Wednesday, 7 December 2005
Though this post is primarily about technical practice for the guitar, there is no doubt in my mind but that this method would apply equally well to winds, brass, strings, and keyboard instruments: Anything where finger dexterity and precision is required.
One of the challenges I had when I switched from steel string guitars - where I used primarily plectrum technique - to nylon string, was that I was already twenty-nine years old, and so I had many years of exercises and scales under my belt. I simply didn't have the time, nor did I have the inclination, to play studies and scales for several hours per day only to work on my right hand.
The problem with the Sor and Giuliani studies is that they aren't - by and large - of high enough quality as music to stand on their own: Not the sort of stuff I wanted to perform in my set. As far as scales are concerned: Been there, done that, they are a part of me on a very deep level; I simply wasn't going back to where I was at eighteen years of age.
So, I decided to set for myself some basic criteria: 1) If it isn't music, I won't play it; 2) If I don't want it in my set, I won't learn it; and 3) No scales! I needed some kind of technical studies, so I began to write my own, but they had to stand on their own as music or they went into the trash.
This held me back for a few years. My left hand was way ahead of my right hand. Then one afternoon while I was sitting in on a guitar masterclass, I heard Tom Johnson (Classical guitar teacher at UNT) mention the technique of slow-playing pieces with a metronome. He didn't go into any detail about how to apply the technique, but he said that it added a profound level of solidity to your playing and very precise coordination between the right and left hands. This made logical sense to me, so I decided to try it.
I was amazed to find that if I slowed a piece down more than a little below where I played it, it completely fell apart. Vanished. Couldn't do it! So, I started the metronome just a tad faster than the tempo where I performed the piece, and reduced the speed by a single, solitary click each time through the piece. Before too awfully long, I was able to get the pieces in my set down to half speed with this approach.
Tom was right: This method allows one to deeply memorize a piece, and the reduced speed allows for the minutest details of the fingering choreography to be worked out in exacting detail.
By this time, I had already composed quite a few technical studies for the guitar that passed my musicality test (And I still perform them in my set to this day), so I worked on them using this technique until I had it down to a relatively precise system.
Now, you couldn't pay me to have a music stand in front of me when I perform: I memorize everything. One reason is because reading off of sheet music behind a stand distances me from the audience (I don't care how good a guitarist is, I absolutely hate it when they hide behind a music stand). The other is that I'm a pretty sucky sight reader (I'll have to do a post about the abject inappropriateness of standard notation for the guitar at some point). Further, I've never understood how a performer can emote a superior interpretation when reading: I have to work on interpretations for years before I'm happy with them (Some pieces I wrote over ten years ago are still in the process of revealing themselves to me). Keep that all in mind as I explain the details of the method.
The first step is to memorize a piece to the point where you can simply play it comfortably along with the metronome. For an example, we'll say that our imaginary piece centers comfortably at 120 beats per minute.
1) Play the piece five times through at 120 BPM.
Once you can do this, the piece should have reached what I term an initial stage of memorization (Remember, you are doing this with no music in front of you). The next step is to start slowing it down. The following day, continue with step two.
2) Play the piece starting at 120 BPM, and reduce the tempo by 5 BPM each time through.
At some point in this process, the piece will fall apart and you will be unable to continue. This is good. It's actually the goal. When the piece falls apart, increase the speed of the metronome by 10 BPM and play the piece five times through at whatever that tempo ends up as (Even if it's back at 120 BPM). The third day (You should probably be doing this process with two to five pieces simultaneously, depending on how much time you have to practice), repeat step two.
When you can get the piece down to 60 BPM (Even if it's a little rugged down there), you will have reached a secondary stage of memorization: This is the point at which I feel comfortable adding a piece to my performance set. Note that at 120 BPM gowing down to 60 BPM will take you through the piece thirteen times. Think this will help solidify your memorization and help to prevent "brain-fade" train wrecks? You bet it will. Now you are ready for step three.
3) Play the piece starting at 120 BPM, and reduce the tempo by 10 BPM each time through, and 5 BPM from 65 to 60.
These larger chunks may cause the piece to fall apart again. If that happens, increase the metronome by 10 BPM and play the piece five times through at that point. When you can get this done comfortably, you'll be ready for the final formula.
4) Play the piece starting at 120, reduce 20 BPM to 100, then 10 BPM per rep to 65, and then 5 BPM from 65 to 60: Reverse process.
By the time you can get the piece from 120 BPM down to 60 BPM and back up again, you will not believe how deeply you know it, how solid your fingering choreography will have become, and how precisely coordinated your right and left hands will be. This is the third and final level of memorization that I call tertiary deep memorization.
I go through this process once when I add pieces to my setlist, and then through all of the pieces in my set once or twice a year. It has done wonders for my technique, my confidence as a performer, and my interpretations. Not only that, but at big, scary gigs - If I happen to get nervous (Hey: It happens) - I go into a kind of autopilot and the pieces seem to "automagically" play themselves. It's a weird feeling when you memorize a piece that deeply: You can daydream, people-watch, or whatever, and the music just happens. Of course, when I'm really "into it", I can wring every last ounce out of a piece in terms of emoting an interpretation too (For someone who basically sucks as a performer, that is).
To keep on top of single line playing without having to resort to scales, I just memorized a few cello and violin pieces, and I treat them the same as any other piece in my set: They all get the slow-play treatment, both with rest strokes and free strokes.
As a result, I never bother with anything that isn't music anymore. If you've been playing less than ten years, keep working on those scales, but use this metronome technique! You'll be amazed.
Being a contrarian, I simply think that overly obsessing on scales, arpeggios, and non-musical studies gets one to a point where the returns have diminished to such a degree that you become bogged down. This approach keeps my interest up because it directly and positively relates to my performing, and the returns are staggering and appear very quickly. It's not a do-it-once-and-it's-done kind of thing, as memory can fade over time (Even if you perform several times per week as I do), and that is why it's good to cycle through all of your rep once or twice per year. It certainly keeps me fresh and interesting... er... interested, I mean.
I was thinking of something else when I said "fresh and interesting"...
What brought this up is that starting in January I am going to go through this process with all the pieces in my set as I prepare to record them. On that point, this process can leave your interpretations kind of dry and mechanical after the first few times you do it, but that effect becomes less pronounced with each successive forray into the technique. Still, if you are performing or recording, it's best to wait a few days after doing this to let your interpretations re-assert themselves (The last three days before significant gigs, all of my practice is performing only).
One of the challenges I had when I switched from steel string guitars - where I used primarily plectrum technique - to nylon string, was that I was already twenty-nine years old, and so I had many years of exercises and scales under my belt. I simply didn't have the time, nor did I have the inclination, to play studies and scales for several hours per day only to work on my right hand.
The problem with the Sor and Giuliani studies is that they aren't - by and large - of high enough quality as music to stand on their own: Not the sort of stuff I wanted to perform in my set. As far as scales are concerned: Been there, done that, they are a part of me on a very deep level; I simply wasn't going back to where I was at eighteen years of age.
