jwilzewske: pedagogy

Showing posts with label pedagogy. Show all posts

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Xenakis Matters

Xenakis, photo (c)1999 Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

T he Demiurge (1) creates from an intuition of Good; (2) takes disorder and friction and waste and makes it orderly and efficient, so far as is possible to do; (3) places Reason within the soul, and the cosmic soul within the cosmic body; (4) models the cosmos on the form of a generalized sentient lifeform, i.e., an animal with moral standing; (5) creates the cosmic body on principles of geometric proportionality; (6) creates the world soul out of population-level sameness and difference; (7) blends these into a durable alloy; and (8) divides the alloy into useful, value-generating harmonic intervals.”
— Plato’s ‘Timaeus’, quoted by Eric Lewis in Kanach, p. 81.

U nlike Schoenberg, who controls and organizes his music at the level of the individual note, Xenakis works at the level of the whole population [of all notes, taken together, as a sound-mass].”
— Brian Kane, in Kanach, p. 97.

T he new book, ‘Xenakis Matters’, the latest in the multi-author, multi-volume series edited by Sharon Kanach and published by Pendragon, provides a superb and many-faceted view of the enduring impacts of composer-artist-architect-engineer Iannis Xenakis, who died in 2001. Sharon Kanach is Vice-President of Centre Iannis Xenakis in France and Founder and President of the Xenakis Project of the Americas of the Brook Center at CUNY. She served as Xenakis’s assistant for two decades prior to his death in 2001.

X enakis was an iconic, formative influence on me, even though I encountered him and his teaching only for a short while in 1972. Xenakis was then still on the faculty at Indiana University at Bloomington in 1972... IU with its beautiful-and-powerful-and-then-new Control Data 6600 computer, sylvan wooded paths of the campus, and its quiet, clear-flowing limestone creek so incongruous with the intensity of the University and the minds gathered there.

S pringtime 1972 was, I suppose, before many of us recognized that the Sixties were over. It was when students at the University of Minnesota were protesting the War and barricading Washington Avenue with piles of lumber set on fire, an incendiary deconstructionist action undertaken not far from the School of Architecture where I attended Xenakis’s lectures.

S pring 1972 was when my life still straddled music and engineering equally—and when Xenakis, his music, his cross-disciplinary, fusion-avid compositional methods and materials, and his talks and writings were the epitome of innovation—his compelling, unifying vision a convergence of nature, science, engineering, and art.

H is mathematical models as automatic generating functions—not only for making music but for representing it—where equations accomplished this in a manner so much more compact than mere notes on paper could ever do: so crystalline, the beauty of this.

T he idea becomes the machine that makes the art .”
— Sol Lewitt.

H is programmatic transformations of acoustic forms and found-sounds—embodying a mode of creativity beyond pitch and rhythm and traditional music pedagogy—a random and happenstantial process can nonetheless have statistical self-similar or fractal properties across the ensemble of parts/voices and across time, and can manifest and evoke specific, real meanings.

C an order be established from noise? Well, your music was the first to discover this.”
— philosopher Michel Serres, remark during Xenakis’s PhD thesis defense.

H is physicality and love of ‘immersive’ media and sonic productions—in which the raw and elemental and cranked-up challenged us to (re-)discover the boundaries between Nature and the human.

H is famous book, ‘Formalized Music’, wherein he referred to some of his work as the musical equivalent of the “phenomena of a political crowd... protesters forming a human ‘river’, and their shouted messages propagating from front to back, comprehensible to an observer situated at a distance from the crowd but often not coherent, as such, to individuals within the crowd”.

I ’ve spent the 40 years since then in very different ways than I would have imagined, most of them doing software engineering. But the maieutic* debt that I owe to Iannis Xenakis as an important teacher in my life is great. [*uncovering through analysis; eliciting knowledge by provoking or questioning; assisting-in-coming-into-being; midwifing]

I suppose only as we get older do we really begin to appreciate/apprehend the entire cycle of Life. There is a sense of totality to life and its review, a summing-up. The emphasis is on the ‘examined life’, on how we assess our life and how we have lived it, and assess what truth we have synthesized from the events that have accumulated, from our own efforts and decisions, and from the acts of others and how they have filled and inhabited our lives.

A powerful mixture of emotions—happy memories; regret; guilt; 40 years’ longing and loss—is part of what this book caused to well-up in me—part of what will lead me to read and re-read this volume in years to come. The poignancy of what is remembered so vividly across the decades is staggering. I become reattached to my past as it is reanimated by these authors on these pages.

