How the English Language was Developed

[Thanks, Carrie!]

Inadvertent YouTube Cagean Moment

Yesterday I had my last classes of the semester. My morning class, which covered later music from the later 20th and early 21st centuries went pretty well, despite the fact that I loaded up the browser of the windows classroom computer with 19 or 20 YouTube videos. I held my breath, and everything went as planned.

Feeling confident for my afternoon class, I loaded the browser (Firefox) with one or two more videos than I had used in the morning (I couldn't resist the the temptation to give examples of all three parts of Reich's Different Trains). When the first Messiaen piece played with an almost still video picture, I had a feeling that everything was doomed to fail. There is no silence as deep as the silence of a class watching a teacher wrestle with a computer. Even the silence of 4:33 doesn't compare. When the title for one piece and the silent and still picture for another were being displayed at the same time, I knew I was in serious trouble.

The silence was broken when I simply said "to hell with it" (to myself, of course), and decided to try to close the browser. Nothing happened. I tried various things in the task manager, but nothing happened. Then all the tabs began opening up, and layers of Carter, Babbitt, Messiaen, Seeger, Glass, Cage, Dun, and Reich started entering like Renaissance points of imitation.

I had to identify which was which (which was surprisingly easy because each of these pieces is surprisingly different from the others), but the tabs wouldn't close. When the Mad King in Davies' "Eight Songs for a Mad King" started screaming, I had to laugh. When the loops of Cage's Microtonal Ragas came to the foreground, I explained to the class that we were having a true Cagean moment. The only problem is that I didn't have the chance to explain Cage to them before this happened (and I can never depend on students to do their reading), so I was alone in my appreciation of the chaos. The students were smiling only at my folly. I thought I was in the middle of a teaching nightmare.

I tried closing the browser again, and this time it seemed to actually close, but the music kept on playing. And playing. And playing.

I was, finally, able to get about 45 minutes of the 75-minute class in (gosh, this fiasco lasted for a half an hour!), and I think that the students might actually have learned something about later 20th century music.

Try it for yourself. Load up as many of these YouTube videos as you dare, and play them at the same time. The effect is truly remarkable.

Advertures in the Closet

Like many people who live in post-Walmart, small-town America, if I don't want to buy my clothes at Walmart (and I don't feel like going out of town), I have to get them by mail order. Looking through my closet yesterday, I noticed that the places my mail order clothes (from American companies) were made looks like a set of destinations on a travel guide for Asia.

Then I noticed the clothes I have from TravelSmith (the home of the best travel concert clothes as well the green sweater I seem wear almost every day, and wear in most every photo) . . .



were made in the U.S.A.

When I bought this vest from L.L. Bean nearly thirty years ago (and I still wear it) . . .



just about everything you bought at L.L. Bean was made in the U.S.A.

What's in your closet?

Scandal: The Stuff of Opera

Check out this article about Puccini's love life. Compared to it, his operas are almost tame!

Viola d'amore Sul Palco in the Humming Chorus

The Humming Chorus of Puccini's Madame Butterfly could be considered three of the most beautiful wordless minutes in all of opera (particularly when you hear it in context). I just found out, from a glance at the score . . .



that the viola d'amore part (which is hardly ever performed with an actual viola d'amore) is supposed to be played from the stage. That really changes everything. The chorus of humming sopranos and tenors is off stage, Butterfly, Suzuki, and baby Dolore are in silhouette behind the screen of their Japanese house waiting motionlessly for Pinkerton to return, and the only movement you see (in Puccini's inner eye and score) is a viola d'amore player, with a scroll that reminds us that love is blind.



There is a visual echo of a viola d'amore scroll a few measures from the end of the second act when Butterfly blindfolds her son.

[No spoilers here for those who have not yet experienced the opera.]

Ruth Crawford Seeger's Transcription of "Ground Hog"

This is what happens when a great composer puts together folksong books for children. We should remember the kinds of things that the children she raised did with their lives, for music, and also for children. And yes, Eden, one of these days you will be able to turn the tuning pegs on your ukulele!

"Oh well" and Other Treats from "On The Town"

I just love Eileen Ferrell's "Oh well. . ." As for Lennie's voice (which comes in for a verse towards the end), it is certainly "singular."



Here Monica Zetterlund sings it with the Bill Evans Trio, and Tyne Daly (as Hildy) shows how well she can cook:



Of course no visit to "On The Town" is complete without hearing Carried Away and Lonely Town.

Autumn Leaves for Two Violins

Here's a slide show with computer-generated audio of the fourth and final installment of the seasonal duets I have spent the year writing for Marjorie Kransberg-Talvi and Ilkka Talvi. Eventually the computer-generated audio will be replaced with violin-generated audio!



You can get the music here.

Now That's What I Call String Theory

This interview with Michio Kaku on today's installment of Fresh Air totally blew my mind.

