16 Sept 06

Duke Resurfaces

Three times a week, Yard 1 inmates have access to a rec field in the centre of the unit.
Recently, while jogging on the field, I noticed Duke (whose story was posted in the early days of this blog) hollering and waving a piece of paper at me from behind Yard 2’s fence.
“Duke!” I said. “How the bloody hell have you been?”
“Oh, you know,” Duke said. “Same-ol’ same-o.”
“How come you’re not on Yard 1? You must be getting close to the gate.”
“They said I cain’t move to Yard 1 'cause I gotta keepaway down there, and I don’t know who the hell it is.”
“Can’t you find out and get it squashed?”
“Shee-it. They won’t tell me.”
“I can’t imagine who’d request a do-not-house on you. Maybe it’s a mistake.”
“Well, I’ll keep tryin’. You must be getting’ short by now?”
“Yup, I’m scheduled to get released to Immigration in November '07.”
“Izzat right? That’s when I get out.”
“Look! Look!” Duke waved a piece of paper.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a copy of what you wrote about me on your blog.”
Duke was interrupted by a female voice over the loudspeakers: “The inmate trying to pass a picture through the fence needs to step away from the fence and return to his cell.”
“Whassamatter with her?” Duke said. “I ain’t tryna pass shee-it.”
“Step away from the fence!”
“I’d better go,” Duke said.
“Take care, Duke.”
“See ya around.”
“See ya.”

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com

or post them below Copyright © 2005-2006 Shaun P. Attwood

FLASHBACK TO YARD 4

Attempted Question Time with Xena

Writers in prison are subject to interruption at any time. Some days, I remain undisturbed for hours. On others, progress seems impossible. Even trying to hold an interview, like this one with Xena, has it's hazards.

“Xena, Jack in Illinois asked how he can become a member of COX.”
“To become a member of the Cult of Xena you’ve -”
My door swung open and Frankie, topless and sweaty, charged into the cell. “Englandman, let me make love to ya one time. I promise not to tell anyone.”
“You’re out of your mind,” I said. “Getting boofooed is not my idea of fun.”
Smiling like a fiend, he grabbed my neck.
“I’m trying to write something for Xena. Xena, I’ll keep writing if you’ll put Frankie in check.”
Xena’s long limbs leaped at Frankie. Frankie released my neck. Xena pinched Frankie's chest, then retreated.
“Xena!” Frankie shrieked. Frankie reached for my neck, but found himself tangled up in Xena's limbs. “Are you trying to manhandle me?” Frankie panted. Frankie was holding his own until Xena yanked his pants and boxers down. He fled as frantically as he had arrived. He hurried along the run, displaying his bare behind as he struggled to pull his pants up.
“Where were we?” Xena asked.
“Jack in Illinois wants to know about COX membership.”
“Well, first you’ve gotta be out, or if you’re not out you’ve gotta want out, and if you don’t want out, don’t worry about bein’ out, 'cause nobody has to know.”
“So you have to be in or out?”
“Both.”
“That’s all inclusive. It’s good to know that COX is a politically-correct organisation.”
“Then, you hafta like wearin’ pink tutus and spandex.”
“I hate spandex,” Blackheart said as he entered the room, holding a Palo Verde borer beetle.

An aside on Blackheart. This Lakota Indian is almost seven-foot tall. He has a female penpal in England. When there is a lull in their correspondence he takes it out on the nearest British person to him: me. On such occasions, instead of receiving his usual greeting (a punch in the chest, before being picked up, squeezed and dropped), I’m likely to be picked up, carried off somewhere, and tossed against a door or a wall. On one occasion, he was carrying me, and a female guard yelled, “Put Jon down right now!” He claims the more he beats you up the more he likes you.

