop a statement like that without any further discussion? Was she talking about our area of Illinois where professional musicians have to piece together a living? This may be news to many public radio listeners, and it might be the source of serious emotional turmoil for others. She might as well have said to a different radio audience that steel workers make good salaries, but there are a lot of steel workers who are out of work. I steamed about it for a while, and then drove off to get a headlight replaced (which was why I was in the car in the first place).

The electrical system had to be turned off in order to replace my headlight, so I had to re-set the car's radio buttons after the headlight was replaced. I noticed that both radio stations were playing the exact same Chopin waltz, but at different intervals, which got me excited for a moment. Then I noticed that it sounded like the same performance, which the announcement confirmed. I spent the rest of the drive home trying to figure out who was broadcasting live and who was using a feed--maybe someone was on vacation. Then it dawned on me that those people who I thought were living in one or the other community and were broadcasting the classical music on the NPR stations might be broadcasting it from somewhere else entirely.

Oh how naive I have been! A quick search confirmed that everyone seems to be broadcasting their classical music by way of Minnesota Public Radio. Maybe that radio announcer could have said something about classical radio announcers being out of work. Nah. That would only happen in my own private radio.

Money, Music, and Value

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:01:00 +0000

It always amazes me that people tend to value something that has a high price on it, and they tend to assume that if something is offered to them for free it must be something of little value.

I remember a conversation I had several years ago with a distant cousin of mine who was connected with an important opera company. I had just completed an opera about Emma Goldman that was an adaptation of a play by Howard Zinn. It was a real treat to work with Howard Zinn on the libretto, and it was a joy to fulfill my long-term fascination with Emma Goldman in a most musical and personal way.

My cousin, who thought that the subject of my opera was very interesting, told me that I should put a high price on it in order for people to consider it a work worthy of their consideration. I thought that it would be best to be true to the spirit of Emma Goldman, and along with Howard Zinn, I decided that it would only be right to offer the PDF files of the music and the performing rights to anyone who would be interested in performing the opera for free. We gave the work to the Emma Goldman Papers project, and they sent a lovely limited-edition framed photograph of Emma Goldman to express their gratitude for our gift.

Maybe my cousin was right. I know now that I will be lucky if I ever get a chance to hear the opera performed at all, which makes me rather sad. I would love the chance to see and hear its flaws, and fix them while I am still able (alive, that is), thus increasing the real value of the opera.

WWBD

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:48:00 +0000

That stands for "what would Bach do."

Because the world of viola d'amore players is relatively small and rather scattered, I would like to share my self-initiation into this brother- and sisterhood here, with anyone who might be interested.

After about three weeks with the instrument, I finally mustered up the courage to try may hand at some Bach cello suites on the viola d'amore. On a lark I decided to try playing the C minor Suite (Number 5), one that really never sounds as good on the viola as I would like it to, in D minor. Then I discovered that the original version of Suite was actually for the lute, BWV 995 in the key of G minor. I have pretty much finished an urtext transcription (without slurs or dynamics) of the whole suite, which lies beautifully on the viola d'amore.

It was a wonderful experience to compare the cello version, BWV 1011, written for an instrument that has the ability to sustain, with the lute version, written for an instrument that does not have the ability to sustain. It is also interesting to compare J.S. Bach's handwriting to the more-familiar hand of his wife Anna Magdalena. I wonder if Bach, who did write music for the viola d'amore (he probably knew how to play the instrument, and may or may not have actually played the lute), might have used the viola d'amore to write this Lute Suite. (A special thanks to Harry Wimmer for putting these manuscripts on line!)

Anyone who might be interested in seeing the rest of this Suite should email me. I'll send you a PDF of the whole thing. It is really a very rewarding piece to play on the viola d'amore.

Meet My friend Martin Perry!

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:13:00 +0000

One of the rare benefits for me of participation in the musical blogosphere is when a person I have admired for a very long time makes his or her way into the large and animated discussion of music in a place that I like to call "here," but it is really also "there," "then," and everywhere.

