MUS-501 final exam question: Late Schumann Lieder were hip-hop anthems. Evidence? Discuss.

I  n 1989’s ‘Fight the Power’, Public Enemy’s Chuck D spits a working definition of rhyme’s reason: ‘As the rhythm’s designed to bounce / What counts ... is that the rhyme’s / Designed to fill your mind.’ He is speaking of ‘rhyme’ here both as the practice of patterning sounds and as a name for the verse as a whole. In both meanings, rap’s rhymes have filled our minds with many things, not all of them good. But it is more than a matter of content—be it women and cars or prisons with bars; it is also a question of poetic form.”
  — Adam Bradley, p. 55.

T he prominence of dark themes in Schumann’s lieder in 1851 and later, featuring violent language and desultory circumstances and the characters’ defiant reactions to them, is strong evidence in favor of this thesis. Likewise, there is a radically different relationship between the music and the text compared to Schumann’s earlier lieder: in the late lieder there is a much stronger emphasis on syllabic stresses, on rhyme, and on systolic pulsatility of the voice strongly sync’ed to the instrumental beat. Schumann’s settings of Kullmann poems especially are, essentially, rap over music.

D  ominated by the energy of insistent repetition—from perfect rhymes to assonance and consonance—delivering on the promise... apocopated rhymes, where a one-syllable word rhymes with the stressed portion of a multisyllabic word. He matches the first line’s monosyllabic internal rhymes ‘last’ and ‘blast’ with an apocopated rhyme ‘fastball’ on the next line. He does the same thing in reverse with another rhyme as well—using ‘hit’ to rhyme with ‘splitter’. This creates a structure that binds the two lines together... almost every word is doing some kind of rhyme work... using rhyme to fashion rhythm.”
  — Adam Bradley, p. 62.

Und die mich trug im Mutterarm	And she who carried me in arms
Und die mich schwang in Kissen	And rock me in the nest
Die war ein schön, froh, braunes Weiß	She was beautiful, happy, red—hot—but
Wollte nichts vom Mannsvolk wissen	She never want to mess
Sie scherzte nur und lachte laut	‘Round... She only joke and laugh,
Und liess die Freier stehen.	Dissin’ those who hit on her.
„Möcht’ lieber sein des Windes Braut	“I’d rather be fucked by da wind
Als in die Ehe geh’n!”	Than have sex with any of you!”
Da kam der Wind, da nahm der Wind	And dat wind came, and dat wind chose,
Als Buhle sie gefangen,	And beat her and rape her too,
Von dem hat sie ein lustig Kind,	And that how she birthed me, packin’ heat.
Jung Volker, mich, empfangen.	Know dis: Jung Volker is my name.
—Eduard Mörike (1804-1875)	Op. 125, No. 4 (1851)

P ianist Graham Johnson maintains that Dichterliebe (Op. 48) contains what is arguably “the nearest thing in lieder to the modern phenomenon of ‘rap’ ” (liner notes to Vol 3, Hyperion CDA67676, pp. 101-2, specifically regarding ‘Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen’, No. 11, a song about a young man’s rejection by the woman he loves). In my opinion, dubstep is the sound that Schumann was going for, instead of brostep. And a ducking ‘pump’ sound that you hear in techno and electro that comes from side-chaining. That and electro house drums. Kind of a ‘dark garage’ hip-hop dubstep with kicked-up bass. The late lieder would be great with custom Ableton controllers for that sound. Don’t get that on no Hyperion CD, though!

C  ogan’s timbral reading of a piece is informed by the words sung in the performance. In his ‘Sounds of Song’, Cogan compares spectrographs of four recordings of Robert Schumann’s ‘Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet,’ a song he describes as ‘always obsessive, but uncertain, lost — quite literally traumatic.’ ”
  — Smith Reed, Univ Pittsburgh, 2005.

