Words of Wisdom

Deep Listening is listening to everything all the time, and reminding yourself when you're not. But going below the surface too, it's an active process. It's not passive. I mean hearing is passive in that soundwaves hinge upon the eardrum. You can do both. You can focus and be receptive to your surroundings. If you're tuned out, then you're not in contact with your surroundings. You have to process what you hear. Hearing and listening are not the same thing.

Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros' words of wisdom came from a collection of statements from composers on Steve Layton's website.

While wandering through websites and blogs on the internet, I can't help noticing that blogs that discuss new music seem to be written mostly by men, and inspirational words of advice from composers and musicians are also mainly quotes from men (as shown on Steve Layton's inspirational choices). Why, in an age that claims to be "post gender," is this still so? Are we beginning to move backwards?

I do agree that what I guess could be called "retrospective gender equality" in music is often misleading, and sometimes even silly. The music history textbook I use for my music appreciation course (I didn't pick it) gives Hildegard's "Oh Greenest Branch" as its sole example of Gregorian Chant. Of course it isn't a piece of Gregorian Chant, but it is written by a woman. The textbook's sole example of Troubadour music is by Beatrice, the Countess of Dia. Go figure. It is a fine piece, but the Countess was not your typical Troubadour composer.

The textbook publisher wanted to give the impression that women who wrote music in the Middle Ages were just as important as men, but he (I'm assuming the publisher is a company run by a man or a group of men) gives a false impression to students who know very little about both music and history. The textbook goes on to discuss a piece by Barbara Strozzi, and even provides a detailed listening guide for it, but the publisher neglected to include the piece on the recordings that come with the book. I guess the project was a clumsy stab in the dark at trying to make a statement that women have been writing for as long as men have been writing music, and whatever proofreading powers that let the book out into the world drew a bit of a blank when it came to the Strozzi piece.

I began thinking seriously about myself as a composer about ten years ago. The late 1990s was a time of forward feminist thinking that translated itself musically into the re-discovery of many 19th century women who wrote music. Some of the "high profile" composers were excellent like Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, and Louise Farrenc, and some where not so great, like Alma Mahler. Because of the dedication of recording companies and musicologists, I have been able to draw a great deal of inspiration from hearing the works of Germaine Tailleferre, Lili Boulanger, Amy Beach, and Ruth Crawford Seeger, who still, in spite of their staying power, carry with them the title of "woman composers."

In a day when "woman driver," "woman banker," "woman writer," and "woman doctor" would be considered rather silly to use in polite and educated company, I fear the the title "woman composer" is still with us. I have actually never considered myself one, and one of my goals in life is to be able to write good music without having to be put in the sub-category of "woman composer." And oh how I wish I could find more women who write music and think about music critically willing to talk about it on the composer's forums on line.

Tags: composers, women, classical music, Pauline Oliveros

David Levenson

I came across David Levenson's obituary in the Boston Globe today. He was my theory and counterpoint teacher at Newton South High School. Two of the people quoted in the obituary, William Wright (who I knew as Billy), and Frank Powdermaker, were both in my theory and counterpoint classes. I believe that there were six of us in the counterpoint class back in the 1975-1976 school year, and, mostly due to the no-nonsense teaching of David Levenson, four of us went on to become professional musicians.

Setting the Record Straight

For some odd reason I started thinking about Rohan Joseph, a man I knew in New York during the late 1970s. I met him through a friend who introduced me to him as an idealist who would probably be willing to take part in helping him form an orchestra in New York that would provide an alternative to the New York Philharmonic. Gee. I was as interested as the next flutist in having some kind of orchestral employment and not having to leave New York.

Rohan's plan was to get people who enjoyed playing chamber music to play together on Sunday afternoons at his apartment. His idea was that this core group of people would form the core of the orchestra. What musician doesn't like the idea of playing chamber music with the promise of eventual employment?