S ignificant for many readers besides me, though, is how this book works as historiography—revealing how life crystallizes itself in the artifacts that remain in us, emblems of the impact that others have had on us.

I n hindsight, it’s impossible to exaggerate Iannis’s importance to my development, as a person and as an engineer. While insisting on holding students to high standards, he also took an active, personal interest in each one’s well-being. Puckish and provocative, but always seeming to accurately gauge the limits of each. Xenakis’s legendary generosity/hospitality/charity is part of his legacy and, no doubt, a major reason why he is remembered so vividly by so many people, even ones like me who only encountered him briefly.

R emembering now Iannis Xenakis’s smiling face, remembering his exuberance and enthusiasm—how he confided his uncertainties about what some of his music meant, while he simultaneously professed that each motive and pattern did have meaning(s), however ineffable those meanings may be; how he excitedly expressed his ideas and showed his students how to make them work, or, at a minimum, how to believe sufficiently in the possibility so that they fearlessly strived to make it happen—redeems me a bit from my long history of sinning by transience and forgetting.

G enuine problems are... both necessary and impossible. Possibility arrives right when you no longer expect it. That is what an ‘event’ really is.”
— Alain Badiou, quoted by Olga Touloumi in Kanach, p. 101.

I n summary, reminiscence can be dynamic and creative—it can be productive of new discoveries; reminiscence does not have to be reductionistic or static—and I thank Sharon Kanach and her co-authors for this gift.

A ll of the essays in ‘Xenakis Matters’ are engaging and a joy to read. Each essay advances the scholarship regarding the composer’s ideas and influence. And each conveys the kindness, humanity, and something of the humor and kindly nature that are what I remember of him. Robert Wannamaker’s chapter (pp. 127-141), especially, on math exhorts composers to emulate Xenakis’s use of ‘discretion’ in humanizing the combination of mechanical/programmatic musical elements with human ones, to achieve a synthesis that can touch the heart and move us in valuable or even life-changing ways.

M usic is a mathematical exercise, disguised in such a way that the mind does not realize it is counting.”
— Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

I love this book—for reasons noted above, universal as well as personal. Whether or not you have personal memories of Xenakis as an excellent human being, you will, I’m confident, love the book too.

Recording of Pianist Yuji Takahasi performance of Xenakis’s ‘Herma’

I n 1963 I became [Xenakis’s] composition student. When I showed him my piano piece, he pointed to two sections in the piece and offered me a big eraser... I can still feel the notes of ‘Herma’ at my fingertips. Performing ‘Herma’, I discovered the gravity-free state of sound. It was the feeling of lightness, rather than the violent movement other people surmise from the pianistic virtuosity of the work... I hear through those hundreds of notes—and I sense from them at unexpected moments—something like a voice of the inexplicable.”
— pianist Yuji Takahashi, quoted by Roger & Karen Reynolds in Kanach, p. 13.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Rheingau Musik Festival, Windsbacher Knabenchor at Wiesbaden Marktkirche

N aturgemäß dirigiert er [Lehmann] anders als sein Vorgänger Karl-Friedrich Beringer, aber mit nicht minder intensiver „sprechender” Gestik und Mimik... enorm saubere Intonation, ausgereifte, homogene und ergreifende Piani, flexible Phrasierung, aber auch, wenn nötig, ein raumgreifendes, sattes Fortissimo... ist diese Perfektion nicht Selbstzweck, sondern dient dem musikalischen Ausdruck, der Textausdeutung, der Architektur des Stücks.

[Naturally, Lehmann conducts differently than his predecessor, Karl-Friedrich Beringer, but with no less intense ‘talking’ gestures and facial expressions than he... enormous clean intonation, mature, homogeneous and poignant piani, flexible phrasing, but also, as necessary, an expansive, lush fortissimo... This perfection is not an end in itself but serves the musical expression, the interpretation of the text, the architecture of the piece.]”
— Klaus Kalchschmid, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 07-MAY-2012.

S ing Bach and Mendelssohn in the dwindling twilight, with your dark blue suits and brilliant white shirts and long necktie or bowtie depending on your tenure with the choir.

S ing without ambition or guile. Sing like your sound can fix all that is wrong with the world, as it seems now very plausible to us in the audience that it can. Yes, we are sure of it.