Der leidige Frieden	Peace make me nervous,
Hat lange gewährt—	It last too long—
Wir waren geschieden,	We ‘part for weeks,
Mein gutes Schwert!	My blade, its song!
Derweil ich gekostet	Down in the cellar
Im Keller den Wein—	I drink dat wine—
Hingst du verrostet	You hanging rusty
An der Wand allein.	By the wall, bidin’ your time.
Von Sorte zu Sorte	Each juice
Probiert’ ich den Wein—	I tasted when my turn to—
Indessen dorrte:	Meantime, dat blood:
Das Blut dir ein.	It’s dried on you.
Ist endlich entglommen	Battle when you right
Der heisse Streit,	Ain’t no crime—
Mein Schwert, und gekommen	Blade, here comes
Ist dein Zeit.	Your thirsty time.
Ich geb’ deiner Klingen,	Wipe some more,
Den blanken Schliff:	You bright, smooth steel:
Ich lasse dich singen	I let you rap
Den Todespfiff.	Your deadly spiel.
Im Pulvernebel	In gunpowder haze
Die Arbeit rauscht—	You slash, rip steep—
Wir haben, o Säbel,	You ’n’ me, Blade,
Die Freuden getauscht.	We put ’em all deep.
Im brausenden Moste,	In foamin’ wine,
Mein durstiges Erz	Blade thirsty and smart,
Betrinke dich, koste	Drink deep and taste
Von Herz zu Herz;	From heart to heart;
Derweil du gekostet	While you’ve been tastin’
Das rote Blut,	Your crimson blood,
Is mir eingerostet,	My throat—it’s parched,
Der Hals vor Glut.	Waitin’ for a flood.
—Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850)	Op. 117, No. 2 (1851)

O bscure poems that portray dysfunctional or oppressive gender relations, cars and money or jewels, and weapons—a throw-away objectification of people and ‘live-for-the-moment’ violent materialism—are also characteristic of these late Schumann lieder, in a fashion that presages modern hip-hop themes and postures. Braggadocio and lyrics that proclaim the singer’s greatness—these appear in Op. 117, Op. 104, and others.

W  hile rap may be new-school music, it is old-school poetry. Rather than resembling the dominant contemporary form of free verse—or even the freeform structure of its hip-hop cousin, spoken word, or slam poetry—rap bears a stronger affinity to some of poetry’s oldest forms, such as strong-stress meter of ‘Beowulf’. As in metrical verse, the lengths of rap’s lines are governed by established rhythms—in rap’s case, the rhythm of the beat itself.”
  — Adam Bradley, p. xv.

Du nennst mich armes Mädchen	“Po’ ho’,” you call me;
Du irrst! Ich bin nicht arm!	You full o’ shit! I’m not po’!
Entress dich, Neugier halber,	Wake up, you pimp,
Einmal des Schlafes Arm und schau’	from yo’ drunk-ass sleep,
Mein niedres Hüttchen	An’ look at my mansion
Wenn sich die Sonne	Wit da paradise sunrise
Hold am Morgenhimmel hebet:	When da morning sun come to me:
Sein Dach ist reines Gold!	Dat roof is pure gold!
Komm’ Abends, wann die Sonne,	Or come in da evening when da sun,
Bereits zum Meere sinkt,	Sinking in da sea,
Und sieh’ mein einzig Fenster,	See only my window,
Wie’s von Topasen blinkt!	Sparklin’ wit da topaz jewelz!
Du nennst mich armes Mädchen	“Po’ ho’,” you call me;
Du irrst! Ich bin nicht arm!	You full o’ shit! I’m not po’!
—Elisabeth Kuhlmann (1808-1824)	Op. 104, No. 3 (1851)

E mblematic of all rap music is constructing an image of power through gestural cues, which may be in the words or the music or both. The cues include punched-up rhythms and phrases about money, expensive clothing, jewelry, killing and dying, and going places and doing things. Late Schumann lieder got those!

T he situational exigencies of late Schumann lieder are accessible to anyone whose mind is open, and are not dependent on exterior markers for their manifestation. Instead, they are rooted in demonstrating values in interacting with others—values such as defiance, aggression, and action; support, mutuality, and reflection—‘power over’; ‘power with’. Don’t need no fancy or subtle analysis to identify features of hip-hop in late Schumann. Jus’ need to open our minds to the sonic and textual evidence that’s right there in front of us.