“Why don’t you like spandex?” I asked Blackheart.
“It doesn’t show me in my best light.”
“You should insert some packaging,” Xena said. “Try a sausage. That way you can get it warm and eat it later on.”
“Stop tryin’ to kick me away with your legs, dude,” Blackheart said to the beetle and departed.
“What else should Jack in Illinois know about COX?”
“Girls are boys and boys are girls,” Xena said.
“That reminds me of a Killers' song.”
“Which one?”
“Where he says something like: somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend.”
“Don’t you know?” Xena said.
“Don’t I know what?”
“That the Killers are members of COX, stupid.”
“I should have known. Duh!”
Looking like a disturbed character from a horror movie, Slingblade appeared at the door. He didn't enter or say a word. He just stood there. His eyes raking my room for signs of food.
“What do you need, Slingblade?” I asked.
“Got any peanut butter?” Slingblade's nostrils dilated in anticipation.
“Sorry, I’m all out, but here’s some crackers.”
He snatched the crackers, grunted, and moved along the balcony. The inmates on the balcony quickly got out of his way.
“This is all happening because of Jack in Illinois,” Xena said.
“Back to Jack in Illinois and COX,” I said.
“When COX members pray, they pray to lord and mistress Xena, which in the word of the Navajo is Na’ da’ hay. Sacred COX rituals include having strangers pee on you, and performing certain sexual favours for strangers in nightclubs - ”
"Rec time is over. Lock down."
"We'll have to try this again, Xena."
"Yeah, rectum is over. We must lock down."

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2005-2006 Shaun P. Attwood

Gendered Musical Practices, Feminine Styles

CMT: My young niece has recently decided to begin studying trumpet. I told her about how exotic and novel this choice is, and gave her copies of the recent CDs of Amanda Pepping and Alison Balsom to give her a sense for what’s possible—how mastery of that instrument can be cool for a girl.

DSM: Coincidentally, I was recently reading a medical journal article about cerebrovascular events in musicians, such as cerebral embolism due to a patent foramen ovale and spinal epidural hematoma during trumpet playing. Do you imagine that the phenomenally high intrathoracic and subsequent intrapharyngeal pressure associated with brass playing contributes to why there are so few women brass players in orchestras and other classical music groups?

CMT: I can’t imagine it. There surely isn’t any relevant physical difference between the genders with regard to brass playing—with the possible exception of tuba and lung capacity. Women are able to generate and sustain pressures in Valsalva maneuvers that are as high as men. There isn’t any gender-based anatomical difference that would differentially affect brass playing compared to other wind instruments. Mouthpiece pressure, tooth displacements, and so on. The intrathoracic pressures in double-reed playing can be higher than those for brass instruments—but there’s no barrier for women oboists and bassoonists and so on. So surely the rarity of women brass players just reflects the impact of entrenched cultural notions about what’s “feminine”—the tide of what’s culturally permissible for womanly playing.

DSM: So this is really about whether or not there’s such a thing as feminine musical style or styles. Stereotypes—like the notion that women’s music production should be fluid, should appear as playful regardless of how much exertion is involved, should be hyperexpressive and emotional and dialogical, should be pliant and enabling of others, should be acrobatic or balletic, should have great dramatic moments, should exude a certain jouissance, should be atmospheric, should refer to life events and relationships, should have wide and demonstrative ties between thematic elements, and should overtly draw attention to and emphasize the differences in the movements of women from those of men. The whole bit.

CMT: Well, yes. And how do these things replicate societal norms for gendered musical practices and experience gendered musical meanings? How do these affect women’s expectations and the specific practices and products of their composing and performing?

DSM: As you know, historically, relatively few women have been composers. Equally few are brass players. Shall we think about these correlations? Musicologists and sociologists have only in the last twenty years or so begun to study the situation, and there’s still a lot of work to be done (see Bowers & Tick, 1986; Citron, 1993; Marshall, 1993; Cook & Tsou, 1994; Halstead, 1997; Green, 1994, 1997).

CMT: Regarding primary music education, the majority of gender-related research has been on instrument choice (Bruce & Kemp, 1993; Green, 1997), with relatively little research so far on gender and music in relation to children’s compositions (Green, 1994, 1997; Charles, 2001). The children in Charles’ research carried on ideological assumptions that’re passed down through history about what girls/women and boys/men ought and ought not to do and what they’re like as musicians. She found that children have gendered expectations in relation to music and have strong ideas about the differences between girls’ and boys’ musical practices, even at an early age. She calls these ‘ideologies of gendered musical practices’. Charles found that in general children acted out gender roles in relation to compositional practices. But the most interesting findings were contradictions between the ways that children talked about things (their discourse) and how they operated in practice—contradictions they didn’t seem to notice themselves. And that is, in itself, a chink in the tyrannical cultural armor.

DSM: The teachers in Charles’ study did display many entrenched, gendered assumptions about boys’ and girls’ musical practices and products. And so there’s a summary in Charles’ paper—about girls’/women’s musical subculture—a concept of ‘female musical subculture’.

