30 Jan 08

Greetings from the Abyss by Jack

Before leaving Tucson prison, I asked Jack, a 49-year-old lifer, if he would be willing to write for Jon’s Jail Journal on a regular basis so we can keep abreast of developments there. Jack agreed and I just received his first blog. I enjoy Jack’s writing style and I hope you do to.

13 Jan 08

Many of Jon’s faithful readers have asked how they will find out what has happened in hell now that he has been released. Cue the semiliterate stand-in reporter. I will attempt to bring you the same insight into the macabre and twisted world in which I reside, and that Jon was able to do so eloquently. I realize that these are some mighty big shoes I must fill, but I will try in my own stumbling way.

Since Jon’s release we have been moved from Santa Rita To Manzanita. The move itself was a comic opera of epic proportion. Between the overloaded pallets of property tumbling across the asphalt to the miserable cold drizzle that soaked everything we own, we managed to uproot ourselves from one location and plant ourselves in the other. Our new residence was originally designed for half the number that we moved in – 48 men living in a 45 x 60 foot box, cozy! You can’t begin to imagine my joy with the sights, sounds, and smells of my new abode and roommates. At least some of my roommates are paper trained, so I guess that’s something to be thankful for.



Here are some excerpts from a letter I received from Jack. In a letter to Jack that I wrote around New Year’s, I stated that I felt lonely in England and I’d had a few days of the blues. Jack periodically suffers severe depressions.

The issue of you having the blues is something I can relate to without any problem. In my slightly askew opinion, you miss us. Consider for the moment that over the years you have bonded with our miscreant tribe. Even with all of our foibles and defects there remain a few traits that make us endearing (for the life of me I can’t think of a single one right now, but you know what I mean). You mention the culture shock of not having been in England for 16 ½ years as a possible cause. I agree that would contribute, but consider the culture shock of going from a prison environment to the free world. Being able to come and go as you please, eat what you want when you want to, see who you please without them going through the hassle of a prison screening. All of that combined together can be overwhelming. Add to that the sense of dependence on your parents because of your temporary financial situation, is it any wonder that you felt down or blue? Your situation will get better quickly. You will adapt to the changes and become acclimatized soon. I know it may sound trite, but it will get better before you realize it. Soon you will have your own income from speaking engagements and writing. You will find a flat to your liking and you will furnish it to your taste – why is it that I see tatami mats, futons and red paisley lamp shades in your future. The thing to remember is that you’ve got everything you need to succeed right there in that shiny head of yours.

A friend of mine, that you may or may not know, died. Everyone called him Scrappy because he would fight at the slightest provocation. Like so many others he died due to a combination of DOC neglect and self-medication. I have worked with this man for seven years to manage his temper and adjust his attitude. He had made great strides forward and was actually looking to reunite with his daughter. He only had a few more months until his release. To add insult to injury, the on-duty-lieutenant had his body pulled from the cell, and left him laying on the run, in the rain, for three-and-a-half hours.

Slope asked me to tell you that he “misses your Limey ass” and he hopes that your “skip across the pond was peaceful.”

Today has been rather eventful. I started this letter around 0930 hours and it’s now 1900 hours. It wouldn’t normally take this long to write a letter but we’ve had a bit of excitement today. Earlier one of the sergeants snatched a cap off one of the guys. This led to a pushing match and eventually the use of gas. The next thing you know windows are being blocked and the cops are suited up in their ninja-turtle costumes. It has all fizzled out now but for a minute things were tense. It was a typical DOC kneejerk overreaction but that doesn’t change the fact that we were teetering on the brink. Part of the problem came from the guys shouting insults and threats, for some reason this didn’t seem to help the overall problem.

Xena finally became so fed up with everything that he pulled the plug and went back to Buckeye prison.

As you requested, I’ve been trying to find out the status of Slingblade’s release. It was more difficult to get information than than you would think. First I spoke to Slope, and he said that Slingblade had been denied again for the same reason – no release address. Slope then mentioned to Slingblade that I had been asking, which prompted the big man himself to confront me. I explained to him that you wanted to help get him out. This in turn led to a running three-day diatribe from Slingblade. He actually sat down with me at lunch yesterday and talked the whole time. Afterwards several of the guys came by and commented that it was the longest conversation anyone had ever seen Slingblade participate in. The conversation was disjointed but interesting. He talked about you, the Queen Mary II and the Queen. I believe there is a common thread running through this and it’s not that you are all queens. He talked about working on the Queen Mary and where it’s currently anchored. He said that he wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth but hasn’t gotten a response. He talked about your release and asked if you were back in England. Just as quickly as the conversation began it ended. Slingblade picked up his tray and stomped off toward the disposal chute. After I wiped the spray of detritus off my clothing, I decided I wasn’t hungry after all. It’s amazing how quickly one can change one’s mind when dining with the likes of Slingblade. The long and short of it is that he hasn’t been released, doesn’t look like he’s going to be released anytime soon, and quite frankly, I don’t think he cares one way or the other.


Slingblade is a mentally-ill Vietnam vet who needs outside help to facilitate his release. Any organisation or attorney willing to help Slingblade, please email writeinside@hotmail.com


I spoke with Shane the other day and he said you’ve been out drinking and partying since you’ve gotten home. Take it a little easy, you don’t need to make up for all of those missed years in a couple of weeks. Between the malnutrition of prison food and the sudden impact of all that alcohol your body is probably begging for mercy right about now. Oh, and let’s not forget the large quantities of heavily-spiced Indian food that I’m sure you’ve consumed since arriving home. Your body isn’t begging for mercy, it’s screaming surrender.

Well, my friend, I hope this finds you well and less depressed. Hopefully you will have waded through the backlog of blogs that needed to be edited and you have moved on to your next masterpiece. I’m sure that once the newness of your situation wears off you’ll get back into your routine, or you’ll create another routine that provides a sufficient amount of time for your creative side. Keep at it and keep me informed of your progress.

