by the way

the blog on the main site is now syndicated.

For those of you still paying attention...

...please visit my new website, enjoy it, tell a friend, and listen to a complete recording of my new Missa Brevis!
yours, etc.
fp

Attention interested parties!

Narcissistic Plate has moved!
It is now incorporated into my website.
Click here to continue reading.

Daniel Pinkham

Obituary.
Perhaps the end of an era? Who else is still alive, and teaching, (besides Z.) with this kind of pedigree? Anybody know?

Step Right Up!

You can now purchase my choral music directly from my website (via paypal).
I am so excited.
I'm still getting to the self promotion/production part, but as far as I can tell, the tough stuff is in place - so tell your friends! Tell you enemies!
I keep getting told to move my blog to the website, which may happen soon. Stay tuned.
And try not to shove while in line at my store. There's plenty for everybody.

I really have to thank Canada

So, again, dig the new website:
www.frankpesci.com
Now, rewind back to the summer...
I found, on a regularly nonsensical composer website, a call for scores for women's choir. I had a half-finished SSA Ave Maria that needed doing, so I cranked it out sent it along, and lo and behold, this particular calling-for-scores ensemble in our northern neighbor country may actually just do the piece this spring! AND they want to spread the word about my music and pay for copies and do I have a website?
shit.
Now, rewind two years ....
I was flopping around like a wannabe fish on the floor of my own compositional fishery, when this lovely woman gave me a chance with a piece for her lessons and carols service, and prompted me to, by God, get the damn thing published. The first rejection letter was rough. The next half dozen or so, were irritating, but increasingly, my mantra became: today's rejection letter becomes tomorrow's coaster! Bottoms up!
What really chapped my ass is the final rejection letter from that initial attempt nearly two years ago. What sucked was not that it got rejected, but that I RECEIVED IT THIS WEEK.
I am not kidding. I got a rejection letter this week from a very well known publisher of sacred music for material I sent to them 23 months ago.
So, screw all that. I've been muttering about self-publishing for about a year now. I've been looking online for aids and tips, and as there are many for those who want to publish their own great American novel, there is NOTHING of help for anyone who wants to self publish sheet music. So I took a few hints from this guy, who is a self made success story in self publishing, took a quick look around at MANY composer site, some who offer their own music through the site, asked a few questions of a composer buddy with more web savvy than I and found out these crucial bits of truth:
1) setting up a website is easy and cheap. I bought and registered the name through domainsite for 8 FREAKIN BUCKS. I also found out that I don't need to know a damn thing about code - I can set everything up through squarespace for $12 a month.
2) Paypal is free to set up, and you can take payment from wherever. that's almost done.
3) I have so much damn space, I can load everything - mp3's, perusal scores, pictures of my dog, whatever.
4) now comes the hard part - marketing. I'm still at a loss as to what to do about that after word of mouth (those hits just aren't coming in!). Suggestions?
Luckily, I have a day job.

Stone Cold Kickin' it Live

www.frankpesci.com
check it out.

Post - Turkey reflections

Having turkey dinner in my pajamas at my sisters with my dumb ass family last week gave me the opportunity to screw around (fancy that). My sister's a public school music teacher (benefit: time off in purgatory) and had on her computer a few demos of composing programs for kids that she has been trying to get into her classroom, pending over dead bodies, hell and high water. These programs - one is called Fleximusic, and the other is a demo put out by the nice friendly people at Sibelius - produce loops for kids to screw around with. The Fleximusic program was a bit more intuitive, but with both, you could change pitches of the loops and add many tracks.
I hate minimalism and computer music so, needless to say, I was skeptical. These programs, however, were fascinating in the potential to give a kid a sound palette and literally let them go in whatever creative direction they wished. I personally went fucking crazy for over an hour on Fleximusic and was able to come up with some very satisfyingly unexpected and interesting melodic and rhythmic contrapuntal effects. I still don't like computer music, but it was fun.
I teach music theory and solfege at my school including two classes made up entirely of 5 year olds (time off in purgatory). In every class, the curriculum encourages age-appropriate creative composition and improvisation after learning a solfege and written theory basis. It is now obvious to me that amongst all my acquired snobbery in what children should learn about music from an early age, best thing (and most rewarding for the teacher, too) is to provide situations where creative improvisation can result in a piece of the child's own design that can be shared, and even performed with others. This is a big deal for me, as I have had major problems with music education and colelgiate music education programs, and the general lackluster quality of the teachers produced by said programs with whom I have come in contact (my sister excluded). But the problem is not even the teaching universities, but the motivations of those developing curriculum for the public schools, not to mention that shitty "No child left behind" crap. Being a music teacher in a non traditional setting with only my kid skills and music knowledge to guide me (plus some totally bitchin in-house lesson plans that I have found) is terrifying and I have been lucky. But when I tell a 5 year old student that I'm going to sing what he's writing, and then he dives into it trying to make it "really, really hard!" I can't help but think how many other kids have that in them, but haven't been given the opportunity.

Pre-Turkey Reflections

One of my little punk-ass guitar students floored me the other day. But first, I need to back up and get a running start. I began lessons with this 14 and a half year old mess a little over a year ago. Over the years, I've developed my own method of teaching kids with no intention of learning the play guitar other than to jam, which includes covert techniques of tricking them into learning some of the inner workings of music as well as an emphasis on improvising (which is first translated as "just screwing around for a little while every time you pick up the instrument). This kid exhibited NO evidence of talent (we'll save that discussion for another post - stay tuned) and on several occasions, I was ready to fire him and almost did.
Then all of a sudden, one day, after about 7 months of working with him weekly, everything came together - motor skills, rhythm (this was a big point, as for most of the time he had had none), interest, and a desire to want to do better on the instrument and actually have it be part of his life (as much of a commitment that a 15 year old boy can muster). So we continued through the summer.
The kid is Jewish, so we had a two month break during the high holy days in the early fall. We recently started back and early this week, at our lesson, I was fiddling around while he was setting up. Absent-mindedly, I played a Emaj7, voiced in the middle of the neck and he sprung to life.
"That's the chord from Under The Bridge," he says.
"Huh?"
"That's the chord from Under The Bridge," he says again, "Listen." He shuffles through his iPod to the Chili Peppers section and plays the intro for me (which brings me back to my senior prom in an instant - yes, that was actually the closing slow dance song that they played, can you believe that shit?) which ends on the same voicing of the Emaj7 that I had absent-mindedly produced.
Question mark.
So we did that a few more times, first with me playing chords and him identifying them as being from this song or that one, then with me playing open strings and seeing if he could identify them by name, which he could, for the most part, then finally with me playing pitches all over the neck, a lot of which, he could name with better than random accuracy. All this may sound unremarkable on the surface, but it was a major and unexpected occurrence for this kid.
This all plays into the ongoing struggle with pitch memory, aka "perfect pitch," which I have been desperately trying to add to my ability toolbox (if that were possible, which I'm not sure anymore if it is). For those of you updating your scorecard, I started this discussion during the summer, trying at first using anchors, (which a composer colleague of mine told me was dealing solely with relative pitch, not memory - don't know how I feel about that) then followed up with trying to associate the pitches with colors (synesthesia) or, like my student, with particular musical events (with decreasing degrees of success). All the while, I've been trying NOT to get into spirited discussion about it, as when I do, I sound like I'm making fun of people - like my wife - who can do what I, seemingly, cannot. My west-side blogger friend Michael Kaulkin brought up an interesting phenomena, where he thought his Sibelius software was secretly trying to usurp his inner hearing, and that led into a discussion with my wife and my sister (at whose house, I am eagerly awaiting that brined master piece which she just put in the oven) involving the following:
1) Just because I don't have perfect pitch, that doesn't mean that I'm a bad person (my sister said that, not me, and hell if I'm going to believe her).
2) One of the grating things about not having perfect pitch memory is that I have to start a new piece at the piano, not in my ears.
3) Only after having worked on a piece for a while, and subsequently having played through it several times, do I have all parts in my head, but I only have the relative pitches in my head - there is not guarantee that I am starting on the right pitch. Why is that a problem, she asked? It's a problem because the sonorities I want work in particular way (for voices, especially) in particular keys, and if I'm "hearing" in a different tonal understanding, I might think that it won't work the way I want it to, making me second guess, and likely try to change it, making only an excrutiating long process even longer.
As you can tell, this sort of a problem and speaks to the following very ugly question - should I even be doing this in the first place?
I'm sure my thinking will be far clearer with four pounds of turkey in my gut.