So, I decided to set for myself some basic criteria: 1) If it isn't music, I won't play it; 2) If I don't want it in my set, I won't learn it; and 3) No scales! I needed some kind of technical studies, so I began to write my own, but they had to stand on their own as music or they went into the trash.
This held me back for a few years. My left hand was way ahead of my right hand. Then one afternoon while I was sitting in on a guitar masterclass, I heard Tom Johnson (Classical guitar teacher at UNT) mention the technique of slow-playing pieces with a metronome. He didn't go into any detail about how to apply the technique, but he said that it added a profound level of solidity to your playing and very precise coordination between the right and left hands. This made logical sense to me, so I decided to try it.
I was amazed to find that if I slowed a piece down more than a little below where I played it, it completely fell apart. Vanished. Couldn't do it! So, I started the metronome just a tad faster than the tempo where I performed the piece, and reduced the speed by a single, solitary click each time through the piece. Before too awfully long, I was able to get the pieces in my set down to half speed with this approach.
Tom was right: This method allows one to deeply memorize a piece, and the reduced speed allows for the minutest details of the fingering choreography to be worked out in exacting detail.
By this time, I had already composed quite a few technical studies for the guitar that passed my musicality test (And I still perform them in my set to this day), so I worked on them using this technique until I had it down to a relatively precise system.
Now, you couldn't pay me to have a music stand in front of me when I perform: I memorize everything. One reason is because reading off of sheet music behind a stand distances me from the audience (I don't care how good a guitarist is, I absolutely hate it when they hide behind a music stand). The other is that I'm a pretty sucky sight reader (I'll have to do a post about the abject inappropriateness of standard notation for the guitar at some point). Further, I've never understood how a performer can emote a superior interpretation when reading: I have to work on interpretations for years before I'm happy with them (Some pieces I wrote over ten years ago are still in the process of revealing themselves to me). Keep that all in mind as I explain the details of the method.
The first step is to memorize a piece to the point where you can simply play it comfortably along with the metronome. For an example, we'll say that our imaginary piece centers comfortably at 120 beats per minute.
1) Play the piece five times through at 120 BPM.
Once you can do this, the piece should have reached what I term an initial stage of memorization (Remember, you are doing this with no music in front of you). The next step is to start slowing it down. The following day, continue with step two.
2) Play the piece starting at 120 BPM, and reduce the tempo by 5 BPM each time through.
At some point in this process, the piece will fall apart and you will be unable to continue. This is good. It's actually the goal. When the piece falls apart, increase the speed of the metronome by 10 BPM and play the piece five times through at whatever that tempo ends up as (Even if it's back at 120 BPM). The third day (You should probably be doing this process with two to five pieces simultaneously, depending on how much time you have to practice), repeat step two.
When you can get the piece down to 60 BPM (Even if it's a little rugged down there), you will have reached a secondary stage of memorization: This is the point at which I feel comfortable adding a piece to my performance set. Note that at 120 BPM gowing down to 60 BPM will take you through the piece thirteen times. Think this will help solidify your memorization and help to prevent "brain-fade" train wrecks? You bet it will. Now you are ready for step three.
3) Play the piece starting at 120 BPM, and reduce the tempo by 10 BPM each time through, and 5 BPM from 65 to 60.
These larger chunks may cause the piece to fall apart again. If that happens, increase the metronome by 10 BPM and play the piece five times through at that point. When you can get this done comfortably, you'll be ready for the final formula.
4) Play the piece starting at 120, reduce 20 BPM to 100, then 10 BPM per rep to 65, and then 5 BPM from 65 to 60: Reverse process.
By the time you can get the piece from 120 BPM down to 60 BPM and back up again, you will not believe how deeply you know it, how solid your fingering choreography will have become, and how precisely coordinated your right and left hands will be. This is the third and final level of memorization that I call tertiary deep memorization.
I go through this process once when I add pieces to my setlist, and then through all of the pieces in my set once or twice a year. It has done wonders for my technique, my confidence as a performer, and my interpretations. Not only that, but at big, scary gigs - If I happen to get nervous (Hey: It happens) - I go into a kind of autopilot and the pieces seem to "automagically" play themselves. It's a weird feeling when you memorize a piece that deeply: You can daydream, people-watch, or whatever, and the music just happens. Of course, when I'm really "into it", I can wring every last ounce out of a piece in terms of emoting an interpretation too (For someone who basically sucks as a performer, that is).
To keep on top of single line playing without having to resort to scales, I just memorized a few cello and violin pieces, and I treat them the same as any other piece in my set: They all get the slow-play treatment, both with rest strokes and free strokes.
As a result, I never bother with anything that isn't music anymore. If you've been playing less than ten years, keep working on those scales, but use this metronome technique! You'll be amazed.
Being a contrarian, I simply think that overly obsessing on scales, arpeggios, and non-musical studies gets one to a point where the returns have diminished to such a degree that you become bogged down. This approach keeps my interest up because it directly and positively relates to my performing, and the returns are staggering and appear very quickly. It's not a do-it-once-and-it's-done kind of thing, as memory can fade over time (Even if you perform several times per week as I do), and that is why it's good to cycle through all of your rep once or twice per year. It certainly keeps me fresh and interesting... er... interested, I mean.
I was thinking of something else when I said "fresh and interesting"...
What brought this up is that starting in January I am going to go through this process with all the pieces in my set as I prepare to record them. On that point, this process can leave your interpretations kind of dry and mechanical after the first few times you do it, but that effect becomes less pronounced with each successive forray into the technique. Still, if you are performing or recording, it's best to wait a few days after doing this to let your interpretations re-assert themselves (The last three days before significant gigs, all of my practice is performing only).
Monday, 5 December 2005
This isn't really a music post, but I think the subject is tangentally related.
I have already posted about fractals and self-similarity, and this is easy to relate to music, but there is also chaos theory. Simply, the boundaries of chaos are actually anything but chaotic or random: These bordering event horizons break into fractal patterns of self-similarity, so the two subjects are actually very closely related.
But what interests me are the larger chaotic formations, which appear to be only quasi-random to me. The inherant ability to recognize and comprehend patterns varies widely between individuals, and I know I have a fairly significant gift in that area, but I think virtually all musicians do. So, I am going to present as some compelling examples a few images in which I detect very fluid but significant patterns and correspondences. These images are from the field of astronomy and astrophysics, which has been an extra-curricular interest of mine since I was a boy (I was even in an astronomy Explorer Post once).
The first example is of a "small" explosive event (The aftermath of a supernova that is "only" about six lightyears across), and the other is of a "large" explosive event (The aftermath of the big bang, which is the entire cosmos as we currently understand it).
This is an image of the Crab Nebula, which is a compilation of about 25 different shots taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This has been making the rounds on the internet, and when I saw it, it reminded me of another image I had seen, which I will post below. But first, I want you to notice the filaments of gas that permeate the nebula. This gargantuan explosion was of a fairly massive star, and it's core remains at the center, spinning thirty times per second, and it's poles emit radio waves (Which is how we know how fast it's spinning). The super-dense matter of this brown dwarf is only about the size of a large city, but it's mass is many times that of the earth.
