What Music is and Why We Need It

I had an extraordinary day yesterday. In the afternoon I read chamber music that was all new to me (The Benjamin Dale Phantasy for Viola and Piano, some viola and piano pieces by Theodor Kirchner, and some trios by Arnold Bax, Philipp Scharwenka, and Prince Heinrich XXIV Reuss of Köstritz. Physically exhausted (one really shouldn't play the viola for three hours in a row without a break, but I did), I spent the hour driving to my next rehearsal listening to a recording of violin and piano music that was mostly new to me, and then played the viola part of Shostakovich 5 for the first time (it was a awesome experience). During my ride home I heard a violin and piano suite by Malcolm Arnold, a violin and piano piece by Joaquin Rodrigo, and a string quartet by Félicien-César David. All three pieces were new to me, and all were fantastic ear-opening experiences.

I was so giddy with happiness that I didn't even notice any of the physical tolls of the day (and evening). Seeing the video below (which I found on Charles Noble's Nobleviola Blog) made me understand why.



This is why we do what we do. We make ourselves happy with music (and in my case it happens to be connected with musical discovery), and we share that happiness. That's it. That's all that matters. And we need to keep reminding ourselves that it matters. Every day.

Further Adventures in Noligraphy

I really should have been doing other things, but when the postal carrier delivered my set of Schmidt ballpoint cartridges, I had to construct my new Noligraph right away. I should have documented my process, but my hands were busy with the doing. I can tell you that this "Newligraph" writes better than the Noligraph because the weight is better in the hand, and the length allows for better balance. It feels kind of like a carpenter's pencil.



Here's what I did. I cut two pieces of cardboard (Sean Malone, who is responsible for this particular adventure, suggests the kind of cardboard that is used for legal pads) 15mm wide and 15 mm long. Then I cut two more pieces 15mm wide and 80 mm long. I lined the cartridges up with a ruler, and, following Sean's suggestion, bound them together with scotch tape. I placed the taped cartridges on top of the bottom 140 mm piece of cardboard and placed the two shorter pieces of cardboard beneath the cartridges. Then I put the other 140 mm piece on the top. I bound them together gently with scotch tape, and then wrapped the whole bundle in masking tape. I made the top out of cardboard and masking tape as well.



Total cost? The cartridges cost $5. The rest of the material, being normal household stuff, is negligible. Total time? It took me about 30 minutes, including taking the photographs and writing this post.

An Elegant Way of Marking Fingerings for String Players

The traditional markings string players use to indicate on which string a particular pitch should be played are Roman numerals. When they are notated above the staff, they indicate which string to play on. When we want to indicate position, we tend to use Roman numerals as well, so we put them in a different place (usually below the staff). When you have two sets of Roman numerals to consider, one above the staff, and one below the staff, things can get confusing. Roman numerals also take up a lot of vertical space on the page, and with all the other information given on pre-printed music (not to mention ledger lines), things can get cluttered. Here's an example of clutter from the Franck Violin Sonata.



The other day I came across the Phantasy for Viola and Pianoforte by Benjamin Dale, and noticed the elegant markings he (or Lionel Tertis, the editor of the piece, or Schott, who published it in 1912) used to indicate which string particular pitches should be played on.



Here's a bit of detail:



These markings made immediate sense to me, and this is the way I plan on marking fingerings from now on. Pitches on the A string are pretty obvious for violists, so there is no reason for using a single line for the A string. Two lines indicate a pitch should be played on the D string, three lines indicate it should be played on the G string, and four lines indicate that the pitch should be played on the C string. The lines are always below the finger number, and they act like icons that lead directly to location without the need of translation (or more numbers).

More Adventures in Noligraphy

This picture, taken from the final frames of the above video, shows that the artist made a cloth-wrapped extension for his Noligraph.

[Perhaps, giving a nod to the title of this video, "Geigenstrich," might be a good name for the home-made model, which could, actually (and by extension--I couldn't resist), use full-length refills.]

It Was a Different World

My aunt sent me this article from the September 6, 1964 New York Times. It is pretty astounding the way the musical world has changed during the last half a century.