• Graham Johnson, et al. Complete Schumann Songs. Hyperion, 2000.
• Boy Blue Ent (London programs for hip-hop training in schools)
• Breakin' Convention (Intl. Festival of Hip-Hop Dance Theatre)
• Rap Dictionary
• Bradley A, et al., eds. Anthology of Rap. Yale Univ, 2011.
• Bradley A. Book of Rhymes: Poetics of Hip-Hop. Basic Civitas, 2009.
• Brown G, Yule G. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge Univ, 1983.
• Brown P, Levinson S. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge Univ, 1987.
• Cogan R. The Sounds of Song. Publication Contact International, 1999, p. 18.
• Dale C. Traces of Ossianic imagery in selected piano works of Robert Schumann. Dissertation, Univ Witwatersrand, 2006.
• Edwards P. How to Rap. ChicagoReview, 2009.
• Fernandez J, ed. Beyond Metaphor. Stanford Univ, 1991.
• Kanengiser G. The decline of quality in popular music-making. Cleveland Classical, 17-JAN-2012.
• Krims A. Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity. Cambridge Univ, 2000.
• Reed S. Musical Semiotics of Timbre in the Human Voice, or Static Takes Love's Body. PhD dissertation, Univ Pittsburgh, 2005.
• Sperber D, Wilson D. Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge Univ, 2012.
• Tobin L. Pimp Your Vocab. Anova, 2010.
• Washburne C, Derno M, eds. Bad Music. Routledge, 2004, p. 260
• Worthen J. Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician. Yale Univ, 2010.
• DC-future-bass on SoundCloud.com

T  wo hundred years ago popular music and art music were joined at the hip. Beethoven’s works and the birth of the Romantic Era coincided with the rise of the middle classes. Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann composed lieder that could be sung and played in the home by amateur musicians. At the same time that the middle classes expanded, they received a more formalized and substantial education and formulated an idea of art and music. The masses were able to sing and play music that did not require the same technical ability as music that one would find in the concert hall, but was more suited for the salon. The music was ‘attainable’, and it featured poetic verses with melodies that were relatively easy to sing.”
  — Gabe Kanengiser.

Michael Giacchino: Veridical and Schematic Expectations, Fight!

S    ome of the most compelling film music of the past year (2004-5) appeared not on the big screen but on the small one. Michael Giacchino’s score for the TV show ‘Lost’—the tale of several dozen plane-crash survivors marooned on a vaguely supernatural, ‘Tempest’-like island—has unsettled millions of American viewers with an eerie array of orchestral sounds: fluttery four-note figures, shivery tones produced by bowing strings near the bridge, nasty glissandos on the trombone, and, at moments of maximum tension, a low plucked note on the harp. According to convention, harps are called upon to herald angels or other vessels of goodness. Giacchino makes the instrument gaunt and deathly, much as Mahler did in the last song of ‘Das Lied von der Erde.’ In general, Giacchino has done such a bang-up job of generating menace that the scriptwriters may have a hard time satisfying the expectations that he has created. Something mighty grim will have to crawl out of that lush jungle in order to justify those twangs of terror... Music can take control of the image; it can also suggest a world separate from the image, or expose the image as a lie... Giacchino’s music for “Lost,” in its own non-Marxist way, plays this same game of estrangement. Dispatching the ghosts of Schoenberg, Xenakis, and other twentieth-century sonic terrorists into an island paradise, it touches on the universal modern suspicion that surfaces are not what they seem, that the center does not hold, that it ain’t necessarily so. When the images themselves are terrifying, music can bring about an even trickier reversal, providing ironic reassurance or genuine compassion.”
  — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 27-JUN-2005.

T    he character of motion-picture music has been determined by everyday practice. It has been an adaptation to the immediate needs of the film industry, in part to whatever musical clichés and ideas about music happened to be current. As a result, a number of empirical standards, rules of thumb, were evolved that corresponded to what motion-picture people called ‘common sense’... a kind of pseudo-tradition harking back to the intellectual milieu of Tin Pan Alley, of medicine shows and covered wagons. These rules have now been made obsolete by the technical development of cinema, as well as of autonomous [ambient] music.”
  —  Theodor Adorno & Hanns Eisler, Composing for the Films.

E  arlier this week I went to see Star Trek. The Michael Giacchino sound-track was, for me, superb—a powerful, seamless accompaniment to the action on the screen; more than an ‘amenity’.

Y  es, the scenes are held together by ‘leitmotifs’—the role that film music serves in virtually all commercial, mass-market films is one of ad hoc leitmotivic ‘glue’. The sonic clues/cues for the viewer/listener are meant to be ‘easy’, lubricious. Only in exotic art-film will you find soundtrack compositions that majorly subvert or compete with the ideas and emotions unfolding on the screen.

A  nd yet. And yet there are a number of places in this new Giacchino score where the edginess presages what is about to develop, subverting the prevailing expectations of that moment. The constantly changing scenes and sheer overload of action in Star Trek make it a little difficult to notice this. But it was the feature that most captured my imagination as we were leaving the theater and driving home. I thought I’d share a little about how I think it works here, plus a few links at the bottom that you might find useful if your own curiosity leads you to want to explore how it works.