When I stare at this image and disengage my left brain, I see all sorts of patterns and correspondences.
Now look at this image. This is a computer simulation of the distribution of GALAXIES in the UNIVERSE! Personally, I find this incomprehensibly astonishing: Each and every dot in this image is a galaxy, and the hot spots are clusters of galaxies. Note that there are the same kinds of filaments of galaxies as there were filaments of gas in the nebula.
My right brain percieves the very same kinds of patterns and correspondences in this image as are present in the photo of the Crab Nebula.
This is even more obvious to me in this closeup of a section of the simulated cosmological map.
When Schillinger said that a purely neutral pitch distribution could never be musical, I believe he was right. It would appear that there is no pure uniformity, randomness, or chaos possible at all in nature.
Notice how the strands of hair resemble the filaments in....
I have already posted about fractals and self-similarity, and this is easy to relate to music, but there is also chaos theory. Simply, the boundaries of chaos are actually anything but chaotic or random: These bordering event horizons break into fractal patterns of self-similarity, so the two subjects are actually very closely related.
But what interests me are the larger chaotic formations, which appear to be only quasi-random to me. The inherant ability to recognize and comprehend patterns varies widely between individuals, and I know I have a fairly significant gift in that area, but I think virtually all musicians do. So, I am going to present as some compelling examples a few images in which I detect very fluid but significant patterns and correspondences. These images are from the field of astronomy and astrophysics, which has been an extra-curricular interest of mine since I was a boy (I was even in an astronomy Explorer Post once).
The first example is of a "small" explosive event (The aftermath of a supernova that is "only" about six lightyears across), and the other is of a "large" explosive event (The aftermath of the big bang, which is the entire cosmos as we currently understand it).
This is an image of the Crab Nebula, which is a compilation of about 25 different shots taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This has been making the rounds on the internet, and when I saw it, it reminded me of another image I had seen, which I will post below. But first, I want you to notice the filaments of gas that permeate the nebula. This gargantuan explosion was of a fairly massive star, and it's core remains at the center, spinning thirty times per second, and it's poles emit radio waves (Which is how we know how fast it's spinning). The super-dense matter of this brown dwarf is only about the size of a large city, but it's mass is many times that of the earth.
When I stare at this image and disengage my left brain, I see all sorts of patterns and correspondences.
Now look at this image. This is a computer simulation of the distribution of GALAXIES in the UNIVERSE! Personally, I find this incomprehensibly astonishing: Each and every dot in this image is a galaxy, and the hot spots are clusters of galaxies. Note that there are the same kinds of filaments of galaxies as there were filaments of gas in the nebula.
My right brain percieves the very same kinds of patterns and correspondences in this image as are present in the photo of the Crab Nebula.
This is even more obvious to me in this closeup of a section of the simulated cosmological map.
When Schillinger said that a purely neutral pitch distribution could never be musical, I believe he was right. It would appear that there is no pure uniformity, randomness, or chaos possible at all in nature.
Notice how the strands of hair resemble the filaments in....
Saturday, 3 December 2005
Semiotics is the study of the meaning of signs. As a study, it originated in association with hermeneutics, which is the study of text (Yes, I'm being simplistic, but intentionally so: It's a deeeeeep subject. To find out how deep, read the article on semiotics I added the the "Articles I Found Interesting" segment in the sidebar). As a result - in my opinion - semiotics as applied to music will always fall short of being anything like an absolutely certain science, and will always remain diluted by subjectivity and speculation: There is a certain inescapable arbitrariness involved which is similar to that I find associated with Schenkerian analysis.
In the case of absolute music especially, the music is the text, and it expresses the inexpressible and even the inexplicable: There is simply no linguistic text to hermeneutically analyze for semiotic signifiers. However, that is not to say that a keenly developed awareness of semiotics is not usefull for the composer or theorist. To the contrary, traditional analysis techniques have as their main shortcomings that they totally and completely remove all traces of the signifiers that elicit emotional response. It is the nebulousness of the responses elicited that is the problem: Different listeners with divergent cultural backgrounds or life experiences may experience quite different things. As a result, the signifiers in music will never aquire definitive labels, and that is simply that.
This need not hang up those of us who are composers, though I would think that a particularly rigorous theorist would be left with a certain uneasiness when dealing with such a slippery subject.
The last course I took at UNT during my doctoral studies was The Semiotics of Music. It was taught by a very cool and funny prof named Dr. Schwartz, if memory serves. Since it was just a three hour credit and a single semester course, I certainly don't claim to be any kind of a expert on this subject. However, I found the subject quite fascinating and useful if I - as is my usual practice with all things theoretical - took what I liked, flushed what I didn't, and bent the process to fit my method of working (Actually, semiotics created some completely new methodologies for me to use).
What works for me as I develop a piece is to decide what the materials I come up with signify to me, and how I can elicit various shades of meaning by varying them and contrasting them with other materials. Believe it or not, this works great as an approach to fugue writing. I kid you not. Writing different counterpoint to a fugue subject can radically change the feelings elicited, and this can add a great deal of charm to a fugue. Not only that, but episodic passages can set the stage for the appearance of these variations - while they function as signifiers themselves - and can put them into a sort of bas relief which only serves to increase their effectiveness. Needless to say, composers such as Bach and Beethoven have been doing this since long before semiotics appeared as a field of study.
In the guitar fugue I wrote a while back, I found that I could write countersubjects to the major mode variant of the subject that elicited smiles from me because the result reminded me of the kind of music that is often played on a steam calliope. I remain doubtful that this signifier would be relatable to very many people, and am certain that folks who have never heard a steam calliope (Or the music I've heard played on one) would recognize the sign for what signifies to me. That's not the point though: The point is to include semiotic elements that signify specific things to you as the composer.
In the case of absolute music which is not intentionally programatic in nature, the signifiers that you chose will relate something to the listener, and the variety of responses are really of no concern to you as a composer (Though I find audience members who share what my music meant to them to be highly entertaining, and their descriptions range from the absurd to the sublime. That's one of the most endearing things about music in my opinion: Everybody creates their own little universe within it).
The bottom line concerning semiotics in music to me, is that it gives me another set of tactical and strategic tools to use in the creation of art. Just as I've never met a redhead I didn't like, I've never found a music theory approach I couldn't make some use out of.
OK. I take that back.
In the case of absolute music especially, the music is the text, and it expresses the inexpressible and even the inexplicable: There is simply no linguistic text to hermeneutically analyze for semiotic signifiers. However, that is not to say that a keenly developed awareness of semiotics is not usefull for the composer or theorist. To the contrary, traditional analysis techniques have as their main shortcomings that they totally and completely remove all traces of the signifiers that elicit emotional response. It is the nebulousness of the responses elicited that is the problem: Different listeners with divergent cultural backgrounds or life experiences may experience quite different things. As a result, the signifiers in music will never aquire definitive labels, and that is simply that.
This need not hang up those of us who are composers, though I would think that a particularly rigorous theorist would be left with a certain uneasiness when dealing with such a slippery subject.