Yer on notice - election edition

I added Adamo just to get Kaulkin's Gander up.

Well, is it doomed?

The piece I talked about previously is now up on the myspace music page. Deal with it.

Bet you didn't know this.

So, I'm driving home for my lunch break, listening to (what else?) the NPR station, and the usually mindlessly bland mid-day programming of the local affiliate. Today, I caught a bit of the program Here and Now which, "...features fast breaking news, more leisurely analysis, and human interest stories." Blech.
However, today I hear that they are going to talk about, of all things, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. Piqued, I stay tuned. It seems that the show was observing the 68th anniversary of the premiere radio broadcast of the piece (the NBC Orchestra under Toscanini), and that the recording of that broadcast is now recognized on the registry of the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress.
Piqued, I say.
H.R. 4846, sponsored in July, 2000 by Rep. William M. Thomas, a Republican from California's 22nd District (central Pacific coast - and who is not facing re-election on Tuesday) became Public Law Number 106-474 without much of a fight, I'm guessing. It established,

...the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress to maintain and preserve sound recordings and collections of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and for other purposes.

There exists online, for those of you interested, an extensive definition of what this office seeks to preserve and how to nominate such recordings for consideration (which anybody can do) . Additionally, the list of board members will be a good thing to have on hand when the topic comes up at social functions, as, t'would appear, there are no writers of music outside of popular song, movie and musical theatre on the board. Again, for those interested, the law mandates:

The Board is appointed by the Librarian of Congress and consists of one member and one alternate from each of seventeen organizations representing composers, musicians, musicologists, librarians, archivists, and the recording industry, as named in the law. In addition, the Librarian of Congress may appoint up to five "at-large" members.

As might be expected, the content of this new registry is even more interesting than the circumstances of its origination or the makeup of its governing body. That being said, I advise taking a look at what the committee has deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant (and their reasoning) in the few years it has been addressing the subject. Personally, I take issue with putting Barber on the same plane of "cultural, historical or aesthetic significance" as Public Enemy and Judy Garland, but that is probably why I was not asked to be on the board.

I just don't want to be around her when she mensurates

In a brief attempt to dissuade myself from the viscous self-loathing associated with the fact that I still do not have perfect pitch memory, let's focus for a day on a milestone of notational delineation - the Ars Nova - and its author, Philippe de Vitry, who is not only the sole thing I remember from my shitty music history class, but was a music theorist more daring than 100 minimalists put together (who are still boring as all hell). By the way, de Vitry's was born 715 years ago tomorrow (October 31st).

Happy Birthday, Chuck!

You know what sucks? Of all the self-absorbed new music sites out there, my self-absorbed site is the one that's mentioning Charles Ives' birthday today. In celebration, go find yourself two marching bands to stand between.

The spaces aren't the only thing between the lines

My wife has a recital coming up, on which she is doing some seriously screwed up shit. She recently had a coaching on said screwed up shit, during which the coach went off on a tangent where it was revealed that she (the coach) has been premiering new works at big (and I mean big) new music festivals for decades. Furthermore, this coach said that the fundamental and regular argument she would get into with composers was whether or not what was on the page was to be performed as such with 100% accuracy and attention to detail, or if an acceptable amount of wiggle room interpretation was to be allowed. This argument, the coach went on, usually began with a composer approaching her saying that he didn't like the performance because she played it this way or that. When she showed the composer that how she played it was how it was notated, the composer would invariably say something to the effect of, "Well, that's not what I meant."
Z. would advocate absolute precision when notating. His orchestration class was as much a solidification of hand-written notation skills as it was an examination of idiomatic writing for any given instrument. But my real test of notation skills came with a year's worth of studying big band arranging. When writing for jazz ensembles, you have the option to be incredibly vague in your notation as it is, by definition, an improvisation based music. But you have the option, and sometimes the responsibility, of extraordinarily concrete notation as well. For instance, if you want a chord voicing in the rhythm section to match that of the saxes, you need to write that voicing out specifically, as opposed to just writing the chord symbol, where you never know what you're going to get.
All things aside, there is the issue of breathing - literal breathing, and also phrasing, pace, an organic quality. If a piece is notated to the gills, my wife mentioned, it may not breathe, (no pun intended) and she's right. Notation is only an approximation, to begin with. Add on top of that a commitment (being married) to how a piece sounds in your ears, and then, through the MIDI player or notation program that you have slaved over for glorious hours on end in anticipation of hearing your piece without the trials of dealing with actual people (which I try to avoid). Now place in its stead a host of x-factors in the form of actual people with varying levels of training who may or may not even like your piece, but need a gig, or maybe are forced to hack through your charts with only a modicum of concern for what time you spent detailing every comma, dot and luftpaus. Then you have to deal with a conductor. Do you take them into consideration as you are writing?
Maybe! I'm finishing a motet for my church choir now (everyone, by the way, should have a church choir with which to experiment - put those chops to the test! And you don't have to pay them!!) and the first consideration is the ensemble. I know the basses can't sing higher than a D above the staff, I know the sopranos break at the top line F natural, I know the altos can sing an A below the staff if I need it, AND I know that I'm singing tenor (I can't even begin to tell you about those limitations, there's some shit that I don't even want to sing). But beyond that, I know that the choir (all choirs) will need to pace themselves through the piece in such a way as may not be easily notated, or can't be notated at all, but invariable relies upon experience, and therefore, taste. That often becomes self evident in rehearsal, and is usually shown by my face turning various shades of red. If I don't think of the breathing points - not just the punctuation in the text; not even the gestures of the phrasing - the piece is doomed.
We'll see if I paid attention in class.

Rhymes with "simmer"

I've added a new one to the Composer's Reading Project list at right: Lou Harrison's Music Primer. A composer I had a coaching with last summer recommended the 50 page paperback, and it is dripping with fascinating, humorous insights. It is now, officially, recommended reading for everyone. You'll be damned if you can find a copy to buy online (Amazon on has one listed, and for $75 at that). Your best luck may be to investigate your local library, or better yet the music library at your local institution of higher learning. Hopefully, it will be there, covered in dust. The back jacket on the one I read, from NEC's music library, showed that my borrowing was only the seventh in 25 years (and I got it 'till December, so eat me).
My knowledge palette now has Lou Harrison's colors on it, and I feel silly for not having come in contact with him before (well, its a big world, and I started late). But honestly, I never heard him mentioned over the JohnCageSteveReichMiltonBabbitElliotCarteret.al. top-of-the-lungs-hollering. So in venturing out in the free music that I can scrounge up on the internet I came across these little gems - bit of a cross section, but nothing new to my ears has ever struck me as fast and as hard as these, especially the Harp Suite (played here on guitar).

Lessons with Z. - plans and courage

This blog started as an attempt to define things for myself while on the path to being a composer. To continue in that vein, I am finally listening to and transcribing excerpts from my lessons with Z. between 2000 and 2004.

