And Yet It Moves

I thought I'd talk a little bit about my doctoral thesis project in the works (well, the main one, at least). I haven't done something quite like this before, so it's probably good I write down the working process and figure it out as I go along. The piece, titled 'And Yet It Moves' is a 15-minute-long epic music video of sorts, and it features three locations on the CU Boulder campus: the Observatory, Old Main, and Norlin Library.

I've written/conceived of music for each section, which will then be recorded and layered on top of one another. Then, the recording will be 'lip-synced' of sorts into a music video, though the videotape will be much more abstract than a traditional concert video. I'm considering it more like a sound and image "collage" like my sound pieces for Origin of the Sun and Moon rather than a tried and true music video with narrative or a concert video showing all the little details of performance.





The three sections of the work all center around the concepts of learning and discovery, and of motion. Firstly, the motion of the sun-- the Observatory piece is about the chemical composition of the Sun and all of the elements in the Sun that give us the visible spectrum.

The section in CU's first building on campus, Old Main, is about the movement of human bodies in time and tells abstractly the story of Mary Rippon, CU's first female professor. Rippon, a foreign language professor, had a secret child with one of her students, and kept the whole affair (and the baby) secret from the University. This story takes place at a time when it was illegal to be a female professor and be married, let alone be a mother. Apparently at the turn of the 20th century, people (likely men) thought that all the intellect would get drained out of a woman if she were not single and childless. I digress. Rippon ended up taking a sabbatical and had the baby in Germany, and her husband/student Will took a boat to Germany later to pick up the baby at a care center. The child was raised as Mary's 'niece' for her whole life, and didn't know that her Aunt was her MOTHER until the baby was something like 60 years old. CU didn't know about this story until the 1990's, and I thought the story was too delicious not to tell. I set Mary's and her husband Will's texts into choral works for the piece.

The third "layer" is in the main Library on campus and is a very John Cage-like piece, with only minimal instructions and very little music score to be seen; people will take books off the shelves and read them in different tempos, and they'll throw papers in the air and generally have a good time being academic. Graciously the staff and faculty from all three buildings were very encouraging about me using their spaces.

I guess it's a bit of a love story, a swan song, to my time as an academic. My (ridiculous number of) years studying in the collegiate settting are coming to an end within a year or so, or so we hope if I can finish everything on time. I think I've selected a few places which have inspired me throughout the years, in one way or another, like the areas of science, and poetry, and architecture, and there's even some electronic music in there too. I like the idea of the large-scale "solar" section in contrast with the "human" section and the "neurological" section of thoughts flying around in the library. If it all works, it should be a really fun time.

Recording everything will be done in a million tiny pieces and then stuck together like a puzzle. Videotaping will probably be the same way, so in a way it is very much like a collage. And recording sessions start soon so I best get to typesettin'!

Pendulum New Music

As if you thought I needed something else to do- maybe a new hobby, some more time spent thinking about music, or just something to keep my fingers occupied from drawing inane comics- I also write a monthly blog post over at the University of Colorado at Boulder's 'Pendulum New Music' blog. Pendulum New Music is a series put on by the composition students and faculty at CU Boulder to showcase new student works. I write a post before every concert with a sneak peek of what's to come, or shedding some light on perhaps unfamiliar topics in music, like electronic and multimedia works. Every month videos are also posted of all the performances, so you don't even have to be in Boulder to listen in. Check it out here!

News and Clips

Too much has been happening in this composer's life. For one thing I've been taking time for myself, which is keeping me sane. Literally. For a while after Christmas I thought I was being pulled in all different directions- I had said "yes" to a lot of projects that I should have said "not right now" to, and it totally took a toll on my body! Luckily I am coming back to reality once again, and the creative juices are beginning to flow once more.

In the news, I've had a few new works performed or documented lately.
Two clips of "Tame Your Man' are up on YouTube, but you can watch them here! Each clip is about three movements' worth, enough to give you a general sense of the piece.




I had the premiere of my first electro-acoustic work on the Pendulum New Music Series concert this past week. All I had to do was push "play" but that went well. It's a work that creates an atmosphere like slowly drifting icebergs in a glacial lagoon. I learned a lot about the program Abelton Live to create the piece, and I hope to work more with that in the future- it's good for both audio effects, and should I want to become a sweet beat-droppin' DJ I could cue up jams and add beats and samples in Abelton as well.