All my best.

Jack


As this is Jack’s first attempt at writing for Jon’s Jail Journal I would appreciate any comments you may have for him. I’m also hoping that through this blog Jack obtains a literary agent. Jack is never getting out of prison, and he has an amazing life story to tell.

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

Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood

Finnish Tango: Sallinen’s Language of Love, Fantasy, and Fatalism

P irjo Kukkonen suggests that tango lyrics reflect ‘the personality, mentality and identity of the Finnish people in the same way as folk poetry does.’ The central themes of Finnish tango lyrics are love, sorrow, nature and the countryside. Many tangos express a longing for the old homestead, or a distant land of happiness... Many critics see Satumaa as a prototype of the Finnish tango. Satumaa (Fairytale Land) is about a distant land across the wide ocean. But only birds can fly to this land of happiness; wingless man must remain chained to the soil.”
  —  Pekka Gronow, Yleisradio Finland.

S atumaa is the quintessential Finnish tango. It was written by Unto Mononen, published in 1955. The most famous recording is probably the one made by Reijo Taipale in 1962. The song has been recorded countless times, mainly by male Finnish tango singers. The most unlikely artist performing it is perhaps Frank Zappa, who played it as a request at a live show recorded in Helsinki in 1974. It was released on ‘You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2’.”
  —  Wikipedia.

    [50-sec clip, Aulis Sallinen, Introduction & Tango Overture, Op. 74b, Virtuosi di Kuhmo, 1.8MB MP3]

    [50-sec clip, Aulis Sallinen, Introduction & Tango Overture, Op. 74b, Virtuosi di Kuhmo, 1.5MB MP3]


Autumn drizzle and winter sunsets: symbols of hopes dashed. A world devoid of people; lilypads that stretch as far as the eye can see: symbols of a vegetal supremacy that will triumph over humankind when we have finally destroyed civilization. A wandering piano traipses through uncertain minor keys: symbol of life’s vicissitudes. There’s a fado-like, saudades-like feel to this beautiful, troubling piece—concertino, concerto-like. The boundary between small chamber ensemble writing and chamber orchestral or symphonic writing is blurred.

This piece was originally composed in 1997 for piano quintet, commissioned by the Kitakyushu International Music Festival in Japan. Subsequent versions came to have larger orchestrations—the one on this CD, for example.


Sallinen’s notations on the score say that the Introduction is derived from a theme from the end of his 7th Symphony—the three-note piano figure that sprouts and pervades this whole piece. Six minutes in, we get an indication in the piano left-hand of what is to come: a change from 3/4 to 4/4 time (or, really, a polyrhythm 8/8 insidiously beat as 3-3-2 by some of the parts, against the majority in 4/4).

The lyricism persists—now with more vigor than before. And then we reach the end. The unresolved chord drifts off—these characters in the Introduction & Tango Overture were itinerants who’ve moved on? In any case, it is not a death or a real end; there is no conclusion here, only an implacable regard. Life! Stuff happens! Sometimes cinematically.

Or maybe it’s a sort of fatalism. This life will be lived by each of us one time only, and therefore Epicureanism and Exoticism are ways of asserting our cultural uniqueness and also ways of defying our eventual losses and mortality. Carpe diem! Exotisk Finnish Tango!

A avan meren tuolla puolen jossakin on maa,
Missä onnen kaukorantaan laine liplattaa—
Missä kukat kauneimmat luo aina loistettaan;
Siellä huolet huomisen voi jäädä unholaan.

Oi jospa kerran sinne satumaahan käydä vois,
Niin sieltä koskaan lähtisi en linnun lailla pois.
Vaan siivetönnä en voi lentää vanki olen maan;
Vain aatoksin mi kauas entää sinne käydä saan.

[There’s a land beyond the vast sea
 Where waves lap the shores of happiness—
 Where beautiful flowers always bloom;
 Where worries of tomorrow can be forgotten.

 Oh, if I could but go to Satumaa, that fairytale land,
 Never would I leave it like the birds.
 But without wings I cannot fly—I’m a prisoner, earthbound;
 Only in far-reaching thoughts can I ever go there.]”
  — Satumaa, Unto Mononen

• Virtuosi di Kuhmo. Aulis Sallinen: Chamber Musics III, IV, V. (CPO, 2007.)
  
• Grigera D, Monteleone G. ¿Qué dice el Tango? Aguilar-Galella, 2004.
  
• Kukkonen P. Tango Nostalgia: The Language of Love and Longing. Helsinki Univ, 1996. ISBN 951-570-286-0.
  
• Sallinen page at Chester Novello
  
• Sallinen page at FIMIC
  
• Virtuosi di Kuhmo website
  
• Kuhmo Arts Centre
  
• Finnish Music Information Centre (FIMIC) website
  
• Hakasalo I. The melancholy Finnish tango. FIMIC essay.
  
• Jaakkola J. The Finnish Tango: Its history and characteristics. FIMIC essay.
  
• Pirjo Kukkonen page at Univ Helsinki
  
• DSM. Kuhmo: Festivalism in the Finnish Forest. CMT blog, 05-JAN-2007.
  
• DSM. Portuguese Baroque: A não perder! CMT blog, 12-JAN-2008.

28 Jan 08

Podcast from Desert Politics Show

Last Saturday I was on a talk radio show out of Phoenix. To listen to the podcast click here.

28 Jan 08

Two Tonys on Jesus Christ (Part 2)

I asked Two Tonys to comment, with an emphasis on prison life, on some quotes of Jesus Christ.

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you….

