On May 3rd, I'll continue down this electronic music path I've been on lately with another performance. It's sponsored by the Nine Rails Arts District and will be at the Argo House at 7 & 8pm as part of the First Friday Art Stroll.
The idea for the performance is to mix old and new, which is kinda what I see when I look at Ogden. It's a town in transition that's doing a good job of modernizing whilst still keeping its history in view.
Susan will be performing Bach's Partita for Solo Flute while I electronically manipulate her sound in real-time. There will also be dancers improvising modern variations using the skeletons of Baroque court dances.
This project has been difficult for me -- I've done plenty of fixed-media pieces to be comfortable with that, and I've improvised live on electronics before too (also with dancers). But that's always been using my own music, and for this project I have the challenge of allowing the Bach piece to shine through, while also making use of the intriguing sounds made available to us with modern-day electronics. I've committed to using only audio that is generated from the flute in real time, so no pre-synthesized or sampled sounds.
Since it's going to be improvised, every time we've rehearsed it's been different, obviously. Susan can play the piece in her sleep, so it's really been a matter of me figuring out how to create what I hear in my head. It turns out that I've had to back way off from some of my initial ideas because they truly didn't "point to" the Bach piece at all. I'm fairly sure Bach didn't include in the Partita everything he knew how to do, and I've had to learn that lesson for myself.
One of the more interesting bits about this process was that when putting together the initial equipment for this, the plan was for the flutist to have headphones on with just her sound coming through, while all the funky stuff went into mine and to the speakers. We feared the manipulation would make it too difficult to play the piece "straight," but she discovered that she found the manipulation freeing rather than distracting and is now leaning into the effects she hears.
The old and the new are not existing in parallel, instead they inform one another.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Whooping for Mozart
I'd like to thank the woman who whooped for Mozart.
Well, not Mozart in general, but for the first movement of his Paris Symphony.
Tonight I took my daughter -- a budding guitarist -- to hear the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez played by Pablo Sáinz Villegas and the Utah Symphony. It was here in Ogden, presented by Onstage Ogden. The guitar concerto we came to hear was sandwiched between two symphonies, the one by Mozart mentioned above and another by Schumann. But this post isn't so much about the concert itself, but about the woman who whooped.
When conductor Richard Egarr took the stage for the Mozart symphony he instantly had me charmed. It wasn't just because he wasn't wearing a tux and had a British accent; there was something in his walk that made it seem he was happy to see us (the audience, not my daughter and myself specifically). Before anything else, he grabbed the microphone and got the audience to interact with him, even if it was simply to get us to say an enthusiastic "good evening" back to him. He was keenly aware we were there, and wanted us to make our presence known.
Egarr proceeded to tell us a bit about the Paris Symphony -- the usual stuff, like that Mozart wrote it in Paris (go figure), but what caught my attention was that he said the piece was written to please an/the audience. This is less obvious a statement than one might think. Egarr told us about the letter Mozart wrote to his father about the Paris Symphony, specifically stating that he (Mozart) included in the first movement a particular orchestral effect he knew would make the audience applaud spontaneously -- while the piece was being played -- and so wrote that passage twice, knowing that when they heard it a second time the crowd would go wild.
Egarr preceded that anecdote by telling us that "it is important [we] be not so well-behaved."
That pronouncement drew mild chuckles from the crowd, but it hit me hard. Egarr was saying that active audience interaction was written into the piece, and so it follows that without that interaction the first movement of the Paris Symphony is somehow incomplete, or at least missing something that ought to be there.
The musical moment Mozart wrote to his father about came and went, then came back around again; neither time was a peep heard from the audience (sadly, I was also guilty of being silent). I wondered how the spontaneous applause Mozart expected at those moments would have impacted the musicians -- my experience with popular music makes me suspect it would have invigorated them, which would then excite the audience even more.
As with most symphonies I've heard, after the last note of the first movement sounded came the familiar few seconds of tension: everyone in the house wants to applaud, but to not do so is part of how a classical audience member proves s/he belongs there. Those familiar few seconds were broken by a woman wholeheartedly whooping -- she literally said "whoo!" -- which seemed to give permission to the rest of us to express our excitement over what we just heard and was followed by other hearty bellows and plenty of applause.
Not everybody felt comfortable clapping in between the movements, and that's ok too. But what happened tonight was, to me, really special. A conductor acknowledged our presence in a real way, proceeded to tell us that we were as much a part of the piece as the composer and musicians, and many of us allowed manners to be overtaken by enthusiasm. That felt good.
Thank you, woman who whooped, for leading the way.
Well, not Mozart in general, but for the first movement of his Paris Symphony.
Tonight I took my daughter -- a budding guitarist -- to hear the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez played by Pablo Sáinz Villegas and the Utah Symphony. It was here in Ogden, presented by Onstage Ogden. The guitar concerto we came to hear was sandwiched between two symphonies, the one by Mozart mentioned above and another by Schumann. But this post isn't so much about the concert itself, but about the woman who whooped.
