ROCK ON!

I was listening to "Wintermute" for trombone and tape by Bruce Hamilton yesterday.  I didn't know anything about the music, other than it was performed by Andrew Glendening.  I've performed some trumpet and tape music, so I was prepared for a mix of electronics, musique concrète, samples of standard instruments.  Something more abstract, stretching the boundary of normal timbres, since that is the strength of taped accompaniment.  I was a little surprised how polished the sounds were, and then it hit me that most of the electronic sounds were not abstractly generated, but were rather samples of electric guitar and electric bass.  Oh, and yes some smatterings of drum set, though just hits and ghostly hints of grooves.  The timbres were undeniably rock-oriented, and I started listening with a more third-stream/post-rock/indie-classical-to-make-Nico Muhly-wet-himself stance.  I could easily see this piece converted to allow a DJ to accompany the trombone, spinning various samples. 

There was no four-on-the-floor driving rhythms to make it sound rockish, no blues progressions or pentatonic scales.  The only thing evoking the rock genre was the timbre.  The electric bass, electric guitar, and drum set sound like rock, especially the overdrive bass sound that was used.  What are other timbres that evoke a genre?  A particular vibrato in singing can evoke opera, a raspy off-the-string bowing of a violin can evoke "old-timey music."  Period instruments are for that very reason, to create the timbres that evoke a time period and genre, thus the use of the shawm, cornetto, harpsichord, and lute.  Some world musics have very distinct instruments, like the sitar or the didgeridoo.

Can you name any other timbres that instantly cause you to think of a style of music?  Timbres only, no harmonies or melodies, rhythms or tempos.

Farbenmelodie

The idea of composing with timbre isn't new.  Wayne Slawson wrote a book, Sound Color, back in 1985 which details previous attempts at composing in timbre, and his own theory of how timbre composition should work.  Schoenberg's piece – Farben, op. 16 no. 3 – is perhaps the most famous, and the one that gives us the delightfully pretentious title of Farbenmelodie to describe any "melody of timbres."  Check out the Youtube video below, with some very good analysis by F. Nicolas included.



I like Elliot Carter's Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for Woodwind Quartet, particularly the third and seventh etudes that focus on timbre.  Etude 3 (first video, at 2:40) isn't as effective, because I was distracted by the bassoon's movement between notes, though I could still hear the shifts in timbre.  But in Etude 7 (second video, at 3:00), with the hairpin dynamics to suddenly bring in or out various sounds on the single note, there was real motion, a journey of emotion.




Penderecki came up with an organized theory of timbre, based on the types of materials used to make the sound.  However, this theory could not accommodate wind instruments or voices.  Crumb creates some very imaginative timbres, but it isn't the only focus of his compositions.



I want to compose some pieces that attune the ear to very subtle changes in timbre.  I was inspired by reading Tim Rutherford Johnson's latest article on NewMusicBox.  In it, he describes Kunsu Shim's expanding space in limited time.  

 In one two-hour performance of the piece, Pisaro reports, it was 20 minutes before he could make out any sound at all; after which his sense of hearing had become so attuned that those sounds that were produced began to take on an extraordinary richness.

 I want to create that degree of sensitivity, but I don't want to take 20 minutes of the audience's time to do it.  My goal is for the listeners to be engaged, not annoyed.  Is that asking too much?

Oh, the humanity!

I found this post through Corey Dargel's tweet.  Corey appreciates the "intense and insightful review" of his concert.  I was intrigued, but also confounded by a bold statement made by George Grella that

"Pop music may be affirm­ing, but it is exceed­ingly rare that it is truly human­ist, that it is sym­pa­thetic towards the things that it is not, and that the world of pop music — musi­cians, crit­ics and fans — is barely aware that any other music exists attests to this. Embrac­ing human­ist val­ues means embrac­ing human­ity, and that, beyond all abstract tech­ni­cal achieve­ment, is what clas­si­cal music does, and has done, and what pop music has yet to develop as a fun­da­men­tal value."  