    [30-sec clip, Michael Giacchino, ‘Star Trek, That New Car Smell’, 0.9MB MP3]

M  ost of the score is bombastic, galactic, symphonic stuff. But there are segments that engage in cross-genre ‘chamber music’ idioms. Conducted orchestra and/or software-based virtual instruments, but still ‘chamber music’. And these cross-genre moments tend to be places where subversion of our expectations happens.

• Star Trek
  
• Nailin’ the Kelvin [leitmotif & reprise]
  
• Labor of Love
  
• Hella Bar-Talk
  
• Enterprising Young [Men]
  
• Nero Sighted
  
• Nice to Mind-Meld You
  
• Run and Shoot Offense
  
• Does It Still ‘McFly’?
  
• Nero Death Experience
  
• Nero Fiddles, Narada Burns
  
• Back from Black
  
• That New-Car Smell (clip above)
  
• To Boldly Go
  
• End Credits

B  eautifully done! The decision not to couple the new film’s soundtrack more closely with the original series’s music (Alexander Courage, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Leonard Rosenman, Cliff Eidelman) is getting some complaints from a few reviewers. But, by contrast, the new materials Giacchino lays down should be good for the renewed Star Trek franchise. The ‘identity’ of this soundtrack is recognizable and durable. A friend with whom we saw the film on Tuesday had already seen the film the day it opened, and commented on liking the music. But then she is also a fan of ‘Lost’ and other Giacchino projects.


S  o there are cross-genre features in some of Giacchino’s Star Trek pieces. Not to say that other video game and film composers don’t do this; they do. But the chamber-symphonic cross-genre elements in this soundtrack are, to me, more pre-meditated and ‘go for the jugular’ than normal.

C  ross-genre techniques exploit... a schism... between two kinds of expectations—what Hallam and others call ‘schematic’ and ‘veridical’ expectations. A genre-compliant piece of music contains few or no surprises. But cross-genre pieces violate our expectations, and, to the degree that intact expectations matter emotionally or aesthetically to us, such pieces usually generate interest with each listening or each performance.

W  e are fascinated by how they “push our buttons”, even though we often can’t quite put our “finger” on why or how they do that. Fascinated... in the way that continued to preoccupy me during our drive home from the theater. Is this a synthetic, heavily-signal-processed virtual instrument, or was it processed digitized human voice—or was it a meld of the two, part-doubling and dubbed, beginning predominantly with one and dissolving into predominantly the other? Is this a chamber passage whose floor will drop out from under us, into a symphonic chasm?

H  ow does this cognitive/emotional exploit work? ‘Schematic expectations’ are automatic—culturally received and ‘generic’; things in which we have maybe considerable investment, but maybe not. Schematic expectations are built-up passively over many years. We are often quite ready to reconsider our attachment to them; we may even resent that we have them, insofar as they do not feel like they are really our own.

B  y contrast, ‘veridical expectations’ are expectations about near-term future events in the story-arc or narrative we are listening to. They are truth-statements or beliefs that we have formed by our own direct experience; they are fully “ours”. We are reluctant to abandon them because much of our own effort has been put into processing the events, musical evidence, and story-arc that have led to the beliefs and expectations that we hold at this moment. We want not to let go of them because our making sense of the situation might have to start totally from scratch if we did.

S  o if veridical and schematic expectations that we have as we listen to or play a piece of music diverge—or if they diverge for awhile and then re-converge again—then we experience powerful drama and emotional tension.

H  uron says a bit about this, as does Bharucha. Have a look at the links below if you’re interested in this.


M  ichael Giacchino, born in 1967 in New Jersey; captivated as a kid by John Williams’s classic Star Wars scores; studied composition at Juilliard; worked for Disney and then Dreamworks; enlisted by Steven Spielberg to score music for the Playstation game ‘The Lost World’, followed by ‘Medal of Honor’ and its many sequels. Video games (VG) ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Secret Weapons over Normandy’ for which he wrote game scores were massively popular. Giacchino also scored Spielberg’s network movie, ‘Semper Fi’, the series ‘Alias’ and the movie ‘Sin’. ‘The Incredibles’ (Pixar) was a big breakthrough, or, arguably, the television series, ‘Lost’. For your interest and ambient amazement, I’ve tabulated other of Giacchino’s hypernumerous accomplishments at the bottom of this post. Live long and prosper!

