jwilzewske: improvisation

Showing posts with label improvisation. Show all posts

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Jan Beran’s ‘Winter711’, fractional Brownian motifs, long-range interdependence

D reams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again. And this interdependence produces the highest form of living.”
— Anaïs Nin.

A new year; an occasion for us to meditate on how our mutual feelings and actions—our own; those of friends and family members—are meaningfully intertwined over long stretches of time.

H ere’s an MP3 of Jan Beran (piano) and Christopher Raphael (oboe) performing Beran’s ‘Winter 711’. Beautiful and evocative of long-range interdependence/entanglement.

I f you’re interested, some of the mathematical underpinnings of the compositional method used to create ‘Winter 711’ can be found in the links below. Happy New Year!

I believe it is not possible to coordinate musical parts in a purely responsive manner. That is, a system that simply triggers its events on the detection of notes in the solo part will perform badly in most musical contexts. This is due, in part, to the inherent detection latency that is built into the problem which makes the responsive system perpetually late. Instead, Music++ schedules the accompaniment’s note times by continually predicting into the future based on what it has currently observed.”
— Chris Raphael, Indiana Univ.

J an says of ‘Winter711’ that he tried to avoid any familiar sense of musical flow. In other words Jan’s music doesn’t give the performer (and listener) the usual cues needed to rhythmically organize the music. While the music is sometimes highly rhythmic, many sections contain no recognizable steady pulse, nor clear points of emphasis whose times differ in simple ways, as in much mixed meter music. While I think these pieces are engaging on their own terms, they work as a wonderful showcase for the [sequencer] accompaniment system, since I doubt they could be played by an all-human ensemble.”
— Chris Raphael, Indiana Univ.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Composing-while-Dancing: EROI Festival, Organ Improvisation, and Embodiment

I mprovising is difficult-] because our current educational system makes it so.”
— William Porter, keynote talk, EROI 2011.

B ecause learning it happens so very late [in the course of pedagogy and acquiring musical skills].”
— Eastman student, quoted by William Porter, EROI 2011.

T he EROI festival this year is centered on the topic of improvisation and opened this afternoon with a stimulating, expansive meditation-cum-keynote-speech by William Porter, entitled ‘Why Is Improvisation So Difficult?’

I t was followed by a breathtaking, virtuosic “triple-header” 8:00 p.m. recital on the Craighead-Saunders organ for a packed-in audience at Christ Church across the street from Eastman School of Music:

Böhm – Praeludium in C; Herr Jesu Christ dich zu uns wend (Chorale Cycle with 6 verses); Hans Davidsson
Hindemith – Organ Sonata No. 1; William Porter
Schumann – Etuden in kanonischer Form für Orgel oder Pedalklavier, Op. 56; David Higgs
Liszt – Präludium und Fuge über den Nahmen B-A-C-H; David Higgs

U p to the mid-18th Century, improvisation was a fundamental skill in which most if not all practicing musicians were adept. Since that time, however, fewer and fewer musicians have felt fluent at improvising extemporaneously.

P orter catalogued the concepts and situations that he believes lead many musicians today to find improvising difficult. He averred that because genres and idioms are today so tremendously diverse, it is difficult to teach improvisation as ‘compositional performance’ insofar as it is not humanly possible for one person to be fully fluent in what constitutes improvisation in more than a few genres/idioms. It was far easier when the prevailing idioms/use-cases/purposes of the music were few in number and the contexts for the improvisation (e.g., liturgical/sacred music) were more structured.

F oremost among the reasons why improvisation has become ‘hard,’ Porter says, is that counterpoint, voice-leading, and harmony are in recent decades taught in ‘classroom’ settings, primarily as paper-based exercises in writing, instead of as practical performance on a keyboard instrument (or any other instrument, including voice). Student musicians only rarely these days develop any ‘muscle memory’ for improvisation per se, so that the body—the fingers, the hands, the diaphragm, the whole body—knows how to execute improvisation as a sort of ‘compositional performance’. Porter exhorted the teachers in the audience to amend the curriculum to impart such kinesthetic knowledge to students, and to do it from their earliest days when they are kids, just beginners, much in the manner that would be done with dancers or other kinds of athletes.

S ome book links are gathered below, for your interest, in the spirit of Porter’s remarks about embodiment, kinesthetics, and corporality in improvisation. Especially noteworthy is Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra’s new two-volume treatise ‘Bach and the Art of Improvisation’ (link below).

