DICK GORDON: [it] must have been such a wonderful time to be a talented musician in New York.What a treat it was to hear this interview with the 97-year-old pianist Frank Glazer.
FRANK GLAZER: . . . It’s a wonderful time to be a musician any time.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
A Wonderful Time to be a Musician
Telemedicine Post at Paleofuture
This picture comes from the cover of a 1925 issue of Science and Invention magazine, and I found it at Paleofuture.
While you are at the Smithsonian site, make sure to check out this (far too short) video about getting sound out of old recordings.
Monday, March 12, 2012
The Difference is in the Doing
I think that one difference between what we call "classical music" and what we might call "popular music" or "commercial music" (including music written in the various idioms used for what we call "classical music") has a lot to do with the motivations of a composer. The same composer can, of course, write music that is intended to be commercial as well as write music that is done with little regard for how it sells (or is consumed). There have always been great composers who wrote both commercial (or popular) and non commercial music. I suppose it has a lot to do with who the consumer of the music happens to be, and how s/he consumes it.
I believe that commercial music is written primarily to engage audiences. Film music is written to manipulate an audience to react to visual images and narrative in a particular way. Opera is too, and even more so in the 20th century. What we call "pop music" is very intensely geared to appeal to an audience, and it is "consumed" mostly by people who are not practicing musicians. Vocal pop music is often defined by a singer (or THE singer) connected with a song rather than the composer of a song, unless it happens to be a rare instance when it is the same person. In the case of the singer-songwriter, the idea of writing the song in the first place seems to be about sharing an emotional experience directly with an audience, where it is often consumed like "pop music," but is then "covered" by people who want to sing it themselves (and often not for an audience).
I assume that I'm not alone when I mention that communicating something to an audience is the last thing I have in mind when I write a piece of music. I write music in order to communicate with musicians and allow communication between the musicians who are playing the music I write. It is their business to communicate their interpretation to an audience. My job ends (if all goes well) where their jobs begin.
I have read that Telemann's motivation for writing music was to give people music that they enjoyed playing. I believe that Bach's motivation was similar, but he also had a job where his music needed to demonstrate the teachings of the Lutheran church. He managed to combine the whole enjoyment of playing thing and the manipulation of spirit thing rather seamlessly. Even people who describe themselves as not the least bit religious are moved emotionally when they listen to Bach's religious music. Instrumentalists who play Bach's non-religious music find personal enjoyment in the process of practicing it. And the personal enjoyment is something that we experience daily. For most of us there is no need to perform Bach's music. We play it because of what it does for us in our own private spaces.
Haydn and his contemporaries published string quartets so that people could play them for collective enjoyment. The challenges and jokes that he put in his music are there to enhance the private musical discourse. When Mozart wrote his "Haydn" Quartets, he did so as a way of communicating with a composer he admired. I believe that the idea of performing them for an audience would have been the furthest thing from his mind. The commercial success for most of the composers of the Classical Period came from the sales of their music. It's kind of like the concept of commercial success for Milton and Bradley comes from the sales of their games.
Sure, Mozart and Haydn did write music that was intended for audiences, and those audiences were often important ones that included monarchs and patrons, but I believe that some of their "public" music was different from the music that they wrote for their friends and for musicians they admired. I think that they wrote chamber music and piano music primarily for people to enjoy playing, and I believe that they always wrote their orchestral music (particularly Haydn, who had standing relationships with the members of his orchestra) so that the musicians would enjoy themselves while playing it. In Beethoven's later years he cared a great deal about what audiences thought of his Quartets (like the late Quartets), but those people were often musicians themselves, and Beethoven was an exception to all rules.
Moving forward to the period of uncommon practice (a.k.a. today), composers write their music for musicians to play and enjoy. The idea of the standard musical ensemble has expanded greatly. There are a great number of percussionists who like to use large numbers of instruments. There are people who enjoy using sophisticated electronic instruments, people who have expertise using extended techniques, microtones, and multiphonics, and people who enjoy exploring non western scales. Many of these musicians are young, and many are interested in playing new music written by people of their generation. The existing repertoire would be very small (if existent at all) for an ensemble made of tuba, percussion, flute, harp, bassoon, and French horn, and for such an ensemble to survive as a performing group, it would need good new music to play. I like to think that composers who would write for a young ensemble like the hypothetical one above would be more concerned about how playable the harp part is, if the bassoon can be heard above the tuba, or whether the percussionist can participate in the ensemble without dominating, than how an audience will respond to his or her musical ideas.