Howard Klein mentioned that my parents had two boys. I must not have been at home during the interview. I recall that even at the tender age of five, I was pretty comfortable roaming around the neighborhood without adult supervision. It WAS a different world.

Adventures in Noligraphy

Last night, while looking for a blank sheet of paper to write down a musical idea, I came across a manilla file folder. I decided to try my Noligraph on it, and found that it took the ink really well (something that normal cheap paper doesn't always do to my satisfaction). This morning I boldly opened up the folder to its full and impressive width, made some broad and bold Noligraphic staves, and had the most wonderful time writing. The file folder paper is extremely durable, just the right color, takes pencil very well, erases well (always a good thing), and allows for a stable enough surface to write on while the paper is on a music stand. It's also cheap (a box of 100 costs $10).



What I like best, though, is the size. I love the staff size that the Noligraph offers, and I love the fact that I can continue a musical thought (at this size) without having to go on to a new system after a measure or two.



Some composers proudly claim that they never write at the piano--that they do everything in their heads. I find that there is nothing like being able to hear the actual sound of the instrument in real space while I am writing for it. And this file folder music paper sure makes it satisfying.

[Update: you can download the completed piece here.]

Fugavergnügen

This is a term I came up with some years ago (2006, to be exact) to describe the joy of writing counterpoint. I just thought I'd share it here.

Avril and Shamonia: an April Fool's Joke on Critics

Music by Coates, Rowley, Clarke, Dale, Carse, Fulton, Elgar, Moffat, Dunhill, Bridge, and Tertis
Dame Avril Piston, viola; Shamonia Harpa, piano
Guild GMCD 7275 73 minutes

This recording is a gift to the astute record reviewer. You can read a bunch of reviews from the Essex Chronicle, The BBC Music Magazine, the International Record Review, and a very good one by the independent writer Jonathan Woolf on the Classical Music Review Blog. My review in the the January/February 2005 issue of the American Record Guide didn't make it onto the Classical Music Review Blog's radar, but you can read it here:

Though the music is serious, rare, and very well played, this recording is actually a successful April Fool's joke (as the pseudonyms of the violist and the pianist reveal). The violist's character is described in the liner notes as a student of Lionel Tertis and the pianist is described as a champion of York Bowen. Both women are said to be in their 80s, though the violist has only been a woman since 1961. Before she was a Dame would she have been a Sir? I had never heard of Dame Avril Piston, so, being a dutiful researcher, I search for a male titled British violist named Piston, but I found nothing.

The playing, particularly the viola playing, does not sound like the playing of an octogenarian. Violists in their eighties, if they can still play at all, tend to vibrate slowly and often play out of tune in the high register. This violist, whoever s/he is, has fine intonation in the high register, a lovely and supple vibrato, and a great deal of power. The pianist is equally fine and equally strong. My questions led me to seek these musicians out on the internet, where I came upon a page of hilarious photos. It still took me a while to realize that the joke was on me.

Joking aside, this is a very nice collection of 20th century English viola music, much of it inspired by Tertis. There are recordings of the Bridge and the Clarke that I prefer to this, but I enjoy being introduced to the rest of the music, particularly the pieces by Alec Rowley, Adam Carse, and Eric Coates.

[It is unfortunate that those pictures have been removed from Guild's website.]

David Vernier was fooled. Walter E. Langsam, who made a comment on Tom Roper's blog, suggests the true identity of Shamonia Harper could be Stephen Hough, who has an excellent April Fool's post of his own today.

The Imaginary Trolls that Live Under the Bridge

I finally understand how to get the richest and most interesting sounds out of my viola and my violin. It all has to do with the mental image of directing the vibrations of the string towards the bridge, using any means necessary. My means are totally related to playing on the outside of the hair and directing the sound towards the bridge, which also gives the feeling that I am directing the sounds towards my heart. When the "trolls" who live under the bridge (I'm imagining cute little ones that are actually more like fairies or imps than trolls, but I like the image of paying a toll to the troll to be able to enjoy the rich sound; it's a mental image, and perhaps it doesn't make rational sense, but this image is sensual, not sensible) get excited, the sound expands and grows rich with vibrations.