Z: So, I don't know what art is, I just know what it is not, and I also know what it is for me. Now, do you have a similar place in your life? I don't think so yet.
fp: No, not yet, but I'm getting there...
Z: Yes! And I'm getting there, too! So as long as you've got your foot on the path, you're doing ok. But, how many are with you? You better not feel lonely, because you are!
fp: I guess I've been thinking about it a great deal more...
Z: go on...
fp: ...in terms of my graduate school plans in sacred music, which I had, in, sometime around the time that we had started working together and after 20th century (class) that I had made a quiet decision that that was going to be... that the purity of sacred music, as I saw it, was going to be something that I was going to fight for for a long time.
Z: Good!
fp: So now that I'm saying, "Alright, this is going to happen..."
Z: "This is what I'm gonna to do..."
fp: yes
Z: "This is one of the important things I'm gonna do in my life."
fp: And the more...and the few members of clergy, I suppose, that I've spoken to, who have just been, who I've talked to have said to me, you know, "Good, we need somebody to do that..."
Z: ...but they're full of shit...
fp: ...well, some of them are...
Z: They'll say, "We need somebody," and they really mean it, but do you know what they mean when they say, "We need somebody."?
fp: what?
Z: They're telling you, "We need somebody to service what we want."
fp: well..
Z: ...and their standards
fp: well, hang on, let me finish...The response that I've gotten has been, "We need somebody thinking the way you do." when I describe to them, in very limited detail, some of my motivations. Is that clear?....
Z: Yeah, and you're very clear, but you have to understand that these are people who are nine and a half out of ten are professional clergy, and that's already a dichotomy. Because everyone binds themselves between what they like to do, like to say and can and can't. And as long as you are living in the arts, you are always going to be in that problem, which you'll have to balance, and it's a very difficult balancing act. But, they encourage you and that's good. And they indeed mean what they say, but they are not as sophisticated as you are. The answer to what they say to you will be, for you, "We'll see." When they bring you (something) and you say, "That's not..."
fp: That's not exactly...
Z: Then you'll find out. And then when you say, "What exactly, what do you have difficulty with?" then comes..."Not quite what I...
fp: ...expected...
Z: So what they're telling you is, "Why don't you just be a good boy. You see what that thing is over there? We like that alot. I bet you could do that."....and don't be upset with me...
fp: No, no, no, ...
Z: ...you're an artist...
fp: ... and that's the whole purpose of it is to get, you know, to try and familiarize and solidify my arguments to myself, that I've been doing for a little bit now, coupled with the fact that I have the tendency to fly off the handle.
Z: Yes, you do. What's interesting about you, Frank, is that, as you get older, the red light comes on before you get pissed: you flush before you get upset...you can see it's coming.
fp: I can feel it coming, too...
Z: ...so you have to learn to be a better poker player.
fp: I'm a very bad poker player...
(laughter)
Z: But also, this should help: You'll have to see the world as "them" and "you." Don't tell me it's "them" and "us." It's not been my experience. When push comes to shove, you're generally out there with your balls in your hand. Now, as long as you're comfortable with that, it's a solitary experience.
fp: I don't currently have the patience for that...or the courage...
Z: Well, if the big picture is right, you'll find the patience.

Lessons with Z. - waging the battle

This blog started as an attempt to define things for myself while on the path to being a composer. To continue in that vein, I am finally listening to and transcribing excerpts from my lessons with Z. between 2000 and 2004.

Z: Did I tell you that in my enjoyment of music class they told me about "art" and "artist?" I said, "Now the time has come to tell you you're full of shit. Most of you don't know what an 'artist' is, you don't even know what 'art' is, so how could you possibly delineate a practitioner of something that isn't 'art?'" So, after struggling for about five minutes, one of them said, "Well, are there degrees of talent?" Yes. "Well then, anybody who's talented and who makes something is an artist." And then, the farther we got into it, this is what came out: "Anybody who does something well that I can't do, is an artist." And that's the attitude that is right off the record liners: he's and artist, she's an artist, everybody's an artist. So finally, what's an artist? You have to reserve, it would seem to me, that word for something that's special. What percentage of what you hear is of that quality? Well, their answer was: "If I like it, then that's about as far as I go." Then now, you begin to go into, one kid said, "Maybe it's like two or three percent." I said, "Maybe." He said, "Are you an artist?" I said, "I don't know. I don't know if what I do is art. Time will tell. But, I know when I'm in the presence of non-art." But that's for me. I'm not telling you that it's a world standard. There is no world standard.
fp: Well, then how do you wage the battle if there is no world standard?
Z: You wage the battle...the battle is... you, Frank, come to your conclusions that satisfy your unrelenting standards. Because, if your standards are not unrelenting, then you're full of shit and you have none. So, you see me struggle, you struggle. You see me do what I have to do to come to my own conclusion, that's all I encourage you to do.
fp: What is the difference, then, ...when does that become zealotry? Or is it?
Z: That's a character thing, when you become a zealot, when your position, now you want to become an evangelist...
fp: Are you conscious of, if there's a point in your teaching these idiots, that you could easily get into evangelims, that you could easily become...
Z: what I'm evangelizing is the process, not the answer.
fp: The process for yourself...
Z: No! Any process. For all of them. All of us have to arrive at, and discover a process. That I am an evangelist about. Arrive at your position through information, taste and experience, with whatever insights God gave you at birth. Yes, I'm a zealot, but that's not about "You gotta get to where I got." But they misunderstand that. They'll always think that what you're doing at first is telling them what's good. I show them how I got, how I get to what I think is good, and I say to them, "You now have to do the same thing." Not to get to that same place, but you still have to get to it doing what I do which is: seriously, honestly, painfully, studiously... so then, you carry that over into your own work. The process is everything. So, it's not zealotry. It certainly is passion about the activity as being inevitable and irreplaceable. You can't replace it. Now, most people are not interested in it - fuck 'em! You tell them once. Your job is to teach them, is to tell them. Now, they don't want any? Fuck 'em! Did you understand how I got there? Did you hear how I said it? Now, it's up to you - let's get on with something else. That's my responsibility. But the mistake is to try to convince, to try to make the deaf hear. That's a big mistake, and I made it all the time when I was a young teacher. The deaf will not hear and the blind will not see and that's end of the discussion. So you have to be compassionate and kind and move on.

Lessons with Z. - the coda

This blog started as an attempt to define things for myself while on the path to being a composer. To continue in that vein, I am finally listening to and transcribing excerpts from my lessons with Z. between 2000 and 2004.

fp: Do you have particular strategies when you are coming to the end of a piece, kind of, tools out of the "form" tool box, or something that you draw from?
Z: You know what you don't want?
fp: What?
Z: No, I'm saying - do you know what you don't want? Where do you not want it to go? Well, what do you have? You have and "A," you have a "B"...
fp: I have an "A," I have a "B"...
Z: What are your options?
fp: Well, I could go back and do the "A" again...
Z: ...or you could go to a "C,"..
fp: ...or I could go to a "C"...
Z: ...but if you go to a "C"..
fp: then it has to tie back into the "A."
Z: I think the "A," the "B" and the "A" and then a coda. Now one of the things I sometimes find works out is I do a variation, which gives the illusion that something is the same, but really by changing a note here and there, the ear gets tricked into believing that something new has happened.
...
fp: And you always talked about the coda as something that sums up the piece?
Z: Yeah, it can't seem like something tacked on. Many times, inexpert codas and failure codas, it almost seems like you can see where the scotch tape (claps his hands) is drawing that to that: "I gotta get the hell out of here, I've got to end." I've been there myself. Sometimes I feel I may have done exactly that. Tired, you don't have an idea at the moment, so you throw something there into the breach just to see how it works and that's ok, just as long as you don't commit to it.

Lessons with Z. - In the marble

This blog started as an attempt to define things for myself while on the path to being a composer. To continue in that vein, I am finally listening to and transcribing excerpts from my lessons with Z. between 2000 and 2004.

Z: Sometimes you're not writing the piece that you're supposed to, you're writing the piece you want to.
fp: When is it ok to write the piece that you want to? Or is it never ok?
Z: No, you have to...you remember that famous thing where Michelangelo looks at the marble and says, "In the marble, I saw 'The David'."? So therefore you don't say, "Let's see, I've got a nice piece of marble, I could make this, I could make that..." No, it has to be what it is. And that inevitability of it may be the emotional power that makes a piece - your work or anybody else's work - not the artifice, the manipulation, the cleverness...it's good to be clever, but not to the point where that's all it's about. The cleverness should really be disguised...And then you go in and you make adjustments like you do when you're making furniture or painting a wall, but the change mustn't now seem like a fix, it has to feel like part of the original. And that's the trick, you never want to see the sand paper, you never want to see...like my mother used to say, everything has to have a French hem - you don't see the joins. "Who cares?" says the public, "Who looks underneath?" But I think that immaculateness, that pristine clarity has a very compelling quality. But it will only attract fine ears of someone that is predisposed to that kind of elegance.

Yer on notice

I spend way too much time online...but at least now I can vent my steam in a creative, humorous manner! I'll update this as appropriate...stay tuned, children!

Last post about criticism, I swear

My friend Charles is a well respected, well credentialed intellectual and educator. His reviews are always well plotted and informative, and he was really supportive of my writing last season. His recent post on ionarts will serve as the cap to the discussion that I've sloughed through on my last few posts, particularly where it concerned this point: critics, (for the most part, and from what I have surmised, having taken a swing at it), write about performances: live or recorded. When they depart from that avenue, it becomes commentary, which should be scrutinized with an altogether different lens. Performances sound different in each set of ears in attendance, and each set of ears is attached to an amateur critic with a hockey stick in his hand. Whether the critic is a composer of not, he still has place that puck on the ice. Watch your fingers.
(This blog, by the way, is commentary, and is not about watching my fingers, but tossing grenades over my shoulder and sifting through the rubble! Thank you.)
I'm also not a huge fan of hockey, but that has nothing to do with anything.