I first met Martin Perry in an academic class at Juilliard (of all places), and we became fast and lasting friends. Now, through his appropriately-named Con Spirito blog you will get to know him too!

And Never Stop Dancing

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Gordon Livingston's Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart is a rather visible book that can be found easily in the self help sections of many chain book stores, but his sequel, And Never Stop Dancing, is much harder to find in the "real world" (though it is easy to find on line).

I usually don't go out of my way to read self-help books (unless they are cultural relics from another time), but this is a book that kind of transcends the concept of the quick-fix, follow-the-book approach to solving the universal problems and concerns that we all have. Livingston does not offer faith-based solutions, and he doesn't go out of his way to give advice. He does, however, go out of his way to tell the truth, which I really appreciate.

So why am I writing about this book here? In a chapter about fear, Dr. Livingston offers the following story:

A patient told me the following story: In 2003 she was at a Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert. they were playing the Brahms Violin concerto when suddenly the light went out. In the utter blackness of the concert hall her immediate thought was the Baltimore was under terrorist attack, a fear no doubt shared by many in that audience. She is uncertain how long they were in darkness before the dim emergency lights came on --probably only a few seconds, though it seemed longer. What amazed her was that the orchestra kept playing. Sitting in the dark, unable to see the conductor or their scores, the musicians played on, flawlessly. No one in the crowd made a sound, though she remembers the ovation at the end of the piece as especially heartfelt.

Of course I wonder who the fiddle player was, but then again I know that it could have been any one of the hundred or more regular soloists on the major American violin soloist circuit in 2003. That kind of action (playing if the lights go out) is basically standard practice for a professional orchestra with a professional soloist (particularly when it is a piece of standard repertoire), but to the audience it becomes a heroic moment--a moment where the soloist and the orchestra defy the greatest and most immediate fears of each audience member.

Freeway Philharmonic

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:57:00 +0000

Here's Jay Shulman's review of this eye-opening film about the on-the-road lives of freelance musicians in California's Bay Area. The film was made when the price of gas was a good deal lower than it is now. The price of being a commuting musician just went up a great deal.

I dream of having fast commuter rail systems all over the country with stations near concert locations (or concert locations near the stations) that would make it possible to play orchestral jobs without the physical stress and the actual cost of driving after performances. The trains could be used by audiences as well as by musicians, allowing the cost (both in dollars and in carbon emissions) of transportation to and from performances to be reduced for everyone. You could throw in time for dinner before the concert, and serve after-concert wine, coffee, and dessert on the train. Musicians and audience members could schmooze in the dining car.

The rails could be used for other trains as well, for people who carry on other business (yeah, I know, "everything else). Maybe there could even be increased commercial activity around the concert hall hubs because of the larger number of people who would be using the trains. How about a music store or two, some vegan-friendly restaurants, some book stores, and maybe even a stationery store. I know it's far-fetched, but it is a nice dream.

Sign of the Musical Times

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:50:00 +0000

Thanks to Steve Smith for telling it like it is!

Work in music compared to work in the "real world"

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:00:00 +0000

There's a post over at Anesthesioboist that has a lively discussion about what people (mostly MDs, it seems) would like to do as alternative professions. This started me thinking about my experience as a working musician and my experience in what I used to call the "real world," or think of as "everything else."

Not that I ever got to the point where I made more money than it took simply make ends meet, but I was able to work exclusively in music during my years at Juilliard and a couple of years after graduation, when I lived outside of the U.S. The early 1980s was a time when musical work was really scarce here. When I returned to the US in 1982, shows in New York were saving money by using synthesizers rather than musicians, and the very small amount of flute work was held onto by a few people who spent many years developing the kinds of relationships that flutists need to develop in order to get work. The work situation was even worse in Boston, where I went to typing school, and decided that I would try to get work in "the real world." In order to get a job with a temporary agency in Boston in the 1980s, you had to be able to type if you were a woman. In order to learn how to type quickly, I had to learn how, and, like anything else, I had to practice daily for a while. That was not unusual in my experience. I understood how to practice, and I learned quickly. Intelligence and education didn't matter in typing school. I was functionally bi-lingual when I went to typing school, and I wasn't the only functionally bi-lingual person in my class.

