8 May 07

Odds & Ends

As temperatures stretch into the nineties, speculation continues to mount as to whether the transsexual with the breast implants on Yard 2 will go topless.

Piggie (who helped clean up the blood in my cell when I moved to Yard 1) may have set a new record for the shortest length of time out of captivity. Sixteen hours after being released, he was arrested for violating parole. “I reported in to my parole officer wasted on Mickey’s Ice, and he busted me for being drunk,” Piggie said.

Frankie is looking for someone to live with in England in 2008. Any takers? His only requirement is that your home is well stocked with lube. Depending on the state of relations between Frankie’s faction of the Mexican Mafia and the rival faction that tried to kill him at the Madison Street jail, you may end up with a burro’s head in your bed.

The short-timer madness I discussed with Dr. T. is over. My attitude is now along the lines of, Bloody Hell! I’m getting out in a matter of months.

I've been doing burpies with Iron Man, a martial-arts expert and fitness powerhouse, serving a nine-and-three-quarter-year sentence for various crimes including smashing down a door to collect a debt: “I didn’t hurt anyone. I just wanted my fuckin’ money.” After working out with him, I limp home barely able to smile or utter a greeting to my amused neighbours.

To size up the short-story market, I’ve sent subscriptions in to several literary journals including The Chattahoochee Review, The Paris Review, and Zoetrope. For book reviews, I’ve sent a subscription in to the New York Review of Books. Being new to this field, I welcome advice from anyone who has had short stories published.

Royo Girl wrote that she wouldn’t be visiting for a while. It seems she has taken a lover. I don’t blame her. Maybe I should do likewise. I wonder if Kat’s available. I should have known something was up when Royo Girl said, “I’m going off British accents, and moving onto Australian ones.”

For mental sustenance, I’m reading Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo: “The saying of yea to life, and even in its weirdest and most difficult problems: the will to life rejoicing at its own infinite vitality in the sacrifice of its highest types…”

More questions answered here

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

5th May

Grit

Over chow I asked Grit, “Do you mind if I ask how long you’ve been down?
“Sixteen years on this sentence. And I was locked up in Folsom before that.”
“Grit’s no joke,” Iron Man said. “He was known for stabbin’ folks. He always had two shanks on him back in the day in the chow hall. He’d raise his shirt, show his two pieces of steel, and say, ‘I’m strapped. I’m ready for anythin’.”
“Yeah. When I’m on the shit, I’m nuts, I’m crazy. Back then, I was the kinda guy who’d stab you fulla holes, then sit on your body and eat a sandwich while you bleed out.” Grit raised his right hand and improvised chewing a sandwich.
“Do you think you’ll make it on the streets here soon?”
“Yeah. I’m done with that lifestyle. I’ve changed my ways. I’m a whole different guy than I used to be. As long as I stay off the shit, and keep my eyes on God things are gonna be alright.”
“Where are you gonna stay?”
“I got a letter out of the blue from my ex-wife. She wants me back. I’m gonna be livin’ with her and my sons in Prescott Valley.”
“Is your mind prepared for the outs after all these years?”
“Yeah. I’m off the shit. I’ve been clean for several years. I don’t want any problems. I’m gonna be released to my wife’s house. That’s a real blessin’.”

Addendum.

A few days before his release, Grit received some bad news.
“It was,” Grit said, “all arranged for me to go to my wife’s house in Prescott Valley. Now DOC is sayin’ no, I hafta go to a halfway house in Sunnyslope for ninety days. That place is run by ex-cons who actually sell dope right outta the joint. This is fucked-up, man. They’re sendin’ me right into the middle of a bad situation. Man, I don’t wanna get high. I don’t wanna do dope no more. But if it’s right in front of me - I’m an ex-addict - how am I gonna stare at dope all day and not do any?”

Iron Man’s face, usually stoic, was steeped in concern for Grit when he said, “You can only go from where you are. When you start at square one, it’s bad enough. But when you send a guy who wants to do good into a pit of snakes like that howthafucks he possibly gonna do any good with his life?”

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

03 May 07


If only I knew of an organisation that could facilitate Slingblade’s long overdue release to a mental-health unit that would cater to his needs.

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

30 April 07

Psychotherapy with Dr. T (2)

“So what’s stressing you out?” Dr. T asked.
“My release,” I said. “I keep thinking that I’m not going to get released come this November.”
“Anxiety is normal in this situation. I would expect your symptoms to increase as you get closer to the date. Have you not been using your cognitive techniques?”
“Yes. I’ve been reading more Aurelius and Epictetus. And last night I posted to my wall something I read in my latest Siddha Yoga lesson: concentrating on any problem only serves to intensify it. I even laugh at how ridiculous I am for worrying but then later on I convince myself I’m not getting out again. Do I have short-termer madness?”
“That’s not how I’d describe it. This anxiety is a normal thing.”
“Even if it keeps me awake at night with racing thoughts? So many strange things have happened with my legal case it almost seems as if the law of averages indicates that my release will get botched somehow.”
“Staying up at nights is not a good thing. You need to sleep. Concentrate on your breathing. Are you aware of how rapidly you’re breathing now?”
“I wasn’t, but now I am. I felt so excited when this year began. But now my thoughts have shifted into another direction.”
“Freedom equals the realisation of your hopes and fears. You must use your cognitive techniques or else your symptoms will get much worse. Is there anything else bothering you?”
“No. We’ve covered my main concern.”
“Then put in a HNR if you need to see me again.”
“OK. Thanks.”
Feeling stressed out, I walked home wishing a lengthy session with Dr. O were available. Then I realised how spoiled I was by Dr. O.

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

27 April 07

Update on Joe Arpaio's Cockroaches

One of my neighbours, Hound, recently stayed at the Maricopa County jail.
“How bad was it?” I asked.
“Towers has that same funk smell they can’t get rid of.” Hound said. “It permeates the walls. It’s like Arpaio had 'em take some of the rotten meat they serve us, and use it as wallpaper.”
“Are they still serving red death?”
“Yes.”
“How did you deal with it?”
“I didn’t deal well. I was on the toilet a lot of the time I was there.”
“What was the cockroach factor?”
“Out of control. I spent one day at Madison St jail. I can’t even explain or tell you how many cockroaches there were. It’s like it’s their turf. You get a sense of intruding on their environment. We walked in, and they’re sitting on old rotten apples just looking at us with what-do-you-think-you’re-doing? kinda expressions. Everyone starting asking for TP. I’m thinking, Did the shitter peanut butter go through them that quick? Then I see them making little balls out of the paper. I’m wondering what they’re doing. I notice them sticking the paper in their ears and noses, and then vying for positions to lie down on the floor. The TP was to protect themselves from the cockroaches.”
“The cockroaches I lived with loved earwax.”
“They bunged their ears up. Then, when they would lie on a spot on the floor the cockroaches would literally move out in, like waves to give room to the inmate. But the cockroaches got pissed off that an inmate had taken their spot. So the war was on. It started with the cockroaches that had moved out with the wave. They grouped up in regiments to figure out how they were gonna handle the invasion. Some crawled up the walls. Now, I’m sitting on a picnic bench, sick of listening to people go on about how they were wrongly accused and how they were gonna beat their cases; so, I turn to the cockroaches for entertainment. I figured they’re crawling up the walls just to find a crack to return to their houses, but that wasn’t the case. I saw a huge one, maybe an inch long, crawling up the wall looking behind him, trying to set himself up for the right angle of descent.”
“He was a jumper?”
“Yes. You knew it from the way he kept looking behind himself. The guy lying on the floor below the cockroach was a snorer with his mouth wide open. I knew what was coming. At the perfect moment the cockroach lined himself up. I swear I heard it scream banzai! as it released itself from the wall and did an Olympic diver back flip. It missed his mouth by inches, and landed on his cheek. With the big roach on his face, and the ground troops crawling up the inside of his pants legs, I knew it was time to wake the guy up and let him know he was being infested. Then there was the mouse.”
“A mouse?”
“Yes. At Towers, despite the lack of food – the rotten meat and two slices of bread to last us all day – a mouse came in every night as soon as the lights went off like she had a reservation at a restaurant. She would stare at me in the dark looking for scraps I may have left. As starving as I was I figured I’d rather feed her, and have her leave than to have her company all night long.”
“That was good lookin’ out.”
“Absolutely.”

