Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

This piece and the performance is really phenomenal. (it’s like I say this eveytime but I really mean it when I say it.)

I was tempted to write about the piece that Jesse brought on Monday, especially about the piece about the match girl. The texture was really interesting. The progression from the warm sound to the huge , intense hallucination sound was clear and natural. However, I think the piece I heard tonight was also great and somehow more approachable.

The piece overall was unpredictable, had a lot of contrast and was influenced by minimalism. The starting of the first movement was beautiful and solemn,with the cello and piano repeting the same line for a few minutes. Then, all of a sudden, the piece almost exploded with great intensity, the sound was so strong that my chair was vibrating crazily. And the whole movement felt like it was greatly influenced by minimalism, having some subtle shifts between the lines. Also, I can’t quite remember exactly the piece, however, there was some triangular relationships among the three intruments. Sometimes the cello and the piano were playing the same bar while sometime it was the clarinet and the piano were in sync.But the most interesting part was the ending where the intensity almost dropped immediately and then the movement went back to the starting point, give me a sense that the piece held itself together tightly.

The movement I liked the most was the second movement. It began with the beautiful clarinet sound that almost gave me a sense of the countryside. The piano in the background was stable, only playing chords with several (not so) subtle shifts. The intensity of the notes was also handled expertly that the first part of the movement was really fluid and gorgeous. Then the cello joined in,although soft and smooth at first, quickly lifted the piece into another peak. Then the cello and the clarinet were, like the first movement, playing the same line and went on to a point where I thought the piece was about to fall, but it went on, to a even more strong point, then beautifully spiralled with two beautifully arranged notes and the cello and the clarinet went on again. That was really a (long-ish) cool spot of the piece. The sound mass was strong and bright enough to blind me sonically.

The whole piece was really magnificent although there were only three instruments. I couldn’t remember more of the details, however, the rest of the piece was also great with some changes in piano notes, and ended in a peaceful way. The piece was just great. And great performance!

Along the same lines as what Prof. Alegant sent us in his last email… I’d like to concur that modern music is incredibly complex. When Levine gave us a presentation of his music… I began to grapple with another issue of modern music… the actual performance of it. Following the score and just trying to understand and follow the notation is very dificult… similarly it takes significant effort to understand the music as a listener. “But,” I thought, “to play it must be impossible!” I’m here at Oberlin to recieve a performance degree as a percussionist… and I can’t imagine how difficult it is to learn contemporary music. I don’t see how my journey as a performer will ever allow me to do such musically and technically difficult things. Basically, I’m insecure and don’t know if I can do it. However, I think I might be overanalyzing the situation. Levine described to me the polyrhythms that looks so complicated on the page as “written rubato” and in that sense… I feel they might be achievable. Further, I can imagine that with playing contemporary music… there are certain skills which you would hone and refine specific to that style of music. This happens in other styles too. For example playing 1 handed baroque trills on the marimba–if you don’t play lots of Baroque music… that particular skill is quite daunting. But, if all you do is play the Bach sonnata and partitas… you’ll foreseeably get quite good at one handed trills. Similaraly, if you play lots of contemporary music, the ability to decipher polyrhytms would become second nature. The strange alternate techniques would be quickly learned and mastered. You could learn to study the score efficiently, pulling out the important things–deciding what can and can’t be played. So, maybe my fear of playing contemporary music is nothing more than fear of the unknown… just like the fear I had of contemporary music before this class.