Happy Birthday, Kenny!

Do yourself good and go listen to some of the sacred choral works of Kenneth Leighton on what would have been his 77th birthday, particularly, Lully, Lulla. Dig that fuzzy mandible. And while we're on it, God bless Naxos and their online catalogue!

It takes a big man to admit he's wrong

As a follow up to the previous post, it seems that I was incorrect. The Boston Globe has not left its classical music reporting in the hands of its pop writers, but has brought on board one Jeremy Eichler, formerly of the New York Times. Jeremy snuck in over the summer, reporting about Tanglewood and the recent Harvard lectures. His review of the BSO's opening night can be found here - not bad writing at all, but nevertheless, awefully safe writing. He has great credentials, has playing experience, and is pursuing a doctorate in culture, but he is not a composer.
This was the point that I attempted, and failed, to make in that last post, and one that gets me in endless trouble with the wife. I think that the only somebody I would trust to tell me about the performance of a piece of music, especially new music (which the Boston Symphony plays quite a bit of) in a critical sense should be somebody with composer's training. But then again, I still cling to the idealistic notion that music history and music theory should only be taught by composers (not my idea, but you-know-who's, and it still sounds like a good idea to me on most days). This notion, however, brings up a boatload of considerations that all but render the whole thing moot: Who's a composer? What makes them think that they are? Would we trust that they will have an objective approach to criticism, let alone public or specialized education? How can one be sure that they could evaluate new music, or a performance of a classic as we are now pretty sure that there are no unified schools of thought with today's American composers? Could a composer handle, encourage or even relate to, a fiercely uneducated populace? Does that populace know, and subsequently care, what a composer is and/or does? Would it matter?
But what the fuck do I know? Read this great essay by Australian composer/critic Gordon Kerry. On the other hand, Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a damn good and highly persuasive essay against the composer/critic persona.
I still haven't decided if I am going to pursue writing for ionarts this season, although Charles has left the door open for me. The BSO has already kicked things off and I will have to play catch-up with the press office, whose roster changes more frequently than the Italian government. It would be, on the other hand, the continuation of an immensely educational endeavor - looking for words to convey the idea of that which cannot be described.

Everyone's a critic

Just before moving to Boston, I sang what will likely be my last Sunday Mass at the Basilica in Washington. My friend Charles asked if I wanted to write for his website as a correspondent, and I began the task of pestering the Boston Symphony for press tickets, which I eventually got (see the list of reviews to the right). It was an incredible challenge and learning experience as it gave me the first taste of writing about music while revealing voluminous gaps in my expertise. Things with the real job got pretty overwhelming near the end of the season and my posts subsequently became more infrequent. Additionally, I became increasingly irritated with 1) the level of vigorous ignorance in the responses to my posts, and the posts of of my colleagues and, 2) the horrendous quality of writing with which I was coming into contact as I poked around the world of music criticism in general, and that in Boston in particular.
The end of the 33 year career of the Boston Globe's Richard Dyer this week marks the end of an era for this city as far as the commentary about classical music goes (read his characteristically pointless and meandering retirement address here). As far as can be determined, the Globe's search for a full time classical music critic has either stalled or been forgotten. The city's other paper, the Boston Herald, sends a revolving door of pop music writers to cover classical music events poorly. The city's trendy, "artsy" periodicals don't cover such events at all. For a northeastern city that rightfully boasts as much culture as New York with far less pretentiousness - including a world class orchestra with daring programming, new music coming from every pore, five powerhouse music conservatories in a 3 mile radius and a rabid choral scene - Boston has zero music critics/reporters that can be taken seriously, barely a classical radio station, and soggy public support for anything outside the 19th century blinders. To top that, Boston just lost its only full time classical music critic, and he was mealy-mouthed to begin with.
Read Virgil Thomson and you will find out what music criticism can be like - where the development of the art of composition and its influence on American society take center stage, and not the idiosyncrasies of the performer (I swear to God, if Dyer wasted more ink on what Jean-Yves Thibaudet was wearing...), or the melodrama of the conductor god-complex (James Levine - Dyer's Bostonian Buddha for two years - programs great and exciting concerts, but he's breaking the BSO's bank).
So what's a cracker to do? I honestly don't know if I have the energy. I'm trying to figure out if I want to go through with it all again, specifically the BSO runaround, or maybe branch out to the contemporary music and choral portals in the city. As far as the readership of Charles' site goes, the logical entries are those of national interest, specifically the BSO. As far as my own, the new music concerts are the way to go - but who wants to read NP to hear me bitch about what some 18-year-old wrote for his girlfriend?
Honestly though, does anyone know of a living, working composer-critic?

Sharing is caring

How desperate should a composer be to have a piece of music performed? Meaning, how far should a composer go to promote his own music just for the purpose of self-promotion and/or the promotion of a piece of music. When should said composer pull the rip cord? And how much of that decision should be in the composer's hands?
Z. advised rigorous supervision of the rehearsal process, looking over a conductor's shoulder up to an including the point where the composer reserves the eleventh hour privilege to pull the piece from a program if it is in danger of being performed under-rehearsed. There's something ballsy and correct in that assessment; but there is also a fine line between that and pure arrogance which can brand the composer as being a dick, and not worth working with. That "arrogance," however, is likely just fear that a poor performance of a piece will reflect badly only on the composer, and again, brand said composer as a dick who writes crap and is not worth working with.
I have the benefit of singing in a church choir that not only appreciates and performs my pieces, but who also encourages me to write more for them. The other edge of the sword is that it is an amateur choir with a lot to be desired in the realms of things like tone, pitch, range, etc. Enter the conundrum of writing whatever the hell you want within the bounds of your standards vs. writing with a particular ensemble in mind and limiting yourself for the occasion. Neither of which is a sin, but can be construed as such should one be pursued unchecked by the other. It's a tough dance.
One of my pieces was sung today in service - with the president of the Episcopal Divinity School in attendance - after only a short rehearsal process. It was, to make things even, the second time the piece was performed with this choir, so the molehill of the rehearsal process wasn't magnified by the mountain of cold sightreading. Having been a church choir director, it was tough not to chastise the altos for singing slow, or the basses for being amorphous, or the sopranos for killing the money notes. But instead I was forced into a state of disciplined humbleness - using the time in rehearsal to note corrections that should be made to the piece, and putting myself under the microscope of technique and taste: "For whom am I writing?" "What purpose does the piece serve?""Is this part singable?""Is the piece successful?" It's a laboratory that's difficult to stand in, but presents an brutally honest appraisal of a piece outside of the vacuum of my ears - especially when I'm also participating in the performance of the piece. I was tempted to ditch the whole thing at every rehearsal - including this morning's - beating my breast for the sin of gluttony, for my ears were bigger than my choir's. I refrained from the drama and, surprisingly, all went pretty well.
Just to serve my narcissism a bit more, I lingered longer than usual at the coffee urn after service. To my honest surprise, I was attacked by parishioners and vestry members who expressed genuine appreciation and gratitude for the piece, with emphasis that it served to enhance the service. I suppose a little narcissism paid off.
An excerpt of today's performance of Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured can be found at the myspace music page, along with other recordings which are detailed here. I found the text, translated by John Brownlie, in the Episcopal hymnal (#313).

Moron Standards

...wait, that should read "More on Standards"...the extra "e" is for "Ecclesiastes."
Nothing, however, from scripture comes to mind in particular for this post besides Proverbs 22:15 (from my dad's 1952 New Catholic Edition):

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away.