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

24 April 07

Note From Frankie

I got a message from Frankie:

Hey now!
What’s up, Englandman? And how’s the wet spot? I hope nice and wet 'cause that would tell me that your booty is puckering for me.
Bad news my friend. It was New Year’s and me and the crew were having a little fun bringing in the year 2007 but the guards got crazy and started rushing my house and only took me out of ten of us. I will tell you a lot more once this heat cools off.
Don’t forget you promised to fly me to England so we can get together. Remember to have my plane ticket ready to leave when I get out on 5-19-2008. That’s not long after you get out. You’d better be thinking about me 'cause I don’t want to send my dogs over there to rough you up. Don’t be shy my lover, be ready for me.

Much love and respect, =Frankie=
p.s. Forget me not!


Two Tonys reveals what happened to Charlie "the Batts" Battaglia


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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Managing Stage Fright & Performance Anxiety in Classical Musicians

Before beta blockers, I saw a lot of musicians using alcohol or benzodiazepines. I believe beta blockers are far more beneficial than deleterious, and I have no qualms about prescribing them.”

  —  Mitchell Kahn MD, Director, Miller Healthcare Institute for Performing Artists

DSM: A friend of mine, an experienced pianist accustomed to performing frequently in public, recently confided to me how much she’s still affected by “jitters” before a concert, despite the years that she has been playing and building her career. In fact, as her career has progressed and the concert dates have become more frequent, she notes that the pre-concert anxieties have been getting worse, not better. Her heart thumps loudly; she feels distracted, so much so that she worries about forgetting passages that she never in fact forgets; and her head feels as if it were burning up. Her hands shake, and the tension in her arms and wrists keeps her from performing with her normal sensitivity and nuance.

CMT: This is your friend who has a couple of recent CDs?

DSM: Yes. With the positive reviews that those have received has come more frequent coverage by critics in the press. And, at least in her mind, she imagines more people in her audiences arrive at the concerts expecting a particular kind of experience or level of performance or interpretation that her recordings or the reviews have conditioned them to expect. She feels she’s no longer the obscure academician playing her heart out. Admittedly, performances were never carefree. But now she feels the stakes are magnified each time she strides onto the stage. That’s what makes her “jitters” worse. Breathing exercises and yoga and other things she’s tried seem not to have been effective . . .

CMT: What do you think? Should she see a clinical psychologist or therapist about it? What about medications that are at all effective for stage fright or “performance jitters”—ones that would not majorly blunt her acuity or sedate or otherwise interfere with her performance practice? I know that beta blocker antihypertensive drugs are used by quite a few people. And half-dose escitalopram or half-dose diazepam are used by some.

DSM: Well, frankly, there are some psychologists who work with performing artists and claim to have approaches that are reasonably effective.

CMT: What about the meds, though? What’re the current statuses of those?

DSM: To me, that’d be somewhat a last recourse, something to try if other things fail. But, yes, there are several alternatives that enjoy a degree of effectiveness. All of them would be prescribed off-label, of course. None of them is specifically designed or approved for use in performance anxiety as such.

CMT: Yes, well, the transformation of “enhancements” into “treatments” is now a familiar part of medicine, of course, and it’s been accelerated by medicine’s move into the consumer marketplace. Carl Elliott’s essay in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine (17-MAY; 356: 2024-5) notes that physicians today prescribe drugs to lengthen attention spans, strengthen erections, and smooth out wrinkled brows, even when they are not entirely convinced that what they are treating is a medical need rather than merely a consumer desire. Many others write prescriptions for conditions that blur the boundary between pathology and ordinary human variability: synthetic growth hormone for short stature, SSRI and NERI antidepressants for social anxiety disorder, and hormone-replacement therapy for the effects of menopause (although the risks that militate against that one are now recently pretty clear-cut). The line between what consumers want and what patients need has become blurred beyond recognition. So why should chamber music be any different?

DSM: Many people feel uneasy about this, including me, without being able to say exacly why we feel uneasy. Michael Sandel’s fine new book, ‘The Case against Perfection’, aims to characterize that unease. Sandel is not so much bothered by the specific enhancements and abilities that consumers might choose (my own accomodating or preferring deafness and stapedial spasms rather than super-hearing, for example) or even the possibility that these procedures will be bought and sold in the marketplace. It’s the commodification of human experience itself. Sandel worries that more genetic choice will undermine our appreciation of the gifted character of human life—our sense that the way we are is not solely the product of our own doing. For Sandel, the effort to bring our physiologic or psychologic or genetic constitution under our voluntary control represents a kind of hubris. Standing face to face with a marvel of biology, one produced by eons of natural selection, we decide we can do better.

CMT: Many Americans see choice as a categorical good: the more we have, the better. I think other people in other countries have maybe a more balanced view. But as Sandel points out, choice is everywhere a mixed blessing. The more control we exercise over our identities, our capabilities, our deficiencies, our limitations—the greater our responsibility for the results. Weaknesses and minor afflictions that we could once blame on Nature or Fate, we’re now able to blame only on ourselves. The illusion that you can ‘master’ or ‘control’ things is an illusion—an illusion that can leap up and bite you. Look at all the failed plastic surgery walking around! So what about medications in pre-performance “jitters”?

DSM: Beta blockers, taken in small dosages, can quell anxiety without apparent side effects. The article in the New York Times by Blair Tindall several years ago was the first piece in the lay press I’d seen about that, despite the fact that it’s really common practice.

• Lopressor® (metoprolol), 50 mg
  
• Tenormin® (atenolol), 25 mg
  
• Visken® (pindolol), 5 mg
  
• Corgard® (nadolol), 40 mg
  
• Blocadren® (timolol), 20 mg
  
• Trandate® (labetalol), 100 mg
  
• Inderal® (propranolol), 40 mg

One of these can be taken an hour or two before a concert. You don’t have to take them every day. In fact, you probably would prefer not to take them on a routine, daily basis. That way, the drug’s effectiveness for mitigating the pre-concert anxiety is preserved. Your body isn’t accustomed to having the drug on board all the time. And these doses are small enough that the usual beta-blocker side-effects (drowsiness or fatigue; cold hands and feet; weakness or dizziness; dry mouth, eyes, and skin; trouble breathing, or shortness of breath; libido changes) would almost certainly not occur, especially in these reduced single-dose pre-concert-only amounts.

