Hildegard

Isn't it interesting that the only composer to ever achieve sainthood was a woman? You can find some excellent recordings of her music here.

Jumbotron Jam

Yesterday Michael and I went up to Chicago to visit our new-found and long-dead friend James Tissot, and to hear a concert played by Jack DeJohnette, Muhal Richard Abrams, Larry Gray, Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill in Millennium Park, that was part of the Chicago Jazz Festival.

The concert had its high points, since all the musicians have an overabundance of musical imagination, and its low points, because sometimes when jazz musicians improvise using minimalist repetition as a starting point, the repetition can become, well, repetitive. I was most impressed with Larry Gray, an exceptional Chicago-based bassist and cellist, who I heard last night for the first time. I was also found Jack DeJohnette's inventive use of percussion sounds really stimulating. There was one point when he used a microphone to capture the pitches of a few suspended cymbals.

Roscoe Mitchell, who is an extremely impressive saxophone player, came with a battery of wind instruments, including a bass recorder and, of all things, a modern-pitched baroque flute. Henry Threadgill supplemented his impressive saxophone playing with a bass flute. I appreciate the use of those instruments, but I was not impressed with the results.

The concert had items of visual interest, and because our visual imaginations were stimulated by Mr. Tissot's work (across the street, literally), my eyes were quite open. This was my first time in the interesting-to-look-at Geary-designed Jay Pritzker Pavillion, and the first time I have ever been to a concert where I could see the musicians in real life and on a huge video screen at the same time. I'm not sure if it was my imagination, but I think that I could even hear some of the music coming out of the instruments themselves. But the huge array of speakers took care of most of what I heard.

The huge video and audio presence made me feel less like I was at a concert and more like I was watching a broadcast of a concert. It was a strange feeling. I did not like the fact that my attention went to the illuminated shiny object hanging above the actual musicians.

I enjoyed the fact that there was a very large and attentive crowd at the concert (a rare experience for me). Many audience members followed the traditional jazz protocol of clapping at the ends of solos, but since the length and structure of solos did not have the usual points of reference that jazz musicians use (there was a lot of free improvisation), it seemed as if solos ended when people in the audience decided to clap. It was odd, and sometimes annoying, particularly when one of Larry Gray's really interesting solos was cut short by someone in the audience who felt like letting him know (in a very loud way) that he liked it.

I also noticed an odd phenomenon. Much of the music was not metric: DeJohnette was certainly playing rhythmically, but his rhythms were not regular and did not fit into the standard duple-type meter people bob their heads to when listening to jazz. I noticed a bunch of head bobbing in the crowd, but the regular motion (i.e. the "beat") was different for different people. You could say that everyone was dancing to a different drummer, which seems appropriate for a five-person collective free improvisations.

After the concert we had coffee with a fascinating person Michael knows from the blogosphere, which was great fun.

Six More Things about The Butler

Michael made a post this morning noting five things about The Butler, and challenged me to write a post of my own with a list of my own observations. Since one of his observations is actually something I thought of first (he does credit me in his post), I'll begin with that one.

The character of Louis Gains (the Butler's fictitious older son), and David Oyelowo's portrayal of him is clearly modeled on congressman John Lewis. When I looked it up I found that the striking resemblance was clearly not my imagination. It allowed me to embrace the film as a work of informed fiction rather than as documentary.

The radical Angela Davis hairstyle and loop earrings that the character of Gina wore as a Black Panther in the 1960s made its way into the character of Gloria's "hip" wardrobe in the 1970s.

It was wonderful to see Pablo Casals' White House Concert woven into the narrative (very smart music direction by Rodrigo Leão), but I was disappointed to see that the cellist looked nothing like Pablo Casals, and that the actor, who was a real cellist, wasn't credited.

None of the iconic presidential or first lady figures looked physically or facially like the people they were portraying (with the exception of the girl who played Caroline Kennedy), but the costumes and acting did enough to suspend disbelief.

I appreciated the solitary quality that surrounded all of the presidents, and I feel that the film demonstrated in a quiet way the weight of responsibility that they all felt.

Making reference to important events, demonstrations, famous people, and tragic events can be heavy handed in semi-historical fiction. I thought that the film handled that delicate balance extremely well.

. . . and one more from me (to copy Michael): Our showing of the movie in our mini-multiplex (mini by city standards) was in the large stadium-style theater. We had our choice of seats because aside from another couple (who sat in the back), we were the only people in the theater.

How Movable Type Technology Changed the Way We Write Music by Hand

This video, which I found in the on-line museum of printing history, is absolutely fascinating:

August 28, 1963

Two score and ten years ago today:

Here's Looking at You!