I'm not sure how I get into these conversations with my wife. Probably because I'm being a shithead, and I say something rash that I have no intention of defending, whereupon she makes me defend it, because like hell if I'm going to say I'm wrong. But we are not, dear readers, talking about that accursed checkbook again, we are talking about MUSIC! Of all the water nymphs out there, I have to be spellbound by the one with infinitely more music credentials than me. It could, of course, be far worse on so many levels.
So it all begins back with a previous post about my thoughts on standards for myself and my current composing project, both of which I visit every day, with varying degrees of success. I'm looking around at the world of composition, particularly that of a sacred nature, and trying to find what works for me and what doesn't. What doesn't is that writing which seems to draw an exorbitant amount of attention to the self (whether it be the composer or the performer) in a way that is - and this is the start of the aforementioned altercation with said wife - selfish and self-aggrandizing. My goal, my standard, then becomes - especially with sacred music - to write in such a way as to not be selfish and self-aggrandizing, and in fact to draw no attention at all to my personal whatever - an agenda, a preconceived notion, "what I think sacred music should be." Impossible? Possibly.
I'm reading Copland's Music and Imagination as part of my composers reading project (see the links to the right). It's a fascinating series of lectures (also from 1952), and should be required reading for everyone. I just finished a portion that smacks directly into this topic. It speaks (this is a greatly simplified paraphrase, mind you) of tradition vs. innovation in composition, focusing on two distinct topics: the role of form, and the purpose and objective of composing. In discussing the second thesis, he states that it is impossible for a composer to sever himself from that social context of which he is a product. Further, every composer must face the issue of communication. It is the combination of these two dilemmas that brings me to question it this way: What purpose does the writing serve, personally; and for whom is it written, other than me?
If I am to proceed with the idea of working within a semi-anonymous cloak, why on earth should I fret about who is singing - or evaluating for publication or judging in competition - my writing. Should it really be a personal expression of, as my wife put it, the person I might actually want to be; or is all that psychobabble dogshit wrapped in a Wal-Mart bag of self-loathing?
Why am I writing this fucking blog?
Another composing blogger was kind enough to talk about NP during the summer, and even kinder to quote a bit of the writing to show what I was talking about. In a comment, some other person (one of those who don't have their own blog, but who "contributes" to others) took it upon himself to critique me and everything I stand for based upon the run on sentence that was displayed, taking everything out of context an belittling the sentiment in the process, without even supplanting my argument with a contrasting one. I chose not to respond on a third party blog.
This shouldn't bug me, but fuck it, it does, and here's the reason: I'm taking the risk of putting out in the wide open my little pieces and theories in progress. It is personal - very personal - and I reserve the right to defend to the teeth my music and notions. But to whom I defend them does not matter as much as the extent to which I defend them to myself, and this episode played directly into the discussion. Copland's essay ends with saying a composer in a vacuum is an impossible solution to the problem. Maybe not a total vacuum, but perhaps these topics are best left in my kitchen to be stirred with a rod of correction - because like hell if I'm going to say I'm wrong. :)

Blame it on Boethius, or, It's all Greek to me

In the neverending quest to answer the question "Why is 'do,' 'C'?" I tossed a line out to a former theory professor, in hopes that he could provide a lead. A lead he gave, and probably the one that will have to suffice for a time, realizing that the actual answer may be lost in translation forever - literally.
That lead was Anicus Manlius Severnius Boethius. He was a 5th-6th century Roman statesman and scholar who had a penchant for ancient (even for his time) Greek thinking. As the story goes, of the many things Grecian that Boethius chose to adapt and translate, one of them resulted in a treatise on music - De musicae (read it in Latin here!). More will be written about this as I get deeper into it, but the basic facts seem to be that he translated the Greek modes - in which pitches had already been given letter names - using the first fifteen letters of the Roman alphabet, which would cover two octaves (considered then to be the maximum range of human voices). Keep in mind that church modes and the means of teaching them are still developing at this point in time, and this is about 400 years before Guido.

Leave your comments at the door

I've opened up my comments to everyone, including non-Blogger peeps. Fire away. One condition - no anonymous posting, please. I won't approve anything without a name.
ok, 1,2,3...go

"C" is for "cookie," & that's good enough for me

As a testament to how much time I have on my hands, the biggest mystery I have sought to solve in recent years is this: why is "do", "C." Meaning, why has the default understanding of the solfege syllable "do" become synonymous with the English character "C" (and not "A")?
A few things need to be sorted out before we begin. First is the fact that only English speaking countries use the English alphabet (A through G with accidentals) to delineate pitches. Next, we will forego the initial usage of Guido of Arezzo's system of, essentially, movable "ut," and focus on the common acceptance of the fixed "do" system, with "do" corresponding to the note associated with the English letter "C."
My current question is a derivative of one that my poor Musical Theatre performing superstar sister posed to me (in a passive acknowledgement that I know more about music than she, or, more likely, that I would be dork enough to investigate - damn that woman!). But the answer to the question is a hard one to come by. I began my investigation by asking my (second) undergraduate music history (excuse me, musicology, sorry, excuse me, ethnomusicology being forced to teach a music history class) professor. After hemming and hawing, he finally said - I am not making this up - "Because 'C' is for 'Christ.'"
I will NEVER trust an enthnomusicologist again.
More later.

Who's gonna sing it?

Roger Bourland, who is an honest-to-God composer, went on Sequenza21 and opened a Pandora's box with a question of explicit tonality or atonality in the choral writing of the future. You can go to the site and read the way the question was phrased and all of the responses it provoked, both on- and off- topic. This is a pretty good example of the kind of interaction composers have online.
It seems to be an odd question, however. It strikes me that the heart of the matter is not tonal/atonal. Its the honest consideration of purpose; an awareness of for what ends, and for whom in particular, a piece is being written. Maybe it could have been phrased "How aware are modern composers of the idiomatic requirements for writing in a particular medium or for a particular ensemble?"
I got a feeling in the better phrased responses that some other guys out there were going that way as well. Go check it out.

Guido, he's a friend of ours

All things considered, I have a pretty sweet job. It doesn't pay well, and the work is hard and complicated. I have to deal with people on a regular basis, which is not a strong point with me. But the commute is easy, the hours are rather flexible, and I'm pretty good at it. I work for a non-profit music school as an administrator, which has been a remarkable stroke of luck and a real down-the-road windfall. But the really sweet part is the side work. For two to three hours a week, I teach music theory and solfege to children between the ages of 5 and 9.
Solfege, aka solfeggio or solmization, is one of the oldest forms of music education still in existence. This is another one of those things I could go on an on about. For those of you who haven't seen The Sound of Music, I am talking about Guido of Arezzo (unfortunately, he was probably not Italian, likely French, dying in or near Arezzo). You can research him online easily, and I suggest that you should, as you will find that he is responsible for the way that we notate music and, subsequently, how we teach our students to be musically literate.
This is becoming a thing for me now, as I am beginning the daunting task of fundraising through grant writing for my school. The process gives an opportunity to closely examine the benefits of this kind of training first hand, then translate it into why people should give us cash to keep it going. I'm also mentioning this as I complained in a previous post about how no one in the online "community" of composers talks much about education.
Composers training starts with the ears, and seeing 6 year olds get excited about rhythm, scales and the free writing exercises I give them (I know this is incredibly nerdy of me) makes me wish that I had had that opportunity when I was a squirt. I hope this history is not common, but I fear it is: I didn't receive dedicated ear training until undergraduate - after preliminary paper theory training in high school. Yikes. Thankfully, I'm good at it - in a relative pitch sense - and my ears continue to get sharper, which is an exhilarating thing of which to be conscious. I wonder how much farther I would be at this point if I was given a dose of Do Re Mis at 5.
For those interested, there are a great source of music education links here.