The last course I took at UNT during my doctoral studies was The Semiotics of Music. It was taught by a very cool and funny prof named Dr. Schwartz, if memory serves. Since it was just a three hour credit and a single semester course, I certainly don't claim to be any kind of a expert on this subject. However, I found the subject quite fascinating and useful if I - as is my usual practice with all things theoretical - took what I liked, flushed what I didn't, and bent the process to fit my method of working (Actually, semiotics created some completely new methodologies for me to use).
What works for me as I develop a piece is to decide what the materials I come up with signify to me, and how I can elicit various shades of meaning by varying them and contrasting them with other materials. Believe it or not, this works great as an approach to fugue writing. I kid you not. Writing different counterpoint to a fugue subject can radically change the feelings elicited, and this can add a great deal of charm to a fugue. Not only that, but episodic passages can set the stage for the appearance of these variations - while they function as signifiers themselves - and can put them into a sort of bas relief which only serves to increase their effectiveness. Needless to say, composers such as Bach and Beethoven have been doing this since long before semiotics appeared as a field of study.
In the guitar fugue I wrote a while back, I found that I could write countersubjects to the major mode variant of the subject that elicited smiles from me because the result reminded me of the kind of music that is often played on a steam calliope. I remain doubtful that this signifier would be relatable to very many people, and am certain that folks who have never heard a steam calliope (Or the music I've heard played on one) would recognize the sign for what signifies to me. That's not the point though: The point is to include semiotic elements that signify specific things to you as the composer.
In the case of absolute music which is not intentionally programatic in nature, the signifiers that you chose will relate something to the listener, and the variety of responses are really of no concern to you as a composer (Though I find audience members who share what my music meant to them to be highly entertaining, and their descriptions range from the absurd to the sublime. That's one of the most endearing things about music in my opinion: Everybody creates their own little universe within it).
The bottom line concerning semiotics in music to me, is that it gives me another set of tactical and strategic tools to use in the creation of art. Just as I've never met a redhead I didn't like, I've never found a music theory approach I couldn't make some use out of.
OK. I take that back.
Friday, 2 December 2005
Note: I just noticed that the previous post was my 100th. It seems like just yesterday I started this blog, but it's been over six months. Neato.
After the first of the year, the next phase of my "plan" will swing into effect, as I have organized to re-record all of the material from my first CD, which was recorded back in Y2K. At that time I was working for FEMA and putting in well over 40 hours per week, so I didn't have nearly enough time to practice. Not to mention that I wasn't performing at all back then. Add to that the fact that I was playing a Gibson Chet Atkins CEC guitar - which I never liked the sound of - and that I was just learning how to program my Lexicon MPX-G2, and that old CD... well... it sucks.
Most of my friends have been advising against this, saying that I should just move on to the next one. However, I've come so far as a player in the past two years since I left my self-imposed musical exile and have returned to performing my butt off, that the previous CD's perfromances are just not acceptable to me any more. And then there's the fact that my sound has improved so much with the Godin Multiac GC SA and all the tweaking I've done with my programs in the Lexicon, so the previous effort now sounds WAY over-processed to me. So, I'm going to re-record it, and that's that.
The previous CD was recorded all on an Alesis Masterlink ML-9600, which is a fabulous stand-alone HD recorder and CD burner, but I wanted more precise control this go-round, so I decided to go with a computer-based solution. After weighing all the options, I decided that I wanted something that is as simple as possible. I don't need 24 bit/96KHz resolution to do what I want to do, so I went with USB rather than Firewire, and I ended up getting a fabulous deal on the Digidesign M-Box, as the M-Box2 has just been introduced, and the old versions were being blown out. Not only that, but since I bought it after 09/01/05, Digi gave me a free upgrade to LE 7. Since I'm just going to record stereo directly from the balanced outputs of the Lexicon, this will be ideal.
For an HD to record onto, I found the coolest combo HD and USB/Firewire hub from MicroNet that... looks just like my Mac Mini! It's called a MiniMate, natch. It's 250GB (!!!), which should give me tons of recording time at 16 bit/44.1KHZ, which is all the resolution I need, as turning the tracks into MP3's will reduce the bandwidth further than that anyway.
As an aside about HD sizes: Back in the early 80's when I was a Synclavier guitarist (And addict), the first Winchester disks appeared. They were 8" across and held a staggering... five megabytes. I remember that several of us got together when that was announced, and we were like, "What will we ever DO with all that storage space!" Of course, 16bit/100KHz Sample-to-Disk then appeared, and we had our answer. Too funny.
So, it's small (Very small), simple, and plenty powerful.
No, that's not a reflection under the Mac Mini, that's the MiniMate. It's still only 1/3 the size of my previous G4 Cube. Awesome.
Small is beautiful. Yes, indeed.
After the first of the year, the next phase of my "plan" will swing into effect, as I have organized to re-record all of the material from my first CD, which was recorded back in Y2K. At that time I was working for FEMA and putting in well over 40 hours per week, so I didn't have nearly enough time to practice. Not to mention that I wasn't performing at all back then. Add to that the fact that I was playing a Gibson Chet Atkins CEC guitar - which I never liked the sound of - and that I was just learning how to program my Lexicon MPX-G2, and that old CD... well... it sucks.
Most of my friends have been advising against this, saying that I should just move on to the next one. However, I've come so far as a player in the past two years since I left my self-imposed musical exile and have returned to performing my butt off, that the previous CD's perfromances are just not acceptable to me any more. And then there's the fact that my sound has improved so much with the Godin Multiac GC SA and all the tweaking I've done with my programs in the Lexicon, so the previous effort now sounds WAY over-processed to me. So, I'm going to re-record it, and that's that.
The previous CD was recorded all on an Alesis Masterlink ML-9600, which is a fabulous stand-alone HD recorder and CD burner, but I wanted more precise control this go-round, so I decided to go with a computer-based solution. After weighing all the options, I decided that I wanted something that is as simple as possible. I don't need 24 bit/96KHz resolution to do what I want to do, so I went with USB rather than Firewire, and I ended up getting a fabulous deal on the Digidesign M-Box, as the M-Box2 has just been introduced, and the old versions were being blown out. Not only that, but since I bought it after 09/01/05, Digi gave me a free upgrade to LE 7. Since I'm just going to record stereo directly from the balanced outputs of the Lexicon, this will be ideal.
For an HD to record onto, I found the coolest combo HD and USB/Firewire hub from MicroNet that... looks just like my Mac Mini! It's called a MiniMate, natch. It's 250GB (!!!), which should give me tons of recording time at 16 bit/44.1KHZ, which is all the resolution I need, as turning the tracks into MP3's will reduce the bandwidth further than that anyway.
As an aside about HD sizes: Back in the early 80's when I was a Synclavier guitarist (And addict), the first Winchester disks appeared. They were 8" across and held a staggering... five megabytes. I remember that several of us got together when that was announced, and we were like, "What will we ever DO with all that storage space!" Of course, 16bit/100KHz Sample-to-Disk then appeared, and we had our answer. Too funny.
So, it's small (Very small), simple, and plenty powerful.