W hat a fantastic EROI Festival this will be, crafting the future of organ improvisation and improvisation pedagogy!

W e must kill the twin demons of ‘originality’/‘novelty’ and ‘imitation’: these ultimately lead to paralysis and inhibit improvisation. Instead, we must teach the student how to be compelling, how to be convincing. It is better to be ‘interesting’ than to be original. The integrity of saying something with conviction, and of being spontaneously responsive to other musicians and to the audience—is what we really mean by ‘improvisation’. We must teach them to prepare—to prepare to take advantage of the unexpected when it happens.”
— William Porter, keynote talk, EROI 2011.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Processionals: Repetitions, Situational Minimalism, and Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’

T he kind of learning that will define the 21st Century is not taking place in a classroom. Rather, it is happening all around us, everywhere. We call this the new culture of learning... a fluid infrastructure where everything is constantly creating and responding to change... This new type of learning process is a cultural phenomenon that underlies a large number of people’s experiences and affects them in myriad ways. It takes place without teachers, without classrooms, and it requires [virtual, networked] environments that are bounded yet provide complete freedom of action within those boundaries.”
— Douglas Thomas & John Seely Brown.

F arewell, the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th’ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality—
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!”
— Shakespeare, Othello, Act III, Scene III.

T here is a big challenge in shaping the performance, vamping as it must for an indeterminate length of time while the procession continues.

T he CCM Brass Quintet did an admirable job sustaining audience interest throughout, projecting every note with the necessary dignity and authority. They varied the dynamics, softer to convey an intimate feeling while still staying audible in the large arena, louder to convey more pomp and aggrandizement. They varied the instrumentation, the round timbre of lower brass to convey a magisterial attitude, the bright timbre of high brass to convey heraldic progress.

T he physical stamina required for what can be a very long performance is considerable, a gauntlet made all the more risky to run insofar as there are only five of you (or 4 at a time, if trumpets are alternating). The thing then amounts to a 20-min quartet or, in some passages, amounts to a trio or duet ordeal, depending on the arrangement.

W hen you are repeating and repeating the same short passage for 20+ minutes, there is a natural temptation to embark on small improvisations or decorate some figures a little. Somewhat like turning a word over and over in your mind until it looks nonsensical or silly, or until finally you wonder how the word was ever coined or came to be associated with the thing it names ... tangelo, tan-gelo, tan-ge-lo, tange-lo... t’angel-o.

T he CCM Brass Quintet played nice little fanfares throughout, for all of the graduates. But when graduates of the conservatory (CCM) approached the lectern, the Quintet’s fanfares mutated into ones that were longer by several ostentatious bars, with dilatory flourishes and a grand unpredictability… droll extra service, musicians proclaiming the specialness of other musicians, heh!

E stablishing a strong relationship with a faculty mentor is one of the most important factors in determining the success one achieves as a graduate student. Faculty members “know the ropes,” so to speak, and their guidance on research, and on professional and personal conduct, can be invaluable. Typically, a faculty mentor is someone whose research interests are similar to those of the student. As such, the mentor can be an excellent source for ideas and can serve as an informed reviewer of and advocate for the student’s work.

F or those who have succeeded in establishing a strong relationship with a faculty mentor, the prospect of that relationship changing—or becoming more distant—contributes to the tumult of emotions that well-up during the graduation ceremony. Well, not to worry, usually moving away and the resulting absence make the hearts grow stronger. They will remember you fondly, more fondly than when you were slaving away, nearly for free, in their face everyday.

F or those whose mentors’ neuroses aligned in perfectly perverse way with the mentees’ neuroses, graduation may feel like a long, badly-written fugue has concluded. Begin your next Prelude, ASAP, with Pomp and Circumstance marches played by brass quintet:

March No. 1 in D (1901)
March No. 2 in A minor (1901)
March No. 3 in C minor (1904)
March No. 4 in G (1907)
March No. 5 in C (1930)
March No. 6 in G minor

Elgar Chamber Music:

Romance for violin and piano, Op. 1 (1878)
Salut d’Amour for violin and piano, Op. 12 (1888)
Chanson de Nuit and Chanson de Matin for violin and piano, Op. 15 Nos. 1 and 2 (1897/1899).
Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 (1918)
String Quartet in E minor, Op. 83 (1918)
Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84 (1918–1919)
Concert Allegro, piano, Op. 46 (1901)
Organ Sonata in G, Op. 28 ()