A beta-1-selective adrenergic receptor blocking agent like metoprolol or atenolol is probably best. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that it has a preferential effect on beta-1 adrenoreceptors, chiefly located in cardiac muscle. This preferential effect is not absolute, however, and at higher doses such as are used in treating severe high blood pressure, the beta-1-selected drugs can also block beta-2 adrenoreceptors, chiefly the beta-2 receptors on the cells located in the bronchial and vascular musculature. Clinical pharmacology studies have confirmed the beta-blocking activity of metoprolol and other beta-1-selective adrenergic blockers, as shown by (1) reduction in heart rate and cardiac output at rest and under stress, (2) reduction of systolic blood pressure upon exercise, (3) inhibition of stress-induced or isoproterenol-induced tachycardia, and (4) reduction of reflex orthostatic tachycardia.

Relative beta-1 selectivity has been confirmed by the following: (1) In normal subjects, metoprolol’s unable to reverse the beta-2-mediated vasodilating effects of epinephrine (adrenaline). This contrasts with the effect of nonselective (beta-1 plus beta-2) beta blockers like propranolol, which completely reverse the vasodilating effects of epinephrine. (2) In asthmatic patients, metoprolol and other beta-1-selective blockers don’t reduce pulmonary function like FEV1 and FVC as much as a nonselective beta blocker (such as propranolol or timolol or labetolol or nadolol or pindolol) would do at an equivalent beta-1-receptor-blocking dose. So if you’re a singer or a wind instrument player you want a beta-1-selective for sure, but even if you’re a keyboardist or a string or percussion player you probably want a beta-1 selective drug too.

Musicians quietly began to do beta blockers after their application to stage fright was first published in The Lancet, the British medical journal, in 1977. By 1987, a survey conducted by the International Conference of Symphony Orchestra Musicians, which represents the 51 largest orchestras in the U.S., found that 27 percent of its musicians had used the drugs. Psychiatrists at centers that treat professional musicians now estimate that the number’s much higher today. Robert Barris, bassoonist and a co-Chairman of the Music Performance faculty at Northwestern University, encourages students to address the root cause of their anxiety instead of relying on medications, though. He tends to recommend yoga and exercise. The only issue is that those take a long time to be effective and in some cases they aren’t effective. Many people don’t have the patience for that; they just prefer to go with the sure-fire, pharmaceutical solution, especially since that usually just involves single low-dose use right before the performance.

The information on this page is not intended as medical advice and is not meant to be a substitute for individual medical judgment by a physician or other medical healthcare professional. The aim is to provide information and help in suggesting considerations for preventive care. Beta blockers should be used only after a medical examination and under the supervision of a doctor, of course. This is because people with asthma or heart disease could develop problems like shortness of breath or heart failure or a slowing of the heart rate. Remember, always consult a licensed healthcare provider for individualized advice on your health decisions.

If you have to take a drug to do your job, then go get another job.”

  —  Sara Sant'Ambrogio, Cellist and founding member, Eroica Trio.

• Miller Healthcare Institute for Performing Artists, 355 West 52nd St, NY, NY 10019, 646-778-5550.
  
• Tindall B. Mixed Reviews for a Stage-Fright Remedy. Intl Herald Tribune, 21-OCT-2004.
  
• Tindall B. Better Playing Through Chemistry. New York Times, 17-OCT-2004.
  
• Benniger M, Murry T, eds. The Performer's Voice. Plural, 2006.
  
• Chaffin R, Imreh G, Crawford M. Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance. LEA, 2002.
  
• Elliott C. Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream. Norton, 2003.
  
• James I, et al. Lancet 1977 05-NOV;2(8045):952-4.
  
• Sandel M. The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. Belknap, 2007.
  
• Tubiana R, Amadio P, eds. Medical Problems of the Instrumentalist Musician. Informa, 2000.
  
• CMT, Black-Key Biomechanics (Performing Arts Clinics list) 30-OCT-2006.

21 April 07

Recruited By Iron Man and Grit

Shaped like bricks, Iron Man and Grit sit at the same table as me in the chow hall.

“How come you guys are always jacked up?” I asked.
“’Cause,” Grit said, “we just did twelve-hundred pushups, one-and-a-half hours of burpies.”
“What’s a burpie?”
“If you really wanna know,” Iron Man said, “show up at the rec room when our doors open and we’ll give you a crash course.”
Grit chuckled and said, “By the time you walk out of the rec room - ”
“If you can still stand,” Iron Man said.
“ – you won’t have any doubts in your mind what burpies are.”
“I’d like to try what you guys are doing. Do you think you could increase my definition and maybe help me put on five pounds or so of muscle mass?”
“Look, if you’re interested in gettin’ in shape,” Iron Man said, “I know how to do it. If you learn my routines and put one-hundred percent fuckin’ effort into them, I’ll have you in the best fuckin’ shape of your life – guaranteed.”
“I heard you guys have knowledge of martial arts.”
“Yeah,” Iron Man said,” I’ve had some trainin’.”
“Which types?”
“Look,” Iron Man said, “this is the deal: I don’t like talkin’ about this shit 'cause it tips my hand. When people know what skills you have it’s possible for them to come up with a defence against them. But if you’re gonna be workin’ out with us, I’ll tell you what’s up.”
“Yeah. It’ll be great to work out with you guys.”
“OK. All through high school I trained in judo and karate, and then I did years of kung fu after I graduated. My kung fu master was a class-four special forces badass whose job in Nam was to go out in the night before the Marines and kill every sentry within a mile-wide area usin’ only silent killin’ techniques – garrotes and edged weapons. He was a fourth-degree black belt in a style that was a combination of the tiger, horse, and mantis.”
“Can you show me some of that?”
“We’ll see,” Iron Man said.
“And you’ll only be workin’ out with me for a few weeks 'cause I’m gettin’ out at the end of this month,” Grit said.
“That’s alright. When do we start?”
“Tomorrow night,” Iron Man said.

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

18 April 07

Xena V Bones (2)

“Is Bones an undercover Cult Of Xena member?” I asked Xena.
“Look,” Bones said, flipping me off. “You’ve got two of these fingers. Why dontcha shove 'em up your ass, and walk on your elbows.”
“The main reason I can’t do that,” I said, “is because I don’t have an ass. I have an arse.”
“When it comes to COX membership, “Xena said, “the closest thing Bones gets to COX recognition is when he rubs Jell-O all over himself and dances naked in front of his mirror, which is too small for him to see his penis in – not that a bigger mirror would help him in that department. Then he gets all sad 'cause he used to boogie on down like that for his squirrel, and his old hairy celly.”
Bones was speechless.
Slope said to Bones, “Red’s consortin’ with the enemy.” Because I was sat with Red at the picnic table by Yard 4.
Red grabbed my Bic rendering me unable to document the dialogue.
“Throw his tea in the river, Red,” Slope said. “Those fuckin’ Limeys have been manipulatin’ our politics for years. The only war they didn’t drag us into was Korea.”
“Xena,” I said. “How does Bones feel about all of this?”
“Bones is sad,” Xena said, “’cause he doesn’t have a squirrel except for the one between his legs.”
“Don’t shoot one across the bows. Shoot him in the bowels,” Slope said to Red, and left with Bones.
“How’s Slingblade?” I asked Xena.
“Slingblade’s latest,” Xena said, “is he walked up to a CO with his chow tray, and his arms started shakin’ as if he were gonna bash the guy’s head in with his tray, and the CO freaked out, and nearly called an IMS 'cause he thought Slingblade was gonna kill him.”
“I heard Frankie got busted with dope and sent to SMU?” (Supermax.)
“Yeah,” Xena said. “He got busted while doin’ a UA with dope in his boxers. At the strip search, he couldn’t remember which one was the sack – the one between his legs or the dope sack – so he pulled 'em both out, and lo and behold he got in trouble for both of 'em.”
“I heard Ogre got moved to maximum for having too many tickets?”
“Yeah. His membership in COX ran out, so they rolled him up.”
“Rec’s almost over, I have to go now,” I said.
“Do you know how to keep your dog from humpin’ on your leg?”
“No.”
“You pick him up and suck his dick.”
“Gross! Do you have any final words of wisdom for COX members?”
“Yes. This: to open your mind you must stop thinkin’ like an American.”