Josh Levine’s visit to class was really enjoyable for me. A good deal of the music we listen to in class is very abstract, and I found it really rewarding to have the composer in class to answer questions and provide insight into his composition. Levine’s stuff is very cool but also very out, and it’s fascinating to get a peek at the creative process (though I’m sure this is something that’s nearly impossible to articulate for him) and how certain ideas were fleshed out. I always find it really interesting to hear an artist talk about not only his own work but art itself. It enhances the listening experience immensely, and also makes you hear other things differently. I especially liked what Levine said about a piece of music being just that, a “piece” of this huge, unending idea of organized sound that exists beyond the capacity of humans within the universe. I was thinking about this idea when listening to a record I hadn’t heard in a long time, guitarist Dusan Bogdanovic’s “Mysterious Habitats.” First of all, if you haven’t heard of him, definitely check him out. I regret not playing any of his stuff when presenting music in class. He’s a classical guitarist, but by no means does he stick to traditional ideas. The only thing classical about him is his instrument. Bogdanovic’s compositions are incredibly original; he has a true knack for creating beautifully colorful compositions. On this record, a section is devoted to a song cycle he calls “Seven Little Secrets,” which are just that - seven microcompositions, ranging from forty seconds to two or three minutes in length. These pieces are simply wonderful little peeks into the mind of Bogdanovic, little whimsical ideas you can tell just float around his head. Thinking about Levine’s idea of a piece of music made my listening to this series of ideas exponentially more enjoyable, thinking about how Bogdanovic might extrapolate these ideas and turn them into broader works, or what sorts of directions he might go in if the piece were longer. It’s a really great record, and I’d be happy to get anyone a copy of it. Definitely worth hearing.

Wednesday and Thursday of this week I spent some time at the Cat listening to some small jazz ensembles. My favorite thing about coming to Oberlin is that so many of my peers are artistically active, especially musically so. Some of the kids who played really just blew my mind. I was especially impressed with Mike King, a piano player. He really has an amazing ability to listen to what everyone else is playing and react off of them. If you guys ever have free time when there are performances going on, I highly suggest attending. It is just so exciting to me to have such quality music so accessible. Thursday night there were four different groups that played. They each had a very distinct sound, and it was really easy to get lost in the music. I ended up spending three and a quarter hours Thursday night stuck on a couch enjoying free jazz music. I know I already said it, but I really think you guys should all make an effort to see as many concerts as possible while you’re here. The music on campus is consistently really awesome.

I think that the discussion that we had on Wednesday was the best we’ve had in a while.  We were just into it, and some interesting points were thrown out there.  I was think about it after, and just wanted to add a thought of my own.  I agree with what Jackson was saying - how many (a majority of) people only want to hear what’s familiar, only want to hear the things that they already know, sampled over and over again.  The more widely circulated and more often heard the song, the bigger the cheer it gets in concert.  And yeah, I agree that being closed-minded and hostile to new music isn’t a good thing… But I was thinking about that very point while I was running, listening to a favorite song from years ago, and I found that there is another spin off of this point.  Although there may not that much debate about what I’m about to say, I just wanted to put it out there.  As I was running, I just had a playlist going, because who wants to be searching for songs to listen to while exercising, and it was on shuffle, so I didn’t know what song was coming up next… And as it switched, I knew right away what it was.  Despite the freezing cold I started to smile, and to run faster.  It was Shed a Little Light, by James Taylor, an uplifting tune that I’ve been hearing probably since before I was born.  It’s one of my Mom’s favorites.  As the song progressed, I fell completely into step with it, and it allowed me to run faster for longer, and by the way enjoy it.  So after the song ended, I was thinking about what caused my burst of energy, and here’s the conclusion that I came to: It’s about a relationship with the song. To me, music is not just a sonic experience. It can be, but generally I’m looking for some sort of emotional response, or some sort of story as well. Because of the versatility and wide scope of music, I don’t think that we can just write people off for never wanting to listen to new things - maybe they are hearing new things, in each story, and in each circumstance that they first hear a song.  And if all they want to hear is familiar music and familiar themes (which seems to be the case), it is perhaps not because they don’t want to hear new things, but just because they have already built a relationship with the songs that they already know and so things outside of strictly the sonic experience give them a greater experience on the whole - emotions, memories, vivid stories, etc.  I’m not saying that I don’t love hearing new things, but when an old favorite comes on, it carries a lot of baggage (usually not a bad thing), and it can get a bigger emotional response, regardless of the complexity of the music. Yeah.