I think it is wrong, and yet brilliant.  Pop fans are just as blinkered as classical fans.  Pop musicians tend to be less musically educated than classical musicians, but only when considering beginners.  Those pop musicians who have survived their sophomore albums without receding to obscurity have demonstrated a broader awareness of the artistic world, equal to that of their counterparts in the classical world.  Paul Simon embraces South African music.  Dave Matthews loves Vivaldi.  Even Justin Bieber has an awareness of jazz as a counterpart to his knowledge of hip hop and pop.  And for every popular musician who is unaware of the existence of classical music, there is an opposing classical musician who believes popular music is not worthy of acknowledgment. 

Going beyond the claims of awareness of the other, popular music attempts to express the human condition just as much as classical music.  Some popular music can be very monothematic about human emotions, focusing on love and/or lust, injustice or depression.  But Baroque music had its own Doctrine of the Affections to limit content.  The musicological concept of Gebrauchmusik could slander some of Hindemith's music, Bach's dance suites, and "The Twist" equally for the goal of community-building action rather than emotional contrasts.  And yet these songs are meant to join humanity together, helping people from different backgrounds to unite in a larger sense of culture.  Is that not humanitarian?

I think George's post is brilliant for addressing the need of music to be humanistic.  I completely agree that the best artworks contain contradictions, nuance, and heart.  Beauty formed from contrasts of the ugly and the pleasant, this is what both represents us and teaches us how to be better humans.  I have experienced these challenges in classical music, in popular music, in jazz music, in world music.  I have also found these elements of humanism in the "high" and "low" forms of painting, literature, film, theater, and dance.  It is wonderful to see a passionate reminder of why the arts are so important, especially as I get ready to argue against cuts to the arts in our local school board meeting tonight.

Atychiphobia

I am listening to Penn Jillette on the Nerdist podcast, and he just talked about the fear of being wrong.  He was riffing about a quote, and then pointed out the best way to find out if something is true is to say it publicly.  If it is wrong, you will be corrected.  It is only when people are willing to be caught being wrong that the truth will out, that learning will happen.  Penn is notorious for appearing fearless in stating his beliefs, and his willingness to admit when he is wrong.  But he just admitted that he still has fear of being wrong, but is also brave enough to continue despite of that fear.

I realized that this is my problem with my current writing block, and with all my previous writing blocks.  I am afraid of being caught being wrong.  Occasionally I let myself relax and write something outrageous.  Apparently I did so in my first blogging contest* entry, inspiring one judge (I think Nico Muhly?)  to call the post right, wrong, brilliant and infuriating. I also used to have a lot more humor on the blog, until with one post I manged to offend someone who let me know about it.  And since I'm not a sociopath, I do want people to like me, and therefore made the bad decision to curb my humor, especially the sarcasm.  Going through a divorce also hit me in the 'nads of affirmation.  Sometimes divorce makes people more bitter and cocky.  It made me self-effacing, questioning who I was in a very quiet way while trying to remain strong for my kids.  I've come back from the divorce, but I still have less bravery than what's good for me, something I need to fix.

So, I will make bold statements, always with the effort of being correct, but without the need to have my inner lawyer triple check each statement for accuracy.  I leave that to you, gentle readers, to point out to me in excruciating detail how I am wrong.  First up:  the key of a piece still matters in this world of equal temperament with a population of non-APers.  I'm taking this from the perspective of the listener, not the performer, though the comfort-level of the performer will affect the listener's experience.  Equal temperament did away with the characteristic "mistunings" of different keys that led to the various key characteristic charts.  And while Dan Levitin showed that most people can sing their favorite songs within a half-step of the original recording, the majority of the population cannot identify what key they just sang in, unless they studied the score (a statistically insignificant part of the population).