Members of the listening public and consumers of recorded music should remember that there is a lot of new music that is not being written for your enjoyment. It is being written for the enjoyment of the intended performing musicians, and for the enjoyment of other ensembles made of the same instruments as the intended ensemble. If they succeed at communicating the essence of a piece of new music to you, they have succeeded in their mission. If they don't, it could have something to do with the composer (who, if given a chance to hear a performance, can correct the problems in the work), or it could have something to do with errors of judgement (or notes, or rhythms) made by the performing musicians.
I really don't believe that contemporary composers should be judged against composers from a previous eras. I don't believe that living composers should be judged against dead ones. (The living composer can grow, and the dead one can't.) I also don't believe it is fair to judge a composer from the "common practice" period against a composer from what I call the "uncommon practice" of the present day. There will never be another Rameau, J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, or Shostakovich (to give just a few examples). These were all singular musical personalities who continue, long after their lives ended, to challenge our imaginations and remain relevant and modern. I believe they all speak to the musicians who play their music now with the same voices they spoke with while they were living, but as "consumers" of music (everyone reading this post is probably, on some level, a consumer of music) we need to keep an open mind about what the music of today means to today's young musicians. The best stuff will survive because people will want to play it, and the stuff that nobody wants to play might have to wait for another generation to find musicians who appreciate. It could also simply fade into oblivion. Only time will tell. While we wait, musicians will still enjoy playing music written by the composers on the above list and by composers who may have not been as well respected or well known during their lifetimes.
I'll end this little rant by paraphrasing a statement I heard Stephane Wrembel make about the influence Django Reinhardt has on him: you can work under the shadows of great composers, or you can be illuminated by their light.
I believe that commercial music is written primarily to engage audiences. Film music is written to manipulate an audience to react to visual images and narrative in a particular way. Opera is too, and even more so in the 20th century. What we call "pop music" is very intensely geared to appeal to an audience, and it is "consumed" mostly by people who are not practicing musicians. Vocal pop music is often defined by a singer (or THE singer) connected with a song rather than the composer of a song, unless it happens to be a rare instance when it is the same person. In the case of the singer-songwriter, the idea of writing the song in the first place seems to be about sharing an emotional experience directly with an audience, where it is often consumed like "pop music," but is then "covered" by people who want to sing it themselves (and often not for an audience).
I assume that I'm not alone when I mention that communicating something to an audience is the last thing I have in mind when I write a piece of music. I write music in order to communicate with musicians and allow communication between the musicians who are playing the music I write. It is their business to communicate their interpretation to an audience. My job ends (if all goes well) where their jobs begin.
I have read that Telemann's motivation for writing music was to give people music that they enjoyed playing. I believe that Bach's motivation was similar, but he also had a job where his music needed to demonstrate the teachings of the Lutheran church. He managed to combine the whole enjoyment of playing thing and the manipulation of spirit thing rather seamlessly. Even people who describe themselves as not the least bit religious are moved emotionally when they listen to Bach's religious music. Instrumentalists who play Bach's non-religious music find personal enjoyment in the process of practicing it. And the personal enjoyment is something that we experience daily. For most of us there is no need to perform Bach's music. We play it because of what it does for us in our own private spaces.
Haydn and his contemporaries published string quartets so that people could play them for collective enjoyment. The challenges and jokes that he put in his music are there to enhance the private musical discourse. When Mozart wrote his "Haydn" Quartets, he did so as a way of communicating with a composer he admired. I believe that the idea of performing them for an audience would have been the furthest thing from his mind. The commercial success for most of the composers of the Classical Period came from the sales of their music. It's kind of like the concept of commercial success for Milton and Bradley comes from the sales of their games.
Sure, Mozart and Haydn did write music that was intended for audiences, and those audiences were often important ones that included monarchs and patrons, but I believe that some of their "public" music was different from the music that they wrote for their friends and for musicians they admired. I think that they wrote chamber music and piano music primarily for people to enjoy playing, and I believe that they always wrote their orchestral music (particularly Haydn, who had standing relationships with the members of his orchestra) so that the musicians would enjoy themselves while playing it. In Beethoven's later years he cared a great deal about what audiences thought of his Quartets (like the late Quartets), but those people were often musicians themselves, and Beethoven was an exception to all rules.