Upcoming on March 20 is yet another premiere of a work, this time for a duo of a guitar and a nykelharpa. You might be wondering what that instrument is, and in short it's a Swedish stringed instrument that sounds like a fiddle, but it works more like a hurdy-gurdy. You can read up a little on the nykelharpa here.

In non-music-related news, my boyfriend has said two more things in his sleep: "2 4 8", and "snowin' so far". I had a dream the other night that I was being held against my will, but I got released through a cunning game of music trivia, and my winning question to my weird captives was that I could sing a melody from Verdi's opera La Traviata and they couldn't guess what opera it came from. In real life, I don't know if I could even think of a melody from La Traviata, let alone but thank goodness my subconscious self knows the way out.

Merry Christomas

Happy Holidays. May all your gifts be wrapped.

Fantasy Draft

This is what I envision when I think of a 'fantasy draft'. None o' that football nonsense! Of course, maybe also a draft beer would be nice too. But I like the idea of a magical gust coming in from under the door, whisking me away to a nonsensical place of wonder, and maybe there would be Harry-Potter-like music playing along with it.

Goodbye Scissors

In the tradition of my Goodbye Pencil Sharpener and Goodbye Stan, Sexually Abiguous Cockatiel posts, I've had to bid adieu to an old friend, a pair of yellow and white scissors that I've had since second grade. I took them to college and they were amazingly useful for crafty projects (they cut paper with out cutting you!). My roommate and I bonded that we both had brought the same pair of kid's scissors to college.

The college years have since passed. The time had come where the safety scissors no longer cut, and I got a pair of fancy titanium scissors for the holidays, which cut like butter and are guaranteed for 10,000 magical slices. So I bid you a fond farewell, friend, you've served me well. May you rest in peace, dreaming of classrooms full of screaming second-graders, and piles of colored construction paper, miles high.

Tame Your Man Tug-of-War

Promo image for TAME YOUR MAN, which I'm raising money for through Kickstarter. Consider donating even a small amount today, every bit helps! I can't guarantee the final project will have a tug of war, but it will involve a whole lot of music, and a whole lot of rope.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tameyourman/tame-your-man

Tame Your Man & Kickstarter

I've written a new piece for piano, electronics, and...a bondage artist! You read that correctly. It's called TAME YOUR MAN, and will premiere in Boulder, CO on November 9th and 10th. It's my first work to try and integrate my ideas about sexuality, power, pleasure, and surrender into a 'classical' piece. Despite it being a very personal work, I think the piece will speak to a lot of people--you might not like bondage but you might enjoy the music. You might not be into classical music all that much but you like the intrigue of a professional bondage artist who's going to tie up the pianist to the piano while he plays. Or you might like neither of those things but you really like theatre, or supporting entrepreneurial ventures! Sometimes it feels like a risky work to undertake, especially at an academic institution. Am I giving away too much personal information by writing this piece? Is the value of the music on par with the interesting visual aspects? But surprisingly, the faculty have been some of the most supportive voices behind my work, and that makes me realize I'm attempting a good thing here.

The performance is free to the public, and will be recorded and videotaped! But to really make the work a success, I'll need the support of readers like you to help raise the remaining funds for the show, paying for my performers, and professional editing and documentation of the performance.

I've started a Kickstarter campaign that runs through October 4th. Kickstarter is a great website to raise funds, but it's all-or-nothing! If I don't raise all the money, none of my 'backers' get the awards that they've selected for their potential donations. So consider donating today and be a part of the TAME YOUR MAN team!


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tameyourman/tame-your-man
 

Palm Tree Stirrer

Given to me on my artist residency- a tropical drink stirrer at the one bar in town- which happens to be a Tiki-themed bar, complete with an outdoor thatched-roof hut, and a skull-and-crossbones flag beckoning guests further inside to the main "Pirate" Bar.

Erathy Aromas

Spotted in a coffee shop in Denver. I am certainly not faultless when it comes to spelling errors, but in a high-traffic place such as Starbucks, don't you think someone would notice that the sign by the bags of coffee looks a little funny?

I think "Earthy Aromas" is what they were going for, but I might buy some coffee just to see what "erathy" tastes like. Maybe it's like "umami".

Residency Thoughts

The CATWALK Residency is over and I'm back in Denver, safe and sound (and due to some ticketing issues on the flight home, with my very first ever first-class flight along the way)!