When conductor Richard Egarr took the stage for the Mozart symphony he instantly had me charmed. It wasn't just because he wasn't wearing a tux and had a British accent; there was something in his walk that made it seem he was happy to see us (the audience, not my daughter and myself specifically). Before anything else, he grabbed the microphone and got the audience to interact with him, even if it was simply to get us to say an enthusiastic "good evening" back to him. He was keenly aware we were there, and wanted us to make our presence known.
Egarr proceeded to tell us a bit about the Paris Symphony -- the usual stuff, like that Mozart wrote it in Paris (go figure), but what caught my attention was that he said the piece was written to please an/the audience. This is less obvious a statement than one might think. Egarr told us about the letter Mozart wrote to his father about the Paris Symphony, specifically stating that he (Mozart) included in the first movement a particular orchestral effect he knew would make the audience applaud spontaneously -- while the piece was being played -- and so wrote that passage twice, knowing that when they heard it a second time the crowd would go wild.
Egarr preceded that anecdote by telling us that "it is important [we] be not so well-behaved."
That pronouncement drew mild chuckles from the crowd, but it hit me hard. Egarr was saying that active audience interaction was written into the piece, and so it follows that without that interaction the first movement of the Paris Symphony is somehow incomplete, or at least missing something that ought to be there.
The musical moment Mozart wrote to his father about came and went, then came back around again; neither time was a peep heard from the audience (sadly, I was also guilty of being silent). I wondered how the spontaneous applause Mozart expected at those moments would have impacted the musicians -- my experience with popular music makes me suspect it would have invigorated them, which would then excite the audience even more.
As with most symphonies I've heard, after the last note of the first movement sounded came the familiar few seconds of tension: everyone in the house wants to applaud, but to not do so is part of how a classical audience member proves s/he belongs there. Those familiar few seconds were broken by a woman wholeheartedly whooping -- she literally said "whoo!" -- which seemed to give permission to the rest of us to express our excitement over what we just heard and was followed by other hearty bellows and plenty of applause.
Not everybody felt comfortable clapping in between the movements, and that's ok too. But what happened tonight was, to me, really special. A conductor acknowledged our presence in a real way, proceeded to tell us that we were as much a part of the piece as the composer and musicians, and many of us allowed manners to be overtaken by enthusiasm. That felt good.
Thank you, woman who whooped, for leading the way.
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Positive music in times like these
I have this side gig where I work with high school students at SpyHop in SLC. Right now the project involves a student rock band, and I was interviewing the members of the band about which of their original songs had the most potential to make an impact upon people.
All but one of them talked at length about their song "Get Up," which is basically about yeah, everything sucks but if we all just get up, stay positive, and help one another it's all gonna work out ok.
My teaching (at WSU or wherever) has always been focused upon the way music both reflects and influences society at any given time. This band at SpyHop is made of teenagers -- arguably the most horrible time of anyone's life -- and yet they are looking at the world around them and trying to put out a positive message to the world. They believe they can influence. When I was their age (and pretty much still today), the music I made and listened to reflected my rage, incertitude, and frustration; clearly reflecting my world, but not really influencing it.
Are they just young and naive? Was/am I just insufferable? I don't think so. I think in order to really get a sense of a time, it is essential to take a look at both sides of this reflecting/influencing coin. This gets especially sticky in the "classical music" world, in which utterances that are intentionally ugly or brash or confusing are so often dismissed in favor of more dulcet tones that are considered "real music." But we need both -- music that reflects our time and music that influences it -- and believe it or not, sometimes one piece or song can serve both purposes. Moreover, in my mind, "influence" need not always equal "positive." Sometimes people need to be made angry in order to act, which makes me wonder -- where are all the good protest songs today?
All but one of them talked at length about their song "Get Up," which is basically about yeah, everything sucks but if we all just get up, stay positive, and help one another it's all gonna work out ok.
My teaching (at WSU or wherever) has always been focused upon the way music both reflects and influences society at any given time. This band at SpyHop is made of teenagers -- arguably the most horrible time of anyone's life -- and yet they are looking at the world around them and trying to put out a positive message to the world. They believe they can influence. When I was their age (and pretty much still today), the music I made and listened to reflected my rage, incertitude, and frustration; clearly reflecting my world, but not really influencing it.
Are they just young and naive? Was/am I just insufferable? I don't think so. I think in order to really get a sense of a time, it is essential to take a look at both sides of this reflecting/influencing coin. This gets especially sticky in the "classical music" world, in which utterances that are intentionally ugly or brash or confusing are so often dismissed in favor of more dulcet tones that are considered "real music." But we need both -- music that reflects our time and music that influences it -- and believe it or not, sometimes one piece or song can serve both purposes. Moreover, in my mind, "influence" need not always equal "positive." Sometimes people need to be made angry in order to act, which makes me wonder -- where are all the good protest songs today?
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Bach, again
In his brilliant ethnography of the typical North American Music Building, Bruno Nettl identifies two poles of classical music mythology: Mozart and Beethoven. Not necessarily the actual human beings, but the concept of them, what they represent. Mozart was born a genius, and composed without effort; he was a “natural". In contrast, Beethoven struggled his entire life, worked hard, and his compositions betray the scars of that labor.