I passed my typing test, and I went to work for a temporary agency. Unfortunately I wasn't able to use my typing skills for my first job. The job was a filing job, and me and my Ph.D. in economics candidate filing partner set out on our huge task with dedication. I noticed that none of the people, particularly the "support staff" in this engineering firm seemed to be very dedicated to their work. They arrived late to work, and they left early. They didn't seem to care that their filing system was totally screwed up, and the engineers didn't seem to care either. My first dose of the "real world" was that people, for the most part, don't take their work as seriously as musicians take their work.

Musicians (at least those who work) always show up on time. If a musician doesn't show up on time (which usually means a little early) for a rehearsal or for a concert, the other musicians fear the worst: an accident, terrible sickness, or maybe death. Musicians who want to continue to work always come to rehearsals with their music prepared. That usually means that in order to prepare for a 2.5 hour rehearsal, that musician has put in anywhere between 4 and 60 or more hours of practice (over several days or weeks, and sometimes over a professional lifetime), depending on the difficulty of the part or the familiarity with the piece.

String players can be covered up if they make mistakes or if they play a few notes out of tune. Wind, brass, and percussion players cannot. They can have a bad day, but they still have to count and come in at the right time, and they have to play the right notes in tune. If they don't, even in rehearsal, everyone knows it. Their reputations are always on the line. Good wind, brass, and percussion players carry a lot of pressure on their shoulders, but they often do their best not to let on how hard they work, or how much it matters to them to play well.

Even though the pay is often pretty low, musicians cannot afford to lose work. The phrase "change jobs" was one that I heard among my support staff peers around Boston. Musicians don't change jobs. They do look for more work, and some people are lucky enough to play great auditions and get better-paying jobs with better orchestras in exciting cities, but your run of the mill "rank and file" (yes, string players who are not in leadership positions are referred to as rank and file players) musician who is not motivated to take difficult auditions is going to stay pretty much where s/he is, if there is work. That means that musicians have to get along with their co-workers, and their team of co-workers remains pretty much the same, with "new blood" thrown in as people graduate from music schools and enter the working world of music.

In my neck of the Midwestern woods, most of the musicians have "day jobs." Some are teaching jobs in music, and some are jobs further out in the "real world." Some people (like me) rely on their spouse's job to pay the bulk of the bills. Most working musicians don't complain about their lot in life, because it is their life of choice.

Wagner and The Birds

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:31:00 +0000

I imagine that this brilliant marriage of opera and film was put together by Roy.

Atonal Composition with Pablo Casals

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:09:00 +0000

I thought I'd share this 1962 drawing by Lorenzo Homar of Pablo Casals surrounded by JFK, Franco, and Dean Rusk, that I found tucked among several pieces of his over at BibliOdyssey.

Interview with my father

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:50:00 +0000

I can't resist putting a link to an interview with my father, who discusses his long career in the BSO on the radio. It is really very entertaining and enlightening, and you also get to hear him play. Yes, I'm very proud of him.

Growing up under a musical shadow

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:59:00 +0000

I remember the first time I heard the word "personage." Someone (I cannot remember who, although I do remember that he was male and that he was older than I was at the time) introduced me to another person as the daughter of a famous "personage." I thought that this guy was being insulting--suggesting that my father was something other than a person. I spent most of my childhood being referred to as my father's daughter.