CMT: About 10 years ago, Lucy Green also worked out a model of gendered musical meaning and experience. Green argues that we must keep open some level of pure musical meaning that’s free from symbolic content. When heard, it’s affected by the values that exist outside the musical notes themselves. In relation to her model, Green says that ‘musical composition requires knowledge of the technology of voices, instruments or other sound sources, and this knowledge implies masculine delineation of mind which conflicts with patriarchal constructions of femininity’. She describes the concept as ‘twofold’ because it’s not only about the cognitive control over knowledge and technique but also because history—which is itself patriarchal—results in an assumption that the authorship behind a piece of music is male. The delineation of masculinity in the construction of musical meaning is associated with the public sphere—the mind, technology and non-conformity—whereas the delineation of femininity is associated with the private sphere—the body, emotions and conformity. It’s an excellent encapsulation of the preconceptions that girls and women in music face.

DSM: Yes, but boys are just as constrained and inscribed by cultural gender norms. Yes, they appear to have a more positive relationship to technology than did most girls, and this was in Charles’ study reinforced by boys’ choice of abstract compositional titles (‘Loud and Soft’; ‘Heavy and Light’; ‘Wooden and Metal’; and so on; see also Armstrong, 2001). But that also means that boys are culturally enjoined against being free to choose other things—they are not at liberty to choose less technically-bound, abstract, objectified, power-conscious forms. Charles finds that more girls chose compositional titles associated with emotion and nature rather than objectivity (‘Happy and Sad’; ‘Rain and Sunshine’). The findings strongly suggest that girls in their discourse and to some extent in their practice were acting as members of a female musical subculture. No surprise there. Discouraging but not surprising.

CMT: So girls reproduced traditional gendered musical practices and carried out ‘expected’ or ‘culturally constructed and sanctioned’ roles connected with the conventional private sphere that is reserved to them. The term ‘subculture’ rather than ‘culture’ is used because women’s experiences have been marginalized by male culture, and this leads to a location where commonalities emerge. Marginalization in turn discourages them, to a greater degree anyhow than boys. The concept of female musical subculture is used to explain women’s musical practice within the context of patriarchy and does not imply anything that is essentially female. It acknowledges the category of ‘woman’ as a social construction (see Nash, 1994) and is about women perpetuating traditional musical practices for social/historical reasons.

DSM: This suggestion of feminine perseverance and conformity bugs me. By ‘being girls’, by describing their music as soft and slow and having a preference for soft and slow music, they are ‘against themselves’—or so Charles interprets it. Thank goodness some music education programs are smashing these barriers.

CMT: In light of Citron’s recent writing, it could be said that the girls experience a sense of Other and ‘an anxiety of authorship’. Their sense of Other is another dimension to the concept of female musical subculture. McClary locates ‘semiotic codes’ in sonata form and argues that music participates ‘actively in the social organization of sexuality’ (1991, p. 9). Similarly, Citron identifies ‘codes of gendered representation’ in sonata form and maintains that the codes ‘tell us a lot about the representation of women and men in society, how ideologies affected how music itself was conceptualized and described, and how music had close ties with ideals and processes in society’ (1993, p. 137).

DSM: So children’s and teachers’ discourse on the musical practices of boys and girls in the primary classroom reflect views about gendered musical behavior that have been socially and historically constructed within the larger society. Microcosmic meaning drawing from macrocosmic meaning concerns larger totalities of history and humanity (where past and present connect) that are unifying patterns of beliefs. In the case of this study, in their discourse children defined their being and consciousness in relation to the social world, to others and to the system of beliefs and values that is already in existence about gender and gender and musical practice. This was then reinforced by teachers’ views about boys’ and girls’ composition.


CMT: Chamber music becomes just one more discursive field within which meanings are produced about social relations . . . the discourses will include and be drawn from those current in broader society.

DSM: Yes. Kids quickly learn the discourse of how to represent gendered musical practice that conforms to adult expectations—and this fits in with the wider social organization of music. But the taboos on gendered musical behavior are not so strong at younger ages. The discourse on musical practice has more power over their thinking than over the nature of the music they produce. Ideology quickly dominates their conscious thinking and affects their interpretation of what’s actually happening in their musical training. Would you contend that the social system of gender relations is both a cause and an effect?