I believe keys matter for two reasons.  First, the timbre is affected by the key, and this is perceivable by the listener.  A string instrument that plays more open strings will have a different sound than playing more stopped strings.  An Ab4 has a different color than a Bb4 on a trumpet, due to different pipe lengths and compromises made in the instrument design.  And key choices will affect whether the music is in the high, middle, or low part of the instrument/voice's range, which will directly affect the color of the sound.  Second, the choice of key will affect that piece's relationship to surrounding pieces.  If Bach or the Ramones play everything in G major, a certain tension is created by the static nature of the timbre/key.  If a movement of a symphony is in an distantly-related key to the previous movement, the listener will experience a frisson of doubt that these movements belong together, or at least a reset of subconscious expectations. A pump-up within a song may be cheesy, but it is noticeable, because of the perceived relationship.  I have a question.  Is there an example of a pop or rock album that has a pump-up between songs?  (Song 1 is in C major.  Song 2 is in D major.  Song 3 is in Eb major, etc. etc.)

*Congratulations to Jennifer Rivera for winning, and to all of the finalists for some great writing.

Death and rebirth

I did not make it past the second round of the Spring For Music blogging challenge, but I'm grateful for the public support I received, and I'm happy that Elena SB and Will Robin have made it to the final four.  I had a great vacation in Key West, a wonderful Easter with my family, and am now tackling a book proposal that is due by the end of the month.  In the meantime, here are some strange composer deaths.  I would include some more:

1) jazz trumpeter and composer Lee Morgan.  He was murdered onstage by his wife, the details are questioned. 

2) Maurice Ravel suffered from brain lesions, and died after experimental surgery.

3) Schumann died in an insane asylum like Wolf, though the exact causes are debated.

4) Alessandro Stradella, assassinated due to an affair.

Feel free to add your own "favorite" deaths in comments, and make sure to vote for Elena and Will next week.

How to rename a contest

I've made it to the second round of the Art Blogging Match of Doom (ABMOD).  I was quite glad to hear that at least one of the judges found me to be "right, wrong, brilliant, and infuriating." p I'm called at least two of those things regularly at home, it's nice to get the full gamut.  So here is the next writing prompt:

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?

I started out thinking about how to characterize contemporary culture. I came up with the qualities of diversity, eclecticism, and ubiquity. As I wrote in the last contest post, the Internet has provided access to so many cultural experiences that we don't even blink at the ability to see a Finnish folk singer or a Brazilian ballet. Our culture isn't local, it is global. But this diversity is not creating thousands of artistic enclaves. Instead, any given person consumes a whole range of cultural products, even within a single art form. This diversity and eclecticism is encouraged by the economics of the new digital media, that allows selling the long tail to be a viable business plan.  I can sample a whole variety of poetry with little investment of my time or money, because I can locate recommendations from experts online, view samples for free, and purchase small quantities online.  Heck, there is an app for that!  And then I can discuss the poetry in online forums, to help my understanding and appreciation.  And with smart phones and tablets, I can reasonably expect to consume my diverse cultural products whenever and wherever I want.

Once I defined contemporary culture, the next step was to show which art form says the most about it.  My natural inclination was and always is to look to music.  I've been trained in music from the age of four, it is my main means of fun and profit. There are plenty examples of music that demonstrate those three qualities.  Despite his current troubles, Osvaldo Golijov created (with help) a work of genius in Ayre.  This song cycle is incredibly eclectic, combining elements from around the world and across many genres.  The ABMOD's own judge Nico Muhly is known for his eclectic approach to music as well.  Andrew Bird, Björk, Bon Iver, The Clogs, Bang on A Can All-stars, all these groups defy genre labels.  The pop/classical divide is not necessarily gone, but it has distinctly blurred.  I can write academically about Dave Matthews Band, and be accepted by my fellow music theorists, and an opera singer can make it on The Voice or Britain's Got Talent.

There are also great examples in books and video games; theater and dance; painting and sculpture; architecture and synchronized swimming.  But comments on contemporary culture, require a multi-media approach, using the languages of visual images, audio examples, and expository writing.  A film character can say explicitly, "contemporary culture is very eclectic," accompanied by great examples of rap from Pakistan and hip hop version of Carmen, while eating some fusion cooking.  A blog post can contain links to all these examples (watch out, I'm starting to get recursive here), and allows easy feedback from the consumer.  Blogs, of course are so 2008, so Twitter says the most about contemporary culture.  140 characters to allow us to sample from a wide number of followings without a huge time commitment.  Links to deeper coverage on Tumblr, YouTube, or online articles reward higher levels of interest, but with the consumer still in complete control.  This says a lot about our culture.

