The Ludovico Technique in Action

From Weaponizing Mozart

In January it was revealed that West Park School, in Derby in the midlands of England, was “subjecting” (its words) badly behaved children to Mozart and others. In “special detentions,” the children are forced to endure two hours of classical music both as a relaxant (the headmaster claims it calms them down) and as a deterrent against future bad behavior (apparently the number of disruptive pupils has fallen by 60 per cent since the detentions were introduced.)

One news report says some of the children who have endured this Mozart authoritarianism now find classical music unbearable. As one critical commentator said, they will probably “go into adulthood associating great music—the most bewitchingly lovely sounds on Earth—with a punitive slap on the chops.” This is what passes for education in Britain today: teaching kids to think “Danger!” whenever they hear Mozart’s Requiem or some other piece of musical genius.

The classical music detentions at West Park School are only the latest experiment in using and abusing some of humanity’s greatest cultural achievements to reprimand youth.

This really crosses the line for me. I saw A Clockwork Orange only once, and even though it was 30 years ago, it still terrifies me more than any memory of any movie. There are many ways that exposure to Mozart (and others) can improve the lives of young people, but this is not one of them.

Brainwaves and Music

Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego on Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers listening to music could be converted back to sound.
In one example where volunteers listened to Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, when the brainwaves were played back the song was clearly recognisable.
She said: "When we play the brainwaves back as sound, although they don't sound exactly like the song, it is pretty similar. It shows that the brain matches the physical properties of sound very closely."

You can read the whole article, with the alluring title, "Audiences hate modern classical music because their brains cannot cope," here.

The Werner Icking Music Archive Needs Help

MARCH 8 UPDATE: Everything looks good. The WIMA is up and running. There are still a few things to fix, but you can access it here.

FEBRUARY 27 UPDATE: There are some solutions being explored. Hopefully the WIMA will have a new home soon.

The Werner Icking Music Archive, an archive dedicated to providing thousands upon thousands of free PDF files for musicians, has suddenly (and without notice) lost its server. If anyone has any ideas about providing space for this extremely valuable corner of the internet, please either leave a comment or send me an e-mail message. I will relay the information to editor of the Archive.

Here is the message that I received this morning from the editor of the Archive (which is also in the comments):

Since 2007 WIMA has been hosted by DAIMI (The Dept. of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark). Unfortunately this has suddenly stopped. A few hours ago the DAIMI staff, without precedent warning, disabled WIMA's part of the DAIMI web server. The reason is that WIMA is causing a too high load on DAIMI's web servers, threatening the faculty activities.

For the time being WIMA takes up 16G disk space. The January Webalizer visit statistics came out to 2,165,121 total hits, and 1,628,099 total files. Here are the rest of the stats:

Hits per Hour : 2,910 (Average) 11,532 (Max)
Hits per Day : 69,842 10,2820
Files per Day : 52,519 84,621
Pages per Day : 2,164 3,571
Sites per Day: 3,935 6,069
Visits per Day : 1,279 1,436
KBytes per Day : 10,805,387 103,106,373

Perhaps someone reading this might be connected to a university (or know someone at another university) that would appreciate the prestige of hosting such an important website. The WIMA was the first website devoted to making public domain classical music available for free over the internet. It is managed superbly, and it contains a great deal of early music (pre-baroque) that is not part of the Petrucci Library, as well as a great deal of new music by living composers.

Everything you always wanted to know about countertenors . . .

. . . in three easy podcasts! Jeffrey Dooley and Nick Fritsch talk about the countertenor voice in its historical context, featuring wonderful recordings (and discussions about recordings) by Russell Oberlin.

Joachim by Spy

My father had this Spy (his real name is Sir Leslie Matthew Ward) portrait of Joseph Joachim on the wall of his teaching room for as long as I can remember. Now that he is no longer teaching, he was kind enough to send it to me! Joachim now looks down on my students while they play (and he looks down on me when I teach). I'm glad that this print is hanging far enough away for my students not to see Joachim's straight thumb (on his bow hand) or the raised index finger on his left hand!