CMT: Although imposed externally by outside social forces, it does arise out of self-imposed boundaries. But I think the evidence indicates that in their musical practice kids don’t consistently reproduce ideologies. Thank goodness! My niece, the iconoclast, and her supportive music teacher and parents. All things are in a continuous process of change and humanity is always, whenever it participates in social relationships, open to continual socialization. It’s only a matter of time, once kids are in secondary school, before the strength of ideology becomes greater and contradictions between musical discourse and practice decrease. Iconoclasm gets more difficult between age 14 and 20, say.

DSM: Another icon/iconoclast to tell your niece about is Ellen Zwilich. Ellen is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted award), the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize, the Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award, the Ernst von Dohnányi Citation, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, 4 Grammy nominations, and, among other distinctions, she’s been elected to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1995, she was named to the first Composer’s Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall, and she was designated Musical America’s Composer of the Year for 1999. Her chamber works have been commissioned by the Boston Musica Viva, the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 92nd Street Y and San Francisco Performances (Piano Trio), Chamber Music Northwest (Clarinet Quintet), the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (Double Quartet), and Carnegie Hall (String Quartet No. 2). Ellen was named to the Carnegie Hall Richard and Barbara Debs Composers’ Chair in 1995, the first such position in the Hall’s history. And, in addition to Alison Balsom and Amanda Pepping, you might hook your niece up with Marie Speziale or Susan Slaughter, another couple of excellent women brass artists.

• International Women's Brass Conference
  
• International Trumpet Guild
  
• Vincent Bach Brass find-an-artist
  
• Alison Balsom. Bach: Works for Trumpet. (EMI Classics, 2006.)
  
• Alison Balsom. Caprice. (EMI Classics, 2006.)
  
• Armstrong V. Theorizing gender and musical composition in the computerized classroom. Women: Cultural Review 2001; 12:35–43.
  
• Asper L. Physical Approach to Playing the Trumpet. Wavesong, 1999.
  
• Atlas A. Wilkie Collins on music and musicians. J Roy Musical Assoc 1999;124:255-70.
  
• Barbenel J, et al. Mouthpiece forces produced while playing the trumpet. J Biomechanics 1988;21:417-24.
  
• Battersby C. Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics. Women’s Press, 1989.
  
• Borchers L, et al. Measurement of tooth displacements and mouthpiece forces during brass instrument playing. Med Eng Phys 1995;17:567-70.
  
• Bowers J, Tick, J, eds. Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950. Univ Illinois, 1986.
  
• Bruce R, Kemp A. Sex-stereotyping in children’s preference for musical instruments. Br J Music Educ 1993; 10:213–17.
  
• Case B, Leggett A, eds. Complexities: Women in Mathematics. Princeton Univ, 2005.
  
• Charles B. Constructions of gender through musical composition in the primary school. Br J Music Educ 2004;21:265-77.
  
• Chrisler J, et al. Lectures on the Psychology of Women. McGraw-Hill, 2003.
  
• Citron M. Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge Univ, 2000.
  
• Cook SC, Tsou JS, eds. Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music. Univ Illinois, 1993.
  
• Cotton M. Wrong Sex, Wrong Instrument. Cambridge, 2006.
  
• Denmark F, Rabinowitz V, Sechzer J. Engendering Psychology: Women and Gender Revisited. Allyn & Bacon, 2004.
  
• European Society of Cardiology. Guidelines on management of syncope. Europace 2004;6:467-537. [1MB pdf, see p. 507 ‘trumpeters’ syncope’]
  
• Evers S, et al. Cerebrovascular ischemic events in wind instrument players. Neurology 2000;55:865-7.
  
• Fiz J, et al. Maximum respiratory pressures in trumpet players. Chest 1993;104:1203-4.
  
• Fletcher J. Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power, and Relational Practice at Work. MIT, 2001.
  
• Fletcher N, Tarnopolsky A. Blowing pressure, power, and spectrum in trumpet playing. J Acoust Soc Amer 1999;105:874-81.
  
• Frederiksen B. Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind. Windsong, 1997.
  
• Gilligan C. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Harvard Univ, 1993.
  
• Goldberger N, Tarule J, Clinchy B, Belenky M. Knowledge, Difference and Power: Essays Inspired by Women’s Ways of Knowing. Basic, 1996.
  
• Green L. Music, Gender, Education. Cambridge Univ, 1997.
  
• Green L. Gender, musical meaning and education. Phil Music Educ Review 1994; 2:76–82.
  