Howthafuck can a guy love his enemies or bless them in prison? I mean think about it. You’ve gotta bloke over here layin’ awake at night, sharpenin’ his shiv [shank], plannin’ on harmin’ you or robbin’ you or rapin’ you or takin’ what’s yours. How can you love him or bless him? C’mon! You’ve gotta take care of business. You’ve gotta do what needs to be done. Do you honestly think that motherfuckers claimin’ Christianity – like George Bush and Tony Blair – are lovin’ and blessin’ Osama Bin Laden? Or even that the pope is doin’ that? Are they fuck!

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I’m not sure about this one. JC’s speakin’ in metaphors; so, by treasure he’s not referrin’ to gold, Mercedes, or hedge funds. What is treasure? Think about it. It could be sittin’ down at tea time with Mom and Pop and Sis and her new hubby, and enjoyin’ the conversation, everyone’s good health and overall well-being. That’s treasure that you feel inside – where your heart is. Do you think some bloke drivin’ down the Vegas Strip in his five-grand Armani suit, coked-up, with a five-hundred-dollar-an-hour hooker next to him in his Caddy with the top down is rich in the treasure JC’s talkin’ about? Do you think his heart is there? No! His dick is there. His ego is there. His lust is there. He’s havin’ fun and enjoyin’ the moment, but his heart ain’t there. This scripture can be reversed to read: where your heart is, there your treasure will be also.

Judge not, that you not be judged.

Fuck that! I judged and still do so. I don’t wanna hang out with any pieces of shit who’ve harmed kids, beat their wives, raped old ladies, or did any shit like that. I knew of a prisoner who was in for fuckin’ a calf to death. And I’m not supposed to judge him! No. I judge and I can be judged. I can handle my judgement. I’m not perfect. I’ve done bad things. But I can sleep at night and I can look any motherfucker alive in the eye – yeah!

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

This is a silly one. Whothafuck receives what they ask for? We get shit on so much in prison, there’s a sayin’: ‘You ain’t got nothin’ comin’’ Do you get everythin’ you ask for? Who does? Does Billy Graham? This quote was put together for control of the masses – the great unwashed – years ago, by the priests, the monks, the kings. I’ve read about it. They had what was called scriptoriums, rooms in monastries where they had scribes and monks who wrote shit to keep the mooches and masses in line. The priests thought, Hey, let’s tell this mooch he can come back from the dead and live forever in a mansion in the clouds or maybe have eighty-three virgins. That’s one of the major themes of all these religions: keepin’ the masses in line ’cause we don’t want motherfuckers pickin’ up their pitchforks and tryin’ to jack our shit. Some used Zeus, some Jesus, some Buddha, some Muhammad, some Shiva, some Thor – and we can go on and on since the dawn of early societies. When they were crawlin’ up in those caves at night, somewhere, one of those dudes thought, Hey, maybe I can con some mooches to go hunt today, and I’ll stay back and eat and fuck and lay in the sun. I know, I’ll tell ’em the gods want ’em out there wrestlin’ saber-toothed tigers, and bustin’ their asses while I get to kick it and fuck around with everybody’s daughters. That’s it in a nutshell. It’s nothin’ new. And it’s not gonna end as long as people exist. The strong will take from the weak, but the smart will take from the strong, and the poor unwashed masses will get fucked over. But it don’t matter. Let’s enjoy this ol’ life. I laugh every day. Make the most of it ’cause you’re not here for but a quick minute – and then you die.

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

Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood

Welcome to My Pitch Universe: Carbamazepine, Aripiprazole, and Pharmacological Pitch-Bending

H aving perfect pitch, I find listening to these [Baroque historically-informed] performances very jarring. Even when I put in Podger’s recording of Bach I had to really adjust. I can’t listen to Quarta’s Paganini 1, which is tuned up. It’s just too strange.”
  — Pieter Viljoen, 04-DEC-2006.

This wouldn’t likely be noticed by anybody who doesn’t have ‘perfect pitch’ [‘absolute pitch’]. But she was triply gifted—with perfect pitch, mild autism, and epilepsy. Having ‘absolute pitch’ was sometimes helpful—in sight-reading, for example, or a capella singing or improvising jazz. But most of the time it was a nuisance. It was especially disturbing to her to tune her violin to A415 Hz or other Baroque tunings.

Perfect pitch [also called ‘absolute pitch’] is the ability to hear a particular note (or chord) and know, without any instrument or other pitch reference, which note it is. Compare this to ‘relative pitch’, which is the ability to hear the difference in pitch between a note and a given reference (musical interval). Most people have relative pitch to some degree, but perfect pitch only occurs in about 1 per 10,000 people. Here’s how it works: I’d wake her up at 3 a.m., sing some note of my choice, and she could tell you right away that I sang A above middle-C, and I sang it flat, about 427 Hz she thought.

So she was chronically on aripiprazole (Abilify™) for her autism, and then her doctor switched her from her regular anticonvulsant medication to carbamazepine (Tegretol™).

The first two days after the Tegretol was added to the Abilify, she yelled about the piano. Said it was horrifically out of tune. Asked whether I had done something despicable to the thermostat.

Within a few days after she started taking the Tegretol, when she played the piano she felt as if each note was a half-step lower than its position on the keyboard. The notes were consonant with her internal pitch-universe, just transposed down a half-step. During that period, if you woke her up at 3 a.m. and sang your note she would tell you that it was G# above middle-C and you are flat, about 412 Hz. At that time she was taking 15 mg per day of the Abilify and 200 mg twice per day of the Tegretol. She complained that modern recordings sounded to her like the musicians were using Baroque tuning. It was disorienting—like people were trying to play ‘tricks’ on her.