Moving forward to the period of uncommon practice (a.k.a. today), composers write their music for musicians to play and enjoy. The idea of the standard musical ensemble has expanded greatly. There are a great number of percussionists who like to use large numbers of instruments. There are people who enjoy using sophisticated electronic instruments, people who have expertise using extended techniques, microtones, and multiphonics, and people who enjoy exploring non western scales. Many of these musicians are young, and many are interested in playing new music written by people of their generation. The existing repertoire would be very small (if existent at all) for an ensemble made of tuba, percussion, flute, harp, bassoon, and French horn, and for such an ensemble to survive as a performing group, it would need good new music to play. I like to think that composers who would write for a young ensemble like the hypothetical one above would be more concerned about how playable the harp part is, if the bassoon can be heard above the tuba, or whether the percussionist can participate in the ensemble without dominating, than how an audience will respond to his or her musical ideas.
Members of the listening public and consumers of recorded music should remember that there is a lot of new music that is not being written for your enjoyment. It is being written for the enjoyment of the intended performing musicians, and for the enjoyment of other ensembles made of the same instruments as the intended ensemble. If they succeed at communicating the essence of a piece of new music to you, they have succeeded in their mission. If they don't, it could have something to do with the composer (who, if given a chance to hear a performance, can correct the problems in the work), or it could have something to do with errors of judgement (or notes, or rhythms) made by the performing musicians.
I really don't believe that contemporary composers should be judged against composers from a previous eras. I don't believe that living composers should be judged against dead ones. (The living composer can grow, and the dead one can't.) I also don't believe it is fair to judge a composer from the "common practice" period against a composer from what I call the "uncommon practice" of the present day. There will never be another Rameau, J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, or Shostakovich (to give just a few examples). These were all singular musical personalities who continue, long after their lives ended, to challenge our imaginations and remain relevant and modern. I believe they all speak to the musicians who play their music now with the same voices they spoke with while they were living, but as "consumers" of music (everyone reading this post is probably, on some level, a consumer of music) we need to keep an open mind about what the music of today means to today's young musicians. The best stuff will survive because people will want to play it, and the stuff that nobody wants to play might have to wait for another generation to find musicians who appreciate. It could also simply fade into oblivion. Only time will tell. While we wait, musicians will still enjoy playing music written by the composers on the above list and by composers who may have not been as well respected or well known during their lifetimes.
I'll end this little rant by paraphrasing a statement I heard Stephane Wrembel make about the influence Django Reinhardt has on him: you can work under the shadows of great composers, or you can be illuminated by their light.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Midnight in Venice
It is interesting to compare these two pieces:
Antonio Lauro's Vals Venezolano #2
Stephane Wrembel's Bistro Fada
Antonio Lauro's Vals Venezolano #2
Stephane Wrembel's Bistro Fada
Musical Chairs
You can learn a great deal about the professional musical world by exploring this appropriately-named website. Make sure to notice how many youth orchestras there are in the United States, and those are just the ones who know about this site (where you can post information about the active organizations in your neck of the musical woods). I found the jobs category particularly interesting.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Hans Bach
I love this woodcut portrait (made in 1617) honoring the first professional musician we know of in Johann Sebastian Bach's family tree. Hans Bach lived from around during the middle third of the 16th century and died in the second decade of the 17th century (the date here reads 1615). He worked as the fool at court of Ursula, Duchess of Wurtemberg.
Notice the nifty little fiddle in one hand, and the glass of beer or wine in the other. And I love the way Hans is surrounded by pictures of his carpentry tools. Johann Sebastian could have looked at this picture of his great grandfather with some of the same amusement and wonder that we have. Check out the odd hanging thing with a bell on the end next to the word "Laborios." I suppose it would be one of the tools of his jester trade, just like the other stuff might represent the tools of his other job at court.
The Latin caption calls him a celebrated witty fool, a laughable player (I suppose "fidicen" could be a pun on fiddle), and a hard working man who is unaffected and pius.
Notice the nifty little fiddle in one hand, and the glass of beer or wine in the other. And I love the way Hans is surrounded by pictures of his carpentry tools. Johann Sebastian could have looked at this picture of his great grandfather with some of the same amusement and wonder that we have. Check out the odd hanging thing with a bell on the end next to the word "Laborios." I suppose it would be one of the tools of his jester trade, just like the other stuff might represent the tools of his other job at court.
The Latin caption calls him a celebrated witty fool, a laughable player (I suppose "fidicen" could be a pun on fiddle), and a hard working man who is unaffected and pius.
Friday, March 09, 2012
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Lack of Mentors? Thoughts about Thoughts about International Women's Day
I was pleased to see an acknowledgement of International Women's Day in the musical blogosphere. In his take on why "there are so few female composers" Tim Rutherford-Johnson provides a list of mostly living 20th and 21st-century composers who have written avant-garde music (that has been recorded). His idea that the lack of teachers and mentors is responsible for the dearth of female composers (there isn't a dearth, by the way) misses the mark.