Grab some real estate

Dave Chappelle had a skit about the internet being just like a mall with everyone walking around, dipping into this store or that, making meaningless small conversation and coming in contact with skeezies that were a little too friendly, or even skeeziers who, do to relative anonymity, have very large cajones and even bigger mouths. Such has been my relatively brief foray into the world of online composition communes.
For some damn reason - probably having to do with a growing sense of self imposed alienation - I broke down, got a myspace and flagrantly threw both my ideas and the few available recordings of my completed music (not to mention my unconventional good looks and rapier wit) into the ether for whomever to peruse for 2.7 seconds on average (so sez my statcounter - gotcha!). Even stranger than finding out (more or less) who looks at me and my ill advised rants on a regular basis are the ill-advised rants of all the other nutjobs out there to whom I have been exposed due to my appearance (voluntary or otherwise) on various new music/composer gathering sites.
And let me tell you, its a fucking mish mash out there:
1) Everyone who has a website - or worse, everyone who doesn't have a website, and just leaves comments on everyone else's website - have very liberal opinions on the significance of their own writing, nothing to say about everyone else's writing, but very conservative opinions about anyone who does say anything, and I mean anything - good or bad, about anyone else's writing.
2) Everyone grasps for the oldest, most obscure, European composer still alive and touts them as the the most influential in the world. Ever.
3) There are no schools of thought, there are very few serious discussions of "Art" and many about how no one gives a shit about classical music anymore.
4) No one talks about education.
5) It is clear that everyone's going it alone - no matter how close knit these web communities pretend to be - and they are desperately trying to hold claim on the scrap of intellectual property their bandwidth affords them.
It sounds like I would fit right in! I think I suck, yet my opinions can't and should not be refuted! I have a website (well, a blog)! But that's not why I'm doing this. I'm honestly trying to steer into the current of American composition: to find out what's really going on, who's teaching what, where the concerts are happening, what people my age are writing and what it sounds like. But instead, I get a lot of anger, not much discussion, and very little serious composing, or at least very little talk of serious composing, and even fewer recordings.
I'd appreciate suggestions. I'll be waiting here on my little island of Narcissisia.

You say "poe-tay-toe"

Most of the trouble I get into stems from the words I use to talk about music. It's a "honesty may not be the best policy, but fuck'em" approach that I learned from you know who. Most of it, as described in a previous post, is direct result of Z.'s influence - he being a man of many words, most of them meant to hit you square in the face with the Oar of Art. Otherwise, it stems from a challenge he posed: What are your standards?
The awareness of my anti-semantic tendencies came forth during a "debate" I was having with my wife over another previous post. My gorgeous and talented wife also took the "perfect pitch" study at UCSF, and scored so high on it, that they contacted her directly to ask for her family history (apparently one of the facets of the study is to investigate a genetic link to the ability, which in foresight would answer most of my questions and generally shut me up, but I'd never admit that in honest conversation). She said that my arguments supporting calling it "pitch memory" as opposed to "absolute pitch" or "perfect pitch" were meaningless and that it all boiled down to semantics that I was using to put down the people who can do things that I can't (including her).
She is probably right.
Now, that opened a huge can of worms for me about how music is described and whether semantics take the place of actual hard-earned aesthetics. I have a psychology background. At this point, it is rather distant, but some parts are still valid. Specifically, when presenting ideas, every word must be carefully defined. For me, there are strong connotations for words like Art, Artist, Composer, talent, taste, and particularly sacred music.
Which brings me to the challenge. I write primarily sacred choral music, because I want to, and also because I feel like I need to. From my mother's womb, I fell into post-Vatican II Catholicism, and grew up with only bad music, not knowing what church was like without guitars, folk masses and "On Eagle's Wings." Within a year of going to Southern Miss, I found myself in a choir, then in a church job, then at the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. singing masses, chanting and getting my ass kicked all the way from Palestrina to Durufle, then eventually directing a church choir back in Mississippi. All the while I was bombarded by a heavily church-going culture with a wide disparity of liturgical music aesthetics. I latched on to my own church going (using the Episcopalian route to at least get SOME freakin high church) in addition to the aesthetic and found something to hold onto and to fight for: the significance of honestly conceived, sustainable and functionally viable sacred music for use in (Christian) worship.
Good for me.
I will refrain from hitting the bullet points of my still relatively new, narcissistic zealtory. Nor will I evangelize. But suffice to say that there are many battles to be waged on this VERY broad front, as there are as many fragmented semantics as there are people involved with the planning and execution of liturgical music in American Christendom. What I will talk about (briefly) are my standards for writing this type of music: It must not be secular.
Honestly conceived for a sacred purpose; sustainable through the established traditions of liturgical music, using a modern voice without consciously dipping into the trappings of musical secularism; functionally viable in terms of having an honest understanding of the likely abilities of performers I write for, and for the congregations who will allow it to enhance their worship, as that is it's ultimate purpose. These are my standards when writing this kind of music - when I'm confronted with the complete self-aggrandizing idiocy that getting published...
Damn, I did it again.

Listen up, children!

Recordings of two of my pieces are now functional and can be accessed via myspace! A few notes:

Mirabile Mysterium (2002) was written and revised in lessons with Z. The recording is a session take by the Southern Chorale at the University of Southern Mississippi, Greg Fuller conducting. The Southern Chorale premiered the work in concert in May, 2004 at Parkway Heights UMC (Hattiesburg, MS). The piece was subsequently performed at the 2004 lessons and carols service by Dr. Marilyn Keiser's choir at Trinity Episcopal Church (Bloomington, IN). Here's the text:

Mirabile Mysterium declaratur hodie:
Innovantur nature:
Deus homo factus est.
Id quod fuit, permansit
et quod nonerat, assumpsit:
Non commixtionem passus,
neque divisionem.

and my translation:

A wondrous mystery is revealed today:
The natures are renewed:
God has become man.
That which was, remained
And what was not, was assumed:
Suffering neither mixture,
nor division.

Gabriel's Message (2003, rev 2005) was an project from a series of lessons addressing accompaniments. It was left unfinished after about a month's worth of fruitless attempts, to be completed from the sketches last November. The recording is from a rehearsal of the choir of Grace Episcopal Church (Newton, MA) in preparation for their 2005 lessons and carols service, at which the piece was premiered. Not the best quality for several reasons, but you will get the picture. Often a lousy recording is better than no recording at all (how else are you going to figure out if the damn thing is seaworthy?). Enjoy!

||: history :||

Z. would tell me, as his teachers told him, that every piece has a model. On one hand, this is a comforting adage that allows you to dig through history to experience (without being dragged along by a theoretician or historian) a composer's technique, their harmonic choices, their form, their orchestrations, or whatever else you are looking to study. On the other hand, it can be limiting, albeit academic, to find yourself being folded into a sound or slice of history that is not your own, or has been played through already. Working your way through this minefield (as well as others that precede and follow) is what Z. would call "composition."
I have been trying, through this blog, to disassociate myself somewhat from my former teacher/mentor/relative at least emotionally if not ideologically, putting forth my own voice for my own benefit. Yet I find that, in the course of working on a new composition project, at least one of the model pieces to which I gravitate is one of his. Indeed, he would frequently present shorter pieces of his in lesson, or longer ones for summer study, encouraging me to use them as models, or to use a technique he called "simulation," in which you keep all the rhythms - and subsequently the form - and change all the notes. I didn't find this arrogant or presumptuous of him, especially as I enjoyed and was beginning to understand most of his works. Besides, how else does one learn a language, if not first through emulation? And though it would be far from me to say that I sound like him, because I never did, I tried to.
But it goes further. He would speak of the voice of his teacher being in his ear - quick to reprimand, never in adulation (his own praise could only come from himself, and not too frequently at that). Now I hear him in my ear, with the same beatings saved from our lessons. I have always been one who appreciates a good beating in a lesson in preparation for self deprecating flagellation in the privacy of my own studio (so in that regard, our relationship was productive). But there is, in the same ear, the kind suggestion of a model to use for inspiration which gently nudges you into the path of the Mack truck emblazoned with the words "When was the last time you had a truly original idea?"
Also, in my own speaking about music and composition, I find that most of the ideas (especially the strong ones), and the words to describe them, are his - and this after years of him making me swear off musical evangelism. The problem is not so much that I think he is full of shit, because I don't, but because his ideas do not necessarily reflect my thinking, but are so persuasive that it would be foolish not to agree with them, (especially if you don't need or want friends). Also, he was my first composition teacher, who made me realize some of the gifts I didn't know I had, and gave me the words to describe them. It's hard to step away from that, even to gain perspective, when the vernacular - as well as many other things in our relationship - is adopted.
Alright, now for some comic relief.


p.s. for those of you without a music background, those mirrored images in the title are not emoticons, they are musical symbols telling the player to repeat what they contain. Aren't I clever?