You can see more Spy portraits here.

Answers in the Back of the Book

I had a special math book when I was in the fifth grade. It had coded answers in the back for all the homework assignments. I cracked the code, and got 100s on all my homework assignments, but I didn't learn a thing. I credit the difficulty I still have with math to that wasted year. I was just a kid. I didn't tell anyone in authority about it, and I thought I was pretty smart to have cracked the code.

I still use the "back of the book" often: when I want to find information, I go to a book's index. When I find a book without an index, finding the "answer" I need is very difficult. Sometimes I just give up and go to another source.

Every semester I notice that a student or two spends a great deal of class time copying definitions from the glossary in the back of the text book (the 5th edition of Listening to Music by Craig Wright). I let them use their notes for the final exam, which is a listening-only final, so some students figure that all they need to know is in the back of the book. Some think that using their class time to do this is time well spent (even though they miss most of what I'm trying to teach them). Before exams I see too many students studying those glossary pages. I tell them at the beginning of the semester not to do this, but they are drawn to the glossary like hawks to carrion.

I make study guides for exams available at the very beginning of the "unit" that we are studying. I even have a blog page where I put supplementary material and offer links to articles to clarify what we cover in class. Many don't bother to use the blog page. I suppose that the students think that the true "authority" is the 10-page glossary in the back of their textbook, with definitions that the can memorize (outside of any context) without understanding much of anything. It seems that the more students rely on their glossary, the worse they do on exams. The latest exam proves it in spades, bruises, and gum wrappers swirling in the wind that this method of studying just doesn't work.

My solution would be to integrate the glossary with the index. If you are listening, Dr. Wright, please consider this request.

Half of life is just showing up is simply half-assed

I sometimes get frustrated with students. They seem to have taken the conventional mid 20th-century statement that "half of life is just showing up" to heart, body, and soul. Just showing up for a class and not paying attention is pretty much the same as not showing up at all, even if it is a music class. Hearing music without listening to it will leave you with the vague memory that you just heard something. Listening without "hearing" everything is far preferable to hearing without listening. At least listening without "hearing" everything (with music it is often difficult to hear everything that is to be heard) demonstrates some kind of involvement in the task at hand.

I did a google search for "half of life is just showing up" (in quotes) and came up with 240,000 instances of it on line. This post will make 240,001. As far as I can tell, it is considered "conventional wisdom." I think it is conventional bunk.

It is attributed to Woody Allen, who I would like to imagine said it ironically, just as "She had style, she had flair, SHE WAS THERE, that's how she became the Nanny" is meant to be funny. The last two decades of the 20th century seems to have spawned a generation of college students who believe that the most useful thing that they can do is to show up for class. They don't have be prepared, they don't have to engage in discussions, or (God forbid) ask questions. They feel that it is adequate to register themselves as physically present, hauling half their asses to classes, and leaving their attention somewhere else.

Imagine if teachers and professors simply showed up, and felt fine about putting in half the effort of teaching, grading half of their students' papers, covering half of the material of the course.

The Spirit of Business: The Enemy of Music?

Arthur Loesser discusses attitudes towards music in the Puritan England of the 16th century through the 18th century in Men, Women & Pianos:

I would say, the enemy of music was might loosely be called the spirit of business. One had better use the word in its pristine sense of busy-ness. It does not mean primarily the direct desire for gaining money, which is a feeling that animates the most dissolute of gamblers. Rather, it means a persistent, hour-to-hour, devoted, rational application to a progressive task, a self-denying, calculating dedication to a perpetually growing achievement--not necessarily a lofty one--a suffusion by the feeling that "we are here in life for a purpose." The life of purpose can readily be directed toward handicraft of commerce: its fruit then would be money. But the money that came from this steady, alert industry would not be a mere gratification of greed or opportunity for indulgence; it would rather be interpreted ethically, as the just and visible reward of good behavior. A man, for instance, who got rich and richer by making felt hats relentlessly and intelligently for eighteen hours a day for forty years could then fix a self-satisfied gaze upon his wealth as the sign of God's approval of his intelligent relentlessness. It is clear that, to a mind of this set, music or any other fine art must be a thing of doubtful worth. The time spent in acquiring skill on an instrument is a "waste of golden hours." Music in itself may do no harm, but overfondness for it might lead a young man to spend too much time in taverns where he might overdrink, or in theatres where he might associate with loose women: all that would distract him from his busyness.