Listening to the Julius Baker videos I posted the other day reminds me of the importance of air direction in flute playing. When I play the flute, I use my tongue to direct the airstream to the place that excites the little "trolls" that "live" just below the flute's permanent "reed" on the headjoint.



One danger with flute playing is to compress the air too much (perhaps with the muscles of the face and mouth), and kill the vibrations. The results can range from a sound that is forced and reedy to a sound that is dead and dull, and the rarity of excellent flute playing has to do with the immediate sensibilities of the player and serious control over the whole breathing mechanism and the articulation mechanism. I think it also has to do with the specific flexibility and agility of the tongue, which I understand is mostly genetic.

The various components of the breathing and articulation mechanisms in flute playing are directly analogous to the various components of the bow arm in string playing, but the advantage to string players is that they can breathe freely while they play, and wind players, obviously, cannot. String players can also release tension in their bodies through functional motion, while wind players risk looking conspicuous when they move. In the case of Julius Baker, he managed to deal with every possible aspect of tension mentally (and way ahead of time), so he could remain still, and could let the music do all the work while he was playing.

The big difficulty, with all three instruments is to maintain that overtone richness while moving from note to note. Therein lies both the difficulty and the fascination of the whole process of playing. With string playing there are the variables of string tension, string length, and getting from one string to the next, and with flute playing there are the issues involving the length of the tube, and going from one register to the next.

But once those trolls start to dance, you have to keep them in step and in line, particularly when the music at hand involves double stops!

Julius Baker Plays the Poulenc Flute Sonata and Villa Lobos Jet Whistle

These performances come from an early 1960s television broadcast. It is interesting to note that the pianist, Vladimir Sokoloff, made recordings with Baker's teacher, William Kincaid.

Advice for Musicians From Their Teachers

I put the following comment on Noa Kageyama's Bulletproof Musician Post (that he presents as a contest). I prefaced my comment with note that my comment is not an actual entry--just a comment.

It's about Julius Baker. I began this blog with a post about Julius Baker, and couldn't resist revisiting my memories of him when I saw Kageyama's question.

I studied flute with Julius Baker for four years (1976-1980) at the Juilliard School of Music. I met Julius Baker when he was in active recovery from a heart attack, and at a time when he was full of a kind of second wind (no pun intended) for living life to the fullest and embracing the idea of good health. He was, at that point, an example for a lot of people. He would get up at five in the morning and jog (he was in his early 60s at the time), and then drive from Brewster to Manhattan (about an hour, if the traffic wasn't bad) for a full day of rehearsing and teaching, and would have a performance at night with the New York Philharmonic. His teaching time was more "social time" than hands-on teaching. Lessons consisted mostly of meeting him for lunch in the faculty part of the cafeteria, and then going as a group to his studio and having masterclass-type lessons. From those classes I learned that it was important for a woman to dress well and look good, it was important to be extremely competent, and that if there were technical problems to be tackled, he was not the person to ask to solve them. He was an extraordinary player who taught by example (he advised his students to jog, for example). He showed us that social skills were of maximum importance, and that you should always be friendly to people, even if you didn't like them much. He always considered himself a "regular guy," and tended to relate to the "regular guy-ness" in people. He would talk to strangers with the intention of brightening their day.

It was very rare to have a private hour-long lesson with Julius Baker. In four years I may have had five or six. One moment in one lesson stands out in particular.

I was working on an etude by Marcel Bitsch. The Bitsch etudes are more like studies in writing for a solo line than they are technical etudes. There were a bunch of notes that made up a lyrical motive, and I suppose I just didn't "get" the sense of how they worked in relation to one another. Julius Baker played the passage for me, and it made a certain kind of sense. Then he likened the passage to playing a jingle (Prior to being the principal flutist for the New York Philharmonic, Baker had been a big freelance recording musician, and made a great living playing radio jingles), and told me that even if the jingle you are playing is not particularly interesting, it is your job to make those notes, those few seconds of music, as beautiful and as interesting as possible.