I certainly learned a lot about residencies in this first experience, though truth be told, all residencies are not created equal. This residency only has two artists stay at a time, and each has their own housing. Pretty luxurious.

I made a few short works there, and am happy with a couple of them, but for the most part, the residency became a chance to experiment with some new ideas, try them out, and sometimes fail. Though that can be a good thing too!

I ended up working on about four projects. In summary, here was my progress.

1. A solo organ video! The harmonium from the shed was hauled out to the woods for videotaping. Little did I know how heavy it would be. I wrote a very minimalist piece for it, planned on videotaping it around sunset- where the halfway point of the video would be that evening's sunset time. I wanted the performance to be about an hour, but I only played for about a half hour. I then took the video and the recording and sped them up, so hopefully we could see the light fade in the woods. Problems with this performance (aside from the fact that the organ was nearly broken) included all the bugs in the woods biting me, and the fact that the light in the woods changed so subtly that you can hardly see the difference from the beginning to the end of the video. This project was about 70% successful, I'd say, but gives me lots of hope for future similar projects involving time and light outdoors.

2. Bell trees! I crocheted long strands of yarn that were attached to bells, and then wired them up in 20-foot-tall tree branches so you could ring them from the ground. This was probably the most simple idea but the most successful project. I was worried that the bells might rust as it was very rainy; I had to wait for the groundskeeper to help me with the ladders after a weekend away. Thankfully the bells stayed pretty dry, were sheltered under a lot of leaves. With the help of the other visiting artist, a painter named Alexis Neider, we made a little video of the bells in action too. The background noise of the camera is a little distracting but overall success I'd grade myself at 85%.

3. Outdoors 1. A song, with words from the 19th-century philosopher John Ruskin, mixed with texts from the original builder of the residency's structure, the Hudson River School painter Charles Herbert Moore. The song is pretty cool, it's like an electronic dance jam with cicadas buzzing and sampled choir sounds from the residency's old Kurzweil keyboard. I came up with a performance piece for this song and we videotaped it. Again, there were some problems. My lipsynching abilities apparently suck. It was very hot, and very windy, so I'm super sweaty in the video and things are blowing off of the table we're trying to videotape. Not very convenient. I am also not a video editor and have no intentions of training, I'd rather hand the project to a professional. Still, there are some good ideas in the video. About 2 minutes of it are pretty snazzy. The rest I'm still a bit embarassed to show people. Performance success: 90%, video success, 70%. Enjoyment of the Upstate New York heat and humidity while carrying a heavy table 500 yards: 0%.

4. Outdoors 2: This piece was/is a companion piece to Outdoors 1. Outdoors 1 is like the 'daytime' piece and this is the 'nighttime'. Unfortunately I didn't have time to finish it. Perhaps later this summer I will revisit. It has some great sounds of machinery around the residency, chainsaws, thunderstorms, and windchimes at the local Wal-Mart, so I do think it has the most geographical 'flavor' of that area.

I went on a lot of art-seeing trips on the residency, which was great, something I rarely get to treat myself to even though I love galleries and museums. I went to New York City for a day, and to Mass MoCA for another. I talked a lot about my work with people, which was also good. The time to relax and enjoy some new scenery was also really beneficial. I met a woman who talks to angels. I met a Columbia poetry professor who lives in a seventeenth-century Dutch farmhouse. 17th century! I also met up with friends who I haven't seen in years, got to see my parents for a few great days, and experienced the kindnesses of local residents curious to meet someone new in the area.

All in all, it was a time I'd surely repeat. It was a time that helped me think about music, time, nature, and using the resources around me in new and interesting ways.

Catskill, New York

I'm here in Catskill, New York on my first artist residency! Okay, so the Fulbright Fellowship was a lot like a really long artist residency. This one is only three weeks though, and I get to stay in the same country.

Catskill is a small town on the Hudson River, close to Hudson, NY, and between Albany and Poughkeepsie. There are a lot of fancy homes and estates out here, but the town of Catskill itself seems quite working-class.  There's some pizza places, a hot dog stand, a church converted into a 24-hour fitness club, and an ice cream parlor on a creek that is super creamy and delicious. There are even boats and kayaks you can rent, though it's not as fancy as other 'weekender' towns where wealthy Manhattanites come up for a few days a week to their summer houses, escaping the buzz of the city. It's surprisingly racially mixed for a tiny town. It's also blazin' hot and humid here, about 100 degrees and 90% humidity--after living in Denver for a year, I've sort of forgotten about humidity and sinus pressure, and don't miss it a bit.