Neither of those descriptions are particularly accurate, and in fact the life and work of any composer is never fully served by these kinds of generalizations. But the fact remains that for many music lovers, the Mozart/Beethoven duality embodies the two sides of the mystery of making art: is it talent or hard work? or both? Mozart and Beethoven provide role models, though of very different stripes. We can see ourselves in one or both of these men, even though their accomplishments seem beyond mere mortals.
And yet, after the events of the Ogden Bach Festival in which I participated, a number of audience members approached to tell me that Bach was their favorite composer. This set me to wondering what it might be about Bach that appealed to them so much.
Bach’s isn’t a particularly compelling story: he was not famous during his lifetime, and pretty much wrote the kind of music he was employed to write (mostly in provincial towns). His music was old-fashioned by the time of his death and was not championed in a broad way until it was revived in the nineteenth century.
The nineteenth-century Bach revivalists re-cast his music in their own image, substituting outdated instruments, thickening the orchestrations, and applying their present-day performing practices to his scores. Historicism was on the rise during the nineteenth-century, particularly among Germans, who found ways to trace their own musical lineage back to Bach.
But Bach was not a nineteenth-century composer. His musical value system, his working environment, and his relationship to his compositions were thoroughly grounded in the early eighteenth century, but his music was easily adaptable to the needs of the new century and he was held up as a master. (It might be worth noting that while Mozart was revered in many musical circles of the nineteenth century, it was usually his more “Romantic” scores that were held up as evidence of his genius — Don Giovanni, or his 40th symphony for instance; not pieces like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, which was actually more in line with the bulk of Mozart’s output.)
In the wake of the two World Wars, when the artistic climate turned away from the expressive individualism of the nineteenth century and toward an emphasis on calculated craftsmanship, Bach’s music and its forms again found a home. What early modernists such as Schoenberg and Webern saw in Bach was the internal logic of his works — not their expressiveness, but their architecture. The calculated nature of Bach’s music served the early 20th century well as a model for “pure music.”
Here we sit, in the 21st century, still lauding JS Bach. Our postmodern musical landscape fully embraces music from all eras and all styles (supposedly), but what is it that Bach means to us, today? If we are re-shaping Bach in our own image as previous centuries did, what does that look like in an environment where anything goes?
I’d argue that in today’s age of musical abundance, Bach has come to represent control, order, even a kind of conservatism or at least conservationism. It is a celebration of discipline, both on the part of performers and audiences. Bach’s music is neither easy to play well nor to listen to carefully, and perhaps that's the point. In this time of instant gratification, Bach makes us work.
Neither of those descriptions are particularly accurate, and in fact the life and work of any composer is never fully served by these kinds of generalizations. But the fact remains that for many music lovers, the Mozart/Beethoven duality embodies the two sides of the mystery of making art: is it talent or hard work? or both? Mozart and Beethoven provide role models, though of very different stripes. We can see ourselves in one or both of these men, even though their accomplishments seem beyond mere mortals.
And yet, after the events of the Ogden Bach Festival in which I participated, a number of audience members approached to tell me that Bach was their favorite composer. This set me to wondering what it might be about Bach that appealed to them so much.
Bach’s isn’t a particularly compelling story: he was not famous during his lifetime, and pretty much wrote the kind of music he was employed to write (mostly in provincial towns). His music was old-fashioned by the time of his death and was not championed in a broad way until it was revived in the nineteenth century.
The nineteenth-century Bach revivalists re-cast his music in their own image, substituting outdated instruments, thickening the orchestrations, and applying their present-day performing practices to his scores. Historicism was on the rise during the nineteenth-century, particularly among Germans, who found ways to trace their own musical lineage back to Bach.
But Bach was not a nineteenth-century composer. His musical value system, his working environment, and his relationship to his compositions were thoroughly grounded in the early eighteenth century, but his music was easily adaptable to the needs of the new century and he was held up as a master. (It might be worth noting that while Mozart was revered in many musical circles of the nineteenth century, it was usually his more “Romantic” scores that were held up as evidence of his genius — Don Giovanni, or his 40th symphony for instance; not pieces like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, which was actually more in line with the bulk of Mozart’s output.)
In the wake of the two World Wars, when the artistic climate turned away from the expressive individualism of the nineteenth century and toward an emphasis on calculated craftsmanship, Bach’s music and its forms again found a home. What early modernists such as Schoenberg and Webern saw in Bach was the internal logic of his works — not their expressiveness, but their architecture. The calculated nature of Bach’s music served the early 20th century well as a model for “pure music.”
Here we sit, in the 21st century, still lauding JS Bach. Our postmodern musical landscape fully embraces music from all eras and all styles (supposedly), but what is it that Bach means to us, today? If we are re-shaping Bach in our own image as previous centuries did, what does that look like in an environment where anything goes?
I’d argue that in today’s age of musical abundance, Bach has come to represent control, order, even a kind of conservatism or at least conservationism. It is a celebration of discipline, both on the part of performers and audiences. Bach’s music is neither easy to play well nor to listen to carefully, and perhaps that's the point. In this time of instant gratification, Bach makes us work.
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