Loesser is, of course, talking about men here. Women (at least of a certain class) could devote their time to playing without compromising their usefulness.

Thought for the Day: Immanuel Kant on Genius

Genius is an aptitude to produce something for which no definite rule can be postulated; it is not a capacity or skill for something that can be learnt from some rule or other. Its prime quality, then, must be originality . . . . The aptitude cannot of itself describe how it creates its products, or demonstrate the process theoretically, though it provides the rules by itself being a part of nature. Thus the progenitor of a work of art is indebted to his own genius and he does not himself know how the ideas for it came to him, not does it lie within his power to calculate them methodically or, should he so wish, to communicate them to others by means of principles that would enable others to create works of equal quality. It is through genius that nature prescribes the rules of art.

This is from Immanuel Kant's Kritik der Urteilskraft, published in Berlin in 1790. I found this passage, translated by Peter le Huray and James Day, quoted in Unfinished Music by Richard Kramer.

Here is the full passage in a translation by J.H. Bernard

Beautiful Art is the art of genius

Genius is the talent (or natural gift) which gives the rule to Art. Since talent, as the innate productive faculty of the artist, belongs itself to Nature, we may express the matter thus: Genius is the innate mental disposition (ingenium) through which Nature gives the rule to Art.

Whatever may be thought of this definition, whether it is merely arbitrary or whether it is adequate to the concept that we are accustomed to combine with the word genius (which is to be examined in the following paragraphs), we can prove already beforehand that according to the signification of the word here adopted, beautiful arts must necessarily be considered as arts of genius.

For every art presupposes rules by means of which in the first instance a product, if it is to be called artistic, is represented as possible. But the concept of beautiful art does not permit the judgement upon the beauty of a product to be derived from any rule, which has a concept as its determining ground, and therefore has at its basis a concept of the way in which the product is possible. Therefore, beautiful art cannot itself devise the rule according to which it can bring about its product. But since at the same time a product can never be called Art without some precedent rule, Nature in the subject must (by the harmony of its faculties) give the rule to Art; i.e. beautiful Art is only possible as a product of Genius.

We thus see (1) that genius is a talent for producing that for which no definite rule can be given; it is not a mere aptitude for what can be learnt by a rule. Hence originality must be its first property. (2) But since it also can produce original nonsense, its products must be models, i.e. exemplary; and they consequently ought not to spring from imitation, but must serve as a standard or rule of judgement for others. (3) It cannot describe or indicate scientifically how it brings about its products, but it gives the rule just as nature does. Hence the author of a product for which he is indebted to his genius does not himself know how he has come by his Ideas; and he has not the power to devise the like at pleasure or in accordance with a plan, and to communicate it to others in precepts that will enable them to produce similar products. (Hence it is probable that the word genius is derived from genius, that peculiar guiding and guardian spirit given to a man at his birth, from whose suggestion these original Ideas proceed.) (4) Nature by the medium of genius does not prescribe rules to Science, but to Art; and to it only in so far as it is to be beautiful Art.

You can read all of Berhard's 1914 translation of the Critique of Judgement on line!

Yamaha Recall

This important notice has been floating around the internet, and I just wanted to make sure that readers of this blog get the message.