No, that's not a reflection under the Mac Mini, that's the MiniMate. It's still only 1/3 the size of my previous G4 Cube. Awesome.
Small is beautiful. Yes, indeed.
Listening to Beethoven's late string quartets has gotten me thinking about various qualities that are embodied in, or expressed through, musical composition. After some reflection, I decided to apply three labels: Emotional, cerebral, and spiritual. This seems cleaner and less pretentious than, say, expressionism, intellectualism, and spiritualism, and has the added advantages of not relating to any particular trends of any given era, plus the words don't end with "-ism", which always arouses suspicion in me anyway.
Obviously, any good composition will have elements of all three of these factors present to a greater or lesser degree, and it is precisely the relative degree that I wish to ponder. Admittedly, what I am going to talk about is subjective, and there will certainly be room for dissagreement with the examples I bring up, but the idea here is to offer food for thought, as well as to give me an oportunity to work through this issue for myself. In the great composers, some sort of balance was achieved, but the particular aspect that is most prominant varies from man to man.
Since it is a question of relative degree that I am addressing, I have decided to use as examples composers as opposed to speciffic compositions of theirs, which I believe will offer a better chance for consensus and will also help me to avoid getting bogged down in minutae. This may wind up being an epic post in any event.
For me, the most sublimely spiritual composer of all time is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594). As a composer of counter-reformation works for the Catholic Church, this is natural. From what I have learned about him over the years, apart from his music, it would seem that Palestrina's music was very much a reflection of Palestrina the man: He gave all appearances of being a classical conservative, and seems to have been well grounded and eminently practical in his approach to life and living. This practicality, however, was a reflection of his profoundly deep and secure faith as a Christian and a Catholic. The security he derived from his faith evidently allowed him to go about his daily business with complete confidence that while he was in the world, the world was nonetheless no threat to him because he was not of the world. Obviously, this peaceful overall outlook is perfectly reflected in his music, as is the conviction of his internal spirituality, and all to devastating effect for listeners who share his faith, as I do (If not his denomination).
It is important to note that a composer's temperament may or may not be overtly reflected in his work, and one of the things I am trying to decide is if it is advantageous to be particularly expressive, or if it is not. Speaking only for myself, I can say that my internal emotional life is quite highly-strung and in many ways discordant. That is one of the reasons this subject is interesting to me: I find that I have nothing in common personality-wise with a man like Palestrina, and yet I hold his compositional style up as one of my main ideals of perfection. Some may argue that I am allowing historical simplifications to reduce my view of Palestrina to something that it is not, but I don't think so. I believe that he and I are diametrically opposite types of personalities.
It goes without saying (But, I'm going to say it anyway) that Palestrina's music has a super-high degree of the cerebral in it, loaded as it is with contrapuntal machinations an intricacies, but these "mind games" never usurp the overall spiritual goals of the music. To the contrary, the contrapuntal devices that Palestrina employs seem to always and profoundly enhance the spiritual nature of his work. Listening to Palestrina leads me to a peaceful, introspective, and contemplative place where I can ponder the sublimnity of God and creation, and I believe the seamless and highly ordered musical universe that he creates out of music's potential for chaos is his homage to God's creation of the universe in which we live (If you haven't already noticed, fractal self-similarity and the theory that there are boundaries of chaos which are actually highly ordered are inextricably linked, and I believe these theories have profound implications for musical composition). Bringing this seamless, peaceful order out of chaos is also the main thrust, and end result, of the teachings of Jesus of course.
Perhaps it may seem needless to some readers, but needful to others, that I mention that there is simply no way for me to address these subjects without puting at least a modicum of my own faith on display here. I share the outlook of Thomas Jefferson, who was loath to share his faith, and always replied to inquiries with something along the lines of, "It is between me and God and no living man." That is exactly how I feel about it, but in this instance there is just no escaping the issue.
Also a truism is the fact that music that moves us spiritually will also move us emotionally, but in the music of Palestrina these emotions - while they may be profoundly deep and affecting - do not swing wildly to and fro. Just the opposite effect is achieved, as Palestrina elicits deep, steady-state moods that seem to vary more in depth than in character. I believe that this is an important point to note: Depth of a certain speciffic emotion (Or, a few similar emotive states) rather than a contrast of emotions with radically different characteristics.
So, Palestrina's music achieved a balance between the emotional, the cerebral, and the spiritual, but it is the spiritual aspect that predominates in him and in his music.
At the opposite end of the spectrum of balance (Versus imbalance, which I'll cover later), there is Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). If listening to Palestrina is like sitting back and riding a gigantic inter-gallactic Ferris wheel, listening to Beethoven is like strapping yourself in for a sometimes terrifying, and sometimes hilarious rollercoaster ride that has as it's footprint the entire cosmos. As I mentioned in the previous post, Beethoven's juxtapositions of wildly contrasting elicitations of emotion constantly amuse me.
Interestingly (To me, anyway), Beethoven was also a Catholic, but only nominally so (Just as I am an LCMS Lutheran, though I don't agree 100% with all of their doctrines). Beethoven and I (And Jefferson) share a much more populist view of the Christian religion, and I'll just leave it at that. The important thing to note is that Beethoven had definite spiritual convictions, historical revisionists be damned (But, at least, Beethoven's faith has not suffered the indignities that Mozart's faith has, through that brilliant-but-libelous movie Amadeus (I met Tom Hulce once, and complimented him on his brilliant performance, and he is a genuinely cool guy who took keyboard lessons for months to prepare for the role, and I do like the movie as entertainment, but it sucks as history)).
Personally I can relate to Beethoven the man more than I can relate to Palestrina. Though I am not burdened with anywhere near the challenges that confronted Beethoven, I nonetheless recognize the internal turmoil that he experienced, as - like I said - my personal internal life is also plenty chaotic and unbalanced. It was this very recognition that inspired this post: If I am personality-wise much closer to Beethoven than to Palestrina, why are my musical ideals of expression more like Palestrina's than Beethoven's? I can't answer that yet.
Though Beethoven's spiritual expression was far less doctrinaire than Palestrina's (He wasn't writing music for the Church, after all), he nonetheless had a cerebral aspect to his music that was just as deep. However, Beethoven's intellectual constructions had less to do with the mechanics of counterpoint - for the most part - and more to do with long-term and lage-form implications of harmonic practice, which did not even exist in Palestrina's time.
I believe that it is arguable that the harmonic idiom is inherantly more emotionally expressive than the contrapuntal idiom is, and even if you disagree with that you may at least agree that it is easier to be emotionally expressive in a harmonic idiom than in a purely contrapuntal one. That is not to say that it is impossible to be emotionally expressive through counterpoint of course, as the very existance of Beethoven's late quartets would demolish that notion convincingly. Even in fugue Beethoven managed to be expressive and emotionally evocative, but it must be admitted that he was a peculiar phenomenon and no other composer has ever achieved such a thing to such a degree. Far beyond these issues though, Beethoven's particular bent, as a man and as a composer, was vastly more emotion-driven than was Palestrina's.