O h, and yes, sing, if you can manage it, when your choirmate behind you on the 5-tier risers has just had the audacity/impudence to hoist your underwear and give you a ‘snuggy’ while Martin Lehmann is looking down at his score preparing to embark on the next piece, in this concert that is being recorded for CD. The smiles of your neighbors reveal how hard it is for them to maintain their facial and vocal composure amid such hilarity and extreme risk.

Y ou and some of your fellow singers in the choir have dead-on perfect pitch; some have a vocal maturity beyond their years; some of the younger ones have an innocent sound that will soon be lost as their experience of the world accumulates.

T he unstoppable beauty of your sound in this 2-hour concert is nearly impossible for us to bear. Afterward, we walk in the dark over the cobblestones back to our hotel and think about this, grateful for the sonic/spiritual gift you have given to all of us—a miracle of Olympic-level vocal performance and musicianship that seemingly has come without sacrifice of your ineffable boyness or your individual truth.

Holy Dog Water

Thursday, May 17, 2012

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.

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.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Savvy Musicianship: Marti Epstein’s ‘Troubled Queen’

W hen I am painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see [in the painting-in-progress] what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I just try to let it come through.”
— Jackson Pollock.

H ave a listen to Marti Epstein’s new composition, ‘Troubled Queen’:

I t’s a 21-minute piece for mixed ensemble consisting of flute, bass clarinet, trombone, 2 violins, viola, cello, piano, and percussion—commissioned by the Callithumpian Consort, and premièred on 19-DEC-2011 at New England Conservatory in Boston.

B rooding, dark, and pulsatile... inspired by Jackson Pollock’s brooding, dark, pulsatile 1945 painting of the same name, one of the holdings of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

C allithumpian Consort was founded by Stephen Drury in the 1990s and is dedicated to the proposition that music should be, and is, an ‘experience’. The ensemble is deeply committed to supporting new music. Besides frequent performances of new music, Callithumpian also seeks to foster a vibrant and financially sustainable environment for composers and composing, and has commissioned many compositions over the past 15 years.

I would say that the composition students here are not composing jazz. Specifically, they’re not composing commercial music; they’re not composing ‘jingles’. They may be composing film music, because we have a lot of dual majors. They’re usually composing music that’s artistically interesting and specifically for the concert hall... To graduate [from Berklee], students have to have a portfolio of pieces and—very important—they have to have a certain number of these pieces performed. Because one of the aspects of a composer’s training is, how do you get people to play your music? So we try to get them to start doing that right away.”
— Marti Epstein.

I hope her composition students had a chance to attend the première. Epstein leads by example. She doesn’t play musical ‘hardball’ with the listener or with the performers but instead pitches balls that are hittable, ‘accessible’. Not predictable or ‘easy’ pitches, surely. But captivating; natural; intuitive; emotionally moving and ‘fair’, not off-putting. This new ‘Troubled Queen’ is emblematic of the practical philosophy Epstein expresses in her remarks on Berklee’s website (quote above).

W hen I’m asked the inevitable question ‘What kind of music do you write?,’ I am always embarrassingly at a loss for words. Musicians want to know details of my harmonic language: is my music tonal or atonal? Nonmusicians often ask nervously if it sounds ‘modern’. Here’s the best way I can describe it: it is neither tonal nor atonal; I adhere to no preexisting method of pitch or harmony organization. I am more interested in the use of sounds as organizing musical materials than I am in melody or harmonic relationships. I also do not believe that atonality even truly exists; the term was an attempt to describe the music that broke away from Common Practice Tonality... My music is generally slow-paced. I always tell people that ‘You can take the girl out of Nebraska, but you can’t take the Nebraska out of the girl.’ The wide-open spaces that I experienced as a child, not so much in my living environment, but in the many car trips we took to Colorado to see my grandparents, were—and are—an integral part of my artistic psyche... I love living in the East, but I long for the space and expanse of the place in my childhood memories. I feel like my music is an expression of that longing.”
— Marti Epstein.

L ike the Pollock painting for which the piece is named, Epstein’s ‘Troubled Queen’ ably evokes/represents psychiatric illness-as-storm—these looming clouds; this mixture of scary unrealness and can’t-look-away awe; these oppressive feelings that elude attempts to control them. This dark-grey, nightmarish 4-bpm thunder and lightning—or is it a deranged heartbeat? [bradycardic between 07:09 to 09:01, becoming asystolic at 20:30]

T he self-doubts, the dread and anxiety, the fractured esteem: are these contributing ‘causes’ or triggers of depression, or are they merely some associated ‘effects’ or symptoms of the condition? Chaotic arpeggios in the piano part; strokes of blue and green and yellow in the winds and strings and percussion—random sonic hail pelting us unbidden, as if formed by Pollockian flicking: flung up into the air, falling now under the unstoppable force of gravity. Callithumpian Consort members’ playing is sensitive and inspired in capturing this ‘Nature is not kind’ harshness...