And then two seizures happened in one week—so the doctor bumped the Tegretol dose up to 400 mg twice per day. Within three days each note sounded to her like it was a half-step plus a quarter-tone lower than its position on the keyboard. You woke her up at 3 a.m. and sang your note and she told you that it was G above middle-C and way-sharp, hideous, about 404 Hz. She looked at her digital tuning meter in utter disbelief. She refused to listen to certain CDs, claimed that there must be something wrong with the CD player. Said she was being sucked into a ‘black hole’, that ‘gravity’ was pulling on her mind. Hated it.

Then she developed a skin condition, ‘toxic epidermal necrolysis’ (TEN), and the doc took her off the Tegretol and switched her to lamotrigine (Lamictal™). After about 3 days following the discontinuation of the Tegretol, she said I was singing G# again. Then, a week later, she said I was singing an A, slightly flat, like I used to do. We were back in the same universe.

The neurologists, naturally, were oblivious to all of this. None of them had any familiarity with the accumulating evidence of a carbamazepine-activated effect on the peripheral auditory system, which increases the sensitivity to low-pitched sounds and causes the altered pitch perceptions. We only found out about that ourselves, by searching around on PubMed and elsewhere on the web.

Most of the journal articles and scientific reports say that musical performances by people with perfect pitch who are on carbamazepine are heard as a semitone lower than they are in actuality. The condition is probably a lot more common than the occasional case-reports would suggest. If my friend had not been able to discern absolute pitch, she would’ve been unable to detect a lowered pitch perception.

Functional MRI (fMRI) imaging of the structure in the brain called the planum temporale shows asymmetries that are associated with perfect pitch, but no fMRI to-date have been performed on people with perfect pitch who are on carbamazepine.


Most of the medical literature reports of pharmacologically-induced pitch-bending involve Tegretol by itself. I can’t find any reports that involve two or more anticonvulsant medications. I can’t find any reports that involve a drug used for autism-spectrum disorders, like Abilify. I can’t find any reports that involve Abilify with an SSRI or other antidepressant.

And even the case-reports for Tegretol don’t really address the dose-ranging aspect. When you go from 10 mg/kg/24h up to 35 mg/kg/24h (to 1600 mg/24h, say), for example. None of the reports addresses dose-escalation related pitch-bending, like what my friend had.

Probably the most comfort we got came from the recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) last Fall, from the UCSF team who’ve been conducting a large study of absolute pitch for several years. Helped us, at least, to know how ‘not alone’ we are.


Side-effects may include dizziness, drowsiness, disturbances of coordination, confusion, headache, fatigue, blurred vision, visual hallucinations, transient diplopia, oculomotor disturbances, nystagmus, speech disturbances, abnormal involuntary movements, peripheral neuritis and paresthesias, depression with agitation, talkativeness, tinnitus, and hyperacusis. ‘Hyperacusis’. Oh, yeah. You who write these drug package-inserts, you have no idea. No. Idea.

• Athos E. Dichotomy and perceptual distortions in absolute pitch ability. PNAS 2007;104:14795-800.
  
• Univ California San Francisco Absolute Pitch Study
  
• Bonnel A, Mottron L, Peretz I, Trudel M, Gallun E, Bonnel AM. Enhanced pitch sensitivity in individuals with autism. J Cogn Neurosci. 2003;15:226-35.
  
• Gaab N, Schulze K, Ozdemir E, Schlaug G. Neural correlates of absolute pitch differ between blind and sighted musicians. Neuroreport. 2006;17:1853-7.
  
• Gerhard D. Pitch Extraction and Fundamental Frequency: History and Current Techniques. Technical Report, Dept. of Computer Science, Univ Regina, 2003. [1MB pdf]
  
• Heaton P. Pitch memory, labelling and disembedding in autism. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2003;44:543-51.
  
• Keenan J, Thangaraj V, Halpern A, Schlaug G. Absolute pitch and planum temporale. Neuroimage 2001;14:1402–8.
  
• Konno S, Yamazaki E, Kudoh M, Abe T, Tohgi H. Half pitch lower sound perception caused by carbamazepine. Intern Med. 2003;42:880–3.
  
• Levitin D, Rogers S. Absolute pitch: perception, coding, and controversies. Trends in Cognitive Sci 2005;9:26-33. [1MB pdf]
  
• Limb C. Structural and functional neural correlates of music perception. Anat Rec 2006;288A:435-46. [1MB pdf]
  
• Miyaoka T, Seno H, Itoga M, Horiguchi J. Reversible pitch perception deficit caused by carbamazepine. Clin Neuropharmacol. 2000;23:219-21.
  
• Rose F, ed. Neurology of the Arts: Painting, Music, Literature. Imperial Coll, 2004.
  
• Ross D, Gore J, Marks L. Absolute pitch: music and beyond. Epilepsy Behav. 2005;7:578-601.
  
• Tramo M, Cariani P, Koh C, Makris N, Braida L. Neurophysiology and neuroanatomy of pitch perception. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005;1060:148-74.
  
• Wakamoto H, Kume A, Nakano N. Elevated pitch perception owing to carbamazepine-activating effect on the peripheral auditory system: auditory brainstem response study. J Child Neurol 2004; 19:453–5.
  
• Yoshikawa H, Abe T. Carbamazepine-induced abnormal pitch perception. Brain Dev 2003;25:127-9.
  
• PerfectPitch.com [expensive ear-training CD-ROM course]
  
• Violinist.com post on absolute pitch and early music tunings (A 415 Hz)
  
• Absolute Pitch Education forum
  
• Perfect Pitch Illness blog on Myspace
  
• John Petrucci thread on perfect pitch

Neurodiversity: Borromeo Quartet Brings Beethoven’s Op. 130 + Op. 133 Temperament to Life

I n but one extraordinary passage, marked ‘beklemmt’, does the first violin break into a kind of anguished recitative whose obstreperous rhythm challenges the solemn gait of the lower instruments and threatens to rupture the music asunder. The emotion is purged, however, and the violin rejoins its companions to murmur once again the theme of the opening. Beethoven left the question of the Quartet’s finale unsettled, so that the work may be performed with either the Große Fuge of the original version or the substitute Rondo movement that he provided for it shortly before his death. This latter movement, a splendid piece of music, was written in the manner of continuous thematic expansion and development that was central to the style of his last years. With its thrusting rhythms and brief returns of its Gypsy-tinged opening theme, the movement has about it a … stubborn unwillingness to be bent into the tonic key of B-flat major.”
  —  Richard Rodda, 2005.