Rohan got me to get my friends at Juilliard to come and play. Sometimes I would play stuff with him. He was a rather weak pianist, but he assured me that he was a brilliant conductor. I was impressed by the way he could play chess with many people at once and win every game, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

He had already assembled a board of directors for what he called the American Philharmonic Orchestra. The "celebrity" on the board was Xavier Hermes, though during my two-year association almost daily with Rohan I never actually managed to meet him. The only board member I actually met was an airline pilot who was very generous with money but knew very little about music. Rohan had a roster of principal winds, and I was going to be the principal flutist. There was some talk (from Rohan) about David Nadien playing a concerto with the orchestra, which got everyone excited and got several principal string players from major orchestras (whom I knew and encouraged to consider working with Rohan) interested in possibly playing concertos themselves.

As the orchestra roster continued to grow, so did Rohan's dreams. He imagined that the orchestra might have its own building where people could live. He imagined playing concerts at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. He also imagined that if he could get Juilliard students interested, he could enlist some more powerful and connected players from the freelance world. He did, and eventually he ended up holding auditions for every position. He hired powerful people in the freelance world to listen to the auditions, and I was no longer guaranteed the position of principal flute in the orchestra because I had to audition as well.

My audition went well, but I was given the position of second flute. The first season had only single flute music (a Bruckner Symphony and Schubert's 5th). I was rather heartbroken, but I tried to understand and make the best of the situation.

For some reason the principal flutist could not make the first rehearsal, and Rohan asked me if I would play. I wasn't happy about it, but my loyalty as a friend made it impossible for me to refuse. I had a real shock at the first rehearsal. Rohan was probably the worst conductor I had ever seen in my life. He had no sense of rhythm, no beat, and he didn't really seem to know the score. Everything became clear to me, and I resigned.

I left the country a few months later, and when I returned to New York in 1982 there were American Philharmonic posters all over Lincoln Center. There was also a spread about the orchestra in the Sunday New York Times.

I just found out this evening that Rohan died in 2003. It seems that he returned to Sri Lanka, where the music reviewers loved him. Here is an obituary for him. Here is another. Here is a review from the New York Times archives from 1982 of one of his concerts.

What a strange musical world we live in.

Tags: Rohan Joseph, American Philharmonic, Conductors, Classical Music

A Smattering of Brilliance

I just came across this glimpse of what television used to be like: Fred Astaire singing with Oscar Levant on Levant's own television show (where he could do and say whatever he wanted to do and say). It looks as if someone used a film camera to film the television show back in the day, the sound is often distorted, but it is really wonderful to watch and listen to this really rare gem.

Tags: Fred Astaire, Oscar Levant, Gershwin

Violin Lore

While searching for information about a Waltz by Mischa Levitzki, transcribed for violin and piano by Sascha Jacobsen, I came across this bit of violin lore on Jacobsen's instrument. This page has a magnificent story which I will quote here:

On Jan. 16, 1953, as a violent rainstorm pelted Los Angeles, Sascha Jacobsen, concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, was driving along the coastal highway to Pacific Palisades, the Red Diamond in its case beside him. His car stalled near Santa Monica and water from an overflowing stream began to surround the vehicle and fill it up. Seeking to escape the flood, Jacobsen grasped his violin case, stepped from the car into the rising waters and struggled through the torrent to higher ground. The Red Diamond was swept from his arms and out to sea as he barely made his way to safety. He watched, helpless, as the violin case floated away.

The next day, a prominent Los Angeles attorney, Frederick H. Sturdy, was walking along the beach of the Bel Air country club and spotted a violin case stuck in the sand. Inside the case he found slime, sand, water--and the pieces of a violin. By amazing coincidence, Sturdy was a friend of Alfred Wallenstein, music director of the Philharmonic. When he learned the following day of Jacobsen's disaster and the loss of the Red Diamond, Sturdy immediately contacted Wallenstein. Identified as the lost Strad, the salt water-logged and sand-encrusted violin parts were entrusted to Hans Weisshaar, an outstanding luthier. Over the next nine months, Weisshaar painstakingly restored the violin, returning it to its former glory...both in tone and appearance, Jacobsen later wrote in appreciation. He told friends the Red Diamond sounded better than ever.