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Unplugged Folias & Romanescas: Acoustics Très Tendrement, Finances Très Tendres

The viola da gamba is a chamber instrument with a soft, sweet tone, incapable of the dynamic extremes and brilliance of the violin. This helps to account for its decline.”

  —  Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition

CMT: During the interval I had a chance to glance at some of the music that Jordi had left on his music stand and on the floor. Beautiful hand-prepared manuscripts! Based on some idiosyncrasies in his scores, he seems to have intended to maximize exploiting the possibilities presented by the viola da gamba’s extended range. The gamba’s seven-string guitar-like tuning allows the performer a range of almost three octaves without shifting or changing positions (compared to two octaves plus a step on the cello). And its seven-string setup is conducive to virtuosic, arpeggiated passages. In one of the Marin Marais muzettes last night where a range of four octaves is spanned in only a few bars, Jordi demonstrated the flexibility the instrument allowed the composer. Phenomenal! The extended range of the viola da gamba is an “enabling technology” for a really dramatic melodic lyricism.

DSM: Together with Montserrat Figueras, Jordi Savall has founded three ensembles—Hespèrion XX, La Capella Reial and Le Concert des Nations. Each has in its own way charted new waters in terms of expressive beauty and lyricism. Savall’s performance in Alain Corneau’s film Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings of the World), which won a César award for the best soundtrack, also charted new waters.


CMT: Sitting just 3 meters from Jordi at last night’s Friends of Chamber Music concert allowed me to observe his technique in detail. I was especially fascinated by his dramatic treatment of these pieces. According to Stowell’s Cambridge Companion to Cello, among the viola da gamba players of the 17th Century vibrato was associated with a tender, passionate or wailing quality. Jordi seems to favor a ‘flattement’ style of vibrato—one that’s extremely moving in tender pieces and on long notes. There is an intimate, introspective, confessional aspect to Jordi’s rendering of the Ortiz Folias—a storyteller’s sentimentality in his account of the Marais pieces. Almost autobiographical, when you are in the front row in a stone cathedral like this.

• Diego Ortiz—Recercadas sobre tenores (Folias, Passa mezzo moderno, Romanesca)
  
• Tobias Hume—Musickal Humors (Whope doe me no harme)
  
• Gaspar Sanz—Piezas para la Guitarra (Jacaras-Canarios)
  
• Marin Marais—La Viole de Louis XIV (Prelude-Le Labyrinthe)
  
• Mr. De Sainte-Colombe de Fils—Fantasie en Rondeau
  
• Mr. De Sainte-Colombe de Fils—Les pleurs
  
• J.S. Bach—Bourrèe
  
• J.S. Bach—English Suite in A minor
  
• Antoine Forqueray—La Marella
  
• Antonio Martin y Coll—Diferencias sobre las Folias
  
• Jean-Baptiste Forqueray—La du Vaucel (Très Tendrement)

DSM: The movement of playing should serve to illustrate the music. Jordi does this superbly and consistently. These scores read as though they had a verbal text—well, in some cases they did have a verbal text, since much consort music was vocal in conception. But to see and hear Jordi Savall play is to believe that the entirety of the music is vocal in conception! The player must be ready to use a light, heavy or medium bow stroke according to the demands of the music. The melancholic music should be bowed lightly and evenly, while the left hand can use a tasteful amount of ‘tremolo’ to enhance the melancholy. Cheerful music requires the bow to animate the instrument and animate the music. You can only really see this adequately in live performance, close up! These pieces make you wonder for whom were the pieces written. Just who were the viola da gamba players and cellists capable of playing these pieces? Whoever the original dedicatees were, the performers must have been ones of great talent in order to do justice to this music.


CMT: You’re referring to the fact that every one of these pieces reveals big biomechanics issues, for the performer? These issues arise not only with the viola da gamba but basically with all other fretted stringed instruments that have more than four strings. Gambas and lutes and are tremendously delicate instruments. The bridge curvature on the gamba is pretty modest, and this makes it very difficult to apply bow pressure on a single string without touching off adjacent strings. Jordi is a phenomenal gymnast when it comes to expert bowmanship in the face of such risks. In the 16th Century, the necks of viols had very little backward tilt, making it necessary for the necks to be thick, to withstand the string tension. They were also narrow at the nut, bringing the strings very close together. There’s tremendous difficulty with chords and double-stops, especially for a player with a large hand or thick fingers, who would have difficulty in holding chords without overlapping other strings.

DSM: Compared to a modern cello, the absence of an endpin also makes the gamba awkward to play—hard to stabilize and hold between your gambas, I imagine. This physical precariousness of the gamba accentuates the delicacy of the sound, I think. For audience members who are in close proximity to the performer, the precariousness is visually captivating—somewhat in the way that we are captivated by watching a tight-rope walker—or a gymnast, as you put it. I was wondering in one of the Marais pieces whether Jordi had alternate-tuned one of the strings—scordatura? By the way, the fretted members of the string family, like the viola da gamba, came to be regarded as musical relics by the mid- to late-18th Century and were way out of fashion by the 19th Century, didn’t they?

CMT: Well, yes. The dark timbre and limited volume were the main reasons why, I suppose, given the acoustic demands of larger concert halls. Notably, the bright tone of gifted harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï achieved a volume perfect for balance between the instruments last night. Theorboist-guitarist Xavier Diaz delivered an exquisite offering as well. The full-to-capacity audience at Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral responded enthusiastically—an appreciative standing ovation for the deeply moving and technically superb performance.

DSM: But the acoustical properties of the viola da gamba and theorbo and harpsichord still have consequences in terms of the economics of live performance then, don’t they? It’s unreasonable to program this Trio into a venue with an audience of more than a few hundred—with an unamplified sound so delicate as this Trio has. And, after all, how much can you charge per seat? So it’s hard for the presenter to gross more than $20,000 for this kind of program. Therefore, for the artists the financial viability of this delicate music really depends upon CD sales and paid digital downloads—to augment the proceeds from performance fees. And for the presenters, the financial viability of this delicate music really depends upon interested donors/patrons and upon grants from public-sector agencies, foundations, and commercial benefactors—to augment the proceeds from ticket sales/subscriptions.

CMT: You were speaking of ‘physical precariousness’ of the instrument earlier. I suppose a correlate of that is the ‘financial precariousness’ of the artform itself. Just as there is an appreciation of beauty created against all odds by artists like Jordi and Pierre and Xavier—the adversity and risk that their chosen instruments present to them—there’s also an appreciation of beauty and rarity—conservation of endangered early music and chamber music species against all odds, by chamber music presenters and other organizations around the globe. Attending concerts or supporting organizations that nurture these species in the Arts, don’t we participate in a kind of beauty that’s somewhat like observing a rare orchid?—contributing to habitat preservation for the spotted owl? Aren’t the gesture and its internal rewards a little like supporting Nature Conservancy?