I ts official title is really a misnomer, for the movement incorporates an introduction, a double fugue, a slower and only mildly contrapuntal section brought about with an abrupt modulation from B-flat to G-flat, a scherzo that is soon overwhelmed by a resumption of the fiercest fugal developments, followed by a stream of afterthoughts and retrospects.”
  —  Denis Matthews.

G reat wits are sure to madness near allied—
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.”
  —  John Dryden, 1662.

W ell, if you ask writers and artists who have depression, severe depression or manic depression, what they feel is important to them about their illness and their moods in their work, what they almost always focus upon is the intensity and the range of emotional expressiveness. Learning from the pain and from the suffering, they experience the sorrow, they experience the despair of the nihilism and so forth. And on the other hand, very ecstatic and visionary states. So that’s what artists and writers focus upon. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. I think it’s also that people with manic depressive illness who have a particular temperament live a life of almost seemingly irreconcilable differences and opposite states that they somehow, on a day to day basis, have to reconcile. So people who have very disciplined and interesting and strong and creative minds, who also have this temperament, spend their lives having to make some order out of chaos and reconcile these opposite states. I think that a lot of what we ask from artists really is to experience extreme mood states, experience the extremes of human nature and experience, and put some new meaning and redemptive value in their work.”
  —  Kay Redfield Jamison, Live from Lincoln Center.

In late 1822, Prince Nikolas Galitzin of Russia commissioned several string quartets from Beethoven. Beethoven was preoccupied with work on the Missa Solemnis, Op. 123; the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120; and the Ninth Symphony, Op. 125, and delayed delivering the B-flat quartet and Große Fugue until 1825. Galitzin was understandably annoyed by the delays. He wasn’t chopped liver.

What’s more, in this third installment on the commission Galitzin got these six movements, including the two strange slow movements and the giant, fierce 16-minute Fuge. The two fugue subjects here are not playing nicey-nicey. They’re rhetorical adversaries, struggling with each other in musical armed conflict, taking no prisoners. There are winners and there’re losers.

The unhappy public reception of Op. 130 with the Fuge attached as-written led to the substitution of the alternate finale to Op. 130, the Rondo, which turned out to be Beethoven’s last finished composition. The deal was, Beethoven would provide the substitute Rondo on condition that the withdrawn Große Fuge would be issued separately, and Beethoven would get an additional fee. Right. The fugue was published posthumously as Op. 133. Why was the final release as Op. 133 delayed until after Beethoven had died? Who was the cause of the delays, and what were their motives? And how many composers today could engage their patrons in this way? The recklessness and extravagance of it are mind-boggling! Crazy!

In December, I did a post on bipolar (manic-depressive) illness and musical creativity. The occasion of last night’s performance by the Borromeo Quartet made me wonder once more about the diversity of varieties of depression that give rise to composers’ output. Several varieties are, I think, manifested in this Beethoven Quartet. Have a look at Larkin’s nice chapter in Cooper’s book on Beethoven for some extended analysis of signs and symptoms in Beethoven’s later life and works.

The Borromeo Quartet outdid themselves in last night’s incarnation of this wonderful, emotional work. The deep perplexity of the human condition was “in there”, in their performance of Op. 130 + Op. 133. The Rondo in place of the amputated Große Fuge? Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right. It’s a shame that Beethoven suffered so that we might have this work. And it’s possible that, back in his time, nothing could’ve been done to treat his condition or mitigate his suffering. But today the question is, ought such symptoms to be under-treated, so that we might have more works like this? Ought such symptoms to be medically induced, as a form of composer performance-enhancement?

P revailing conceptions of creativity in psychology and psychiatry derive from romanticist ideas about the creative imagination—they differ considerably from notions that are central in modernism and postmodernism. Whereas romanticism views creative inspiration as a highly emotional, Dionysian, or primitive state, modernism and postmodernism emphasize processes involving hyper-selfconsciousness and alienation (hyperreflexivity). Although manic-depressive or cyclothymic tendencies seem especially suited to creativity of the romantic sort, schizoid, schizotypal, schizophreniform, and schizophrenic tendencies have more in common with the anti-romantic sensibilities of modernism and postmodernism. I criticize the book by Kay Redfield Jamison, ‘Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament’, for treating romantic concepts of creativity as if they defined creativity in general. I argue that Jamison’s denial or neglect of the creative potential of persons in the schizophrenia spectrum relies on certain diagnostic oversimplifications: an overly broad conception of affective illness and an excessively narrow conception of schizophrenia that ignores the creative potential of the schizophrenia spectrum.”
  —  L Sass, Creativity Research J 2000; 13: 55-74.

T  aking the new antidepressants, some of my patients said they found themselves more ‘confident’ and ‘decisive’. Is this, I wonder, a categorically ‘good’ thing? I used these claims as a jumping-off point for speculation: what if future medications had the potential to modify personality traits in people who had never experienced mood disorder? [Drugs like MK-801, for example.] If doctors were given access to such drugs, how should they prescribe them? The inquiry moved from medical ethics to social criticism: what does our culture demand of us, in the way of assertiveness? What is the price of conformity?”
  —  Peter Kramer, There’s Nothing ‘Deep’ about Depression, 2005.