I cant even remember where my keys are

Just when I thought that the biggest battle of the summer was going to be the struggle against swamp ass, I've decided to focus my efforts in taking on pitch memory. Most would call the phenomenon "perfect pitch" or "absolute pitch" but I have problems with those monikers. First is the issue that pitch is not absolute, not in this culture nor across cultures, even other western ones. Unless you can tell the difference between 440 Hz and 441 Hz, don't tell me you are perfect or absolute.
The next issue is that of tuning. We all use instruments that are "tempered," or altered, meaning that the arrangement of the pitches on an instrument do not follow the laws of nature exactly. I would even go so far as to say that voices, when singing in an ensemble must also be tempered, but my wife, who is a million times the singer that I could hope to be, suggested that this word, and its "altered" definition is inappropriate. The thing is, for those of you who may not have had the luxury of singing in a choir of any size, or any ensemble of instruments for that matter, is that a pitch is only a pitch in a vacuum. A pitch always has context in an established hierarchy (no matter if the music is tonal or not), either in a series of pitches, (melodically), or in simultaneity, (harmonically). Even further, a pitch that plays a particular role in one harmony structure will have a completely different role in a different harmony structure, and must be treated differently just as the same stone will have a different consequence whether it is used as the cornerstone or the capstone.
Without getting in too deeply (although I would love to, come on over with a 40 of Abt 12 and I will go on and on about it) I'd readily refer you to this book which gives a fascinating account of the history of how we tune everything. Essentially, there are "natural," nicely mathematical relationships between frequencies which, when sounded together, we think sound pretty. However, as you get higher in pitch, the math starts to fail, and the pitches don't match up as they should. You make up the difference by "tempering" the pitches so that they all sound acceptable to how we have become accustomed to hear them. Again, being able to hear a pitch "perfectly" or "absolutely" really needs to be determined on a very small scale, not in general terms.
What makes more sense to me, in terms of nomenclature, is pitch memory - being able to remember what a commonly identified pitch sounds like. The many people that I know who can do this have excellent memory in alot of things, this being one facet of their freakishness. Additionally, they have been in hell when traveling overseas, where performing ensembles use marginally different pitch anchors than in the states.
Making up most of the bell curve is "relative" pitch, which means one of two things: 1) a layman can tell that two pitches are alike or different without having to identify them by name, and 2) musicians, given a reference pitch, can look at a piece of music and hear how it sounds. Most people without musical training fit into the first part of this category, and as the for 2nd qualification, that depends upon one's history of ear training, which in itself encompasses a wide spectrum as it is not universally taught in mainstream general music curricula. It is possible in this country for someone with musician's (especially instrumental) training to not encounter serious ear training until undergraduate.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from pitch memory is being "tone deaf." In over ten years of teaching music in various circumstances, I have not encountered anyone (without a developmental deficiency) who could not match pitch. Studies suggest that there are less people out there with this issue than there are with "perfect" pitch memory. There was a fascinating piece on All Things Considered some time back that focused on this potentially demoralizing condition known in research circles as amusia.
So I'm trying to train myself to have better pitch memory. This quest began a few weeks ago during a coaching with a composer. I was freaking out as I just knew he was going to ask me to play my sketches for him and I was going to shit all over the piano and we would get nothing done (I could have told him it was a performance piece called the Aristocrats, but...). Instead, we sat at his table and he read the scores - four parts, mind you - silently. Now, I can "hear" my pieces, but there was no guarantee that I was starting on the right pitch. He wasn't faking it either, as we then talked in specifics about harmonic elements of the pieces I brought him. I wasn't shocked by his ability, but curious as to how I could get to that point myself. The thing is that once you change the nomenclature from "absolute pitch" to "pitch memory," so it follows that the ability could be learned, and is not necessarily relegated to those lucky enough to be born with the skill.
So I whined about it to my wife (who has excellent pitch memory) as we were in the car last weekend going to the shore to visit her old piano teacher. We were listening to Harry Connick's Red Light/Blue Light cd, track 4: Jill. She stops the cd after the first three notes.
"What did you just hear?" she asked.
"A descending major triad." I instantly replied, blessing my mad relative pitch skills.
"Yes, but what major triad?"
Fuck. Then I spend the next few minutes trying to remember my anchor - the one pitch I have tried to drill into my head for over 10 years (middle C), and from which I could figure out all the rest of them using my aforementioned mad skills. After an intense silence, I figure out that it is a descending Bb Major triad (F-D-Bb). Now I have new anchors! Now I'm getting them confused with the old one! Shit!
So now I am trying to walk around all day with a descending Bb Major triad in my pocket, and having mixed results. More on my progress will follow. If you are interested in where you fit on the spectrum of pitch memory, there is a bitchin little online study by the University of California, San Francisco. I failed their test miserably and was speaking in tongues by the end of it. It single-handedly kicked the ass of every aural theory test I ever took.

correction! a pitch cannot be a pitch in a vacuum - no air equals no sound! that was for those of you keeping score, if you didn't mind and got the metaphor, then all the better. - fp

Techniques of Limitation, or, Don't tie me up on the first date.

Last weekend, after along match of email tennis, I had a consultation with a local composer, who I mentioned in a previous post. The experience was fascinating and a bit nerve-wracking. This was the first time I had ventured away from my educational commitment to Z., cheating, if you will, with this new, younger composer with the fresh ideas and sexy chords, but the professionalism to not make you feel dirty afterward.
Its a strange thing, educational commitment. A year ago, my now wife and I, together with a large canine, moved from the peaceful yet stagnant educational commune of Bloomington, Indiana to the bustling metropolis of Boston, Mass. The impetus of the move was educational commitment. My wife's teacher, a gifted pedagogue who had helped make her voice blossom, was coaxed away from Indiana University, where he had been for over 10 years, to the New England Conservatory of Music. The resulting emotional quagmire was staggering for my wife - she had become devoted to his teaching, he had easily figured her out both personally and vocally, and he and his wife had welcomed us into their home (we have wedding photos with them). Above all, he was doing wonderful things for her educational development. We had to go, for her education's sake.
The ensuing year has not been a bed of roses - Boston is a hard place to go when starting from little means, the traffic sucks (not as bad as DC, though) it's cold as shit and the liberal crackers up here are enough to make you want to commit a hate crime, just because. But every time the city was getting us down, the fact remained that staying with the teacher was the best thing that she could have done - for the both of us.
I have never quite gotten the grasp of the emotional component of the voice teacher/voice student relationship and the devotion that ensues - it's not exactly the same with instrumental teacher/student relationships. One singer told me that it was because the body is the instrument, and therefore what happens to the body, both physical and emotional, is important. All right. The composition teacher/student relationship also interweaves personal, psychological components, and in some cases, can require an ideological profession of faith. I am probably not the best person to talk about this: I have had one teacher (Z.), who had ONE principal teacher (Menotti), who had ONE principal teacher (Scalero). Sort of an inbred, albeit impressive, educational pedigree. By comparison, every bio of every composer I've read lists at least three principal teachers (barring autodidacts who just list their "influences").
But I have a different slant: Z. is also family (my father's first cousin). The relationship was complex, and one of the things holding me back was this feeling of betrayal that clothed the search for the eyes and ears of another composition teacher.
Meeting with the new composer - which wasn't a lesson as much as it was bouncing sketches of a new piece off of a fresh set of ears to see if I'm successful in getting the point across - provoked anything but the slutty feeling I anticipated. We talked (just talked) for two hours about the problems I had encountered and how I might find solutions in the parameters I consciously set for myself in the process. Techniques of limitation, he called it, bringing forth a quote from Stravinsky's Norton Lectures at Harvard of being the most free by setting up the most obstacles and working around them. I'm now wondering of the purposefulness of the complexity of my relationship with Z., and whether or not the ties that bind are limitations of the same nature, designed to be used as an advantage.

Charles Ives can multitask better than you

The Infinite Mind, a weekly public radio program that is essentially real psychology in pop-psychology terms, offered a program tonight on the perilous yet amazing nature of multitasking. I listened to it as a feature of the program was to be the amazing mind and writing of "the father of American concert music" (their quote) Charles Ives. Ives was a true musical visionary - one of the few actual avant garde composers, as those who were later crowned with that moniker did things that Ives had first done decades before. The segment on Ives can be heard here, as part of a broader program on music, which focuses primarily on pop (fast forward past the Black Eyed Peas and Menopause: The Musical to the Ives segment, which starts at about the 43rd minute). I did a review for ionarts of a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of the piece referenced in the report.

I want those 4'33" back!