• Jordi Savall website (Alia Vox)
  
• Aaron Concert Artists (agent, Jordi Savall)
  
• International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Endangered Species
  
• Abbing H. Why Are Artists Poor?: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts. Amsterdam Univ, 2004.
  
• Barclay R. Preservationa and Use of Historic Musical Instruments: Display Case or Concert Hall? Earthscan, 2004.
  
• Corneau A. Tous les Matins du Monde. (Koch Lorber, 2006.)
  
• Pan Y-H. The Transcription for Two Double Basses of Selections from Pièces de Violes, Quatrème Livre, Deuxiême Partie: Suitte D’un Goût Etranger by Marin Marais. Dissertation, School of Music, LSU, 2006. [1MB pdf]
  
• Pink D. A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Riverhead, 2005.
  
• Planer J. Sentimentality in the Performance of Absolute Music: Pablo Casals’s Performance of Saraband from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite No. 2 in D Minor for Unaccompanied Cello, S. 1008,” Musical Quarterly 1989; 73:239-53.
  
• Savall J. Mr. de Sainte Colombe le Fils. (Alia Vox, 2003.)
  
• Savall J. Marin Marais. (Alia Vox, 2003.)
  
• Scherer F. Quarter Notes and Bank Notes: The Economics of Music Composition in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Princeton Univ, 2003.
  
• Siminoff R. The Luthier's Handbook. Hal Leonard, 2002.
  
• Stowell R, ed. Cambridge Companion to the Cello. Cambridge Univ, 1999.
  
• Wainwright J, Holman P. From Renaissance To Baroque: Change In Instruments And Instrumental Music In The Seveteenth Century. Ashgate, 2005.
  
• Weber W, ed. Musician as Entrepreneur, 1700-1914. Indiana Univ, 2004.
  
• Woodfield I. Early History of the Viol. Cambridge, 2006.
  
• Viola da Gamba Society website
  
• Federation of Viola da Gamba Societies
  
• Viola da Gamba Society of America
  
• Viola da Gamba Society of New England
  
• Société Française de Viole
  
• Viola da gamba Gesellschaft
  
• Viola da Gamba Foundation of the Netherlands
  
• Viola da gamba Föreningen (Uppsala)
  
• Viola da Gamba Society of Japan
  
• British Harpsichord Society website
  
• San Diego Harpsichord Society website
  
• Harpsichord Unlimited website
  
• Theorbo website
  
• Scordatura (Wikipedia page)

14 April 07

Visited by T-Bone

Sitting at my desk writing, I heard someone yell,"England, get your ass to the fence. Some big dude wants to speak to you."

“How big are your arms these days?” I asked T-Bone.
“Twenty-one-and-a-half inches.” T-Bone punched the wall he was sat on and said, “And they’re hard like this.”
Thank goodness, I thought, I’m out of reach of his punches.
“Are you working out as much as you used to?” I asked.
“Every day, practically. I’ve been doin’ little isometric exercises.”
“I hope you’re not using those muscles on anyone.”
“Someone disrespected me, so I had to give him a little short one. He was actin’ like he was a real badass.”
“Has he disrespected you since?”
“No. For the rest of his life he will never do that again.”
“What are you weighing?”
“I’m down to three-hundred-and-five pounds.”
“That’s skinny for you.”
T-Bone laughed and called a passer-by an, "ugly lizard-back joker."
“What are you eating?”
“Kosher food.”
“Where are you at spiritually?”
“I’m at where I was supposed to be. I was fluctuatin’ up and down. I’m gettin’ back on track.”
We were joined by Gambeezy, a Chicano who said to T-Bone, “Wassup, my neezy!”
“Wassup, Gambeezy!” T-Bone said.
“Is my homey aiiight?” Gambeezy said.
“Homey’s aiiight,” T-Bone said. “You must be real short?”
“Yeah,” Gambeezy said. “A few months to the gate. How short are you?”
“November 2009,” T-Bone said. “When I get out, I’m gonna show up in your hood, and steal your money.”
“That’s aiiight,” Gambeezy said. “I’ll throw you a bone and say, ‘God bless you, I’ll see you around.’ That’s the love I’m gonna show you. If I throw you in the car, you’re gonna be my downfall.”
“You’ll fall down yourself. You have a big belly, and a big 'ol head.”
“Like that, cabrone. Izzat right? I hope you didn’t bite your tongue on that one. Give Uncle Two Tonys my love down there,” Gambeezy said and left.
T-Bone stood up, and said, “L’n’ R, Jon.”
“L’n’ R, T-Bone. Give Two Tonys my love.”
“Aiiight,” T-Bone said and power-walked away.

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

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

11 April 07

Every Empire Has its Day in the Sun

“All y’all Limeys,” Slope said, “are one bottle away from France. You tip the bottle and your ass goes up. Who hasn’t occupied France?”
“Good day to you too, Slope,” I said. “And you Bones.”
“Bones loves me today,” Xena said.
“Limey!” Slope said. “We oughta make you wipe your royal ass with a piece of jumpin’ cactus. Even your dogs are fucked up. The British bulldog can’t breath properly and it’s got an underbite. If you Limeys had took baths, you never woulda got the bubonic plague. Your women’s armpits are so hairy they look like they’ve got motherfuckers in headlocks.”
“What’s with all the Brit-bashing?”
“They’re just expressing their love,” Xena said.
“Are you gonna be here for the Fourth of July?” Slope asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“’Cause Short Dog’s gotcha more bread and water.”
“Good one,” I said.
An announcement came over the peakers: “If it’s not your cell, don’t be in it!”
“Y’all,” Slope said, “can’t drink no coffee, or do no dry tobacco. It’s all tea and crumpets.”
“Are you gonna back me up, Xena?” I said.
“No,” Xena said. “I’m gonna go play D&D.”
“Great,” I said.
“No big daddy is gonna come save your ass,” Slope said. “We’ll keep kickin’ your butt just like we kicked the goddamn Limeys’ butts at Bunker Hill.”
“I thought the Brits won the Battle of Bunker Hill?”
“Bowlshit. A buncha old sodbusters put it on the Englishes' asses, causin’ your Limey cousins to evacuate Boston.”
“I see, and what are sodbusters?”
“Hillbilly farmboy motherfuckers,” Slope said. “I think we should tat the Declaration of Independence on your back and send you on back home. That way we can read it while we tag-team your ass. What’s that I hear? The redcoats are comin’! They didn’t even get to come. They just got chased out. They got their manhood pulled out of their assholes. The weak-kneed fuckin’ fairies.”
“What about the UK pulling some troops out of Iraq?” I said.
“Tony Blair’s a yella-belly. The only thang he’s capable of colonisin’ is France - in order to take over that fine French tradition.”
“Which is?”
“Givin’ the keys to the city away to anyone who shows up with a gun.”
“You wouldn’t say that if Napoleon was here.”
“He wasn’t French. He was Corsican.”
“He gave you guys a deal on the western part of the Mississippi Valley though, with the Louisiana Purchase.”
“And if he’d of stayed at home, he wouldn’t have lost all his soil.”
“Every empire has its day in the sun, and yours is being destroyed from within,” I said.
“You’re a goddam pond-skipper, but I couldn’t agree with you more.”