Nevertheless, Beethoven too managed to achieve a trancendent balance between the emotional, the cerebral, and the spiritual aspects of musical expression, though it is weighted at the opposite end of the spectrum from Palestrina's equalibrium.
For the balanced cerebral composer, there is no better example, in my opinion, than Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Bach, as a product of The Age of Reason, slips into this niche very comfortably. Beethoven was a product of The Age of Enlightenment, and these different philosophical life-outlooks - which permeated the societies in which these men lived - obviously played a part in the differences between them.
Bach, like Palestrina, was a Church musician, but Bach was a Lutheran and not a Catholic. Obviously there is a huge aspect of the spiritual in Bach's music, and he was a devout man of clear and unequivocal Christian convictions. But unlike Palestrina, Bach often played "mind games" with music that were blatently of paramount importance: Above even that of his constant spiritual declamations. His obsession with canon and musical riddles attest to this clearly enough. That he was able to elicit both spiritual and emotional responses using these seemingly dry and highly technical approaches to music is nothing less than trancendental.
Bach's music also has a much broader range of emotion, and more emotional contrast than that of Palestrina, but in that regard he is still much closer to the introspective nature of Palestrina than to the widly extroverted Beethoven, who is peerless in that regard (Among composers who I judge to have achieved a perfection of balance, that is).
As a person, I find Bach to be difficult to reconcile. He was a family man, married more than once (As was and did Palestrina), and seems to have been a fairly stable human being. On the other hand, he was not above arguing with his superiors, and appears to have "not known his place" - in the terms of the time - with respect to minor royalty and functionaries above him in the Church heirarchy. He obviously knew he was superior to them in objective terms as an intellectual, and it seems as if he had more than a few pent-up frustrations in that regard. These outbursts lead him to be jailed at least once, that I am aware of.
Of the three mentioned so far, I believe that Bach achieved the most even balance between our three aspects of musical expression, but if only... if only Mozart had lived into his fifties or sixties he would have taken this honor (But then, Beethoven's career may not have been possible with Mozart looming over him. On the other hand, Wagner may never have seen the light of day if Mozart had lived, and that would have been excellent. Difficult choice to make. ;^)).
In lieu of Mozart, I nominate Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) as the most balanced and versitile composer of all time. Haydn is too often lost in the shuffle between Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, in my opinion, but Mozart and Beethoven would not have been possible without him. The older I get, the more I appreciate him. His output was so staggering that many of his works remain unpublished according to the biography I linked to. He composed music with wit, charm, and grace, and there is as much emotional, cerebral, and spiritual depth in it, though many conclude that it is not as deep as the others aforementioned here. The more I listen to him, the less I am inclined to agree with that. Haydn achieved the balance he displays through subtlty, and not through overly overt displays (Which would have been inappropriate for his intended audience, though he managed to slip a lot past them, which is a testament to his genius). He is a composer for those of advanced and discriminating taste, in my opinion.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) deserves an honorable mention as a composer who achieved a good balance weighted toward the emotive side, and his violin concerto is one of my all-time favorite works. Since he was decidedly of a romantic bent, and of the Romantic era, this bias of his comes as no surprise.
I find it baffling that so many people today find his music unapproachable. It seems like the most logical extension of the precedent set by Beethoven that anyone has ever achieved. He was a master of both harmony and counterpoint, and his music runs the gamut from the emotional, through the cerebral, and well into the spiritual realm.
Last but not least, a Romantic (Russian, no less!) who achieved a good balance is one of my personal favorites, Sergi Ivanovich Taneiev. This brilliant student of Tchaikovsky is much ignored in the west, which is a shame. His fourth symphony is as good as any by Brahms, and he was the greatest master of counterpoint of all time. As such, he had a deeply cerebral streak, but was nonetheless more emotive in the contrapuntal idiom than anyone other than Beethoven. If you haven't heard him, you should.
Now. Lack of balance. I will refrain from naming names, but will confine myself to compositional schools, so as not to offend. And, I may actually like this music - love it even - but I think it appeals to a smaller audience because of these imbalances.
Some of the old Dutch contrapuntists were, in my opinion, overly cerebral. While I personally delight in little more than I do in contrapuntal intracacies, it can be taken too far to the detriment of the emotive and spiritual aspects of the music. I believe some of those guys were guilty of that.
Likewise, some of the Romantics were overly heart-on-sleeve emotional, and the cerebral aspects of some of that music were... trash as a result. There is often a sort of faux spiritualism present, but it's a cheap immitation of the real thing in my opinion.
Associated with the Romantics were some of the great virtuosos of the nineteenth century, who sacrificed content in all three categories for "flash and glitter" as I've heard it referred to. Though, in his old age, Franz Liszt trancended his earlier virtuosic bent, and wrote some incredible choral music, as well as some of the most sublime, religious, and deeply introspective solo organ works I've ever heard. Amazing stuff. I think Liszt is unfairly dismissed by many who have only a cursory understanding of his total output.
Where does this leave me? Well, I continue to be amused that my personality type is probably somewhere in between those of Bach and Beethoven (Probably closer to Bach), but my favorite compositional mode of expression is probably between those of Bach and Palestrina (Again, probably closer to Bach). I'm not sure if this is a problem or not. I just find it interesting.
Pardon the navel-gazing.
"What's wrong with a little navel-gazing?"
Er... Nothing... But I'd rather be gazing at yours than mine.
Obviously, any good composition will have elements of all three of these factors present to a greater or lesser degree, and it is precisely the relative degree that I wish to ponder. Admittedly, what I am going to talk about is subjective, and there will certainly be room for dissagreement with the examples I bring up, but the idea here is to offer food for thought, as well as to give me an oportunity to work through this issue for myself. In the great composers, some sort of balance was achieved, but the particular aspect that is most prominant varies from man to man.
Since it is a question of relative degree that I am addressing, I have decided to use as examples composers as opposed to speciffic compositions of theirs, which I believe will offer a better chance for consensus and will also help me to avoid getting bogged down in minutae. This may wind up being an epic post in any event.
For me, the most sublimely spiritual composer of all time is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594). As a composer of counter-reformation works for the Catholic Church, this is natural. From what I have learned about him over the years, apart from his music, it would seem that Palestrina's music was very much a reflection of Palestrina the man: He gave all appearances of being a classical conservative, and seems to have been well grounded and eminently practical in his approach to life and living. This practicality, however, was a reflection of his profoundly deep and secure faith as a Christian and a Catholic. The security he derived from his faith evidently allowed him to go about his daily business with complete confidence that while he was in the world, the world was nonetheless no threat to him because he was not of the world. Obviously, this peaceful overall outlook is perfectly reflected in his music, as is the conviction of his internal spirituality, and all to devastating effect for listeners who share his faith, as I do (If not his denomination).
It is important to note that a composer's temperament may or may not be overtly reflected in his work, and one of the things I am trying to decide is if it is advantageous to be particularly expressive, or if it is not. Speaking only for myself, I can say that my internal emotional life is quite highly-strung and in many ways discordant. That is one of the reasons this subject is interesting to me: I find that I have nothing in common personality-wise with a man like Palestrina, and yet I hold his compositional style up as one of my main ideals of perfection. Some may argue that I am allowing historical simplifications to reduce my view of Palestrina to something that it is not, but I don't think so. I believe that he and I are diametrically opposite types of personalities.