The CATWALK residency, where I am, houses two artists at a time to make work. It's quite a fancy place, built originally as a 'cottage' by the Hudson River School painter Charles Herbert Moore (contemporary of renowned painter Thomas Cole, whose estate literally abuts this property) and expanded over the century to include private residencies, barns, and an impressive art collection by its owners.

I'm working on several projects, and who knows what they'll turn out to be, but the nice thing about an art residence here is that there aren't a lot of expectations to pump out work; time to oneself and time to explore are first and foremost. There are 60 acres of property for me to be inspired on, with a small section of 'beach' at the Hudson River as well as forest trails, ponds, a tower studio, and several workspaces.

I hope to make some nature-based works, but lately all I can think about here is man's involvement with nature. Nature here isn't untouched in the same way that Iceland was/is. Here, one likes to put a stamp on a good view, take down some trees, plow fields, and build roads through the landscape--anything but the pristine 19th-century ideal of romanticized sublime Nature. Catskill has a home where the figure of 'Uncle Sam' really lived, which is the same building where President Martin Van Buren Lived! But right next to this home is a trash-looking (though hilariously placed) Tiki Bar subtitled 'grub and pub'.

Still, there's something interesting in that juxtopósitión. I've been taking a lot of recordings of machines working, or combination sounds of nature and man's involvement in it. Chainsaws for example. I took a sneaky recording inside a country Wal-Mart today (I haven't been in a Wal-Mart in years!) and there had been a lot of birds that fly in and out of the garden section. It sounded like an aviary in there, only with pumped-in soundtracks of pop hits and electric fans whirring. I think I might make some electronic pieces that change daytime sounds to nighttime ones and vice versa. Perhaps also do a live performance during them; I need to find some good texts for speaking and singing.

There's an old, dusty, almost-broken harmonium here as well; I'd like to take it out into the woods and play it. Only one bellows works, so you can't pump both feet anymore- just the left one! Still, it makes sounds. Perhaps I'll do a performance where the organ returns back to nature, back to its wooden beginnings, before man came and carved it up and assembled it for me to play.

Sun and Moon at the Dentist

It's been just about a year since I finished the music for my album 'The Origin of the Sun and Moon'. (If you don't have your copy already, please by all means buy one here or download, it would be most appreciated!) I've sold many copies and have many more to sell; my last album was made in such a limited run that in less than a year I had no more copies to sell or promote, and I didn't want that to happen to my hard work this time!

It's been very interesting to do as much self-promotion of my music as possible. I've taken the record to local music stores, I've played a couple concerts as 'CD release' shows, I've mentioned the album in other performances. The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver is selling the CD, and I hope to get it in a couple more stores. Of course, it's never enough PR as I'd like, but slowly and surely, good things come.

Several great 'Sun and Moon' related things have happened recently. I sold a limited-edition album to a listener in Paris. I just had an idea yesterday to try and perform at a local store that deals with lots of crystals and celestial objects; I think the album and its music would be a good fit there. The best 'Sun and Moon' moment recently was when the entire staff at my dentist's office listened to the album, in its entirety, while I got my teeth cleaned (this picture is the actual waiting room at the dentist, it is super luxe). That was pretty hilarious, hearing my music as I'm lying back in a chair with giant lights and mirrors over me. The dentist made it through the song about pulling teeth, but had to turn it down when it came to the whale noises and shouting random texts from books. I don't blame the dentist. The album starts off all easy-listening and gets thornier.

Listening to the album after a long pause is an interesting experience. When I made the tracks, they were like experiments. They can live in a variety of different sound-states, so there doesn't need to be a hard and fast definitive version. Nevertheless, some of the sounds on there I thought, oh yeah, that's the version that's on the CD and not the version I perform live (which would be much trickier to time all the sound samples and get people to sound like whales). A couple tracks I had not heard in months and I was pleasantly surprised to think, hey! I made that.

I have never been a musician who looks back on his work from years past and never wants to look at that material again. Some pop artists are practically disgusted with their early work. I still find great things in the first pieces I've written, though I'm glad that I'm always exploring new ways to combine sounds, new ways of organizing forms, and fun new methods of delivering those sounds to live audiences.