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

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

08 April 07

The Distaste Harboured By Two Tonys For Modern America

I asked Two Tonys what he meant when he said “the world is slowly becoming an insane asylum.”
“My point,” Two Tonys said, “ – to anyone who gives a flyin’ fuck – is that people have gotta start livin’ their own lives, and to quit wonderin’ whether Britney Spears or Paris Hilton are wearin’ panties or not. Motherfuckers seekin’ escapism oughta grab a good book, and they can start by readin’ the two Toms: Wolfe and Sharpe. People’s brains aren’t rollin’ right these days. They’re too plugged into shit like Entertainment Tonight, to see if Paris has her underwear on. It wasn’t always so fucked up as this. There was a time when families ate together, fathers worked, and mothers stayed at home. The milkman brought the milk right to your fuckin’ door and set it on the porch and nobody stole it. The newspaper boy put the newspaper on the doorstep and nobody stole it. Those were the good ol’ days – and they’re long gone now. It ain’t the same place.
Now we’ve got fuckin’ havoc. Everyone up on Capitol Hill is lyin’. Some of 'em are pokin’ page boys or coverin’ up for their chomo buddies who are fuckin’ around with page boys.
The good ol’ days of Harry Truman are gone, bro. The world is becomin’ an insane-asylum planet. And if by some chance we’re an experiment by aliens who planted us here to see howthafuck we’d turn out, the aliens have got endless shits and giggles lookin’ at us motherfuckers. It’s gonna get even worse if we bomb North Korea or Iran or anywhere else in Bush’s Axis of Evil. And we’ve got shithead congressmen like Tom Tancredo sayin’ we should bomb Mecca if al-Qaeda hits us again. Come on now!”
“So how do you keep your mind off the madness?”
“By takin’ responsibility for my fuckin’ life. Look, I’m a sixty-six-year-old motherfucker who doesn’t get out until the twenty-third century, but at least I have a fuckin’ life. I’m into what I’m doin’. Tonight, I’m gonna play a casino card game with Frankie. I’m gonna have me some pasta with marinara sauce. I’m gonna sit down and watch Michigan kick the shit outta USC at the Rosebowl. I’m gonna eat some chocolate-covered peanuts watchin’ Detroit play Dallas. The last thing on my fuckin’ mind is what kinda car Jay Leno is drivin’ or if Britney and Paris are wearin’ fuckin’ panties.”

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

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Sehr Lebhaft (Very Lively): Dimitri Murrath

DSM: Dimitri (“Dima”) Murrath gave a wonderful performance this afternoon at the Gardner, beautifully met by pianist Vincent Planès! Both are recently studying at the New England Conservatory.

CMT: Yes. And I was pleased to see the good Sunday afternoon turn-out of about 100 people—the ISGM Tapestry Room was nearly full to capacity. You know, at the moment there’s only one CD that’s available with Murrath’s playing on it. I really didn’t have any idea what we were likely to hear from him, prior to attending the event at the Gardner today. But of course his reputation did precede him! In 2006, Murrath won the Philip & Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists, a British prize that funds musicians early in their careers (instrumentalists under 28 and singers under 32) to obtain performance experience throughout the U.K. Indirectly, that funding also helps the winners to stretch their other financial resources to do yet more, both at home and in other countries. Dimitri’s performance at the Gardner today is an example of that. The 2007 AYCA Award Winners are Alec Frank-Gemmill (horn), Diana Galvydyte (violin), Daniela Lehner (mezzo soprano), Katie Lockhart (clarinet), Amandine Savary (piano), and Dmitri Torchinsky (violin). About 100 artists have received the Award for Young Concert Artists since it began in 1961.

DSM: The 1939 Hindemith Sonata for viola and piano is a perfect showcase for Dimitri’s talent. The 1919 Sonata (Op. 11) was composed in 1918-1919 when Hindemith was just 24 years old, and there’s a certain coherence of the composer’s age and temperament with Dimitri’s, I think. Both the Op. 11 and Hindemith’s 1939 Sonata have a more romantic character than his other, more austere viola works, so Murrath’s viola has many opportunities here to show off its luster. The difficult last movement has Dimitri all over the fingerboard. As you know, this thing is a masterwork Hindemith meant to illustrate the his own superb skills as a violist, but Murrath truly makes the piece his own. Dimitri’s poise in the diverse, musical styles sounds entirely natural and authentic, belying some of the grueling finger work that this composition has.

CMT: Hindemith was without doubt one of the most significant German composers of his time, and yet his compositional techniques resist easy classification. His early works like Op. 11 are hard to pigeonhole. Is this in a late romantic idiom, or expressionist? It’s clearly not in the style of early Schoenberg, nor is it Hindemith’s contrapuntal, lean style of the later 1920s. Is it neoclassical? If so, it’s clearly not what we mean by ‘neoclassical’ in Igor Stravinsky’s works that are labeled with that term. In fact, we hear aspects of the contrapuntal language of Bach here. The 1939 Sonata that Dima and Vincent performed this afternoon was very contrapuntal, too, but the textures were even richer.

DSM: In the Sonata, Op. 11 No. 4, we hear a 24-year-old Hindemith just finding his voice. We hear his ambition; we hear his introspectiveness; we hear his experimentality. In the Sonata of 1939, we hear a more trenchant, mature Hindemith. This afternoon we had a virtuosic but introspective Murrath exploring, too, at a still early stage in his career. Remember it was Hindemith who, along with Lionel Tertis (1876-1975) and William Primrose (1904-1982), raised the status of the viola as a solo instrument to the position it now enjoys. Surely Dima will raise it yet further! And it was through the premiere of the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 11, No. 4, that Hindemith began his career as a concert violist and a significant composer of music for the instrument. So here is now Dima Murrath, advancing the art, pushing the envelope for viola—at a similar moment in his career, very much like the phase that Hindemith was at in his own career. The first movement in the Sonata—‘Breit, mit Kraft’—was sweet, with poignant reversals. Bursts of objection gave way to acceptance. The second movement—‘Sehr lebhaft’—was delivered with an urgency and directness so convincing that one might wonder whether the piece was written in anticipation of Murrath’s arrival. Sehr lebhaft! The third movement—‘Phantasie’—featured wonderful spectral arpeggios by Murrath and spring-like water effects by Planès in the upper register of the piano. The Finale movement was gorgeous, belying the technical difficulties that it presents to the performers.

CMT: Besides the Hindemith, Murrath delivered an admirable interpretation of Dvoràk’s Sonatine in G Major for violin and piano, Op. 100, transcribed for viola. Dark, dense, very cinematic. And the Gardner is a very good, intimate venue for a duet performance like this. The informality of the setting is conducive to engaging museum-going patrons who might not otherwise attend a recital in a traditional concert hall. Someone sitting to your left remarked that the Tapestry Room feels like a home, fireplace and all. And the informality of the ISGM setting underscores the living, breathing vitality of chamber music idioms. The form is alive and vibrant and exciting! The hand-crafted bespokeness of it, the in-your-face relevance and accessibility of it! Very attractive!

DSM: Dimitri was born in Belgium in 1982. His handling of these pieces is utterly fearless. These pieces present huge problems for the performer, and yet he takes the work in stride. I like his dancing eyebrows and his open-mouthed expressions. His warm sound inflected with micro-tones—all of these things remind me of the courageous, open, in-your-face ethos of Belgium, the way we’ve encountered it in our travels there. There is a naturalness that’s entirely Dimitri’s own, of course. But his playing conveys an outgoingness, a cheerfulness that’s far broader, more universal—Belgian or otherwise. It’s that universality and youthful optimism that make his playing that much more attractive. Vincent, too, is a very animated player. These two are very well-matched!