I received an email this week from a former theory (and some very fast and loose counterpoint, by the way) professor of mine at Southern Miss. Titled "discuss," the body of the email contained only a link to a video of a British orchestra performing 4'33" - likey the best known work (notoriously so) by American composer John Cage. I am not a Cage scholar, nor am I familar with a large amount of his body of work, (nor am I a fan of the work of his about which I am aware), but those interested will find a good read in his autobiographical statement, where, I must admit, I learned a great deal about him (Z. also emailed me the comical news of one of his peices which you will likey have time to catch). However, he still chaps me, or more correctly, I am chapped by those who say that he was a visionary of the musical avante garde. He tinkered creatively with rhythm, but freely admitted that he could not write moeldies, nor had he a clue about harmony, and he with the rest of the American musical avante garde - even those still alive - have been relegated to the Dantean purgatory of academic meandering, where exist the imps who say he was a visionary in the first place.
After watching the video, I emailed back the professor and said that I prayed that someone would rip a really loud wet fart in the middle of the second movement. Go check it out.

Making it work

I would like to start by detailing the fact that I am not homosexual, and I can barely dress myself.
That being said, I am sick - SICK - of the fact that I am enamored with the show Project Runway. Of all the reality TV drivel that is available, and the subcategory that is reality competition shows, to be broken down again into arts-related competition realty elimination death matches, this is the only one that actually works, while still being entertaining and creative. American Idol is too self conscious to even be pretentious; cooking shows like Top Chef and even Iron Chef have the problem that the viewer cannot taste or smell the creations; the dancing competitions are focused so much on hip-hop that I could fucking care less; to my knowledge, there no visual arts based programs of this type, with the exception of Project Greenlight, but there, the competition was already over. I'm not even going to mention the soap opera competitions ("I wonder if she looked down from heaven and saw me do that line of coke." Seriously, they had to deliver that line with a straight face.) Project Runway follows each challenge from concept through execution to final display on a model walking down the runway - you can see the evolution of the garment from start to finish with the designer's commentary which is cool.
Last season, my wife and I watched Project Runway religiously until the bitter end when the victor was crowned (I didn't agree with the final decision, and my wife had fallen asleep in my lap by the time the decision was announced, but you get the point). The new season started this week, and proves to live up to the expectations of previous Emmy-nominated seasons.
The thing is this: all of the competitors share a drive that is fierce and admirable. All of them - and they come from very diverse backgrounds: one is an architect, one is right out of an undergraduate design program, one is a complete home-grown amateur, one is skilled in men's fashions but has no experience in womens fashions which is the crux of the show, one just finished a stint as an assistant to an international designer, one already has a marketed line - all of them talk about their passion, their drive, then they go on to describe how they live their lives, day in and day out in the process of honing of their craft. The adjudications and moderator are accomplished professionals - skilled educators and craftsmen. (And then, of course, there is Heidi Klum - the hook that gets you interested in the first place, but who actually has a appropriately minimal role.) These are people who are working primarily on their own, floundering through the always changing arena of fashion trying to think up something that is beautiful or functional or both. I'm just wondering what they do for a living.
No one would probably call me a slacker, but short of my marriage, I find it hard to come up with an example of something to which I have devoted my entire life. Now, having found marketable skills and accumulating experience in arts administration, I have begun to realize that I could also devote every other ounce of energy to the craft of composition. That's tough with a fulltime job plus teaching and church job obligations (it's expensive to live in Boston) and, honestly, I get jealous of the contestants - not because they are in the limelight, or because they don't appear to have jobs, or they are lucky enough to have jobs that include the honing of their craft, but because they are so dedicated.
At the school were I work, I share office space with a community orchestra. Both my school and the orchestra have vested interest in developing the building we are using (a former elementary school) as a cultural center. As a result, we are kicking around ideas for a chamber music series to raise community awareness of the building. One of the ideas the director of this orchestra has brought to the table is a new music concert. So the other day she says to me, she says "You're a composer, right?" Now, the question is a simple one - a yes or no answer would suffice. But to be honest, though I have asked myself that same question many times, no one has asked me directly. What would be the most accurate answer? "I write in my spare time." "I haven't been published." "I've don't have a degree in comp, and only studied for three years." "Most of my stuff is church choir - not quite chamber music material." All of which rolled out in one long run-on sentence, and all of which are qualifiers to the effect that I don't trust my abilities enough to warrant using that word - one which I hold dear - to describe myself. Palestrina was a composer. Bach was a composer. Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, Satie, Debussy, Strauss, Sibeluis, Stravinski, Barber, Shostakovitch, Copland, et. al. were composers. How do I dare put myself in the same category? Especially when I know of many guys I went to school with who describe themselves throwing around that word who should be kicked until dead for their heresy.
The problem here is psychological - I'm psyching myself out of the thing that I want to do the most, second guessing the work that I actually get done, and am taking the lack of attention my pieces are receiving from publishers, competitions and teachers as proof of absence of talent, never mind the fact that I am trying - not always successful - to use the time that I have as productively as possible, and that in the doing - the writing, the tinkering, the making it work - the development continues.

Point, Counterpoint

I've been floating in a sea of composition since graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2004. It's a bit of a lonely sea, basically finding my own way with the tools earned during a complex four years with my composition teacher at Southern, Luigi Zaninelli. Since then, I have been exploring composition and the development of my technique on my own and have focused considerably on the study of counterpoint. Coming from the Latin punctus contra punctum (note against note) it's the way two or more melodies can, and cannot - or should, and should not - relate to each other as they go along their merry ways. In particular, I have been approaching the study of counterpoint through the writings of a man named Johann Joseph Fux (pronounced "fooks" not "fucks" for God's sake), and his text entitled Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps toward Parnassus, which is a mountain overlooking Delphi and associated with Apollo, the Greek god of music and poetry - should have been subtitled Showtime at the Apoll0, I guess) The book, written in the early 18th century is set up as a dialogue between Fux and Palestrina - the paragon of 16th century counterpoint, also known as Renaissance "polyphony" (many sounds - get it?).
One might think that such a thing would be a well-discussed idea, as we have all heard music in many media that have more than one thing going on at a time, and, like all things, there are rules governing the interaction of the different parts of music that we hear, or at least agreed-upon ways to describe what seems to be happening naturally. Not so. I have been trying to find people - composers, specifically - who actively teach this seemingly essential composition technique, and have found very few. Most of the time, you will find music theorists (not exactly practitioners) who teach overviews of the historical developments of counterpoint in a classroom setting (Bach had his own counterpoint, as did Mozart and Beethoven all the way through Schoenberg and an Italian named Luigi Dallapiccola - each building on the history that preceded him). This is, of course, very important. However, I'm not interested in the history, or the theory (both of which I can learn on my own rather easily) I'm looking for composer's training.
Living in Boston for the last year has afforded me ample access to culture - especially (relatively) modern culture - that has been scant in other areas of the country in which I have lived. With that, there are also many institutions of higher learning, including music conservatories to peruse, looking for someone that may be able to aid in my quest. Not so. Getting teachers to call you back when you are not enrolled in their university is tough enough. Finding composition teachers with the background I'm looking for is even tougher. No one here teaches counterpoint as a compositional tool.
So am I looking for the wrong things? I had an conversation with a composer just last night who suggested that maybe I was. He cautioned about focusing on only one method - in my case, counterpoint - suggesting that the true nature of a composers technique is the awakening of an internal voice through exposure with every possible medium, harmonic language, turn of phrase or rhythm so that the proper incantaion of the right amount of eclecticism in the proper order would summon the beast or angel that could only have been found within in the first place. All right. He also said a few times that one gets old enough to know when to abandon the sole study of textbook technique. The conversation ended with the prospect of he taking me on as a student in doubt (he doesn't teach counterpoint).
Right now, the oars are counterpoint, to go back to the adrift metaphor. It is the technique I am using consistently, but not exclusively, in an attempt to hear the water sloshing in and between my ears. I have deliberately tried to use it in the peices I have written, but again, not exclusively. I feel that as long as I do it alone, there's a half-heartedness about it.
The aforementioned Z is the reason for all this crap, and I'm sure I either sound like him or am quoting him directly. More on the relationship later, but suffice to say that it's hard to get him off my shoulder some days. The lasting image of his words on the subject are reccollections of when he studied counterpoint with Rosario Scalero (Menotti's and Samuel Barber's teacher): "It was as if I had eaten a completely different diet for a year and then looked in a mirror to see the change in my body that had occurred without my notice." Maybe that's happenning already. Eat up.

stay tuned.