G othic interiority. Obscure totems; we’re not sure what they mean or how we got here.
Reduction of life to crashing, heaviness. Primitive glare, no escape.

T he interleaved string, woodwind, and brass passages around 14:00-15:00 are especially poignant, and contribute yet more evidence demonstrating the ‘organic’/biologic origins of depression, disabusing the listener of any misconception he/she might have held regarding the depressed person’s responsibility to ‘prevent’ the condition or exercise more self-control and simply ‘Get better!’ under his/her own steam.

W hat’s more, the 21-minute timescale of this piece offers enough latitude to explore the wide range of colors and cognitive states that characterize moderate-to-severe clinical depression. In other words, this is the sort of subject that demands considerable scope; a ‘miniature’ would not be right at all, and would at best be pastiche, unless it were a cue in a film score, subject to constraints of the script and action. Fully developed in this 21-minute work, the character/subject becomes very real. The suffering/horror this depressed protagonist experiences is fully animated and convincing, and, through the performance, we can’t help but care about this person and about the plight of other such people in society. In summary, this new Marti Epstein composition is a beautiful work: it illustrates not only wonderful artistry and craftsmanship, but also conveys the political and social savvy that ‘the arts’ (artists/musicians, and the supporters who finance them and commission works from them) can have, to bring about wider and deeper appreciation for socially/clinically important issues and provoke concord and action to make things better.

E very so often, a painter has to ‘destroy’ painting. Picasso did it; Pollock; numerous others, too. And every so often, a composer has to destroy composing. Here, Epstein smashes conventional ideas of a composition—as John Cage and many others have done. But this ‘Troubled Queen’ is very clearly a composition—and a very beautiful, moving one at that.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Guided imagery in music training and performance

I n order to have fast mobility and clarity on left-hand fingers, string players have to train their fingers to have these 3 elements when dropping their left-hand fingers on the fingerboard: speed; strength; and the fast release right after the drop. The 3 elements on the left-hand fingers take training to build up the strength of the muscles and the speed of the reflex of the fast release. Of course, any ‘tool’ that we gain from our technical training is ultimately to be used to create music that would touch listeners. Sometimes when musicians concentrate too much on technical elements, their music tends to be too mechanical, too careful, and lacks emotion. By contrast, when musicians concentrate on being musical, it actually helps the technical things. For example, whenever I feel my fingers stiffen in fast passages, I always find thinking something light and bubbly helps to increase my fingers’ lightness, mobility, and fast articulations. Whenever I try to sustain a long note [and yet try to musically project vitality and suspense, despite the temporary absence of pitch-change or the lack of overt dynamics changes while the note lasts], I remind myself about the struggles and tension of the music. Whenever I try to create smooth bow changes, I often picture a [calligraphy] paint brush changing its direction, instead of which muscle to move first!” — Jackie Lee, Heartland Music Academy, 2012.

I n reply to the previous post, I received the helpful advice above.

A nother CMT reader emailed me to ask whether there was any scientific research literature that establishes the effectiveness of visual or kinesthetic imagery in music teaching, especially for soloists or chamber performers.

T here’s lots of published research on guided imagery in the neurophysiology and physical medicine and rehab literature—and in the lit for research on aging and stroke. Quite a lot in the dance and sports medicine lit. But there are not very many published controlled research studies in music performance/pedagogy lit, so far as I can tell.

I will continue looking; please feel free to add comment below or email me if there is a reference that you like.

M eanwhile, here are some links to work that’s relevant to this.

T he left arm functions, to a large extent, by 'walking' on the fingers. In actual walking, torso balance shifts forward, and it is caught on top of the moving legs. For the cellist's left arm, a similar balance can be felt when the upper arm shifts and must be caught by another finger or the arm will fall over... This ‘walking’ image can be strengthened by imagining that the fingerboard is a staircase... Picturing this helps you feel that your balance is aligned in the Earth's gravity, even though your fingers look angled-back in relation to the surface of the fingerboard.” — Jeffrey Solow, cellist, quoted in Bruser, p. 121.