I'm responding to the discussions I have been reading around the internets concerning judging competition winners by the way the finalists look. Everything seems to be based on this study.

I learned the hard way (during my periods of relatively unattractive adolescence and young adulthood), that looks really matter when you are trying to have people take you seriously as a musician. I was relatively clueless, and I had the clothes to prove it. My teacher, Julius Baker, even told me that I needed to do something to improve the way I looked, but I was simply not equipped to respond properly. To put it bluntly, I would have been an excellent candidate for What Not to Wear. Being a female flutist didn't help matters. I was surrounded by attractive young men and young women who knew how to dress. I knew how to practice, I knew how to grow myself intellectually and musically, and I knew how to make friends, but I did not know how to make my outside reflect the expressive parts of my insides. Being short but not, er, petite, never helped either.

Nothing is new here. Everyone who has a working pair of eyes would tell you that how a person looks when s/he is performing makes an impression. You can often tell something about the quality of a string player's sound by the way s/he draws the bow, and you can see personal involvement in any musician's face, as long as they don't have an instrument getting in the way. Consider the faces of oboists at work. Body language tells a lot as well, but body language tells a lot in any field of activity.

This study used samples of finalists from major international competitions in which all of the musicians could play their instruments at an extremely high level. In rare instances someone with a spectacular musical personality and original musicianship makes it into the finals, but more often people get to the final round of a music competition by either playing flawlessly, or make fewer mistakes than the other semi-finalists.

A competition is a truly subjective situation that is used by our culture as an objective measure of musicianship. Competition medals then become the currency for musical careers.

I doubt that any non-musician presented with a very short audio clip of three stellar musicians playing the same piece on the same instrument could be able to tell you the difference between the playing of each person. I know for certain that the same person could give details about how each person looked if given a video-only clip. If you can't tell the difference in the sound (and on recordings you really can't), the only basis on which to judge is the visual. Unfortunately many professional musicians would be guilty of the same kind of reaction.

I would take this study more seriously if there were controls concerning the piece of music the finalists played. The same piece might give a decent basis for comparison. I would also take it more seriously if the time involved was longer than six seconds, because we are all guilty of spending the first minute of watching any musical performance accustoming ourselves to the visual. It takes time to hear.

Also, the results of this study do not show that we can predict competition winners by the way they look, because the actual success rate (i.e. picking the winner) is just above 50%. I'm not able to do the math (you can thank my Juilliard education for that), but it seems to me that when you have three choices, and you choose one, you are bound to be right at least 30% of the time.

Dark Eyes: Sinatra and Durante

"Believe me, that's got heart!"



. . . and while we're at it, Jimmy Durante enters this clip (with Jack Benny) at the 3-minute mark.

Frank Sinatra Sings Mozart!

It Happened in Brooklyn is a surreal movie, but when I saw this I really thought I was dreaming. The movie is loaded with Jimmy Durante brilliance as well, and much, much more music. It's a "must see" for musicians.

Knock, Knock! Who's There? The Postman (And You Never Needed to Ask.)

You don't have to take my word for it, and you don't have to take Clara Kathleen Rogers's word for it, but you might trust Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle mentions the postman's knock in this letter to Jean Carlyle Aitken. Here's the excerpt:

My Dear Jean,

Your Letter,which was the first I had received from any of my Friends in Scotland, proved one of the welcomest I ever got. The Postman's two knocks (for all Postmen give two smart thumps, which are known here and elsewhere as the “Postman's Knock”) brought me it and the Newspaper, and delivered me from a multitude of vague imaginations.

If that doesn't convince you, look at this tidbit that was published around 1860 using an engraving by S. Rosenthal:

Here's the song performed by a group of Morris Dancers (be sure to notice the double knocks they do with their sticks):



Here's the text of the song:

Chorus

Every morning as true as the clock
Somebody hears the postman’s knock.
Every morning as true as the clock
Somebody hears the postman’s knock.

What a wonderful man the postman is
As he hastens from door to door.
A medley of news his hands contain
For high, low, rich or poor.
In many a face a joy he can trace,
In many a grief he can see.
But the door is open to his loud rap tap
And his swift delivery.

[Chorus]

Number one he presents with news of a birth
With tidings of death number four
At thirteen a bill of terrible length
He drops through the hole in the door.
At fifteen a cheque or order he leaves
At sixteen his presence doth prove
At seventeen an acknowledgement get
At eighteen a letter of love.