Nine Temperament Characteristics

• Activity level refers to the amount of physical energy in the child. Does the child have to be constantly moving or do they have a relaxing approach?
  
• Regularity / Rhythmicity refers to the level of predictability in a child’s biological functions such as waking, becoming tired, feeding.
  
• Approach / Withdrawal refers to how the child responds to new people or environments either positive or negative. Does the child check out people or things in their environment without hesitation or do they shy away?
  
• Adaptability refers to how long it takes the child to adjust to change. Does the child adjust to the changes in their environment easily or are they resistant to what is happening around them?
  
• Intensity refers to the energy level of a positive or negative response. Does the child react intensely to a situation or do they respond in a calm and quiet manner?
  
• Mood refers to the child’s general tendency towards a happy or unhappy demeanor.
  
• Distractibility refers to the child’s tendency to be sidetracked by other things going on around them. Does the child get easily distracted by what is happening in the environment around them or can they concentrate despite the interruptions?
  
• Persistence & Attention Span refers to the child’s ability to stay with a task through frustrations and length of time on the task. Can the child stay with an activity for a long period of time or do they just give up when they become frustrated?
  
• Sensitivity refers to how easily a child is disturbed by changes in their environment. Does the child get bothered by external stimuli in their environment such as noises, textures, lights, etc. or do they just seem not to be bothered by them at all?

• Borromeo String Quartet website
  
• Álvarez J. Neuronal hypersynchronization, creativity and endogenous psychoses. Med Hypotheses. 2001; 56:672–85.
  
• Aylward E, Roberts-Twillie J, Barta P, Kumar A, Harris G, Geer M, Peyser C, Pearlson G. (Basal ganglia volumes and white matter hyperintensities in patients with bipolar disorder. Am J Psychiatry 1994; 151:687–93.
  
• Bess T, Harvey R. Bimodal score distributions and the MBTI: Fact or artifact? Soc Industrial Organiz Psychol, 2001. [1MB pdf]
  
• Blanke O, Landis T, Spinelli L, Seeck M. Out-of-body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin. Brain 2004;127(Pt 2):243–58.
  
• Bogousslavsky J. Artistic creativity, style and brain disorders. Eur Neurol. 2005;54:103–11.
  
• Bunning S, Blanke O. The out-of body experience: precipitating factors and neural correlates. Prog Brain Res. 2005;150:331–50.
  
• Hershman D, Lieb J. Manic Depression and Creativity. Prometheus, 1998.
  
• Jamison K. Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Free Press, 1996.
  
• Kagan J, Snidman N. The Long Shadow of Temperament. Belknap, 2004.
  
• Kramer P. There’s nothing ‘deep’ about depression. NYT Magazine, 17-APR-2005.
  
• Larkin E. ‘Beethoven’s medical history’, in Cooper M, Beethoven: The Last Decade 1817–1827. 2e. Oxford Univ, 1985, pp. 439–64.
  
• Lilienfeld S, Lynn S, Lohr J, eds. Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology. Guilford, 2004.
  
• Nettle D. Strong Imagination: Madness, Creativity and Human Nature. Oxford Univ, 2001.
  
• Runco M, Richards R. Eminent Creativity, Everyday Creativity, and Health. Ablex, 1998.
  
• DSM. Stage Fright: More Treatment Options. [PTSD and music] CMT blog, 04-JAN-2008.
  
• DSM. Composing as a Symptom and a Health Outcome. CMT blog, 11-DEC-2007.
  
• DSM. The Five and the One. CMT blog, 23-JAN-2008.

Iron Man v Snake Eyes (Part 2)

“…I screamed at Snake Eyes,” Iron Man said, “‘No, no, man! Not like that! One on one, motherfucker! Me and you.’ I knew he would have no choice but to go for it ’cause I’d called him out in front of all of his friends. He goes, ‘Yeah. Come on then. You ain’t shit.’ I’ll never forget him saying that and thinking to myself, This guy is fucked.
I advanced toward him with my hands in the low-guard position ’cause I knew he was itching to throw the first punch, and from watching him before I knew he was right handed and that would be the hand he would swing with. I could see his body tense. I yelled,‘Swing, motherfucker, swing.’ I had my hands held low so he would feel comfortable swinging. I let his punch come in unblocked and just before it would have broke my nose I lowered my head and his fist smashed into the top of my skull breaking his hand. I heard him cry out in pain. I’d lured him into the whole thing and by then I was right up on him.
Remember how I taught you there’s a tipping point in every fight when you land that one punch that resonates deep in your soul, and you know the fight is yours?”
“Yes,” I said.
“When I hit Snake Eyes with a right hook square in the chin, I felt that feeling. I felt his will crumble. I knew this guy was fucked. I hit him nine more times – hook after hook in the head.
I heard my friend say, ‘Iron Man, that’s enough,’ and he grabbed me by the shoulder, and pulled me back. But not in time to prevent me from hitting Snake Eyes one more time with an uppercut. As he fell to the ground at the feet of the Mexicans, he mumbled, ‘Get him. Get him,’ and passed out.
So he’s laying on the ground. There’s ten Mexicans standing behind him with their eyes bugging out, and here’s me in the fighting stance saying, ‘Yeah, motherfuckers, get me. Who’s next? Come on!’ I was just getting warmed up. The fucking rage was boiling through me – it was like a living thing inside of me – and I wanted nothing more in the world than to fight every single one of them dudes one after the other. They backed off.
Next thing you hear, ‘Lockdown, lockdown!’ and here come the cops.
My celly’s all excited ’cause I’d smashed Snake Eyes. He was tripping, saying, ‘Dude, you’ve really got it going on,’ over and over again. Saying, ‘Dude, wassup!’ with his eyes really big.
The cops came for knuckle checks. One said, ‘You guys on your feet. Let’s see your knuckles.’ My knuckles weren’t messed up at all. I just smiled and held my hands out. It was a smile that said, It wasn’t me, officer. He looked, said, ‘Yeah, right,’ walked out, and slammed our door.