I certainly knew from a very young age that he was the principal violist of the Boston Symphony and that he was an important person. He wasn't like other people's fathers. He kept different hours from the other fathers I knew, and other people's fathers didn't spend hours in the basement practicing. Other people's fathers wore suits to work, and mine wore tails. My father's Saturday night concerts were broadcast on live television during the 1970s, and before cable, WGBH was one of only five or six channels that people could watch in the Boston area. A lot of people who were not necessarily "up" on music knew the Boston Symphony Orchestra members by sight. Other families went to the cape in the summer, but our family always went to Tanglewood. I never understood the "lure" of the cape.

When I came of musical age it became important to me for grown up people to appreciate me for what I could do, and not for who my father was, but it was not really possible. My teachers let me slither along in high school without doing much work (I spent my time practicing rather than doing homework), and I got into regional high school ensembles that I probably should not have gotten into because the directors expected me to be "something special" because of who my father was. There were a lot of great high school flutists in the Boston area at the time, and I was a relative beginner when I was playing in the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony and the Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble. I know that I got into Juilliard because of who my father was, and there were people at Juilliard who probably wouldn't have even talked to me if it weren't for the fact that I was my father's daughter. It was a serious stigma and it took me a long time to get over it. It took me a couple of years of blogging to "out" myself, but I imagine that regular readers of this blog have not been coming here because of my family legacy.

There were many children of Boston Symphony Orchestra players in my high school. I even sat next to my father's stand partner's son in a few classes. None of the other BSO children in my school were interested in becoming musicians. I envied their "normalcy."

I remember that during my first year at Juilliard there were three daughters of principal violists from major American orchestras who were students. Along with me as the daughter of the BSO's principal violist (me), we had the bassoon-playing daughter of the principal violist of the New York Philharmonic (her flute-playing sister entered Juilliard the next year), and the harpsichord-playing daughter of the former principal violist of the Cleveland Orchestra. I thought it would be cool to form an ensemble, but it never happened.

I have found that as an adult I share a special bond with musical adult children of well-known professional musicians. Many of us had the same childhood, though we had different mothers and fathers. As an adult I still share a musical bond with my father, who is now retired from the BSO and is living in a Boston where he is recognized less often as a local "personage." There is a whole new generation of musicians in Boston's musical foreground, many of them who are younger than I am. Some of the people I grew up with might even think of him as "Elaine's father." Who knows?

Love is Blind

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:48:00 +0000

I am now the proud possessor of a viola d'amore, a gift from my father who spent many years trying to understand the instrument, before there was a good deal of scholarship about it, and many years playing its 18th-century solo and chamber repertoire. The head of my instrument has a blindfolded cupid that boldly declares that love is indeed blind. The instrument, however, is indeed beautiful.

The viola d'amore is tuned in the key of D major (or D minor if you lower the F# string to F natural), and has a set of sympathetic strings (I have successfully tuned four of them) that declare the power of tonal harmony. There also seems to be a natural modal tendency for the instrument, and the strings are so close together that it is pretty easy to play parallel intervals and big chords. I have yet to map out the fingerboard, and have every intention of writing for the instrument as soon as I figure out what my drone-filled harmonic improvisations yield, and how best to notate them.

Off we go!

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:25:00 +0000

If you see us on the road somewhere to the far east of Illinois, don't forget to wave! It would be great to travel back in time as well. See you next week.

Early Music Snapshots

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:25:00 +0000

Until I learned to use my grandfather's "Brownie" Camera, which my mother kept in a drawer below the china cabinet, nobody ever took photos in our family, and the photos were almost never of me. I'm not quite sure, except for the yearly class pictures taken at school, what I looked like for much of my childhood. Since I don't have any photos for reference, I have "snapshots" in my mind of key moments. Most of them involve music.

My first musical memory was when I was sick in bed and had to miss kindergarten. I was not sick very often, but when I was it was kind of fun, because my mother would bring me things to play with during the course of the day. Our doctor would also come to the house, and he would give me a huge "Charms" lollypop to suck on, which would always make my sore throat feel better. On this particular day, my mother brought me the Hohner recorder that we ordered from an S&H Green Stamp book (I still remember the taste of those stamps). The recorder came with a book, so I taught myself to read music that day. It wasn't a big deal. I do remember digging my teeth into the wood of the recorder, which kind of ruined the instrument, such as it was.