In 1971, a few years after Jacobsen's death, the Red Diamond was sold at auction by Sotheby's in London for $67,600--far more than it was insured for at the time of its ocean ordeal. The violin was put on the auction block by Sotheby's again in 1985, with an asking price of more than $1 million, but was not sold at that time. A few years later, an anonymous collector purchased it privately for an undisclosed sum--surely paying as much for the magic of its reincarnation as for its other exemplary attributes.

Tags: violin lore, violin, Stradivari, Red Diamond, Sascha Jacobsen

Finishing a Piece of Music

It feels great to finish a piece of music! It is satisfying to know that all the notes are in their proper places, but it is also a relief because I won't have to have this piece for oboe and strings, as much as I like it, running through my head all the time (especially when I'm trying to sleep). I'm hoping that the magic of the US postal system will allow it to leave my head; that tomorrow's mail carrier will have magical powers to give me a bit of silence before I start thinking about my next piece.

Light Vegan Cornbread

I would have put a picture on this post, but my family and I finished the whole batch at dinner (with vegan chili, of course). It is a little bit on the sweet side, but the sweetness is perfect with the heat of black bean chili made with chipotle peppers.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and mix together

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup white flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup soy milk powder
2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a smaller bowl or glass mix together

1 cup water
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and bake in a greased baking dish for 25-30 minutes.

Tags: vegan, cornbread

Dounis Bow Twister

One of the ways that Dounis suggests improving staccato playing is through practicing this bowing exercise using the Kreutzer Etude #2. I think that it is one of the most difficult mental discipline exercises I have ever tried. This example shows two of forty-eight different ways of confusing the bow arm with combinations of up-bows and down-bows at the point of the bow, the middle of the bow, and the frog. I have been doing one bowing configuration every day, repeating the bowing pattern for the whole Kretuzer etude, shifts and all. I hope that this kind of practice is building up some kind of coordination between my brain and my bow arm.

I showed it to two of my students. One had as difficult a mental time as I had, but after playing a few measures of her Wohlfahrt etude this way, she was able to breeze through it easily with regular separate bows. My other student took to it immediately, and he got a kick out of the mental challenge. I guess that the term "different strokes for different folks" is operative here.

Tags: Dounis, violin practice, bowing exercise

Mozart's Birthday Concert

Just in case someone reading this might be in the general neighborhood, here's an invitation to a Mozart's Birthday Concert that I just made. I'm kind of proud of it, which is why I'm posting it here.

Tags: Mozart, Debussy, East Central Illinois, Concert

Beethoven Serenade

New Year's Day is always a bit nostalgic for me. Last night, while I was going through a box of letters and cards from Auld Lang Syne, I came across this photograph of a painting my mother did of my father, my brother, and me playing the Beethoven Serenade. I remember the dress: it must have been around 1978.

Playing Music on the Street

I used to do a lot of playing on the street when I was a flutist. I started doing it in New York in the late 1970s. I even played flute duets with people who went on to become famous flutists like Jeff Khaner, who is now the principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as a whole bunch of other Juilliard students who have gone on to find "legitimate" work in music. Jeff and I used to play in front of a book store in Greenwich Village. The book store people liked it because we brought in business, and we liked it because we always got a nice audience and actually made what we felt was a respectable amount of money. Back in the 1970s the whole thing was rather novel and exciting for people walking on the streets, and it was a way for me and my musical partners to feel like were were a part of the city.

When I went off to Austria I continued playing music on the street because I was in serious need of money. I was preparing to go to a flute competition in Budapest that required a bunch of solo flute music, so I sometimes even played alone. One day while I was playing on the street in Graz, an art student drew this portrait of me. Then she went away for a little while and returned with a whole bunch of brightly-colored chalk, and drew the same portrait on the sidewalk itself. When I moved to Vienna, the Kartnerstrasse became my new "work place." I played there every day with a Finnish bassoonist, and we did quite well for ourselves until it started to get cold. People photographed us all the time, and I'm sure that many tourists thought that what they were hearing were Austrian musicians. I really had the time of my life.