It goes without saying (But, I'm going to say it anyway) that Palestrina's music has a super-high degree of the cerebral in it, loaded as it is with contrapuntal machinations an intricacies, but these "mind games" never usurp the overall spiritual goals of the music. To the contrary, the contrapuntal devices that Palestrina employs seem to always and profoundly enhance the spiritual nature of his work. Listening to Palestrina leads me to a peaceful, introspective, and contemplative place where I can ponder the sublimnity of God and creation, and I believe the seamless and highly ordered musical universe that he creates out of music's potential for chaos is his homage to God's creation of the universe in which we live (If you haven't already noticed, fractal self-similarity and the theory that there are boundaries of chaos which are actually highly ordered are inextricably linked, and I believe these theories have profound implications for musical composition). Bringing this seamless, peaceful order out of chaos is also the main thrust, and end result, of the teachings of Jesus of course.
Perhaps it may seem needless to some readers, but needful to others, that I mention that there is simply no way for me to address these subjects without puting at least a modicum of my own faith on display here. I share the outlook of Thomas Jefferson, who was loath to share his faith, and always replied to inquiries with something along the lines of, "It is between me and God and no living man." That is exactly how I feel about it, but in this instance there is just no escaping the issue.
Also a truism is the fact that music that moves us spiritually will also move us emotionally, but in the music of Palestrina these emotions - while they may be profoundly deep and affecting - do not swing wildly to and fro. Just the opposite effect is achieved, as Palestrina elicits deep, steady-state moods that seem to vary more in depth than in character. I believe that this is an important point to note: Depth of a certain speciffic emotion (Or, a few similar emotive states) rather than a contrast of emotions with radically different characteristics.
So, Palestrina's music achieved a balance between the emotional, the cerebral, and the spiritual, but it is the spiritual aspect that predominates in him and in his music.
At the opposite end of the spectrum of balance (Versus imbalance, which I'll cover later), there is Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). If listening to Palestrina is like sitting back and riding a gigantic inter-gallactic Ferris wheel, listening to Beethoven is like strapping yourself in for a sometimes terrifying, and sometimes hilarious rollercoaster ride that has as it's footprint the entire cosmos. As I mentioned in the previous post, Beethoven's juxtapositions of wildly contrasting elicitations of emotion constantly amuse me.
Interestingly (To me, anyway), Beethoven was also a Catholic, but only nominally so (Just as I am an LCMS Lutheran, though I don't agree 100% with all of their doctrines). Beethoven and I (And Jefferson) share a much more populist view of the Christian religion, and I'll just leave it at that. The important thing to note is that Beethoven had definite spiritual convictions, historical revisionists be damned (But, at least, Beethoven's faith has not suffered the indignities that Mozart's faith has, through that brilliant-but-libelous movie Amadeus (I met Tom Hulce once, and complimented him on his brilliant performance, and he is a genuinely cool guy who took keyboard lessons for months to prepare for the role, and I do like the movie as entertainment, but it sucks as history)).
Personally I can relate to Beethoven the man more than I can relate to Palestrina. Though I am not burdened with anywhere near the challenges that confronted Beethoven, I nonetheless recognize the internal turmoil that he experienced, as - like I said - my personal internal life is also plenty chaotic and unbalanced. It was this very recognition that inspired this post: If I am personality-wise much closer to Beethoven than to Palestrina, why are my musical ideals of expression more like Palestrina's than Beethoven's? I can't answer that yet.
Though Beethoven's spiritual expression was far less doctrinaire than Palestrina's (He wasn't writing music for the Church, after all), he nonetheless had a cerebral aspect to his music that was just as deep. However, Beethoven's intellectual constructions had less to do with the mechanics of counterpoint - for the most part - and more to do with long-term and lage-form implications of harmonic practice, which did not even exist in Palestrina's time.
I believe that it is arguable that the harmonic idiom is inherantly more emotionally expressive than the contrapuntal idiom is, and even if you disagree with that you may at least agree that it is easier to be emotionally expressive in a harmonic idiom than in a purely contrapuntal one. That is not to say that it is impossible to be emotionally expressive through counterpoint of course, as the very existance of Beethoven's late quartets would demolish that notion convincingly. Even in fugue Beethoven managed to be expressive and emotionally evocative, but it must be admitted that he was a peculiar phenomenon and no other composer has ever achieved such a thing to such a degree. Far beyond these issues though, Beethoven's particular bent, as a man and as a composer, was vastly more emotion-driven than was Palestrina's.
Nevertheless, Beethoven too managed to achieve a trancendent balance between the emotional, the cerebral, and the spiritual aspects of musical expression, though it is weighted at the opposite end of the spectrum from Palestrina's equalibrium.
For the balanced cerebral composer, there is no better example, in my opinion, than Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Bach, as a product of The Age of Reason, slips into this niche very comfortably. Beethoven was a product of The Age of Enlightenment, and these different philosophical life-outlooks - which permeated the societies in which these men lived - obviously played a part in the differences between them.
Bach, like Palestrina, was a Church musician, but Bach was a Lutheran and not a Catholic. Obviously there is a huge aspect of the spiritual in Bach's music, and he was a devout man of clear and unequivocal Christian convictions. But unlike Palestrina, Bach often played "mind games" with music that were blatently of paramount importance: Above even that of his constant spiritual declamations. His obsession with canon and musical riddles attest to this clearly enough. That he was able to elicit both spiritual and emotional responses using these seemingly dry and highly technical approaches to music is nothing less than trancendental.
Bach's music also has a much broader range of emotion, and more emotional contrast than that of Palestrina, but in that regard he is still much closer to the introspective nature of Palestrina than to the widly extroverted Beethoven, who is peerless in that regard (Among composers who I judge to have achieved a perfection of balance, that is).
As a person, I find Bach to be difficult to reconcile. He was a family man, married more than once (As was and did Palestrina), and seems to have been a fairly stable human being. On the other hand, he was not above arguing with his superiors, and appears to have "not known his place" - in the terms of the time - with respect to minor royalty and functionaries above him in the Church heirarchy. He obviously knew he was superior to them in objective terms as an intellectual, and it seems as if he had more than a few pent-up frustrations in that regard. These outbursts lead him to be jailed at least once, that I am aware of.
Of the three mentioned so far, I believe that Bach achieved the most even balance between our three aspects of musical expression, but if only... if only Mozart had lived into his fifties or sixties he would have taken this honor (But then, Beethoven's career may not have been possible with Mozart looming over him. On the other hand, Wagner may never have seen the light of day if Mozart had lived, and that would have been excellent. Difficult choice to make. ;^)).