I'm always interested to hear your thoughts on my works and what kinds of images you get from listening, or what strikes your fancy (or what you frankly wish I had left out). Feel free to let me know!

Conceptually Punk'd

A new show just ripe for cable TV: Conceptually Punk'd. An artful spinoff of shows like Candid Camera and Ashton Kutcher's Punk'd, Conceptually Punk'd will feature frat boys merely telling others about the crazy antics that they would do to prank them. Artists, in return, get to 'Conceptually Punk' the frat boys by presenting them with a theoretical art dilemma. Celebrity cameos could be made by both Hollywood stars and stars of the contemporary art world. Featuring knee-slapping exchanges and retorts by Anderson Cooper, David Duchovny, Marina Abramoviç, Matthew Barney, and the late Sol Lewitt.
Here's a sample episode:


Frat Boy: 'HAHAHA! I just filled your van with shaving cream and then poured a bucket of water on your head!!'

Man Off the Street: 'Really?'

Frat Boy: 'No, not really.'



Okay, that was a short episode. Here's another one.

Sol Lewitt: 'I just drew an infinite number of lines to an infinite number of points in the room using this red pencil!'

Frat Boy:(silence)

Sol Lewitt: (silence)



GOLDMINE RIGHT AHEAD!

Cohabitation

I moved to Denver and currently living with A, also known as Boyfriend. It's a funny thing, living with a partner for the first time. Funny mostly because it's not about 'me' anymore but about 'we', and I have a lot to learn about it.

Some of the things we've had discussions about seem like 'first-world gay man problems'. We need more night-blooming flowers in the garden! Woodcuts or screenprints...or decorative plates? Other conversations seem like the oldest marital issues in the book, or common to most any two people living together. In no particular order, here are some things we're currently working on.

Whose artwork goes on the wall. And where??
What chores get done before or after work?
How to ignore a little mess, which will get picked up eventually.
How to politely say, pick up your little mess, it's not going to get picked up eventually.
Who will take care of indoor plants versus outdoor plants.
How to sleep with the light on.
Do you know how to water the (insert plant name here) properly? 
Planning romantic time.
Spontaneous romantic time.
Saving money for a vacation when lots of other important expenses arise (ugh, dentists).
Throwing out stuff that hasn't been used in years.
Saving space and organization (though I find these tasks very fun).
When to do the laundry.
Who's going to put the laundry away??
Making time for our 'alone' selves too, and our own friends. 
Leaving dishes in the sink/dishwasher. Luckily we have a Lindsay Lohan magnet on the dishwasher that lets me know if the dishes are clean or dirty. It's hard to envision, but it's very funny, and it works.

I freely admit that most of the issues are mine. I think that if Boyfriend had his druthers, there wouldn't be anything to worry about, we'd watch a lot of TV and live a very carefree existence. But I love a plan, I love making lists (see: above list) and I'm much too neurotic to not know when the bills need to be paid. (I'm beginning to let go a little though, I swear...!) So thanks to A, I'm starting to live a little and not worry all the time about all the dishes in the sink, and I know he's making a lot of compromises too to make our home one of the best around.

Not Done with Pittsburgh

I visited Pittsburgh this month and it was a blast. My visit confirmed to both me and Boyfriend that our time there isn't quite over yet- the city has a strange attraction to us both (though Boyfriend would love to uproot us to Seattle first, if he had the chance).

I love so many things about Pittsburgh, including its many neighborhoods with individual character, like this wall on the North Side that has both ghostly remnants of attached buildings, and shadows of other buildings around it. Boyfriend and I agreed that the city has one of the better-integrated racial mixes of many cities- not that it's all hunky-dory, but perhaps people from many races and cultures just happen to have to interact more here than in sprawling Denver.

Pittsburgh's mass-transportation, however, is a hot mess. The Port Authority bus system was bad when I lived there from '06 to '10, and it's gotten worse since I left (with the one exception of a new light rail over to the North Side from downtown so all the football fans can take a shuttle home drunk rather than driving). I waited for a bus that should have theoretically come every 15 minutes; 45 minutes later, I missed my meeting as the bus never showed.  Thankfully I was able to reschedule; I walked the whole way and arrived on time. Nowadays in Denver and Boulder, CO, I rarely have to wait more than 15 minutes for a bus to show up. Buses here are scarily efficient, but it does help to have a flat, gridded, and arid topography to work with, compared to Pittsburgh's vine-winding and hilly landscape. But that's something I love about Pittsburgh, so it's a blessing and a curse. What would a view of the Golden Triangle be without Mount Washington and its inclines.