Nadia Boulanger was, by all accounts, the most important composition teacher of the 20th century. She was also an excellent composer, but she stopped writing after the death of her sister Lili, who was, even as a very young person, one of the finest composers of the 20th century, of either gender. One of the reasons I think Nadia Boulanger devoted herself to teaching rather than to composition was that she felt that, perhaps, she could help develop other composers develop the way she helped Lili develop. Many of her students were women (you can find an incomplete list of her students here.) In addition to her composition students there are a large number of analysis students on the list. A great part of teaching composition is teaching analysis.
From where I sit in the 21st century I can clearly see an early-20th-century trend involving the rise of women as artistic and literary figures as well as important figures in the sciences. (Madame Curie and Rosalind Franklin are two examples that come to mind). And then somewhere in the middle of the century, perhaps around the time of McCarthyism and the prominence of Virgil Thomson as a music critic (click here for google search for the term Virgil Thomson and Misogyny, though most of the material that comes up is from Google Books) women were forced back to the margins of creative culture.
Marion Bauer is an example of a first rate composer who fell victim to Thomson's mysogyny. He deemed her too conservative to be considered an equal to the 20th century composers he admired. I imagine that he found her to be intimidating (she was a far better composer than he was), and that he used his power of influence to try to take her down.
A couple of female-friendly decades followed Thomson's death (friendly to women who were composers and women who did other creative things), and though we don't yet have an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, at least as of 2009 women are legally entitled to get equal pay for equal work.
I fear the the neo (or pseudo) McCarthyites that have invaded the second decade of the 21st century are trying their darnedest to marginalize women once again. With the marginalization of women as composers, even retrospectively, (and even inadvertently) comes the marginalization of the contributions of women to the greater culture.
My short answer for what a 21st-century female composer needs to succeed? The big ones are talent, technique, time, and a support system. It needs to be a financial support system as well as an artistic one, and it needs to provide opportunities for a composer who is a women to be able to hear her music performed. And she needs to hear it performed more than once. She needs to have critical feedback from people who know what they are listening to, and she needs to have her music evaluated in the same way that her male counterparts have their music evaluated. She needs to learn first hand, and in proper acoustics, what works and what doesn't.
Teachers and mentors she has. It is opportunity that helps her grow as a composer.
Nadia Boulanger was, by all accounts, the most important composition teacher of the 20th century. She was also an excellent composer, but she stopped writing after the death of her sister Lili, who was, even as a very young person, one of the finest composers of the 20th century, of either gender. One of the reasons I think Nadia Boulanger devoted herself to teaching rather than to composition was that she felt that, perhaps, she could help develop other composers develop the way she helped Lili develop. Many of her students were women (you can find an incomplete list of her students here.) In addition to her composition students there are a large number of analysis students on the list. A great part of teaching composition is teaching analysis.
From where I sit in the 21st century I can clearly see an early-20th-century trend involving the rise of women as artistic and literary figures as well as important figures in the sciences. (Madame Curie and Rosalind Franklin are two examples that come to mind). And then somewhere in the middle of the century, perhaps around the time of McCarthyism and the prominence of Virgil Thomson as a music critic (click here for google search for the term Virgil Thomson and Misogyny, though most of the material that comes up is from Google Books) women were forced back to the margins of creative culture.
Marion Bauer is an example of a first rate composer who fell victim to Thomson's mysogyny. He deemed her too conservative to be considered an equal to the 20th century composers he admired. I imagine that he found her to be intimidating (she was a far better composer than he was), and that he used his power of influence to try to take her down.
A couple of female-friendly decades followed Thomson's death (friendly to women who were composers and women who did other creative things), and though we don't yet have an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, at least as of 2009 women are legally entitled to get equal pay for equal work.
I fear the the neo (or pseudo) McCarthyites that have invaded the second decade of the 21st century are trying their darnedest to marginalize women once again. With the marginalization of women as composers, even retrospectively, (and even inadvertently) comes the marginalization of the contributions of women to the greater culture.
My short answer for what a 21st-century female composer needs to succeed? The big ones are talent, technique, time, and a support system. It needs to be a financial support system as well as an artistic one, and it needs to provide opportunities for a composer who is a women to be able to hear her music performed. And she needs to hear it performed more than once. She needs to have critical feedback from people who know what they are listening to, and she needs to have her music evaluated in the same way that her male counterparts have their music evaluated. She needs to learn first hand, and in proper acoustics, what works and what doesn't.