Click here for Iron Man v Snake Eyes Part 1

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

Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun Attwood

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23 Jan 08

On Shanks (Part 4)

“How common are shankings in the prison system?” I asked.
“Common and taken for granted. I seen a guy get stuck in the chow hall. He was hit three times in the back before he even realized what was happening. He got up, ran out of the door, and the guy with the blade was chasing him. As the guy ran away, the guy that was sitting across from him reached over to his tray, said, ‘I guess he’s not gonna be eating that,’ picked up his hamburger and ate it.”
“That’s cold. What about disposing of shanks and bodies?”
“There’s no disposing of bodies because everybody’s accounted for. They can hide the bodies for a little while, but come count time they realize something’s wrong. There was a body at Cimmarron Unit they didn’t find right away. The reason they found him was he was in the bathroom and the blood ran out from under the door.”
“And disposing of shanks?”
“They usually try to throw them on a roof, or bury them, or throw them over a fence.”
“I’ve heard about people leaving the shank inside the victim.”
“Yeah, especially if it’s made out of Plexiglas and the blade part of it breaks off.”
“Where on a prison yard are you most likely to get shanked at?”
“In your cell. They’ll kill you and stuff you under the bottom bunk.”
“Do the murderers usually get caught?”
“Most of them have to brag about it. Sometimes someone will see you do it, or you’ll get caught on camera.”
“Is that why gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia, and the Mau Maus send torpedoes in? To take the fall for the higher-ups?”
“The problem with that is when the prison starts threatening the torpedoes with the needle, they start talking. To get out of the death penalty the torpedoes will give the shotcallers up.”

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

Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood

The Five and the One: Balance between Voices in Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor

A  remarkably accomplished string quartet, not simply for its high technical polish and refined tone, but more importantly for the searching musical insights it brings.”
  —  John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune, 23-AUG-2002.

T his piece was a great discovery for me. It helped me to realize that my piano playing style and my personality match well with chamber music. I believe the Franck was my finest performance during the [2001 Van Cliburn] Competition.”
  —  Stanislav Ioudenitch.

Looking forward to the Borromeo Quartet performance this Friday (25-JAN-2008) in Kansas City, I check out their program and revisit scores for the works they will play. One of them will be César Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor, a “big”, atmospheric piece.

• Nicholas Kitchen, Violin
  
• Kristopher Tong, Violin
  
• Mai Motobuchi, Viola
  
• Yeesun Kim, Cello
  
• Stanislav Ioudenitch, Piano (guest)

Piano Quintet in F Minor
• I: Molto Moderato Quasi Lento, Allegro 16:00 – 17:00
  
• II: Lento, Con Molto Sentimento 10:30 – 12:00
  
• III: Allegro Non Troppo, Ma Con Fucco 9:20 – 10:00

T he instrumental work was seen [in the 19th Century] as a wordless oration, and its form was viewed not so much as a harmonic or thematic plan but as an ordered succession of thoughts.”
  —  Mark Bonds, p. 53.

The piano part in this Quintet is virtuosic, magisterial, symphonic. In fact, that may be the biggest risk—the fact that the piano part is so “big”. The quartet may play beautifully and cohesively, but the pianist must fully “belong”. This is a chamber music piece. It ought not to come off as a mini ensemble piano concerto. Nobody is ‘accompaniment’. And it’s not a ‘pianist vs. quartet’ duet.

So the real unifying factor has got to be pianist Ioudenitch. Not ‘in charge’, but genuinely ‘unifying’. The opening Molto Moderato is simultaneously tender, muscular, edgy—moderato but almost anxiously hurried—with minimal good-natured geniality: urgent.

The Borromeos—known for their full tone—deliver phrasings that are abundant with feeling, and their sound production has a characteristic lyrical fullness. But, playing with Iodenitch, they are under-stated, more subdued as they merge their playing. There is a wonderfully hushed quality in this Molto Moderato.

And, true to the ma con fucco indication, the Allegro is brisk, lively and light, well-accented, almost hard-driven. Despite the fact that they do not regularly play together, the Borromeos and Ioudenitch manage to achieve what, to paraphrase David Rounds, is clearly ‘The Five and The One.’

Each movement in the Quintet evolves from a single idea, and these ideas clearly connect as a series of narrative episodes. Like a protagonist in a drama, each idea goes on its ‘journey’ through a series of contrasting psychological states hoping for resolution or fulfillment. Inter-connections and inter-movement references are beautifully rendered by the Borromeos. An extended passage, or even a single texture recalled from an earlier moment triggers our memory and builds up a multi-dimensional awareness. All this makes the work feel “Big”.

Ioudenitch’s interplay with the wonderful Borromeos is marvelous. How hard should the players try to minimize ‘inhomogeneity’ between the strings? In my view, not much. It’s routine to have a novel where each character is fully-developed and yet there are leading roles and supporting roles. And so, too, in a piece like this. It’s unreasonable to insist on absolute parity when the expressive/narrative content of the work doesn’t exhibit parity and when the composer didn’t intend it. The ‘characters’ in the 5 parts here are so disparate as to argue against attempting to enforce ‘equality’.

In other words, this is not the same inter-voice dynamic as in a Piano Trio or Piano Quartet. Obviously, the five voices have to cooperate. But the texture is more complex and could get muddy if they do not really, really cooperate and anticipate each other’s phrasing. There are thematic processes that operate on a larger scale. This is not a ‘subject/answer’ or ‘tell-and-ask’ rhetoric, as Peter Smith and others have explored in Brahms, say (Music Analysis 2001;20:193-236). There’s less predictability in individual voice-leading. There are more inter-voice constraints than in a quartet.