I went to Pittsburgh for a premiere of a new work by Trillium Ensemble, which went spectacularly, and a friend's wedding, which also went spectacularly. Boyfriend saw some old friends from his days in Pittsburgh, and I saw some of mine. I conducted some Biznass about music and hoped to plan a trip back in the fall to guest lecture. We both got to visit Mattress Factory, where coincidentally we both have worked in the past and is one of the best art museums, hands down, in the world.

(On view: Nina Marie Barbuto's 'Glory Holes', part of the 'Gestures: Intimate Friction' exhibit featuring local artists' works.)

Pittsburgh is constantly popping up on the 'hot cities to watch out for'-type blogs and newspapers, and I can see why (aside from transit systems). The Andy Warhol Museum, cheap rents, big spaces, friendly hip places, and new stores appearing regularly. Phipps Conservatory (Botanical Gardens) is one of the most "green" and energy efficient greenhouse buildings in the world. They're adding a new building to the back which should be beautiful, behind this cascading pond and waterfall.

I even got to visit a place I had never been, but had always wanted to visit: Allegheny Cemetery. Known for its old mausoleums, winding paths, and lush greenery, it didn't disappoint. It was a post-rainy day, common to the city, and the skies were grey: perfect gravestone-viewing weather.  This tomb's the King of them all. Or at least houses the King family.

Perhaps one day I will have a reason to settle down here, maybe buy a house and work as an artist full-time. I would eat burgers all the time at the new Burgatory restaurant, and fancy cuisine at 'Salt of the Earth' (cuisine of the duck/sweetbreads/endive/polenta/cardamon/tartar varieties, but not all together in one dish, that would be so gross). Until then, I do love to visit, and thank all my friends, colleagues, and relatives for making it such a memorable trip.

One Year of Teaching Music

I'm just wrapping up my first year as a Teaching Assistant for a class called 'Aural Skills'. I'd rather have the class be called 'Musicianship' but I have no decision in the matter. I did however, have a lot of decisions to make this year about what to teach and how to teach it. The saying that goes something like 'the thing you learn about something when you have to teach it' is totally true as well. Here are some things I've learned this year, in no particular order.

-Get people up and moving. I wish it was a Dalcroze Eurythmics class! Unlike most teachers, I have everyone stand at the beginning to warm up, and then during dictations, I have people come up to the blackboards to write examples. It's a new perspective, having to be 'on call' and work on a giant board rather than paper, but there's less pressure if you're not the only one in front of the class, and the whole class can also use the examples on the board to sing from or critique.

-I make a lot of mistakes, and sometimes the timing of the lessons isn't what I envisioned. But then I teach the class a second time to another section, and I can refine things a lot.

-I try to call on every single person at least once in class. Even for tiny questions or observations, it keeps people on-target. Even though they're put on the spot, it's also okay to be wrong or just take a guess.

-Perfect pitch people need extra challenges. How do you make it worthwhile for a student who can recognize every note played on the piano and write it out by rote? Bring in a different instrument to play the examples, or have students write out dictations in alternate clefs and keys.

-It's amazing how much you can learn about a student's learning habits and work ethic by hearing them sing individually for five minutes.

-Attendance is to be taken seriously. I'm super-forgiving about someone letting me know they might be gone for this week's classes because of a trip, or that they're not feeling well and they might not be in class tomorrow. But I'm not forgiving about just not coming to class and not letting me know. Take a tiny bit of responsibility, kidz.

-Some musical topics are just hard to explain, mostly because they're hard to hear. If you can't break down music into small chunks first, or play examples that show the relevance of what you're talking about, it's really hard to make people 'get it', and then hope that they do well on a quiz. Also, if you don't get the material, seeking out extra help=super bonus points with me.

-It's important to teach the material in conjunction with other classes, so connections can be made between what's conceptual and what's practical. The theory class just learned about augmented 6th chords, and now we're practicing how to sing them! We just learned about church modes and now we're dictating in Lydian! I wish I had more of those inter-curriculum connections in my studies.