Teachers and mentors she has. It is opportunity that helps her grow as a composer.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Male and Female Musicians and Physical Attractiveness
During these first few days of Women's History Month I have been thinking about the role that physical attractiveness seems to play in the careers of women, particularly women who are performing musicians.
Pauline Viardot was, by many accounts (and photos), not a terribly attractive woman. Heinrich Heine wrote (when she still known as Pauline Garcia, before she was married) about her particular type of ugliness:
Amy Beach was not a particularly attractive young woman
(though, as an older woman she did have an unusual sort of beauty), but she was able to achieve remarkable success as both a performing pianist and as a composer. It was her music that mattered, not her looks.
There have been legions of male 20th century performing musicians and composers who would have fit into the "less-than-attractive" category.
This photograph shows one male musician who definitely exceeds the standards of normal attractiveness, and one who certainly falls short of the parameters of normal attractiveness. Both men had tremendous talent, intellect, social skills, and ability, and both had great careers. Copland's looks never hampered his career (and Bernstein's looks never hurt his). The world of music is filled with the faces of men who were, even as young men, particularly unattractive. Of the 20th-century male composers and performing musicians I know with less-than-attractive faces, no one seems to have been unfairly judged as a musician because of his looks.
Women who appear before the public have always been judged by their looks. During the 20th century a man could get away with appearing clean and (sometimes) combed, and be judged by what he said (or in the case of a performing musician, how he played). Some women (and some men) have considered (and still do consider) certain less-than-attractive men tremendously attractive because of their intellect, substance, and power. A less-than-attractive woman has to try to make herself attractive in order for people to even consider her intellect or substance. If she presents the aura of being powerful (and she is not particularly attractive) she becomes particularly suspect. Consider Emma Goldman.
Consider what I call the Boyle Effect. Remember the hubbub that her looks caused, and the subsequent media obsession with her "makeover?" Consider the way Hillary Clinton had to slave over her appearance when she was running for president in 2008, and now that she has proven that her brains are more important in her current job than her looks, she doesn't have to waste her time trying to look 20 years younger than she is.
Now, in the 21st century, it seems that both men and women HAVE to look attractive in order to have careers as soloists. Never in my life have I seen so many photographs of attractive musicians in the "classical" field. Could it be that we are all simply getting better looking because of what we do? I doubt it. Perhaps the photographs are just getting better (not to mention the magic of orthodonture).
Pauline Viardot was, by many accounts (and photos), not a terribly attractive woman. Heinrich Heine wrote (when she still known as Pauline Garcia, before she was married) about her particular type of ugliness:
"She is ugly but with a kind of ugliness which is noble, I should almost say beautiful…. Indeed the Garcia recalls less the civilized beauty and tame gracefulness of our European homelands than she does the terrifying magnificence of some exotic and wild country…. At times, when she opens wide her large mouth with its blinding white teeth and smiles her cruel sweet smile, which at times frightens and charms us, we begin to feel as if the most monstrous vegetation and species of beasts from India and Africa are about to appear before us."All Ginette Neveu had to do to have a performing career (short as it was--she was killed in a plane crash) was play the hell out of the violin. She didn't have to try and glamorize herself.
Amy Beach was not a particularly attractive young woman
(though, as an older woman she did have an unusual sort of beauty), but she was able to achieve remarkable success as both a performing pianist and as a composer. It was her music that mattered, not her looks.
There have been legions of male 20th century performing musicians and composers who would have fit into the "less-than-attractive" category.
This photograph shows one male musician who definitely exceeds the standards of normal attractiveness, and one who certainly falls short of the parameters of normal attractiveness. Both men had tremendous talent, intellect, social skills, and ability, and both had great careers. Copland's looks never hampered his career (and Bernstein's looks never hurt his). The world of music is filled with the faces of men who were, even as young men, particularly unattractive. Of the 20th-century male composers and performing musicians I know with less-than-attractive faces, no one seems to have been unfairly judged as a musician because of his looks.
Women who appear before the public have always been judged by their looks. During the 20th century a man could get away with appearing clean and (sometimes) combed, and be judged by what he said (or in the case of a performing musician, how he played). Some women (and some men) have considered (and still do consider) certain less-than-attractive men tremendously attractive because of their intellect, substance, and power. A less-than-attractive woman has to try to make herself attractive in order for people to even consider her intellect or substance. If she presents the aura of being powerful (and she is not particularly attractive) she becomes particularly suspect. Consider Emma Goldman.
Consider what I call the Boyle Effect. Remember the hubbub that her looks caused, and the subsequent media obsession with her "makeover?" Consider the way Hillary Clinton had to slave over her appearance when she was running for president in 2008, and now that she has proven that her brains are more important in her current job than her looks, she doesn't have to waste her time trying to look 20 years younger than she is.