[Chorus]

Private Listening

My first memory of the Sony Walkman is from 1981, when I saw a conductor I knew from Salzburg (how I wish I could remember his name, though I remember that he looked a lot like a young Peter Lorre) walking down the Kärntner Straße in Vienna listening to a recording of Lulu on one.

He took off his headphones and let me listen. It was astounding.

If I had a pair of headphones myself, I could have plugged them into his Walkman and listened with him. The Walkman was originally designed with two headphone jacks. Listening to recorded music was not generally considered a purely private activity in the early 1980s.

My early 1980s Walkman eventually stopped working, and when I looked for a new one, I found that the company no longer made Walkmen with two headphone jacks, and none of the competitors did either. If I wanted to share my high-quality outdoor mobile listening experience, I had to buy a splitter.

This is not as much of a statement about technology as it is about the change in the way we listen to recorded music.

So That's how practicing works!

Whenever we learn to make a new movement, Ahmed explains, we form and then update an internal model—a “sensorimotor map”—which our nervous system uses to predict our muscles’ motions and the resistance they will encounter. As that internal model is refined over time, we’re able to cut down on unnecessary movements and eliminate wasted energy.

Read Annie Murphy Paul's article here.

The Many Faces of Syrinx for Debussy's Birthday

Most flutists have an intimate long-term relationship with Debussy's Syrinx, a piece that is 100 this year. I imagine that there are many flutists who perform it regularly, but haven't seen the music in years (I seem to remember a story about Doriot Anthony Dwyer getting up to play it for an encore, and suddenly forgetting how it went). It is a piece that every flutist plays with his or her own personal twist, and a piece that every flutist takes liberty playing.

Here are a handful of performances of the piece (some with extreme personal liberties) by Emmanuel Pahud, Paula Robison, Jasmine Choi, James Galway, the 8-year-old Emma Resmini, Gary Schocker, Marcel Moyse, Mimi Stillman (part of her 362-part--as of today--"Syrinx Journey," Philippe Bernold, Jean-Pierre Rampal, William Kincaid, and one by a river, on a rock, amongst some reeds by a flutist who identifies herself as Fluter Scooter.

For a little thrill, try playing two of them at once, starting at different times. Or three.

Now listen to how wonderful it sounds on the trumpet!



Yes. I am practicing it on the viola this evening.

Gore Vidal on Why We Make Art

I heard an interview this morning that was part of this episode of The Story. Here's part of what Gore Vidal had to say about things that matter to me a great deal (and things that might matter to you too).

You’re born into a society and you are shaped by it whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not. Each of us is born into a prison of received opinion, of superstition, and of prejudices. Now, one of the functions of art is to try and define the prison. A: the artist must know he’s in it, and many of them don’t, and those are the bad artists. They just take it for granted this is the way things are. They don’t know that there are worlds, as Shakespeare said, “there is a world elsewhere.” They don’t see anything past these bars . . . and that to me is . . . Alfred Whitehead said something fascinating about this. He said “you can always determine the nature of any society by the things that it does not write about itself." 'Cause it takes them so much for granted they feel no need to state it, so by the omissions you can determine what a society was like.

The prison is going to break you eventually, but you can at least get a look out, and it’s the look out that is art: seeing something that is elsewhere; an alternative to the life that you’re leading. To get to try to see the thing; the whole, that’s what we want, that's why we write. To try and get. . .

There is no purpose to life, there is no point to life, other than what you invest with yourself, by your own actions. Or the making of a book, or the making of music, or the making of any creation is to try and hold the moment, to give it certain order, to bring order out of chaos, and for an instant to say “here it is, held, seen whole," even though, of course, it really isn’t.

Gore Vidal speaking with Studs Terkel on WFMT in 1961

"Being" a Composer

Sometimes I wonder what "being" a composer actually is. When you're not currently writing something, are you still a composer? And when you are working on something that you realize doesn't have any particular value, are you then a lousy composer? How about if you write something that nobody else seems to like? If you stop writing music, are you still a composer?

Oh how I envy Haydn! He never had to ask these kinds of questions. He reported to his Prince and got his musical orders for the day, and after he was dismissed with a generous pension, people in Vienna and London wanted more new music from him. He did have tremendous musical responsibilities, but he also had the ability to meet them with music that was inventive, brilliant, always interesting, always modern, always a pleasure to play, and always meaningful. The pleasure I get from his Piano Sonatas offsets nearly any sadness or feeling of isolation that comes into my life. I can't think of a single piece of Haydn that doesn't give me great pleasure.

I suppose that Haydn never had to wonder "what" he was in his world. He was simply a musician.

Violin in the Family: Thoughts from Karen Rile

I came across a fine piece of writing from Karen Rile that I thought I'd share here.