From that statement I understood that it was applicable to all music. That the job of a performing musician is to make every note and every phrase beautiful and interesting, regardless of the quality of the passage or even the piece. Now that I am older (much older), and know a great deal more about music than I did when I was a Juilliard student, I can apply Julius Baker's lesson in expanded ways. When the music is great--when a passage in question is a gem, your playing has to meet the expectations of the passage so that it can be as beautiful as it should be.

After I made the permanent switch from flute to viola (and violin), my family and I went to Brewster, New York to visit the Bakers, and Michael took this picture.


[Julius Baker, his wife Ruth, and the 39-year-old me on July 18, 1998]

Music Really Happens One Beat at a Time

With all the musical events happening all over the world, all the music that is being written, premiered, and discussed, and all the "talk" about the "industry" of classical music and its various "stars," it is easy to forget that most of the music making in the world happens off the internet grid. It happens between a musician and the pitches he or she is playing. It happens in the isolated spaces of composers who spend ridiculous amounts of time worrying about how best to get from one harmony to the next, or from one note to the next. It happens when performing musicians have rehearsals. It happens in lessons. It happens when people practice, and it happens when people play concerts in places far away from you or from me, and in places that are close by.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the amount of musical material I can access instantly using the electronic device I am using to write this blog post. Sometimes I compare the value of access to those riches with the value of being able to find tone colors on my instrument, and (finally) being able to make them at will. When I compare the value of limitless access to recorded music with being able to move comfortably from one note to the next on my instrument, while sounding resonant and in tune, I find much more value in the ability to make something beautiful happen between one note and the next note.

I like to remember that what I am doing when I am writing, practicing, or playing is the same activity or sets of activities that musicians have been doing for centuries. That part of musical life hasn't changed, and I don't think that unlimited access to recorded music and commentary will ever change it. It is a comforting thought.

March is Busting Out All Over

Yesterday I spent my walk intoxicated by the sounds, sights, and smells of this odd early spring we are having. My usual "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" feelings came out stronger than usual this year. So I took action and finished work on the piece I have been working on for the past couple of months, and now it is out of my system and no longer constantly running through my head.

The windows are open, the birds are singing and singing and singing, and I'm planning to join them with some scales in a moment, and then some nice Bach, in honor of his birthday today.

Eliminativism

Matthew Guerrieri coins a new trend in new music!

It is interesting reading next to a post-mortem on the fate of the (formerly named) "women composer" by Amy Beth Kirsten (in the same internet publication).

Our Fourth (and still counting) Annual March Concert of Music Written by Women

John David Moore and I will be playing yet another program of music written by women (sponsored by the Eastern Illinois University Women's Studies Program) in celebration of Women's History Awareness Month. This year violinist Sharilyn Spicknall will be joining us for a program of music by Amy Beach (her Violin Sonata), Marion Bauer (her Viola Sonata), Rebecca Clarke (her Dumka for Violin, Viola, and Piano), Luise Adolpha Le Beau (her Three Pieces for Viola and Piano), and Me (my Skye Boat Fantasie).

The concert will take place on Friday evening, March 23 at 7:30 in the Recital Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center in Charleston, Illinois. Admission is free, and parking is ample.

What's in a name? Marion Bauer was an American composer who, despite her German-sounding name, came from French stock, and Le Beau, despite her French-sounding name, was German.

My name, you ask? Who knows!!!

During the first decade of the 20th century, my paternal great grandfather and his family left a shtetl outside of Kiev, and they sailed for America from a German port. The story I was told was that the ship sank (it must have happened near the port, because eventually my family did arrive in America) and everybody's papers were destroyed.

My (totally unfounded and unproven) theory is that when my Yiddish-speaking ancestors arrived in America without papers they may have been asked the question "who are you?" Perhaps the answer my great grandfather gave was an answer to the question he might have thought he heard, "how are you?" His answer (in English, of course)? "Fine." It is just a hunch, but it does account for the English spelling of the word, particularly when you take into account that the passenger had arrived by way of a German port.