However, I found I had serious problems answering the posed question. Art exists within culture, thus any given art form cannot act as a disinterested observer. Just as the act of observation affects the result in quantum physics, a self-aware art form changes the culture around it. And since I based my definition of culture on my knowledge of art, it seems circular to then use that same art to comment on the state of culture. So while I think social media is an art form that says a lot about the state of contemporary culture, I don't think any given form can give an accurate picture by itself. It's sort of the artistic version of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.

Book Review: So Much To Say

“So Much TO Say: Dave Matthews Band 20 Years On the Road”, Nikki Van Noy

This is the newest popular book about DMB, published in 2011.  It is organized in ten chapters, plus an introduction and discography.  This book is intended to represent the views of the diehard fans who follow the band from venue to venue each summer.  Each historical event is accompanied by quotes from fans who were there, practically one quote for every paragraph. The writing reflects this intention, as the author is also a huge fan who can’t keep from gushing at every opportunity.  The first chapter, “An Evening Spent Dancing,” begins at the last show of the band’s twentieth year of existence.  This show is used as a template to provide an overview of the band’s history, with a heavy emphasis on the grassroots nature of their success.  There is a sense of ownership, that the fans discovered and influenced DMB.  “…what makes the DMB fans so unique is that they have actually played an integral role in the trajectory of the band from day one.  In so many ways, DMB fans are just as much a part of the story and history of this band as the musicians themselves.” (p. 9)

Chapters Two, “Getting Started” and Three, “The Little Red Van” cover the origins of the band.  Van Noy focuses on Charlottesville, Virginia, painting a picture of the artistic environment there in the late ‘80s that encouraged musicians to collaborate.  There is a very brief description of Dave Matthews’ upbringing, with no mention of his early musical experiences before he came to Charlottesville  in 1986.  There are many quotes from local music critics and some of Dave’s earliest music friends, like Mark Roebuck.  Very rarely is the music itself described, beyond a general “acoustically-driven folk-rock style of music.” (p. 22)  “[t]ypical of the quintessential DMB sound, with its distinct acoustic guitar, driving rhythm, bellowing sax, and full-band crescendo, all underlying whimsical yet introspective lyrics.” (p. 25)  There is a big effort to describe the scene, the feel of the audience itself, such as the tradition of taping shows and trading tapes. 

The studio albums are discussed in the next chapters.  “For Dave, it was important there was a delineation between the live show recordings that already existed in abundance and the band’s first major label studio effort.” (p. 60)  “Together, Dave and Tim [Reynolds] laid down dual tracks for Under the Table, resulting in a full acoustic ound that not only immediately set DMB apart from the vast majority of its musical counterparts of the time but also went a long way toward re-creating DMB’s bold live energy in recorded form.”  Now that Van Noy is talking about the actual music, several discrepancies and clumsy phrases come out.  In efforts to describe the diversity of musical styles of the album (which is true), Van Noy conflates rhythmic patterns with stylistic feel, emotion with orchestration.  There are connections between these features, but in the same way as apples and asparagus.   Yes, apples and asparagus both start with a, are foods, and nourish us.  But it is hard to talk in one instance about the tartness of a Gala apple, and contrast that with the mushiness of overcooked asparagus.  Van Noy also makes the mistake of implying that the lyrics of the songs on Under the Table and Dreaming were written after Dave’s sister Anne was murdered.  The album is dedicated to her, but the lyrics were set well before the tragedy in January of 1994. 

Inserted between chapters are minibiographies of fans, tracing their lives in their connections to the band.  At the middle of the book are sixteen pages of color photographs of the band, fans, and famous performance venues.  The pictures are mostly credited to relatives of the author, as well as Weekly Davespeak.  The book ends with the most recent tours, up to the “break” of 2011, and has a discography up to 2010.

If you want to get a feeling for the attitudes and passions of the DMB fan community without going to a concert or wading through the forums at antsmarching.com or dancingnancies.com, this book will help you.  But if you are looking for a clear history of the band and descriptions of the music, there are better choices.