Now, in the 21st century, it seems that both men and women HAVE to look attractive in order to have careers as soloists. Never in my life have I seen so many photographs of attractive musicians in the "classical" field. Could it be that we are all simply getting better looking because of what we do? I doubt it. Perhaps the photographs are just getting better (not to mention the magic of orthodonture).
3 Minutes of Barber-Hadelich Bliss
Three minutes is just enough to get my atoms to align themselves properly, but oh how I wish it didn't have to end!
Friday, March 02, 2012
Life Imitating Art in The Paper Chase?
Sometimes you find two people who bear remarkable similarities to one another, even though they might come from different centuries and very different cultures. Here's an amusing example.
Then there are fictional characters who bear a remarkable resemblance to real people. We usually assume that those characters were modeled on real people, but sometimes the real person, due to the magic of long-running weekly television programs, can identify with or even model him or herself on a fictional character. Take the fictional character of Franklin Ford III, played by Tom Fitzsimmons, on The Paper Chase television series. Fitzsimmons, who seems to have left the acting business, was born in 1947, a year of birth that he shares with a person who has been appearing daily on television and the internet for the past couple of years.
You can see Fitzsimmons in character on the far right side of this picture (standing, wearing a sweater):
And you can see him in this promo for the DVD of the first season. Pay particular attention at the 13-second mark, the 18-second mark, and the 27-second mark.
The character of Franklin Ford III (known as "Ford" even by his sister) is a legacy at Harvard Law School. His father is a very prominent lawyer and an important financial supporter of the school. Ford's character is rather rigid, he feels superior to his classmates (except for those he knows in his heart of hearts are as capable a law student as he is). He has problems with connecting with his feelings, and his classmates (and his audience) have a certain empathy for him. The character of Ford is, in many ways, a "poor rich guy," because he can't seem to really understand what it means to be a "normal" person.
It is quite remarkable that Fitzsimmons, writers John Jay Osborn, Jr. (who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1970 and must have written the novel on which the movie and television series is based while he was still in school), James Bridges, and director Jack Bender managed to come up with this "cocktail" of a fictional character who turned out to be so similar, in profile (or perhaps the word should be pedigree), style, image, and substance to a person who is very real. On the other hand, there might have been some deep identification with the character of Ford on the part of the person in current public life I'm making reference to (you have figured out by now who he is) when he watched the television series, which ran from 1978-1986. And I imagine he watched it religiously. Perhaps Osborne and Bender followed the career of this public figure, and asked Fitzsimmons to study his mannerisms.
There is the Ford and General Motors coincidence, but that could be neither here nor there. I will say no more, except for the fact that the "heart of hearts" phrase in the above paragraph that describes Ford was a totally unintentional pun (but I'll take credit for it). The main character of the series, and the person who is Ford's main intellectual rival, is named James T. Hart.
Then there are fictional characters who bear a remarkable resemblance to real people. We usually assume that those characters were modeled on real people, but sometimes the real person, due to the magic of long-running weekly television programs, can identify with or even model him or herself on a fictional character. Take the fictional character of Franklin Ford III, played by Tom Fitzsimmons, on The Paper Chase television series. Fitzsimmons, who seems to have left the acting business, was born in 1947, a year of birth that he shares with a person who has been appearing daily on television and the internet for the past couple of years.
You can see Fitzsimmons in character on the far right side of this picture (standing, wearing a sweater):
And you can see him in this promo for the DVD of the first season. Pay particular attention at the 13-second mark, the 18-second mark, and the 27-second mark.
The character of Franklin Ford III (known as "Ford" even by his sister) is a legacy at Harvard Law School. His father is a very prominent lawyer and an important financial supporter of the school. Ford's character is rather rigid, he feels superior to his classmates (except for those he knows in his heart of hearts are as capable a law student as he is). He has problems with connecting with his feelings, and his classmates (and his audience) have a certain empathy for him. The character of Ford is, in many ways, a "poor rich guy," because he can't seem to really understand what it means to be a "normal" person.
It is quite remarkable that Fitzsimmons, writers John Jay Osborn, Jr. (who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1970 and must have written the novel on which the movie and television series is based while he was still in school), James Bridges, and director Jack Bender managed to come up with this "cocktail" of a fictional character who turned out to be so similar, in profile (or perhaps the word should be pedigree), style, image, and substance to a person who is very real. On the other hand, there might have been some deep identification with the character of Ford on the part of the person in current public life I'm making reference to (you have figured out by now who he is) when he watched the television series, which ran from 1978-1986. And I imagine he watched it religiously. Perhaps Osborne and Bender followed the career of this public figure, and asked Fitzsimmons to study his mannerisms.