Often whenever a combination of words sounds really pleasing, those will be the ones that stick in my mind for days afterwards, regardless of how pertinent they were to whatever I’d been reading…for example, in Ross’s article “The Record Effect” I came away with “fizz and crackle” tumbling in my mind. He used those words to describe the warm effects of vinyl records, and ever since I’ve been itching to listen to a proper record. A good friend of mine collects records, and we found a  vinyl of assorted versions of R. Kelly’s Remix to Ignition at Goodwill one day. There was an a cappella version, an instrumental track…that find was definitely a high point of our summer. I don’t know if the sound of the record was done justice, as it was played on a vinyl-to-mp3 converter that ultimately piped the songs through computer speakers. I know that many bands choose to release on vinyl even today, despite the near-obscurity of the medium, and combined with the fact that there remain many committed fans of the form (though that might be true of any phased-out product), there must be something really special about records. I also remembered how Ross wrote about recent musicians incorporating those fizzes and pops digitally into their songs to lend them an antiquated feel. While listening to some music on shuffle, I came across about two bands that did just that. I’m thinking of buying a record player, since I’ve always come across interesting looking records at flea markets and garage sales. Do you listen to records? Do you have any recommendations?

In class on Wednesday, I think one of the main ideas the discussion was heading towards was how composers are influenced by other music and how recordings have affected this.  Obviously composers have always been influenced by the music of other composers.  Brahms and Beethoven came up.  Where our discussion was heading, I think, was whether the degree of idea circulation allowed by recording has put a choke hold on musical creativity.  One fear from the article was that eventually we would reach a point where there was no ground yet uncharted, and all music would be regurgitation of the past.  Though I may be biased (I prefer Sgt. Peppers to Rubber Soul and Gould’s later recording of the Goldberg Variations to his earlier one) I don’t think that recording can really have such a negative influence on creativity.  The easy circulation of ideas has lead to an explosion of creativity. Just as Professor Alegant pointed out earlier in the semester, before the mid 20th century, there were clear strands and movements to follow in music, afterwords, it’s the Gordian knot.  As for putting a maximum on the total number of musical ideas possible, there will always be visonaries who can jump out of the system and create something new.  Merzbow is one.  I believe it was an earlier article of Ross’s which told of how Masami Akita simply decided to abandon all of his previous musical training to create an entirely new sound that broke all of the rules.  Were it not for Akita’s easy access to other music, how would he have known what to abandon?  Ultimately, I don’t think we will ever reach the end of musical (or artistic for that matter) creativity. Ever.  The more we explore, the more we will find that has yet to be explored.  Recording simply accelerates the process, just as modern technology has accelerated our learning in everything else.

While listening to the FYSP ipod on shuffle, “I am sitting in a room alone” came about. For some reason i began to fast forward through the song by way of holding down the “next track” button. It caused the song to fast forward in quick skips, and the time between these skips snowballed. The funny thing was, eventually the skips had no seams, it was one. It was still being fast forwarded but I couldn’t tell if I didn’t know I was listening. I just think that it was interesting.

I’ve recently been taking life as a song, and listening to all noises as if they were something that I objectively chose to play. Strangely things have pulse. The library today began to buzz together. There was literally rhythm during some moments, when all the babbling pooled together to create a type of song. Sighs, beeps, typing, small talk, shuffling, sneezes, laughter, feet tapping, the copy machine. Strangely all these things blended into one another. In my active listening my ears began to perk, when I’d hear something faint in the distance my ears would try to hone in on that sound. I never realized how much things reverberate, often I would stop paying attention to a sound as soon as my brain understood what the sound was trying to communicate to me, however noise continues far beyond the initial reaction that caused it. Echoes are amazing, and are absolutely everywhere, even if they only show up for a microscopic chunk of a second.