-Nobody actually wants to be there, and it's not your fault. The class I teach is required; it's mostly practical applications of what they learn in another class. Though you can't do much with making diminished sevenths fun, you can make class as amusing as you possibly can by playing ridiculous music examples, warming up with tongue twisters, and very seldomly but surprisingly, bring a snack for everyone. Nobody turns down cookies!

Armadillo

One-Word Sleeptalker

My boyfriend talks in his sleep, but unlike general nonsensical sleep-babblers or perhaps even Sleep Talkin' Man, who swears like a sailor and makes hilarious British sentences, my boyfriend is a one-word sleep-talker. Rarely does he ever say more than one word or phrase, but it's very clearly spoken, and then he's silent for the rest of the night. He'll startle me awake, but he's sound asleep the whole time.

I've been keeping a list to tell him in the morning so we can have a good laugh about it. Here's a few so far.

"Oofda!" (Boyfriend said this is a foreign slang word meaning "oomph".
"Penumbra." (Said in a very sexy voice)
"Choca-choca-choca-choca."
"Goodwill."

The best one so far came last night, when he said quite loudly and confidently:

"TEX MEX!"

Violin Phase Torture

The other day in my music theory class full of graduate students, we got to talk about Steve Reich, one of my main music role models. We've studied a lot of other composers this semester: Schoenberg, Beg, Webern, Carter, Dallapiccola, and I was looking forward to hearing about some theoretical interpretations of minimalism, music written since around the 1970's with repeating patterns that often change over time or have more conceptual frameworks. The teacher asked the class what this piece, Violin Phase, reminded them of.


To me, it's music to my ears. Steve Reich's 'Music for 18 Musicians' was the first piece I ever heard when I walked into my undergraduate advisor's office for the first time. It changed my life, I could safely say. I love the concept of Violin Phase, usually for four violins (or a number of pre-recorded violin tracks); I love Reich's use of diatonicism; I think the subtle tempo changes that lead to intricate overlapping rhythms and hidden 'ghost' melodies that pop out unexpectedly is pretty genius. (Though side fact: I finally got to meet Steve Reich and tell him my life-changing story involving his music, but he only seemed meh about it. Such is life, when you're so over the work you wrote 35 years ago, and people are still talking about how great it is.)

But instead, the loudest voices in class said that Violin Phase was, literally, torture. They could only listen to the first couple minutes of the piece (it's only about ten minutes), and they had to shut it off. Of course, they couldn't articulate why they felt the music was torturous. I'm assuming it's because the repetitive patterns were too chaotic for their ears; they didn't like the simple use of patterns which can become monotonous for some. To me, it's paced beautifully, you sometimes don't know something is changing until it's changed, and then you wonder, how did we get here?

Why such fervent responses though to this piece, seemingly unexpected and conservative? And why strangely, not the same kind of anger directed toward more traditionally 'thorny' and theoretical music like Elliot Carter or Milton Babbitt, who we discussed in classes prior without a lot of dissent? I left class disappointed in my colleagues.

I have come to appreciate my open-mindedness when it comes to listening to new music, but I think I might be in the minority. I am in full support of all that is new, interesting, and often eccentric. I at least want to judge it on its own terms, not compare it to Beethoven. Learning about new(ish) music helps me write my own pieces, and helps me interpret works of the past in new ways. Of course I have my own preferences to what I like to listen to and don't; I love historically valued music too. What I don't understand is that there are still lots of people I'd consider the young pplz that think that the only classical music worth listening to comes from the 18th and 19th centuries, and MAYBE the 20th century, if you let in Debussy and some Stravinsky (but don't go too crazy). If these people don't land a rare job in an orchestra, I don't know how they're going to wrap their brains around a hybrid career that I think will be necessary in this day in age. Nowadays you might have to have a different performing career than just the one established in the 1900s and passed down through weird, underfunded, greying institutions. Why not join a slightly more hip crowd and give new a chance?

My boyfriend noted that music people still talk about the twentieth century being 'contemporary music'. The start of the twentieth century was now one hundred and twelve years ago. I think there were giant ferns growing then, and dinosaurs, I'm pretty sure. I'd rather think about the recent past, the living composers, and all the exciting potential for what comes next.

The next post: likely less ranting, and more comics.