My next "snapshot" comes from first or second grade. We had a half-sized violin in the house that my older brother must have started on. I really wanted to play the violin. I wanted to play the violin so badly that I used to measure my arm on that half-sized violin every week, and I would try to stretch my arm out so that my fingers would be able to reach over the scroll, but they just wouldn't reach. I knew that I couldn't play the violin until I was big enough.

When I was finally big enough my father gave me an "A Tune A Day" book, and I set off to teach myself to play the violin. The notes and fingers made sense at first. The note "B" was played the same way on the violin as it was on the recorder: one finger against the thumb. There is a mixture of elements in this "snapshot." There was the room in the house that we rented in Lenox every summer that had toy soldiers on the wallpaper where I propped up my "A Tune A Day" book on the desk. There was also my grandmother, who must have been visiting at the time, and the card game "Pisha Peysha" that we used to play.

My next "snapshot" is in the post I wrote about playing the Euphonium, after which the snapshots become more blurred and more complicated with the onset of particular circumstances of childhood. I chronicled some highlights of my early adolescence with my grandfather's Argus camera, which inhabited the same china cabinet as the Brownie (it is uncanny that pictures of these intimate instruments can be found on line), but it was stolen when I was around 15, and I lost all interest in photography after that.

My Afternoon with the Euphonium

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:33:00 +0000

I do have this "thing" for the euphonium. I wonder if it comes from the time that I, as a third grader, sat down (cause that's what you do with the instrument) with my music teacher Miss Humphrey after school one afternoon, and learned how to play what she called "the bass horn." The instrument I played looked a great deal like the one in this picture, but it had a mouthpiece. I imagine that my teacher found the instrument somewhere in the music room of my old school. The "bass horn" was cold, and it was really heavy in my hands and lap. I remember how horrible it smelled and how awkward it was to play: the buzzing thing was very foreign to my young lips. It also required reading the bass clef, which was really pushing the envelope for me at the time.

It was still fun, and I loved spending afternoons after school with my teacher. I recall only spending one afternoon with the "bass horn," and from that single experience I have ultimate respect for anyone who can play the instrument beautifully, or even competently. The first time I heard it played really beautifully was in the middle of a Holst Suite that we played in high school band (I can't remember the name of its player, but I do remember that he also played the viola). I always get a special thrill every time I hear a euphonium solo in any orchestral piece. I also love the name of the instrument. Euphonium sounds so, well, euphonius. I think it is a serious improvement over "bass horn."

I am proud to have contributed two pieces (thus far) to the repertoire, the latest of which I have just put on my thematic catalog. It is a work for euphonium and piano, and is dedicated to the British euphonium soloist Charley Brighton.

Money and Music

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:44:00 +0000

I am torn about music and money. As the child of a professional musician, I appreciate the value of performing musicians getting paid for the work that they do. I expect to get paid for the work I do as a performing musician, and I certainly appreciate getting paid for teaching, which is sometimes harder work than performing. I appreciate commissions, of course, and I appreciate getting ASCAP awards, but I have a problem with the whole value versus cost element of the music business and the way it relates to me as a composer. There is, honestly, no better "payment" for me than hearing a good performance of a piece I have written. Money is just money. Music is different. The times, they are a-changing.

I appreciate publishers taking care of the physical aspects of printing music like using good paper, professional cover design, good ink, and proper mailing materials. I certainly appreciate the business aspects like copyright filing, record keeping, taxes, and the occasional possibility of publicity, but there is something inside me that likes the idea of music being available for free for anyone who wants to play it, skipping the business and tax aspects altogether.