CMT: The Alberto Ginastera, Carlos Guastavino, Xavier Monsalvatge, and Carlos Buchardo pieces were a valuable taste of relatively new Spanish and Argentinian music (transcribed for viola and piano by Robert Levin). Buchardo’s ‘Oye mi llanto’ (Hear My Cry) was very moving—lyrical, elegiac, brooding, dramatic. Well-suited to Murrath’s interpretive gift.

DSM: And Ginastera’s ‘Canción a la Luna Lunanca’ (Moonstruck / Song to the Cockeyed Moon) was a delightful contrast—humorous, bright, playful—proving that it’s possible to be ambitious without being serious or virtuosic every single moment!

T here are people who are uncanny, who are finished products at a very young age.”
  — Itzhak Perlman.

• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Music at the Gardner
  
• ISGM podcasts
  
• AYCA, Making Music website, U.K.
  
• New England Conservatory website
  
• Murrath D, et al. Music of Jeremy Dale Roberts. (Lorelt, 2005.)
  
• Bartlett D, Verebes R. Hindemith Complete Sonatas for Viola. (SNE, 1998.)
  
• Bruhn S. The Temptation of Paul Hindemith. Pendragon, 1998.
  
• Cortese P. Hindemith: Music for Viola, Vol. 3. (ASV, 1997.)
  
• Imai N, Pöntinen R. Hindemith Viola Sonatas. (Bis, 1994.)
  
• Kashkashian K. Hindemith: Sonatas for Viola/Piano & Viola Alone. (ECM, 2000.)
  
• Luttmann S. Paul Hindemith: Guide to Research. Routledge, 2004.
  
• Noss L. Paul Hindemith in the United States. Univ Illinois, 1989.
  
• Stehle W, et al. Hindemith: Sonata, Op. 11; Dvorak: Sonatine, Op. 100. (Nimbus, 1996.)
  
• International Viola Society (IVS) website

The Fabulous Invalid at Last? Virtual Instruments Undermining/Supporting Classical Music

A human professional musician is of course faster than our sounds. We have 1.5 million samples, but real musicians have more. I don’t think we’ll ever get them all. I don’t think orchestras are threatened. In the TV industry, for example, they don’t have the budgets for orchestras anyway. And there are still live performances. Nobody goes to a concert to listen to a computer.”
  —  Herb Tucmandl, Vienna Symphonic Library, 2006.

DSM: Working for Vienna Symphonic Library would have to be the ultimate conflict of interest for a musician—helping to build a digital sound library that can reduce the need to have a full complement of live musicians. Live performing gigs are plentiful in Europe, but aren’t so abundant in North America.

CMT: Classical musicians have long opposed replacing live artists with computers in concert performances. This has gotta be one of the most compelling reasons why. The VSL sounds are that good! I never thought I would say so but, yes, the digitally sampled waveform libraries, like VSL, and all of the articulation and technic options are finally that good!

DSM: Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article describing the plan of conductor Paul Henry Smith to produce three Beethoven symphonies back-to-back in a concert with an "orchestra" having no live musicians—just sequenced waveforms from the Vienna Symphonic Library.

CMT: The conventional stance has musicians opposing the substitution of digital virtual instruments and sequencers for live musicians in orchestras, ballets and opera houses.

DSM: But yet some composers, conductors, musicians and engineers actually feel that embracing the use of virtual instruments holds promise for keeping classical music alive.

CMT: And of course touring musicals and acts like Cirque du Soleil have used virtual instruments for a number of years. Those incursions are harmful enough, but the impact is modest—simply because the number of shows and engagements per year is relatively small. And the musicians’ unions’ efforts do keep virtual orchestras out of Broadway orchestra pits so far. But in London a virtual orchestra has been used in Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of ‘Les Misérables.’ We seem now to finally be on the slippery slope. It’s not hypothetical anymore. The worry has a basis in reality. Even a paranoid has real enemies!


DSM: It’s true that composers of new music who couldn't otherwise afford to have their compositions performed by a live orchestra can now commission a high-quality software-generated recording for a few thousand dollars.

CMT: But what about communities that stand to lose their orchestra due to negative cashflow? A digital waveform library and sequencer-based virtual orchestra stands in for half the players? It’s a drink, but it’s not the martini I wanted!

DSM: I’ve got a copy of GIGA Virtual Instrument and a copy of VSL. I use both with Finale, as a way to hear what I’ve written and revise it or change my voice-leading to make sure I’ve got the texture right. The quality of the libraries is definitely good enough for that purpose. And good enough to record a demo, so that I can get string quartets interested in playing what I’ve written. But—I agree—playing a sequencer in front of a paying audience seems like a travesty. It’s not the martini they wanted.

CMT: There’s a big difference between theatre where the musicians are hidden and theatergoers are mainly buying an experience with live actors, and concerts where concertgoers are mainly buying an experience with live musicians. Would theatergoers be satisfied with holographic, sequenced digital imagery of a play onstage? I doubt it! There’s no intimacy in it. There’s no risk or uncertainty. So why should a concertgoer be any different, with regard to virtual instruments? Where is the intimacy? Where’s the authenticity? Where’s the real-time interaction with an audience?

DSM: Herb Tucmandl, founder of the Vienna Symphonic Library, acknowledges that virtual instruments do change the competitive landscape. Nothing is value-neutral. In an era obsessed with driving out cost and optimizing efficiency the virtual instruments aid and abet the buyer and undermine the musician-seller. But classical musicians should take control and become fluent in this technology instead of complaining about it or ignoring it. It’s not possible to turn back the clock. In that way, the new virtual instrument trend is just an extension of the MIDI and synthesizer boom that began in the 1980s. Many keyboardists adapted to that and became proficient in using synths. But many older ones did not. So the ‘digital divide’ is not just about internet access or web-enabled social networking. It’s the more general process of technology disenfranchising human beings and eroding the number and the value of the opportunities still available to human beings.


CMT: You have to admit, though, that the virtual instruments are pretty good these days as far as the sound qualities are concerned—the attacks and decays and timbre and other parameters. Virtual instruments should provide satisfying control over sound—comparable to the control that an expert musician has over a fine acoustic instrument. These elements are necessary for virtual instruments: low latency of only a few milliseconds; virtually no jitter; realistic representation of all of the technic and artifacts of actual performance on the instrument in each of its registers; precise and accurate sensing; reproducibility; and reliability. Current-generation virtual instruments and sequencers have got all that. But what about silence? It’s not yet possible for virtual instruments and sequencers to deliver fully realistic and many-timbred silences as powerful as we normally get in live performances. This is the kind of musicmaking one expects in concert.

DSM: It’s difficult to produce a variable delay for an audio signal without pitch shifting or complex granular techniques, if you think in terms of an event representation such as MIDI output by a keyboard. Synthesized sounds with sharp attacks illustrate what I mean. The question is: how large of a range of latency can the sequencer-driven system impose without adversely affecting the rhythm that the remaining human performers play? Builders of sensor-based instruments should experiment for themselves with the tolerability of different amounts of jitter. The musically acceptable amount of jitter depends on the kinds of sounds you’re producing. At one extreme are examples such as dense textures and timbral changes in sustaining sounds, where latency and jitter up to even 200ms may have very little impact in the musical result. In the middle is the common case of each gesture causing an individual note to be played. For a skilled performer, jitter of around 10 ms makes the difference between feeling that she does or does not have complete control of rhythms played on the instrument. The other extreme is illustrated by strings of notes played in very rapid succession on the same instrument. Unevenness of just one millisecond of jitter in that situation is audible.