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Luca Guglielmi and Ovid’s Harpsichord at Midnight

T he late-night BEMF program last night was organized around themes from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’:

Louis Couperin - Prelude & Passacaille in C major (Bauyn m.s.)
Francois Couperin - La Regente ou la Minerve; L'Atalante; Les Silvains
Girolamo Frescobaldi - Cento Partite sopra Passacagli
Baldassare Galuppi - Sonata in E minor, Op. 2, No. 3
Dieterich Buxtehude - Praeludium in G minor (BuxWV 163)
Johann K.F. Fischer - Passacaglia in D minor (Suite ‘Urania’)
J.S. Bach - Prelude, Fuga & Allegro in E-flat major (BWV 998)

I especially enjoyed Guglielmi’s varied treatment of the cadences in the Buxtehude, emphasizing a diversity of rhetorical aims and composerly intentions and showcasing widely-varied articulations in Baroque form.

I n keeping with the theme of Ovid’s rhetoric, Buxtehude’s Praeludia embody architectural structures that are parallel to the ‘Dispositio’ in the Classics, basically a forensic method or form for conducting oratory: (1) ‘Exordium’, the orator capturing his audience, (2) ‘Narratio’, the orator presenting salient facts of the case, (3) ‘Confirmatio’, the orator explaining evidence and logical proofs, and (4) ‘Peroratio’, the orator passionately expressing the logical conclusions that are justified by steps (1) through (3).

I n harpsichord rhetoric as in spoken oration, the orator/composer/harpsichordist has the latitude to insert a ‘Digressio’ here and there. An extra ‘Exordio’ or a ‘Peroratio may optionally be inserted to reinforce a point here and there as well.

I n Buxtehude’s Praeludium in G minor, a wild, improvisatory, mind-blowing ‘stylus phantasticus’ prevails—not only in the ‘Exordium’ but elsewhere—and this is what can really make audience members gasp, emotionally caught-up as they are in the thing.

O ur minds were thoroughly convinced by objective forensic and evidentiary harpsichord arguments, but hearing and seeing the emotional ‘finish’ is what captures our hearts’ imagination! Guglielmi’s account of the Buxtehude ‘Peroratio’ was given in an all-out, athletic toccata style, more like a winning jockey-and-racehorse than the closing statements of a dramatic, rhetoric-genius trial lawyer.

T he whole peformance was gorgeous and elicited a prompt standing ovation at the end from the large, appreciative midnight BEMF audience.

B onus vignette: It was beautiful to see Guglielmi pat his harpsichord on the right-hand "cheek" of its body, on the wood to the right of the keyboard following a couple of these very difficult pieces, as if to thank it for its performance. The gesture resembled nothing so much as that of a jockey, patting the horse after winning a big stakes race. Or a human master petting the much-loved dog or other companion animal.

T he 2-manual instrument by William Dowd, on loan from James Nicolson, is one based on a Ruckers Franco-Flemish design of 1628 and it bears this inscription on its lid: “Saltatur me canente ... ubi melos, nec ibi mali” which I believe means something like: “Dance as I sing ... ever sweet, never sour.” Or was it ‘canum’ instead of ‘canente'’? ... “Turn me tummy-up like a beloved pet dog ... always well-behaved, never bad.”

L uca Guglielmi was born in Turin in 1977, where he studied music and humanities. He studied Composition with Alessandro Ruo Rui, and Choral Music and Choral Conducting with Sergio Pasteris at the Conservatory "G. Verdi" of Turin. In 1999 he was chosen to participate in the Extraordinary Course in Conducting under the direction of Carlo Maria Giulini at the Fiesole Music School. He has served as harpsichordist and organist with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale di Torino. His study of the harpsichord has been diverse, with Patrizia Marisaldi among others and most recently under Ton Koopman. He studied organ with Vittorio Bonotto, piano accompaniment (including lieder) with Eros Cassardo. When he was 20 he was invited by Jordi Savall to join his ensembles Hesperion XX (now XXI). Guglielmi teaches harpsichord, organ and orchestra at courses at Urbino, Pamparato, San Feliu de Guixols (Catalonia) e Barbaste (France).

L ast night’s 11:15 p.m. recital in the atmospheric sanctuary of Boston’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church was financially supported by Ruth M. McKay and Don Campbell. Bravo!