Well, very simply, that all the sub-atomic particles - neutrons, protons, quarks - are nothing but musical notes on a tiny rubber band, that when you twang the rubber band, it changes from one frequency to another. So it changes from an electron to a neutrino. And you twang it enough, it can turn into all the subatomic particles we see in the world.

So all the subatomic particles that make up our body are nothing but different notes on many, many, many tiny little violin strings, little rubber bands, and that physics is nothing but the laws of harmony of these vibrating strings. Chemistry is nothing but the melodies you can play on these vibrating strings. The universe is a symphony of strings, and the mind of God that Einstein wrote eloquently about the last 30 years of his life, is cosmic music resonating through 11-dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.

28 Minutes of Awesome and Thrilling Bliss from Saint-Saens and Richter

I just found this complete live recording from April 3, 1955 of the Saint-Saens Egyptian Concerto. Back in my radio station days we had a copy of the LP, and I played it whenever I could. After I left the station the powers that were sold all the station's LPs (without my knowledge), and I never thought I would hear this performance again. Now I can share it here. Sviatoslav Richter is playing with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, and the conductor is Kiril Kondrashin.

Temperate Temperament

The Thanksgiving trip that Michael and I took to Los Angeles was the first trip to a sunny place that we took together (and we've been together for almost 28 years). In addition to being a palm-tree-filled botanical wonder (albeit mostly artificial), Los Angeles is a vegan's delight. Every restaurant we visited (chosen, of course, by our daughter) had vegan options, and most of the restaurants that we visited had many. Some were primarily vegan. This is not something I experience often.

One restaurant in an area called "Larchmont," where the Spanish Colonial architecture of "Miracle Mile" (where we were staying with our daughter and her boyfriend) gives way to "New England Village," offered free coffee drinks to vegans who filled out a post-meal questionnaire. I also wrote down everything I could see about the Green Enchiladas I had eaten in my little red book, and I'm making them for dinner tonight. I learned from this video that the free coffee I had was roasted on site:



This vegan paradise, covered by a clear sky and beautiful weather, is set in a city teeming with the kind of ethnic diversity we lack in the only-slightly-expanded monoculture of East Central Illinois. And where we have miles upon miles of empty ('cause the growing season is over) corn and bean fields, Los Angeles has miles upon miles, upon miles of businesses--some trendy, some steadfast, and some downright dowdy. We have two-lane and four-lane roads, and Los Angeles has six lanes of traffic on its freeways. Our daughter navigates them like a native. I don't know if I could.

Returning to the cold and grey rain of Illinois was depressing, but returning has also been a lesson in temperament for me. I returned to my year-long project of writing seasonal violin duets, and feel new-found gusto for the violin duets I'm writing about Fall. I call the set "Autumn Leaves," and I seem to have a more distinct sense of what is and what is not Autumn after returning to it from the endless summer of Los Angeles.

[I noticed that the Sweet Gum is one of the few deciduous trees growing in Los Angeles. Now I understand the confusion I noticed with one of the Sweet Gums in our neighborhood I noticed last week. Once they lose their leaves, they are ready to grow new ones. Perhaps they don't really need the long winter to be dormant. The confused tree now has brown leaf tips, and now it looks like any other Gum preparing for its long winter's nap.]

I keep telling myself that if I were to move to LA, I wouldn't get much done in the way of creative work and in the way of practicing, I could never make enough money to support what would surely become a vegan restaurant habit, I would have a really difficult time finding playing work, and even a more difficult time trying to find a place for myself in the creative musical community.

I have a new wool coat, an insulated hat, and some really warm boots in the closet. I feel adequately prepared for the cold weather that is beginning to make its home in the Midwest. I am very grateful that I have the ability to entertain myself with gastronomical and musical projects, and I know that the sun will come out one of these days. Even if it is shining on ice. Perhaps I really do have a temperate temperament.

Eames Words on Wednesday

The day that Michael and I chose to visit museums in LA happened to be the day that most of them are closed. We did, however, after a rather long walk, make it to the Architecture and Design Museum for their Eames Words exhibit. What a treat it is to arrive at a museum and be able to sit in a variety of Eames chairs, each one offering a particular variation on the theme of functional sitting and comfort, and take in statements about design that apply just as well to composing music as they do to making chairs.

Fiddlers on the Walk

Michael and I were in Los Angeles for Thanksgiving, and returned to the grey, wet, cold midwest last night. Imagine my surprise when I found these three violinists and a violist on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!



And here's Harpo Marx's harp, in his own hand:

The Viola in his Life: Article in the Palo Alto Weekly

Rebecca Wallace wrote an excellent article about Bernie Zaslav's book in this week's Palo Alto Weekly. You can view the article with pictures here. Just click on "section 1" of the November 18th edition where it says "Virtual Edition," and make your way to page 19.

More Seasonal Confusion

Perhaps it isn't that odd to see one of these pop its head out in mid November . . .



but this was a real surprise!