There is the Ford and General Motors coincidence, but that could be neither here nor there. I will say no more, except for the fact that the "heart of hearts" phrase in the above paragraph that describes Ford was a totally unintentional pun (but I'll take credit for it). The main character of the series, and the person who is Ford's main intellectual rival, is named James T. Hart.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Must Reading: Paul Matthews' "The Cycle of Get"
Most composer-on-composer crime in the university happens in private meetings. These are personnel issues in which the participants are sworn to confidentiality. Sometimes these ethical bonds are so strong, it takes both gin and tonic to dissolve them. We’ve all heard the stories, spread with suspicious annotations like the fingerings in cheap editions of Mozart’s sonatas. But when these matters do not concern employment, public speculation and second-guessing is only inhibited by tact. And tact, it turns out, is a poor inhibitor.This substantial article by Paul Matthews is filled with lots of entertaining puns and turns of phrase, but they clothe many really important statements about music and the musical life.
Placido Domingo and Stephen Colbert Interview Transcript
After hearing Placido Domingo and Stephen Colbert sing together, I was pleased as punch to find this interview transcript. You will need to scroll down a bit to read it.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Establishing Musical Authority: A Rant
It seems that the very first thing we learn about teachers is that they have authority over students. As children we have all experienced the powerlessness connected with being "judged" by our teachers.
Obedience from students is highly valued in a classroom music situation because it gives the instructor the illusion that the students understand the musical directions and are eager to act upon them. Students learn early on (and sometimes against their better judgement) that the conductor or leader of a group is the one making the music, and that it is the role of a good "team player" to go with the flow and follow directions. What I have noticed from my perch on the other side of childhood, is that the end product of this kind of teacher-student relationship can result, if it is is not immediately addressed, in musical passivity and lack of musical awareness on the part of students. It also results in people who develop the desire to become school band and chorus directors for the perceived power connected with such a position.
I was very lucky as a child. I had formal music teachers who taught their students to listen to one another. I had formal music teachers who were in the business of teaching music because they loved the true expression that results when young people love what they were doing, whether it be singing or playing. I don't recall any of my elementary chorus teachers or orchestra teachers having to establish authority, because everyone participating in their ensembles (which were all after school ensembles) were there to make music. The vocal ensembles I sang with throughout my time in Junior High and in High School (in Newton, Massachusetts) were exceptional. What did the kids in them do for fun? We got together for parties and sang the music we knew. There was no "director" when we did this. We followed the piano (and there was usually a kid who could play the piano accompaniments). I admired and respected my musical colleagues, and I loved making music with them.
Perhaps this early indoctrination into cooperative music making has caused me to value the cooperative musical experience: the idea that participating in a chamber music ensemble means that every person has the obligation to contribute to the interpretation, and nobody is the "authority." Even as a composer I do not feel the need to be the "authority" in a musical situation.
Why is it that young musicians tend to have difficulty with this? Why must a small performing group have a leader? Could it be the practices of the musical hierarchies at higher academic institutions? Could it be the importance given to the "lesson plan," something people learn in music education classes? Could it be that the "authority" role is given to the composer, who, often being dead has to have his or her "authority" interpreted by a single human being armed, at times, with a set of rules?
When I play in an orchestra I do follow the conductor and I follow the bowings of the section leader. I feel that in an orchestra (made of many playing the same part) the best contribution I can make is to play the notes, rhythms, articulations, and dynamics in my music, blend with my stand partner, and give energy to the sound of the section as a whole. But the difference between section playing and chamber music, where everyone plays his or her own part, is that everyone is responsible for keeping the tempo, everyone is responsible for playing together, and everyone is responsible for the interpretation. I have found that music making improves exponentially when everyone has a stake in the interpretation, and the experience is often less than satisfying when there is one leader among the people playing or singing who takes "ownership" of the situation.
Perhaps it is difficult to teach cooperative chamber music playing in a university situation. Chamber music ensembles in university settings often have coaches, and students usually rely on those coaches (who usually do know a lot if they are coaching chamber music in a university situation) to tell them what to do. A coach who comes to a rehearsal and tells the ensemble that they need to work their interpretation out amongst themselves might not be the kind of coach that would produce the best results. When coaching it is really difficult not to make suggestions (especially when those suggestions might really improve things). Left to their own devices, and without the presence of an authority figure, some students might not take a musical situation seriously (i.e. learn his or her part, remain focused on the task at hand, or even show up for rehearsal). When everyone is at the same "rank" in an essentially hierarchical situation, students may not respect one another enough to work on their own.