Don’t even get me started on trying to sleep. The hum of the radiator; immediately my mind makes a major third above the constant pitch of that, and I can’t turn it off. It’s fun to vocally improvise over the sound of a computer buzzing, or the trash truck reversing into the alley behind my dorm room. The Garbage truck is especially interesting. Not only does it succesfully wake me up every morning at six A.M., but when my mind begins to harmonize with it, the dopplar effect screws with me. But actually sounds awesome. I’ll sing a harmonic pitch above it, and then as the truck gets closer the sound will change into dissonance, and often again back into a separate harmony.

Often I think that in the music world, originality doesn’t matter. Every thought that is or will ever be is up there floating in the atmosphere, already created and alive. We as humans have the ability to tune into this and find something. Some of these ideas are easier to come by than others. When we allow ourselves to inhale everything, unfiltered, that is when we have the capacity gain meaning in music on a deeper level. I dont know if I have entered that place, I may find it soon, I may find it never, but hopefully i’m on my way.

For this blog I just wanted to comment on the discussion we had on Wednesday.

Among the several things that called my attention, there were to points that particularly interested me.  First was the idea of creativity as something new or as a recycling of old ideas.    Then was the matter about music recordings and how they improve (or not) our experiences as listener and/or composers.

We discussed how we saw the recycling of old music styles, and how it can be argued than now nothing is actually creative or new, as it is all based on something done before.  Then someone said something I thought was interesting in this context.   It was raised that access to music recordings can improve composition, as we can re-listen to cool spots and therefore easily start pointing out to what we like and think could improve a particular composition.   But doesn’t this activity of repeated listening feeds the recycling of music?  If we listen a piece we like again and again (assuming that we don’t get sick of it) wouldn’t we be more vulnerable to end up copying particularities of that piece ⎯hence recycling it?
So, although I don’t think that recycling happens more now than it did in the past.  I do think that recorded music does help with it.     If we only had the chance to listen to something a couple of times, we would have to fill the blanks in cool spots ourselves ergo pushing our own creativity.

After our discussion in class on wednesday about new music, orgionality, etc., I was struck with a thought. I decided to go home and cinduct an experiment. Although it was completely subjective, i found out some things about origionality in “new” music.  My experiment  was centered around the blues. If you are not inttimately familiar with the blues, it is a style of music  where all of the songs are comprised of essentially the same chord changes. The origionality is in the style of playing, the lyrics, the rhythms, the soloing and the tambres of the instruments. In my experiment, i took this form of music and caused further similarities to be compaed in order to test for origionality. I took five diferent recordings of Stormy Monday, one of the most famous blues songs, and compared them. I listened to B.B. King, Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Muddy Waters with Johnny Winter, The Allman Brothers (a recording hich I have discussed in  aprevious post), and Howlin Wolf.  Aside from Howlin Wolf, these are guitarist’s recordings. All are playing the same song, in the same keey, with virtually the same chord. However, they are all different recorings.
In our discussion we asked if there could be “new music” or true origionalty with the overwhelmingly present influences of the past. I realized thorough my listening, that true origionality, in terms of playing music, comes not from the chords or the lyrics (although those are aspects of origionality that many musicians are known for), bt from the heart and soul of the players themselves. On these five recordings o the same song, there is nothing that is creatively repeative. All of the musicians are vastly different muscians who utilize their incredible talents to create a true origional out of the most common blues song of all time. It is like reinterperiting the Mona Lisa so that everyone loves it for what it is, and not what it came from. It is my belief that the origionality of music is dependant on the players themselves. A song can be origional even if it is a cover. The musical possibilities are endless and although there is no doubt that inspiration is a blueprint for many music today, the origionality of induvuduals should not be underestimated. I think we should clearly define what we mean by origionality in our contnuation of the discussion so that we can clearly delineate how we see the origionality and its potential in music today.