I n automatic or cyclical movements, actual and motor imagery (MI) durations are similar. When athletes imagine only the dynamic phases of movement or perform MI just before competing, however, the environmental and time constraints lead to underestimating the actual duration [and the benefits of the guided imagery are diminished, despite the speed and ease with which the imagery for brief or cyclical movements is called up]. Conversely, complex attention-demanding movements take longer to image [and so guided imagery for complex movements has impediments to its effectiveness, even if duration over/underestimation does not occur].” — Aymeric Guillot, 2005.

T he bilateral frontal opercular regions [in the brain] are crucial in both preparation for and during music execution and imagining. They may have ‘mirror neuron’ properties that underlie observation or imagining of one’s own performance. The motor areas are differentially activated during the preparation and execution or imagining the sequence.” — Rumyana Kristeva, 2003.

D uring execution of musical sequences in professional musicians, a higher economy of motor areas [in the brain] frees resources for increased connectivity between the finger sequences and auditory as well as somatosensory loops, which may account for the superior musical performance. Professionals also demonstrated more focused activation patterns during imagined musical performance.” — Martin Lotze, 2003.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Hans Zimmer & Co. save Holmes, entropically

I t’s the furiously melodic likes of Gladiator, The Lion King, Inception, Batman Begins, Dark Knight Rises, Pirates of the Caribbean, Kung Fu Panda, and Sherlock Holmes that’s elevated film music to a thing of rocking beauty, as Zimmer and his team have employed every oddball instrument and influence from Gustav Holst, Lebo M. and the sound of bat wings into percussively thematic adrenalin.”
— Daniel Schweiger, 2011.

I f you ask me, Zimmer’s score rescues Sherlock Holmes (and Guy Ritchie et al.) in the new ‘A Game of Shadows’ film.

Z immer and his composer-orchestrator colleagues at Remote Control Productions created a beautiful and varied score that augments the color and vista of the film, lending atmosphere, scope, and interest to what otherwise could seem predictable. Never gets in the way of what the script and imagery are doing, but never merely reinforces or sonically reiterates what’s been said or shown.

B ut more than this, I am really thrilled with the tempi and the rhythmic architecture of this score. I got the soundtrack and listened to it several times, measured the tempi bar-by-bar in each of the cues, and created a spreadsheet of the values (see jpeg above). I also put an EKG on myself and digitized my heartrate during each listening. Not only did my heartrate adapt to each of the tempo changes, but the heart rate variability (HRV, using the simple RMSSD metric) also synced with Zimmer’s music. Empirically, I suspect that that “N-of-1” experiment is indicative of why this music “works”—physiologic response “pulls” cognition, rather than the other way around.

S ee the book by Bacci and Melcher (link below) for more on phase-locking and rhythmic ‘entrainment’ of breathing, heartbeat, and other physiologic rhythms, syncing with music.

S ince I’d captured the tempo timeseries, I decided to do some other calculations on it, too. I used the open-source R system’s package ‘entropy’ (link below) to calculate the Miller-Madow, James-Stein, Tsallis, Chao-Shen, and Shannon/Jeffreys entropy values. The entropy of the timeseries of tempi for these 18 cues is H = 2.72... pretty high... indicating a substantial amount of variability/unpredictability/interestingness. If you do entropy calcs for “bad” or ineffective film scores (as I happened to do several times last summer), you get much lower values, H between about 1.10 and 1.90.

M ost film schools don't even mention music, much less compare examples of good and bad scoring.”
— Richard Bellis, 2006, p. 8.

T he cues’ titles (track-names) collect words and phrases from the screenplay that are cadential—perfect rhythmic-harmonic demarcations of the narrative arc and plotting. It’s clear that Zimmer applied an admirable amount of objectivity in the spotting session, to inject material that adds considerable depth to the character or the story without the material asserting itself as a vehicle for his own ego.

T he score (Die Forelle; The Red Book; Moral Insanity) makes Robert Downey Jr’s Holmes more alert and angry when he is facing Jared Harris’ Moriarty. The score (He’s All ‘Me! Me! Me!’) makes Jude Law’s Dr. Watson all the more hapless as he gets unwillingly caught up in the plot.

T he producers and Guy [Ritchie, the director] and Jude [Law, co-star] and I got together and tried to have it feel like an extension of what we think brotherhood is—the bickering and miscommunications are part of something that aspires to something higher.”
— Robert Downey Jr., Scotland BigIssues Magazine 05-DEC-2011.