When I returned to New York after being in Europe I tried playing on the street again. It wasn't the same. The "hot" venue was now Columbus Avenue on the upper west side. I do remember having a great time playing with a violinist named Jenny Nilsen, who I believe is now married to Garrison Keillor, but street playing had already become a fixture of New York life and was no longer the kind of novelty it had been a few years earlier. People were walking around with Sony Walkmans (Walkmen?) in their ears, and it seemed that in order to be successful you needed to have some kind of act, shtick, or ballyhoo in order to grab people's attention. Eventually people started getting permits and using amplification. Now they even sell CDs.

Playing on the street in Boston in the 1980s was also interesting. The place to play was Harvard Square, and securing a place on the square with some protection from wind and traffic noise was difficult. I remember one particularly difficult evening when I had gotten a great spot in front of the Harvard Coop. My busking companions and I were probably playing Haydn or Mozart, and we were totally blown out of the auditory waters by a Klezmer band. I believe that group was what now has become the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

I haven't played on the street for a long time, and as a string player I don't think I would want to expose my instrument to the elements the way I did as a flutist. When I hear someone play on the street who plays well, I always stop, listen, and try to remember what it was like when I played on the street in a more innocent time. A time when hearing someone play un-amplified music in an unexpected place was a moment of serendipity.

Perfect Vegan Banana Bread

I have finally perfected vegan banana bread. Unlike most of the banana bread recipes I have used, this one is moist and light. I thought I'd share it.

2 T Earth Balance (vegan margarine)
3/4 cup sugar
4 ripe bananas
1/3 cup water
1/2 t cider vinegar
2 cups white flour
2 T soy milk powder
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground nutmeg

Heat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease a square 8x8 baking pan (I use a glass one). In a large bowl, cream the Earth Balance and the sugar, add the bananas, and mix until smooth.

Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the vinegar to the wet ingredients, and add the wet mixture to the dry. Bake for an hour.

Tags: vegan, banana bread

Granular Dounis

My very eloquent husband Michael wrote an excellent article about granularity, the process of breaking large tasks up into smaller pieces, for lifehack.org. I decided to use the granularity principle to cut up my new 300 page Dounis book into smaller pieces. The grid system I used when I was working through Opus 12 chopped those exercises into 480 little bites, but now that I have grown (or my technique and strength-building needs have grown), I can digest and process larger pieces of Dounis.

Here is what I did. I put tabs on the different sections, and I play a healthy chunk of each section every day. After I have played a chunk, I put a post-it note at the beginning of the chunk I plan to do the next day. How much of the chunk I decide to play is up to me, but I do know that eventually I will get through the whole book.

Here is a photo of my system. Notice that I also have a special "Dounis Clip" attached to the left hand page. That keeps the page open. It works for cookbooks too.

An Inconvenient Truth

At the insistence of our son, we saw An Inconvenient Truth the other night. It just came out on DVD, and we rented it from our local video store. It is a movie that everyone should see right away, because everybody needs to know the dangers of global warming, and everyone needs to act right away to help reduce the amount of excess carbon dioxide that goes into the air. As of the other night, we now use long-life light bulbs that use less electricity than normal light bulbs (and they are just as bright), and we walk to do many of our errands, like going to the store. I hope that the little things we do will be able to make some kind of difference.

Tags: global warming, saving electricity, inconvenient truth

The Dounis Collection

I am now the proud owner of The Dounis Collection, Carl Fischer's collection of Eleven of Demetrius Constantine Dounis' books of exercises and studies for the violin. At 303 pages there is just too much to organize with my grid system, so I need a new routine. My first step was to put little tabs on the book to mark the sections that I want to make sure to cover every day. I'm grateful to Carl Fischer for publishing all this Dounis and for making the book in such a way that it stays open (with only a little manipulation) on a music stand.

Tags: Dounis, violin, practicing