And the unfolding of the separate voices/characters is idiosyncratic—characteristic of Franck, even if not necessarily characteristic of the period or the quintet form or sonata form. We have ‘hybrid phrases’ where Franck creates ‘antecedent’ and ‘consequent’ phrases—creates the ‘consequent’ of one (sub-) phrase by transposing an initial tonic-oriented antecedent statement of a thematic idea into the dominant key. This is especially notable when the minor dominant is tonicised. In an alternative approach, Franck adjusts intervals within the repetition (consequent) so that the restatement centers on the dominant but remains within the tonic key. Material that unfolds within the tonespace of the 1-5 fifth is ‘answered’ by a repetition that falls within the 5-1 fourth. This alternative approach ‘recontextualizes’ the idea of an ‘answer’.

In fact, if Franck had used a formal ‘subject/answer’ or ‘tell-and-ask’ type of rhetoric, it would have lent a sort of ‘instability’ to the piece. It would have been somwhat of an anacrusis—an under-stressing or ambiguity of authority, before (and in between) the more forceful statements.

It’s a complex phenomenon and it involves the musical and social coordination of the group, an agreed sense of leadership, and the group members’ individual and collaborative construction of meaning through verbal discussions and shared reflections on the playing. Group identity is shaped by individual players’ self-identities and vice-versa (Rounds 1999; Stubley, 1992) and a piano quintet is no exception. We have both musical and social coordination between musicians here (Davidson & Good, 2002; Ginsborg, Chaffin, & Nicholson, 2006; Williamon & Davidson, 2002; Young & Colman, 1979).

Dahlhaus at Technische Universitat Berlin (1991, p. 255) discussed rhetorical coherence in terms of ‘architectonic form’—a balance between phrases, periods, and sets of periods—each rhetorical unit counterbalanced by one or more other metrical/rhetorical units at every level in the piece. He contrasted this with ‘logical form’ (form based soley on ‘motivic connections’) which holds a movement together ‘from within’. This Franck Quintet seems clearly ‘architectonic’ according to Dahlhaus’ definitions. Big and satisfying!

T his music is rich in atmosphere and tenderness. There are so many colors and such a wide range of emotions, it makes it hard to breathe! When all the proportions are right during the performance, it connects us with the composer’s soul. That’s an unbelievable experience for the performer and the audience.”
  —  Stanislav Ioudenitch.

    [40-sec clip, César Franck, Piano Quintet, Molto Moderato, mm. 1-10, Schubert Ensemble, 1.1MB MP3]

    [50-sec clip, César Franck, Piano Quintet, Molto Moderato, “A”, Schubert Ensemble, 1.6MB MP3]

    [30-sec clip, César Franck, Piano Quintet, Molto Moderato, “B”, Schubert Ensemble, 0.9MB MP3]

    [50-sec clip, César Franck, Piano Quintet, Molto Moderato, “C”, Schubert Ensemble, 1.3MB MP3]

• Borromeo String Quartet website
  
• Ysaye Quartet with Pascal Rogé. Franck Piano Quintet. (Ysaye, 2007.)
  
• Schubert Ensemble with Simon Blendis. Franck Piano Quintet. (ASV, 2006.)
  
• Spiegel Quartet with Jan Michiels. Franck Piano Quintet. (MD&G, 2006.)
  
• Quatuor Ludwig with Michael Levinas. Franck Piano Quintet. (Naxos, 1998.)
  
• Almen B, Pearsall E, eds. Approaches to Meaning in Music. Indiana Univ, 2006.
  
• Bonds M. Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of Oration. Cambridge Univ, 1991.
  
• Dahlhaus C. Nineteenth-Century Music. Univ California, 1991, p. 255.
  
• Dahlhaus C. Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of the Later Nineteenth Century. Univ California, 1989.
  
• Davidson J, Good J. Social and musical co-ordination between members of a string quartet: An exploratory study. Psychol Music 2002;30:186-201.
  
• Dreyfus L. Bach and the Patterns of Invention. Harvard Univ, 1996.
  
• Eich K. Die Kammermusik Von Cesar Franck. Barenreiter, 2002.
  
• Ginsborg J, Chaffin R, Nicholson G. (2006). Shared performance cues in singing and conducting: A content analysis of talk during practice. Psychol Music 2006; 34:167-94.
  
• Gritten A. Music and Gesture. Ashgate, 2006.
  
• Hefling S, ed. Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music. Schirmer, 1998.
  
• Mazzola G. The Topos of Music. Birkhauser, 2003.
  
• McKenna P, Maister D. First Among Equals. Free Press, 2002.
  
• Reynolds C. Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music. Harvard Univ, 2003.
  
• Rounds D. The Four and the One: In Praise of String Quartets. Lost Coast, 1999.
  
• Scher S, ed. Music and Text. Cambridge Univ, 1992.
  
• Schoenberg A. Fundamentals of Musical Composition. Faber & Faber, 1982, pp. 20-22.
  
• Spitzer M. Music As Philosophy: Adorno and Beethoven's Late Style. Indiana Univ, 2006.
  
• Stock K, ed. Philosophers on Music: Experience, Meaning, and Work. Oxford Univ, 2007.
  
• Tarasti E. Signs of Music: A Guide to Musical Semiotics. de Gruyter, 2003.
  
• Tarasti E. Musical Signification: Essays in the Semiotic Theory and Analysis of Music. de Gruyter, 1995.
  
• Williamon A, Davidson J. Exploring co-performer communication. Musicae Scientiae 2002; 6:53-72.
  
• Young V, Colman A. Some psychological processes in string quartets. Psychol Music 1979; 7:12-6.
  
• Zbikowski L. Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis. Oxford, 2002.