Yamaha has recalled 20,000 pianos due to a problem with the pedal sticking, causing pianists to play faster than they normally would, resulting in a dangerous number of accidentals. The sticky pedal also makes it harder for jazz pianists to come to a full stop at the end of a piece making it extremely risky for audiences.

We can all thank my friend Sharry for sending this my way.

And we can thank Bernie Zaslav for forwarding me this lively (albeit pun-ridden) continuation today (March 21):

Although there have been a tremendous number of accidentals, fortunately it has so far caused no deafs. Analysts are wondering if it will put a damper on their bass market and if they will be able to sustain sales. Congress is also considering calling in the President of Yamaha for questioning as to when the company first learned about the treble.

Here's an update on that Yamaha piano recall: Congressional inquiries brought a sharp response from president Mitsuru Umemura of Yamaha, who quickly played down the scale of the problem before taking the fifth. "Only a few modal years are affected by what is a relative minor problem," he replied tiercely. With no progression towards a resolution, sales of Yamaha pianos have gone flat, and market analysts predict an interval of diminished revenue for the company. The
president announced that Yamaha would triadvertising more and fine tune their marketing strategies in order to augment sales.

N.B. I take no credit (or blame) for these puns, and neither does Bernie. "Tierce" is another word for the interval of the third. "Triadvertising" is a stretch, but there is no way to truly hyphenate it so that the "triad" part of the word stands out.

Corey Cerovsek, Josef Gingold, and Yehudi Menuhin

This film clip begins with Cerovsek riding a bicycle in Bloomington, Indiana (again, shades of "Breaking Away"), makes a jaunt up to Canada for a rehearsal of the Bach Double with Yehudi Menuhin, and then brings us back to Bloomington for a bit of the Bach Double with Cerovsek and his teacher Josef Gingold. At the very end we see a photo of Menuhin as a young man sitting on a bicycle, and then we get an extraordinarily insightful statement from him (at the age of 76) about childhood in relation to music. The larger film ends with a performance of the Bach Double with Cerovsek and Menuhin.

This post is inspired from a conversation I'm having with my friend Martha who has the delightful opportunity to play a concert with Cerovsek in Bloomington tomorrow.

RIP the string program that gave us Joshua Bell

The Monroe County school district (that's Bloomington, Indiana, to the outside world) has figured out a way to save the district $20,000 per year: deprive 150 elementary school students of the opportunity to have a string program in school. Joshua Bell began playing violin in that string program. I seem to remember that Joshua Bell's mother, Shirley Bell, had something to do with the success of that program. The program certainly had something to do with the success of her son. Here's the article.

$20,000 a year looks like the part-time salary of one person (certainly doing full-time work). The school district has also eliminated their school librarians.

My son Ben mentioned reading Book Eight of Aristotle's Politics. Perhaps this might be a good moment to consider what Aristotle had to say (scroll down to Part III) about the value of music education in a civilized state.

It is like "Breaking Away" all over again, but the cutters are now the budget cutters, making an even more striking contrast between "town" and "gown" in university-town America.

What does "minuet" actually mean?

I have taught minuets to scads of students--far too many to count, but today, for the first time, one of my students actually asked me why these things are called minuets. The Question of why a minuet was called a minuet never dawned on me, so I looked it up.

The name comes from the small, dainty step (mini steps, if you will). You can see those mini steps here. I also learned that "menuetto" is not a word, even though Beethoven used it once in a while. While I was at it, I looked up "gavotte." The name of this dance comes from Pays de Gap where the inhabitants were known as "gavots." Pays de Gap was located in the former province of Dauphiné, where, it seems, skiing has taken the place of dancing.

Karl Richter: A Great Argument for Playing Bach on Modern Instruments

Richter's recordings, made before people began to question the validity of playing Bach on modern instruments, were my introduction Bach. Here's a really good example of the way Bach's music transcends time, trends, instruments, and media.

It's Such a Good Feeling

Did you know that the introduction to "the neighborhood" is inspired by Beethoven? Michael just sent me this video of Johnny Costa that I just have to share!