In lieu of Mozart, I nominate Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) as the most balanced and versitile composer of all time. Haydn is too often lost in the shuffle between Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, in my opinion, but Mozart and Beethoven would not have been possible without him. The older I get, the more I appreciate him. His output was so staggering that many of his works remain unpublished according to the biography I linked to. He composed music with wit, charm, and grace, and there is as much emotional, cerebral, and spiritual depth in it, though many conclude that it is not as deep as the others aforementioned here. The more I listen to him, the less I am inclined to agree with that. Haydn achieved the balance he displays through subtlty, and not through overly overt displays (Which would have been inappropriate for his intended audience, though he managed to slip a lot past them, which is a testament to his genius). He is a composer for those of advanced and discriminating taste, in my opinion.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) deserves an honorable mention as a composer who achieved a good balance weighted toward the emotive side, and his violin concerto is one of my all-time favorite works. Since he was decidedly of a romantic bent, and of the Romantic era, this bias of his comes as no surprise.
I find it baffling that so many people today find his music unapproachable. It seems like the most logical extension of the precedent set by Beethoven that anyone has ever achieved. He was a master of both harmony and counterpoint, and his music runs the gamut from the emotional, through the cerebral, and well into the spiritual realm.
Last but not least, a Romantic (Russian, no less!) who achieved a good balance is one of my personal favorites, Sergi Ivanovich Taneiev. This brilliant student of Tchaikovsky is much ignored in the west, which is a shame. His fourth symphony is as good as any by Brahms, and he was the greatest master of counterpoint of all time. As such, he had a deeply cerebral streak, but was nonetheless more emotive in the contrapuntal idiom than anyone other than Beethoven. If you haven't heard him, you should.
Now. Lack of balance. I will refrain from naming names, but will confine myself to compositional schools, so as not to offend. And, I may actually like this music - love it even - but I think it appeals to a smaller audience because of these imbalances.
Some of the old Dutch contrapuntists were, in my opinion, overly cerebral. While I personally delight in little more than I do in contrapuntal intracacies, it can be taken too far to the detriment of the emotive and spiritual aspects of the music. I believe some of those guys were guilty of that.
Likewise, some of the Romantics were overly heart-on-sleeve emotional, and the cerebral aspects of some of that music were... trash as a result. There is often a sort of faux spiritualism present, but it's a cheap immitation of the real thing in my opinion.
Associated with the Romantics were some of the great virtuosos of the nineteenth century, who sacrificed content in all three categories for "flash and glitter" as I've heard it referred to. Though, in his old age, Franz Liszt trancended his earlier virtuosic bent, and wrote some incredible choral music, as well as some of the most sublime, religious, and deeply introspective solo organ works I've ever heard. Amazing stuff. I think Liszt is unfairly dismissed by many who have only a cursory understanding of his total output.
Where does this leave me? Well, I continue to be amused that my personality type is probably somewhere in between those of Bach and Beethoven (Probably closer to Bach), but my favorite compositional mode of expression is probably between those of Bach and Palestrina (Again, probably closer to Bach). I'm not sure if this is a problem or not. I just find it interesting.
Pardon the navel-gazing.
"What's wrong with a little navel-gazing?"
Er... Nothing... But I'd rather be gazing at yours than mine.
Thursday, 1 December 2005
The Emerson String Quartet
I go through stages in my listening, and I purposefully avoid listening to some of my favorite music - sometimes for years on end - to be able to return to it with fresh and more mature ears. Such is the case with the late Beethoven string quartets: With the exception of a couple of listens to Op. 131 in the string choir version conducted by Leonard Bernstein, I have not listened to these works since the late 1980's! Why? Because I was positively addicted to them, and I lived on a steady diet of nothing else for almost a year in 1987 (This is after Berklee and before I returned to school for my master's degree): Enough is enough, as they say. I went through similar stages with the Ninth (Which is one of the reasons I have not been able to finish my analysis of it: Just not "ready" for it again yet) back in 1983 when I was touring Europe.
Major aside: When I visited the Eiffel Tower in 1983 I was listening to the Ninth on my Sony Pro Walkman (Very high-tech for that time), and the elevators were out of service. You should have heard the old tourists bitching and griping. It was sadly hilarious. Since I had run in the Boston Marathon just a few weeks previously, I simply climbed the stairs to the top level... while listening to the symphony. Various 180 degree panorammas of Paris will forever be recollected whenever I listen to the Ninth now. Needless to say, there were very few people in the tower that day, and they were all young (As I was back then - sigh), and we sat around smoking hash in handrolled cigarettes and generally enjoying each other's company. It was a magical day. One of the most magical days of my life, in fact. It's a great memory to have associated with my favorite of all symphonies.
Anyway...
When I'm in a phase of writing, I also purposefully listen to nothing other than popular music and jazz. The most recent writing flourish for the most part behind me, I decided it was time to return to these old favorites (iTunes is playing them again in the background as I write).
It was important to me to aquire new versions as well: Versions I had not heard before. My choice - after a bit of research - were the versions recorded by the Emerson String Quartet as a part of their cycle of the complete string quartets of Beethoven from 1997. This epic and ambitious recording is a seven disk set, and won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance that year (Or in 1998).
The Emerson Quartet is, quite simply, one of the best chamber music groups of all time. Having played together for over a quarter of a century now, their musicianship, musical communication, and conveyance of musical idea are autumnal and deeply mature. Unsurpassibly sublime, even.
These recordings are stunning, and I can't, at the moment, fathom how they could be any better. In the very best of musical interpretations, I am fond of saying, "It's as if the composer himself is playing his own works", and these recordings certainly deserve that accolade. In spades. Not only that, but the space they were recorded in is suitibly live, but not overly so: There is just enough natural reverberation to create a broad stereo field without interfering with the intelligibility of the individual lines, which is especially crucial for this music.
Beethoven's music spans such a wide swath of emotion that it seems to encompass the whole of the human experience. This is especially true with these late quartets, as they represent not only the most mature and musically adventurous Beethoven, but they in fact include the very last composition he ever completed. I had forgotten just how capricious the humor of Beethoven was as exhibited in these quartets, and how suddenly he could juxtapose that humor with the deepest expressions of pathos: The humor part of the equation is especially poignant when you stop to consider the abject nature of Beethoven's life those last few years; Deaf, isolated, in a precarious financial situation, and contending with ridiculous life-issues such as those created especially for his distraction by his worthless nephew Karl (What a complete dumbass that jerkoff was. And I'm restraining myself from employing what I consider to be much more apropos expletives).
The pathos is, obviously, easy to understand given those circumstances, but the sheer unplumbable depth of it has never ever again been approached by any other composer, in my opinion. Through it all though, there is an amazing sense of hope that permiates everything. It conveys to me that Beethoven is saying, as he did in the Finale of the Ninth (But far less effectively through the medium of the vioce combined with Schiller's poetry of questionable worth), that "Yes, life has it's ups and downs, and some of the downs are deeply painful, but it is the humor, beauty and love you remember best in the end": No other music conveys the life experience as profoundly to me as does Beethoven's. Bach isn't even close. Nevermind not being in the same ballpark, Bach isn't even in the same universe as Beethoven in this regard.
It's like meeting an old friend again: A friend that you know so well that you just comfortably and naturally "take up where you left off" with despite the passage of time, but on a new and deeper level. I love Beethoven. I absolutely, positively love the dude.
Who knew?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