CMT: In this age of email and instant messaging and video games, it’s a treat to savor the wit and eloquence of live artists in an intimate and revealing dialogue. That’s the main beauty and appeal of chamber music. And while the issue discussed in the WSJ article seems mainly one that concerns symphonic or large orchestral productions right now, you can’t help but feel that slippery slope underfoot. What’s next? In the future, will we be confronted with smaller chamber ensembles, with some members substituted with virtual instruments controlled by sequencer applications?

DSM: Did the unions have objections to Music Concrète and electroacoustic music? Years ago, were there lawsuits about the incorporation of tape-loop or other machine sound effects?

CMT: I don’t believe the issue was a prominent one in past decades, mainly because the nature of those effects was outside the realm of traditional performance—a human musician could not make those sounds on a conventional instrument. The other aspect was that the performance required a human operator to man the console—and as long as that person was union, then it was regarded as just another ‘instrument’ among many. Not like it is now, with virtual instruments and a sequencer able to replace an entire orchestra.

DSM: While there are beneficial uses for the virtual instruments (like some we’ve mentioned above), it’s hard to think of their intrusion into concerts or other live performance contexts as anything other than a commodifying influence, depressing wages for musicians and reducing the overall number of gigs per year. The AFM and MU positions on this trend are therefore readily understandable. Think about it. If lawyering is a performance art, then would lawyers sit still for software and artificial intelligence application software preparing virtual briefs and arguing before the court, eliminating many human lawyer engagements per year? I doubt it!

CMT: Right. Their years of preparation as lawyers are aimed at delivering live human legal acumen and insight. Our years of preparation as musicians are aimed at knowing and loving the music so well that we inhabit it as we play. To offer it in performance to an audience opens the possibility of their being drawn into its orbit and understanding it and loving it. A virtual instrument forecloses on that interpersonal offering, to about the same degree—no more, no less—that a recording does.

DSM: For string players, it’s astonishing that any novice has the perseverance to persist past the out-of-tune, scratchy-tone stage. No frets to mark the notes, so the left-hand fingers must learn their spacing to the accuracy of a millimeter in order to create decent pitches. It usually takes many years before reliable accuracy is developed, and it requires constant vigilance to retain it. Precise spatial memory must be coupled with strength, suppleness, speed and stamina—the athleticism of that is partly what the audience sees in live performance. Meanwhile the right arm and hand must learn the movements required, too, a butter-smooth fluidity to set the strings vibrating evenly. The bow not only coaxes the sound from the instrument, but also conjures the colors and emotions in the sound and traces the contours of the phrases—you give voice to the music itself. The right hand must know the action of the bow on the strings, constantly adjusting its speed and weight. And of course, both hands must be perfectly coordinated. Where is that in a performance involving virtual instruments of sampled waveforms of anonymous performers in a studio?

CMT: Even when your technic is under control, each piece of music demands technical and expressive understanding, the hands learning to negotiate the notes and then committing them to kinesthetic memory. With virtual instruments, all of that’s bypassed. The audience knows it. That’s part of why I think a virtual performance lacks authenticity.

DSM: Your kinesthetic memory point is true enough, but there’s an obverse side as well. To be emotionally open as a live performer means avoiding reflexive playing. The reflexes are there: they’re what your kinesthetic conditioning establishes. But the muscle-memory is what frees you in performance to switch your autopilot off. We’re living at a time when intensity in performance is considered obligatory. But great art doesn’t shout all the time. It knows that there is enormous power in gentleness and understatement. Some pieces even require a dry, cold detachment to accurately convey their meaning. The problem with many of the excellent virtual instrument libraries available these days is that the sounds are too wet, too intense. They shout ‘virtuoso’! It’s doubtful that the myriad options available to you when you lay down your GVI tracks adequately cover the dry-and-detached end of the spectrum.

CMT: And music isn’t always earnest and serious. A mature work of art often reflects an integrated view of life and contains humor and wit and irony. I can’t readily find humorous or witty bowings in the Vienna Symphonic Library.

DSM: No matter how many times the music is played, we need to be able to capture the spontaneity of the moment. The virtual performance will never come alive the way that a live performance will, no matter how much you improve the digital “jacket” sensors and artificial-intelligence algorithms for modulating the dynamics and articulations based on the remaining humans’ motions.

CMT: Our duty as musicians is to breathe life into the music, to re-create it with all the excitement and commitment of the composer, or to reinterpret it in valid ways that the composer may not have thought of. It’s an act that renders us both humble and powerful. The paradox is that it is only by being intensely alive as ourselves that we can be entirely at the service of the music and the audience.

DSM: I agree. And your point illustrates another aspect of what seems to me inauthentic about virtual instruments: the absence of community. A sequencing of virtual instruments is typically arranged by a single musician, and the track(s) that result reflect the aesthetic and technical judgments of just that one person. By contrast, the beauty of chamber ensembles derives from the real-time conversational interactions and freedom of several distinct personalities and intellects. With virtual instruments, what we get is one person’s account of the meanings that the music contains. We miss the tension and disputes and surprises.

CMT: Ultimately, with virtual instruments, it’s hard for me to see how either the performer or the listener could be lifted into an enchanted space where diverse shades of emotion are brought into play. ‘Authenticity’ to me means reconnecting to our innermost being. That’s the drink that I ordered! Virtual instruments are a boon for composers, but not for many others.

• Informatica Musicale, Univ Padova, Italy [CreativeCommons pdf files]
  
• Russell J, Jurgensen J. Fugue for Man & Machine. Wall Street Journal, P1, 05-MAY-2007.
  
• Vienna Symphonic Library
  
• IRCAM Virtual Orchestra website
  
• American Federation of Musicians (AFM) union website
  
• Lennon D. [Virtual Orchestra] Perpetrator Turns Into ‘Victim.’ AFM Local 802 newsletter. Allegro 2004 April;104(4) [HTML article]
  
• Musicians' Union, U.K.
  
• Picard R. Affective Computing. MIT, 2000.

T o obtain an exception to the minimum musician requirement, a League member must demonstrate that there are legitimate artistic reasons why the production should be permitted to use fewer than the required number of musicians. An application for an exception is first reviewed by a Special Situations Committee (“Committee”), comprised of experts in the field of theatrical production, who are chosen in advance by the Parties. (Pet. ¶ 10, Ex. A at 11.) FN3 Both Parties may present documentary evidence and call witnesses when they appear before the Committee. (Pet.¶ 10.) The Committee is required under the Agreement to “decide the issue primarily on artistic considerations.” (Pet. Ex. A at 12.) Specifically, the Committee is to consider four factors:

• the musical concepts expressed by the composer and/or orchestrator;
  
• whether the production is of a definable musical genre different from a traditional Broadway musical;
  
• the production concept expressed by the director and/or choreographer; and/or
  
• whether the production recreates a pre-existing size band or band’s sound (on or offstage). (Pet. Ex. A at 12.)

After considering the Parties’ presentations, the Committee must render a written decision explaining in detail the basis for its conclusions within forty-eight hours after the Parties have submitted their positions. (Pet. ¶ 10, Ex. A at 12.).”

  —  United States District Court, S.D. New York, ASSOCIATED MUSICIANS OF GREATER NEW YORK, LOCAL 802, AFM, Petitioner v. The LEAGUE OF AMERICAN THEATRES AND PRODUCERS, INC., Respondent. Slip Copy, 2006 WL 3039995, No. 05-CV-2769 (KMK), Oct. 25, 2006.