Perhaps it has something to do with my experiences, but I do not like being in the position of a musician who is expected to dictate "how" something should go. As a composer I try to put everything that is necessary for my part of the interpretation into the music, but I don't expect a group to replicate the ideas I have in my head. I expect to hear new ideas, and I expect to hear things I never noticed before. I like to voice suggestions and observations, and I like it when people take my ideas seriously, but the idea of "authority" in a musical situation is abhorrent to me because there is no "authority." Music making often involves making instance-by-instance decisions, and change and inspiration (that often come only through intuition) are the very things that make experiences with music truly meaningful.
Obedience from students is highly valued in a classroom music situation because it gives the instructor the illusion that the students understand the musical directions and are eager to act upon them. Students learn early on (and sometimes against their better judgement) that the conductor or leader of a group is the one making the music, and that it is the role of a good "team player" to go with the flow and follow directions. What I have noticed from my perch on the other side of childhood, is that the end product of this kind of teacher-student relationship can result, if it is is not immediately addressed, in musical passivity and lack of musical awareness on the part of students. It also results in people who develop the desire to become school band and chorus directors for the perceived power connected with such a position.
I was very lucky as a child. I had formal music teachers who taught their students to listen to one another. I had formal music teachers who were in the business of teaching music because they loved the true expression that results when young people love what they were doing, whether it be singing or playing. I don't recall any of my elementary chorus teachers or orchestra teachers having to establish authority, because everyone participating in their ensembles (which were all after school ensembles) were there to make music. The vocal ensembles I sang with throughout my time in Junior High and in High School (in Newton, Massachusetts) were exceptional. What did the kids in them do for fun? We got together for parties and sang the music we knew. There was no "director" when we did this. We followed the piano (and there was usually a kid who could play the piano accompaniments). I admired and respected my musical colleagues, and I loved making music with them.
Perhaps this early indoctrination into cooperative music making has caused me to value the cooperative musical experience: the idea that participating in a chamber music ensemble means that every person has the obligation to contribute to the interpretation, and nobody is the "authority." Even as a composer I do not feel the need to be the "authority" in a musical situation.
Why is it that young musicians tend to have difficulty with this? Why must a small performing group have a leader? Could it be the practices of the musical hierarchies at higher academic institutions? Could it be the importance given to the "lesson plan," something people learn in music education classes? Could it be that the "authority" role is given to the composer, who, often being dead has to have his or her "authority" interpreted by a single human being armed, at times, with a set of rules?
When I play in an orchestra I do follow the conductor and I follow the bowings of the section leader. I feel that in an orchestra (made of many playing the same part) the best contribution I can make is to play the notes, rhythms, articulations, and dynamics in my music, blend with my stand partner, and give energy to the sound of the section as a whole. But the difference between section playing and chamber music, where everyone plays his or her own part, is that everyone is responsible for keeping the tempo, everyone is responsible for playing together, and everyone is responsible for the interpretation. I have found that music making improves exponentially when everyone has a stake in the interpretation, and the experience is often less than satisfying when there is one leader among the people playing or singing who takes "ownership" of the situation.
Perhaps it is difficult to teach cooperative chamber music playing in a university situation. Chamber music ensembles in university settings often have coaches, and students usually rely on those coaches (who usually do know a lot if they are coaching chamber music in a university situation) to tell them what to do. A coach who comes to a rehearsal and tells the ensemble that they need to work their interpretation out amongst themselves might not be the kind of coach that would produce the best results. When coaching it is really difficult not to make suggestions (especially when those suggestions might really improve things). Left to their own devices, and without the presence of an authority figure, some students might not take a musical situation seriously (i.e. learn his or her part, remain focused on the task at hand, or even show up for rehearsal). When everyone is at the same "rank" in an essentially hierarchical situation, students may not respect one another enough to work on their own.
Perhaps it has something to do with my experiences, but I do not like being in the position of a musician who is expected to dictate "how" something should go. As a composer I try to put everything that is necessary for my part of the interpretation into the music, but I don't expect a group to replicate the ideas I have in my head. I expect to hear new ideas, and I expect to hear things I never noticed before. I like to voice suggestions and observations, and I like it when people take my ideas seriously, but the idea of "authority" in a musical situation is abhorrent to me because there is no "authority." Music making often involves making instance-by-instance decisions, and change and inspiration (that often come only through intuition) are the very things that make experiences with music truly meaningful.
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