• Halstead J. The Woman Composer. Ashgate, 1997.
  
• Harnum J. Sound the Trumpet: How to Blow Your Own Horn. Sol Ut, 2006.
  
• Herbert T, Wallace J, eds. Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments. Cambridge Univ, 1997.
  
• Jordan J, ed. Women's Growth in Diversity. Guilford, 1997.
  
• Lapatki B, et al. Surface EMG electrode for simultaneous observation of multiple facial muscles. J Neurosci Methods 2003;123:117-28.
  
• Marshall K, ed. Rediscovering the Muses: Women’s Musical Traditions. Northeastern Univ, 1993.
  
• McClary S. Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality. Univ Minnesota, 1991.
  
• Miller J. Toward a New Psychology of Women. Beacon, 1987.
  
• Montaigne R, Hoffman M. Carol Jantsch, Principal Tuba, Philadelphia Orchestra, NPR 1997.
  
• Nash K. The feminist production of knowledge: is deconstruction a practice for woman? Feminist Review 1994;47:65–77.
  
• Neuls-Bates C. Women in Music. Northeastern Univ, 1995.
  
• Peacock-Jezic D. Women Composers: Lost Tradition Found. CUNY, 1993.
  
• Pendle K, ed. Women and Music: A History. Indiana Univ, 1998.
  
• Amanda Pepping. Amanda. (Summit, 2005.)
  
• Sadie J, Samuel R, eds. The Norton-Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. Norton, 1995.
  
• Schulz M, et al. Evidence for training-induced cross-modal reorganization of cortical functions in trumpet players. Neuroreport 2003;14:157-61.
  
• Women of Note. (Koch, 1997.)
  
• Yoshikawa S. Acoustical behavior of brass players’ lips. J Acoust Soc Amer 1995;97:1929-39.
  
• Ellen Zwilich. Sonata in Three Movements for Violin and Piano. (ACA, 2005.)
  
• Ellen Zwilich. Chamber Symphony / Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra. (First Edition, 2004.)
  
• Legacies: Piano Trios by Ellen Zwilich, Part, Kirchner & Silverman. (Arabesque, 1996.)
• National Music Council website
  
• Young Concert Artists website
  
• Sigma Alpha Iota website
  
• New York Women Composers
  
• International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM)
  
• Women in Music (Kapralova website)

13 Sept 06

Max

Max – a baby-faced Chukchansi Indian – lives on the same run as me.
“Where are the Chukchansi Indians from?” I asked.
“Yosemite National Park is our ancestral land,” Max said.
“How many Chukchansi are there?”
“There are 783 left. There used to be thousands, but they got killed off durin’ the Gold Rush, and pushed off tribal lands. We were robbed of our identity and thrown into an anthropological term known as Yokuts.”
“Do you get casino money?”
“I get a little somethin’-somethin’. You should see the size of the Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino.”
“So how’d you end up in prison?”
“I got nine years for kidnappin’. It was a carjackin’ and I took the guy in the car with me. I was only sixteen at the time. I’d just finished Carson High in California.”
“Did you have a weapon or any priors?”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“So you’ve never had an adult life on the streets?”
“No.”
“What do your tats mean?”
“On my chest is a medicine wheel. On my left arm is the Chukchansi tribal seal: a basket, and the word Hil-le which is a greetin’. I had to earn this tat, AIM, which stands for American Indian Movement.”
“That’s an impressive tat on your back. How did you earn it?”
“I took off a piece of scalp with a huntin' knife.”
“Ouch!”
“It’s not like I peeled it down to the cranium. That earned me respect on the streets of California.”
“You must be getting short?”
“I’ve got six months left. Did I tell you I have a tat on my cock?”
“No. What is it?”
“It’s kinda funny, dude. It’s a dicky bird.”
“Wow!”

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2005-2006 Shaun P. Attwood

10 Sept 06

Morning Sounds

It’s hard not to wake up at 6am on Yard 1. At 6am the guard in the control room presses a button and the teeth in our doors grind.

Next up are the noises of inmates coming alive: sneezing, coughing, noses blowing, urine splashing, behinds flatulating and defecating, toilets flushing, water running, and razors against sinks ra-ta-ta-tapping.

One of my neighbours, Black Nine, a massive African American, usually wakes up chanting, “I’m sooo very gay”, or singing a song that begins with, “Jack-jack-jack me orrf!”