A Game of Shadows’ stands as a valentine to the public-school buccaneer. It provides Ritchie with a licence to run wild with Gypsies, trade punches with cossacks, or just generally arse about in expensive hotels. It gives us anarchy as panto and global espionage in the guise of a homoerotic stag weekend.”
— Xan Brooks, The Guardian.

I n other words, Zimmer’s score truly ‘services’ the film’s narrative, neither over-writing nor under-writing. Naturally, given the big-action subject matter in this film, there are lots of huge orchestral cues. But there are more than half of the cues that are intimate, chamber-like pieces.

M any think that what we do is ‘Art’. I disagree. Music is an art form. Film music is a craft with its roots in art. Art is a form of self-expression, and the last thing a director wants is some composer coming in and expressing him/herself all over the director’s film.”
— Richard Bellis, 2006, p. 69.

F olk idioms in the Romani melodies (doina repeated-note gesture of lament), pentatonicism, Phrygian scale with the second and third scale degrees raised when ascending, and fraigish harmonic minor, flying-staccato, alla zingarese poco a poco accelerandos “hallgató/lassú-közép gyors-friss" (e.g., Kesergö or or verbunkos or csárdás style in ‘It’s So Overt, It’s Covert’; ‘Romanian Wind’) to breakneck speeds, acrobatic violin with pitches bending and glissing, and the tone growling and crying ... great colla parte tempo-leading.

T he Hungarian hallgató of the ‘Did You Kill My Wife?’ brass band is superb.

G ee, this soundtrack is an admirable thing! The tremolos begin slowly, and the accelerandi melt into the flourishes so that they sound like one gesture—far bigger ones than you imagined when they began. The playing and conducting are excellent throughout. Precisely nailing the tempo variations, yet sounding totally organic while remaining faithful to meter. Very, very nice!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Schools above the Ground: Music of the Spanische Hofreitschule Wien

A n impressive performance this morning by Lippizaner horses and their riders at the Spanische Hofreitschule Wien. Such grace and rhythmic artistry by all!

Favory Trompeta / Zimmermann
Pluto Favorita / Oberhauser
Pluto Medea / Burg
Conversano Bellamira / Zimmermann
Maestoso Beja I / Zeithofer
Favory Gidrane / Egger
Pluto Bellornata / Eder
Neapolitano Gaetana / Rothleitner
Conversano Undine I / Burg
Maestoso Basowizza / Zimmermann
Maestoso Calzedona / Eder
Pluto Riga / Rothleitner-Schreiner
Conversano Bonavoja / Zimmermann
Favory Dagmar II / Oberhauser
Maestoso Biondella / Burg
Favory Duba / Zimmermann
Favory Dagmar / Zimmermann
Siglavy Recolta / Rothleitner
Pluto Blanketta / Schreiner
Conversano Darinka / Zimmermann
Pluto Theodorosta / Oberhauser
Favory Wanda / Burg
Siglavy Dubovina II / Zimmermann

I nteresting to note that each rider generally trains and stays with each horse throughout the horse’s life after the horse comes to the SRS at age 4 to 6 years. Interesting, too, to note that the SRS riders are promoted from ‘Eleve/Elevin’ (apprentice/student) to ‘assistant rider’ level after not less than about 4 years.

P resenter Georgina Whittle gave animated and informative introductions to each of the 5 15-minute program segments, ending with the Schulequadrille.

Schubert – Militärmarsch No. 1 in D major
Schantl – Schmiedeck Fanfare
Strauss (sohn) – Wiener Blut
Boccherini – Menuett
Schantl – Andrassy Fanfare
Walch – Pariser Einzugsmarsch
Ziehrer – Schönfeldsmarsch
Fucik – Regimentskinder
Bizet – Aus der Arlésienne Suite No. 2
Chopin – Polonaise No. 1 in A major
Haydn – Aus der Symphonie No. 101
Traditional – Österreichischer Grenadiermarsch
Strauss (vater) – Radetzky Marsch

T he horses’ executions of the patterns in the dressage ring were astonishingly precise in the synchronization to the music. The tempi of the chamber orchestras who performed on the recordings for these exhibitions are chosen to be compatible with the natural/comfortably-feasible velocities and cadences of the horses. Animals that have served in domesticated roles for centuries clearly love to have meaningful, artistically beautiful roles to play—honest jobs. Their expressions show genuine satisfaction—they clearly enjoy their own achievements. In other words, they do it not just for the sugar-lumps, and not just to be compliant with human ‘masters’. It was wonderful, just wonderful to watch this. Pirouettes! Piaffes! Levades! Caprioles! Bravo!

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.