• Michael Giacchino website
  
• Giacchino page at Mounsey (U.K.)
  
• Varèse Sarabande
  
• Ross A. Sound and Vision. New Yorker, 27-JUN-2005.
  
• Amazon collection of Michael Giacchino Soundtracks
  
• Giacchino M. Star Trek. (Varese Sarabande, 2009.)
  
• Adorno T, Eisler H. Composing for the Films. Continuum, 2007.
  
• Bacciagalupo C, Plaza E, Donaldson J. Uncovering affinity of artists to multiple genres from social behaviour data. ISMIR, 2008. [1MB pdf]
  
• Barthes R. Image-Music-Text. Hill & Wang, 1978.
  
• Bharucha J. Tonality and expectation. In Musical Perceptions. Aiello R, Sloboda J, eds. Oxford Univ, 1994. Pp. 213-39.
  
• Bryant J, Vorderer P, eds. Psychology of Entertainment. Erlbaum, 2006.
  
• Huron D. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. MIT, 2006.
  
• Stevens C, Byron T. Universals in music processing. In Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. Hallam S, Cross I, Thaut M, eds. Oxford Univ, 2009. Pp. 14-23.
  
• Zehnder S, Lipscomb S. The role of music in video games. In Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences. Vorderer P, Bryant J, eds. (Ch. 17) Erlbaum, 2006.

• Land of the Lost (2009)
  
• Partly Cloudy (2009)
  
• Up (2009)
  
• Fringe (19 episodes, 2008-2009)
  
• Lost (92 episodes, 2004-2009)
  
• Earth Days (2009)
  
• Glock (2009)
  
• Fracture (2008) (VG)
  
• Speed Racer (2008)
  
• Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (2008) (VG)
  
• Medal of Honor: Airborne (2007/I) (VG)
  
• Ratatouille (2007)
  
• Six Degrees (13 episodes, 2006-2007)
  
• Lifted (2006)
  
• Alias (105 episodes, 2001-2006)
  
• What About Brian (4 episodes, 2006)
  
• Mission: Impossible III (2006)
  
• Black (2006) (VG)
  
• Lost: Revelation (2006) (TV)
  
• Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (2005)
  
• The Family Stone (2005)
  
• The Karateguard (2005)
  
• Destination Lost (2005) (TV)
  
• One Man Band (2005)
  
• Sky High (2005)
  
• The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (2005) (TV)
  
• Vowellet: An Essay by Sarah Vowell (2005) (V)
  
• The Incredibles (2004) (VG)
  
• Call of Duty: Finest Hour (2004) (VG)
  
• The Incredibles (2004)
  
• Call of Duty: United Offensive (2004) (VG)
  
• Alias (2004) (VG)
  
• Secret Weapons Over Normandy (2003) (VG)
  
• Phenomenon II (2003) (TV)
  
• Call of Duty (2003) (VG)
  
• String of the Kite (2003)
  
• Medal of Honor: Frontline (2002) (VG)
  
• Redemption of the Ghost (2002)
  
• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002) (VG)
  
• Semper Fi (2001) (TV)
  
• The Trouble with Lou (2001)
  
• Muppet Monster Adventure (2000) (VG)
  
• Los Gringos (1999)
  
• Warpath: Jurassic Park (1999) (VG)
  
• My Brother the Pig (1999)
  
• No Salida (1998)
  
• Legal Deceit (1997)
  
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) (VG)
  
• Donald Duck: Maui Mallard (1995) (VG)
  
• Gargoyles (1995) (VG)

• 2008 Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media (Ratatouille)
  
• 2007 Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for a Short Film (Lifted)
  
• 2007 StreamingSoundtracks.com Award for Composer of the Year
  
• 2005 Emmy Award for Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore – Lost)
  
• 2004 IFMCA Award for Score of the Year (The Incredibles)
  
• 2004 IFMCA Award for Composer of the Year
  
• 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards for Excellence in Audio (Call of Duty)
  
• 2003 Game Developers Choice Awards for Excellence in Audio (Medal of Honor: Allied Assault)
  
• 2003 Interactive Achievement Awards for Original Music Composition (Medal of Honor: Frontline)
  
• 2001 Interactive Achievement Awards for Original Music Composition (Medal of Honor: Underground)