By 6:10am, the first swear word of the day – usually motherfucker – makes itself heard from the circles of smokers forming outside.

Listening to the radio offers no reprieve: Call 1-800-Progressive. Progressive Direct Insurance Company….Krispy Kreme Donuts….Do you suffer from heavy or long-lasting or frequent menstrual cycles? Call 886-800-9060….When you’re a hardcore biker like me, it’s nice to know that Geico….This week on ABC it’s Extreme Makeover….XM Satellite Radio….Do you have what it takes to be a successful rapper?….Zero percent interest for sixty months. Jim Click Dodge in the Auto Mall….Zycam Cold Remedy Swabs….There is a massive shortage of helicopter pilots….M&M Reece’s Pieces….Arizona womens’ basketball is taking off….Circuit City, HD radio….Vegetable oil has an extremely high lubricity factor….How do you not have a celebrity shredding service?

Before breakfast is served, the guards in the control room start to make announcements over the speaker system: “Yard 1, last call for chow….Visitation porters turn out for work….Baker 13, report to the bubble in compliance, you’re going to disciplinary….Education, turn out.” Some announcements have been made by a woman with the gruffest cartoon voice I’ve ever heard. I laugh every time I hear her. She should be in Hollywood doing wicked-witch voiceovers.

Sometimes my other neighbour, Spider (an inmate with long hair who introduced himself as a "dope fiend"), charges into my cell and yells,
“Come on you bloody bloke, the chow hall’s open!”

Depending on whoever is ready first, I either get Weird Al or Weird Al gets me, and we head for our potatoes and porridge and begin the day's banter.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2005-2006 Shaun P. Attwood

Virtuosic Bassoon: Craving Irrational Exuberance

“The future of classical music lies solely in the hands of musicians who really, really love it, and who live to perform the masterworks of all periods.”
  — Nadina Mackie Jackson
“The debates, before and since, over the issue of our money standard have mirrored the deliberations on the manner in which we have chosen to govern ourselves, and, perhaps more fundamentally, debates on the basic values that should govern our society. For, at root, money is the lubricant that enables a society to organize itself to achieve economic progress. The ability to store the fruits of one’s labor for future consumption is necessary for the accumulation of capital, the spread of technological advances and, as a consequence, rising standards of living… But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade? And how do we factor that assessment into monetary policy? We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs, and price stability.”
  — Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Board Chairman,  lecture at American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, 05-DEC-1996
« ...manie à la perfection....l’instrument se rélève tout au long du récital très proche de la voix »
  — Réjean Beaucage, La Scena Musical, DEC-2004


DSM: Do you think classical musicians tend to be more meticulous, more conformist, more submissive to authority, more self-sacrificial, more possessive, more empathetic, more disposed to think that others “take them for granted”, more hypochondriacal … more Enneagram  2-ish  … than other kinds of musicians, and more than people in general?

CMT: What have you been reading?! That’s the most inflammatory bullshit I’ve heard in quite awhile!

DSM: Oh, nothing in print. Just an acquaintance—someone who honestly thought she was reaching out to me, to visit about my interests and friends. I suppose she was merely floating a bit of the horrible misconceptions about classical music that exist among non-musically-inclined Americans. Compound that with her deep personal interest in Myers-Briggs and Enneagram analysis of personality types and you get the picture.

CMT: Well, the personal attributes that you need to master anything in life include a very high level of self-discipline. There’re other eccentricities that’re empirically associated with giftedness and intense focus on solitary activity—practicing your instrument or devoting yourself to composition for prolonged periods are by no means unique in that way. Where do you suppose these popular, idiotic prejudices come from anyway?

DSM: Who knows! Probably more important that we draw attention to musicians whose extrovertedness and exuberance and charm are so obvious and universal that they can blow away stupid prejudices and maybe enlighten a few people. Icons of why we do what we do!

CMT: You know, Nadina Mackie Jackson is probably, for me, the most brilliant, shining example of an icon in this way. Humble beginnings in northern BC to chamber music wizardess. Utterly mind-blowing performances and recordings.

DSM: And her rapport with her audiences! I attended one of her concerts in Ottawa a couple of years ago and, as she accepted the audience’s ovation, she triumphantly one-handedly pumps her bassoon up and down above her head—she does a trotting victory “lap” in her elegant black gown, and strides off the stage, beaming, waving. Looked like an Olympic athlete upon receiving the gold medal. The crowd went wild! They went positively wild, just as fans would do in any world-class sport. How often do you see an icon like that in classical music? How many classical artists have you ever seen evoke such a heart-pounding response in an audience?!