For a while, at least, I will be offering my newly-written music to anyone who wants to play it. There is no difference in quality between the music that I have chosen to have published and the music that I choose to offer for free download. You are certainly welcome to go to my American Music Center page to see the PDF files I have available for download. I'll be putting more on in the near future. I'll also put links to them on my Thematic Catalog.

Medieval Hit Parade

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:50:00 +0000

I made some arrangements of two chestnuts of secular Medieval Music for the Darkwood Consort a while ago, and thought I'd share them here. You'll see (and hear) why Colin Muset's When I See Winter Return and the Lamento di Tristano (by an unknown composer) have been around for centuries.

An Inconvenient Subject

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:34:00 +0000

The recent news of La Scala commissioning an opera to be based on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth from Giorgio Battistelli has raised a few eyebrows (and nasty comments from "low brows" as well).

I can't imagine a less musically-inspiring character than Al Gore as the "hero" of this or any other opera. Yes, his speaking voice is resonant, but it is not at all musical (I would call his voice type a deep monotone). I imagine that Battistelli would be able to do a fine job of giving a sonic picture to the concept of global warming (perhaps even using musical material derived from the data that the Gore power points represented in the film), which takes care of everything he needs to be concerned with except the plot and the characters, who, because it will be an opera, will be expected to sing.

At least Battistelli has a while to figure it out. Maybe by 2011 the threat of global warming will be history. Who knows?

Pencil Mania and other Cartoon Madness

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:07:00 +0000

Thanks to the influence of Patty, I have spent far too much time this morning watching cartoons from the early 1930s by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (yup--the people who made the Flintstones). This film is part of an early joint venture that they called the Van Beuren Studios (you can read all about Hanna and Barbera here), and looks like it might have served as an influence for my beloved Harold and the Purple Crayon. Make sure to watch the very spicy and brilliant (though occasionally offensive) Opening Night on Patty's site as well.

Musing on "Millennial" Musicians

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:20:00 +0000

I watched a segment of 60 minutes on Sunday that concerned the generation of people born during the 1980s and 1990s called the Millennial Generation or Generation Y. Yes, Michael and I fit into the demographic of "echo boomer" parents: we were born at the tail end of the "Baby Boom," our children (who are in college) use the appropriate technology, and grew up watching and believing Mister Rogers when he told them that "people can like you just the way you are." When I was growing up as a baby boomer, I watched Mister Rogers once in a while, but I didn't watch him every day, or even in color. I actually didn't like the show because I resented the character of Lady Elaine. Miss Jane on Romper Room never said my name, and none of my peers were named Elaine, but Mister Rogers gave my name to a character that was ugly and mean. I took it as a personal offense. It took years to desensitize me.

Anyway, back to the point of this post, millennial musicians. I, as a late string bloomer, have enjoyed the opportunity to play with young people as colleagues. My technique on the violin when I was in my 30s didn't hold a candle to the technical abilities of the teenage stand partners I would sit with in my community orchestra. I had utmost respect for children who could play in tune and with a good sound. I still do. When I play chamber music with people old enough to be my own children, I think of them as musical equals. I really enjoy it when people who are old enough to be my parents think of me as a musical equal when we are playing together. Music, unlike most things in life, has a way of eliminating generational differences.

This "millennial" generation of musicians seems to have pretty much the same kinds of concerns as the musicians of the "boomer" generation I grew up with. We are all faced with the same kinds of phrasing questions rhythmic problems, and physical concerns. There are differences, though, and I think of the differences as benefits.

Growing up in a system that boosts self-esteem helps prepare musicians for the kind of constant competition (and constant failure) that is the "currency" of finding a place in the musical world. Nobody can stand up and play for a group of people without a strong sense of self, even if it is a sense of self that is in constant need of reinforcement. When I was approaching adulthood, I knew a great many excellent musicians who were fine and well-respected teachers. Very few of them were "nurturing." Many of them, the ones who cared about their students at all, were downright intimidating, and as young people we had to be prepared to face them week after week. We lived in a kind of fear that we wouldn't ever be good enough to please our teachers. The generation of teachers teaching the now "millennial" musicians is a nurturing generation. Perhaps they don't want to repeat the cycle of intimidation that they experienced from their teachers, or, perhaps the older ones have softened over time. Students now confide in their teachers, and as a result, they develop a kind of musical support system that will help them through the struggles of trying to make a living as a musician. Students who are in colleges and conservatories now expect their private teachers to act as counselors and advisers, and those teachers are usually very willing to do everything they can for their students.

I contrast this with the behavior of one of my teachers who told me that I needed to make my own way in music. When I asked this teacher if s/he thought I had any talent, that teacher's response was that I should see a psychiatrist. Being a good student, I took that advice to heart, and spent most my sessions questioning why this teacher would either not show up for lessons, or run out of time when it was my turn to play.

People do have to create their own musical opportunities now. Getting into a symphony orchestra is only one possible (or nearly-impossible) career path for a young musician. Young people know that the marketing skills they must develop in order to survive (particularly using technology to their advantage) as musicians can easily be translated into other fields of work that can supplement their musical habits. Young musicians are aware of how difficult it is to have a career as a soloist or a chamber musician, but many of them are willing to do whatever it takes to have one.

The "playing field" is different. It is no longer male dominated, and it is no longer geographically limited. There are always new areas of specialization that people can carve out for themselves, and the quality of playing around the world has made its way into cities that used to be considered musical backwaters. There are image-making and enhancing tools that anyone can use, and the publicity tools that were once reserved for managers can be at the fingertips of anyone with the knowledge and desire to use them. It is easer to get in touch with people (which is one of the most difficult problems for musicians). Cell phones, the web, and e-mail have revolutionized communication in the business of music as well as the business of everything else.

I notice that a great many "millennial" musicians are excited about playing new music, which makes me particularly happy since I am a composer. I also notice that they accept a wide range of musical "styles" as acceptable and desirable to play. When I was in my 20s there were a relative handful of "new music" people and "old music" people. There were also people who, for a time, only played music that was very old or music that was very new, but these were considered "fringe" groups. I now notice, among the 20-something musicians I encounter, that all music is treated as equal music, to be evaluated on its playability and its own merits. Beethoven is still Beethoven, Mozart is still Mozart, and Bach is still Bach, but I notice that this generation has less of a preoccupation with the desire to label something as great or revolutionary, and more of a preoccupation with trying to simply play well.

Lessons from Professor Schmutzig

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:40:00 +0000

When I came across the Incomplete Method fur die Holzblasinstrumente by William von Schmutzig in my mother's library, written pseudonymously in 1951 by Arthur E. Goldstein, I immediately co-opted it as my own, carrying it around with me wherever I went, until it became downright schmutzig, as you can see above. Don't forget to make note of the inscription of my name in my finest italic 14-year-old hand (I had been a dedicated Osmiroid user since the third grade) in the upper right hand corner.

To add miracle to wonder, my mother actually knew Arthur E. Goldstein when she was a student at Tanglewood. He later became a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's horn section.

I had forgotten where my beloved Schumtzig method had gone, and yesterday, when I unearthed it from a box that was buried under a portable bookshelf (an old wine crate), I knew that I had to share some of it with the larger world. The advice on reed making and audition decorum is still current. The volume is even still in print and can be had for a mere five bucks! Here are a few samples that you can click on to see in more detail.

New Music for Viola and Piano

noreply@blogger.com (Elaine Fine) — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:17:00 +0000

It took me a long time to finally finish these Two pieces for Viola and Piano. They went through a lot during the past six months or so, changing names, changing instruments, changing shape, and adjusting to the various ebbs and flows of my inner psyche. I am happy that the problems I was dealing with while working on these pieces are finally resolved; and the pieces, which ended up being a kind of therapy for my own extra-musical struggles, are finally finished. The is made by my in-house violist (me), and the phantom pianist that lives in the Finale program, brought to life by a set of speakers.