CMT: Yes, Nadina is very special in her ability to do that! Not unique, thankfully, but truly exceptional! I’ve seen pianist David Deveau produce a similar response in a Boston-area recital last year. So, yes, there are artists who do this—whose personalities are exuberant enough to do this routinely. And, you’re right, it’s phenomenal when it happens, phenomenal to be part of it. Charismatic’s probably the wrong word. But it’s like they’ve cast a spell. The audience is enthralled by the artist and the music. There’s a synchrony of thought and feeling, a collective sense of humanity, of history and the human condition, in the air—it’s quite a singular experience, and it lingers with every person who is caught up in it. It moves you, makes you want more. And I don’t think these artists and composers fit into any particular Enneagram-typeable category!

DSM: Nadina began her career at the University of British Columbia and studied at the Curtis Insitute of Music in Philadelphia with Bernard Garfield and Sol Schoenbach, graduating in 1981. She plays and records with the Aradia Ensumble. She’s also performed with Handel & Haydn Society of Boston, Ensemble Caprisce, and Tafelmusic. Her sustained notes catapult into frenetic motion—she is very acrobatic. Her expressive leaps between registers compel you to follow. Like listening to a riveting speaker—it’s theatre and chamber music combined.

CMT: The ongoing flow of melody emanating from Nadina on-stage reveals a surprising range of moods and expressive shadings of which I never thought the bassoon to be capable.

DSM: I most like the pieces with meatier musical content and the strong performance style. The rich tone and adventurous style—quite a contrast to many bassoonists, who can be thin, pinched and lacking in warmth.

CMT: We have to hear, the audience must hear, and most of all the musicians must hear, the music. That emphasis on hearing, and a response in the musicians’ playing, is central to Nadina Mackie Jackson’s conception of performance. Her sense of balance and respect for the individual player prevents her work from becoming self-referential, no matter how virtuosic it is.

DSM: And why is the supply of this vivacious chamber music commodity so scarce and volatile? In finance—overseeing the monetary policy of almost all countries—you have a central bank, a federal reserve bank or monetary authority, which is responsible for the monetary policy of the country, or for a confederation of them such as the European Union. The central bank’s primary responsibility is to maintain the stability of the currency and money supply, but more active duties include managing interest rates on credit, and acting as a lender-of-last-resort to the banking sector during times of financial crisis.

CMT: The central bank also tends to have supervisory powers to ensure that banks and organizations don’t behave recklessly or fraudulently. In most countries, the central bank is state-controlled and has little or no autonomy, which allows for the government intervening directly in monetary policy. An ‘independent central bank’ is designed to minimize or preclude government interference—like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England (since 1997), the Reserve Bank of India, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Canada, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the European Central Bank. You’re thinking of some syllogism like the following: money:chamber_music :: central_bank:chamber_music_bank ?

DSM: Just a thought. I acknowledge that it’s got some worrisome implications. ‘Centralized anything’ is worrisome. But, on the other hand, we’re talking about public cultural infrastructure. Privatization and free-market infrastructure in other domains have been pretty unsatisfactory so far. And you have to admit that the U.S. NEA has had a tough row to hoe in terms of budget and appropriations in recent years—you have to admit that entities like NEA are only one part of a solution [to arts financing]. Other countries’ government arts endowments also have a tough time, with large fluctuations from year to year. I’m just wondering what other concepts there are out there, that would help to insure the solvency and stability of chamber music and classical music in general.

• Nadina Mackie Jackson website
  
• Windfest, Wilfrid Laurier University Chamber Music Workshop for Winds, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
  
• Berwang WindCourse. Chipperfield, Herts, England.
  
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• Judith LeClair Bassoon Masterclass, Carmel Valley, California. 04-JUN-2007.
  
• Dennis Godburn. Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, 2006.
  
• John Miller. New School University, Mannes College, New York, Valentine's Masterclass, 2007.
  
• Saxton Rose Double-Reed Festival, 19-JAN-2007, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico.
  
• Ithaca Wind Quintet
  
• David Ross, Bassoon Masterclass. 28-NOV-2006, Ithaca College.
  
• Christopher Weait. Kammermusik Masterclass. 17-FEB-2007, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
  
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