Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

When I said in class that I found DW 2 to be unpleasant, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.  The music, I found, was nearly omnipresent.  It could not be ignored, and thus, the weird, pavlovian voice that tried to brainwash you with Deluzian philosophy could not be ignored.  I felt just like Alex from A Clockwork Orange when I listened to this piece.  The music held me down while the voice fiddled with my brain(figuratively of course).  So, I found this music to be a wholly unpleasant experience, but not necessarily a bad one.
The best way I can describe my reaction is through a film I recently saw, called Lunacy.  In the beginning of the film the director stated, “Ladies and Gentlemen, what you are about to see is a horror film, with all the degeneracy peculiar to that job. It is not a work of art.”  Without going into details, the film didn’t have a particularly artistic feel to it.  It too was a rather unpleasant experience.  In fact, my reactions to this film and this piece of music were pretty much the same.  I don’t think unpleasantness is a bad thing in art, so, when I say DW2 was unpleasant, I mean it as a compliment.

A question that Professor Alegant often asks during class is, How are you listening to the music? I was never one to immediately pick up the kind of time signature a song is in, or have vivid renderings of colorful landscapes in my mind. Lately, I’ve become aware that I create stories to the music, like novellas or film shorts in my mind. Maybe it’s the presence of the soprano in Lang’s  DW 15, but her role inadvertantly sparked a saga of a stable, sane woman (her assured, ringing voice) braving a chaotic world (the sinister fun-house instrumentation in the background). Very dramatic, I know. As the song progressed, though, the soprano’s style of singing veered off the course of pure juxtaposition against the zephyrs (?), and there were moments when her enunciations mimiced the instruments, or vice versa, and at that point in the running commentary, I imagined that she was gradually being drawn into the madness. Towards the end, it was her voice, and not the instrumentation, that was wilder and more deranged–perhaps more daring, in comparison? There was also a moment in which she sang alone, no tape reel or clanging to complement or distract from her voice. This seemed like a pivotal moment, like a book’s climax, in which the soprano discovers some radical truth about herself. Schizophrenia? Maybe. A raging case of dandruff? Perhaps…I think I should add Lang’s music to my “writing inspiration” playlist, right under John Luther Adams. But Professor Alegant’s likening the song to a demon jumping on a bed? I wish I thought of that myself!

Pretty much every week since I’ve come to Oberlin has been filled with good music. This week was no different.

On the weekend I listened to DW 2 by Lang while doing my laundry, and subsequently freaked out. The way he utilizes repetition and instrumentation is something awesome; I heard funk, I heard jazz, and I heard classical, all coming from this piece’s pieces of repeated phrases and seemingly random sequences of riffs. I felt like I do when I take samples from a song and loop them infinitely in Acid Pro, the program I’m most used to. But the way Lang moves and progresses past little snippets of a violin here and a cello here and vocals there is really something to behold. I’m really into what this guy does. It’s like DJing with pen and paper and an orchestra; it’s really something else.

Also: “First you put on your shirrrrrrrrt”

Sweet Honey in the Rock also played Sunday, to a pretty packed Finney Chapel. I was really glad to see this group perform, seeing as they’ve been writing and performing since the 70s. It was really a site to behold, with the backdrop of the very recent election of Barack Obama livening up the mood and bringing so much contemporary meaning to the songs they sang. The signer, the traditional African instruments, and the audience participation really made the performance special, adding to the raw talent behind the world-famous a capella group. It was a great start to the week.

Finally, Eighth Blackbird was amazing! I only caught the second half of the show, but I must say, Steve Reich’s “Double Sextet” was incredible. After seeing how the pianists, violinists, cellists and company interacted with each other’s vibrations throughout the piece was really inspiring, and made me want to write pieces in a similar fashion, that go beyond the plane of standard composition, and implement elements of improvisation, performer interaction, and algorithmic sequences.

Altogether, this week was really inspiring for me musically. I can’t wait to get some spare time to work on my own music…

An interesting question: does our intellectual satisfaction with a piece of music relate to the emotive quality of the music? Music that can make us feel a certain way– is it always intelectually stimulating or challenging? Does a piece have to give us chill bumps to be “good?”

These questions were inspired by our listening to Lang this week. When I listen to him, I am rhythmically and intellectually intrigued, but I don’t feel significant emotive power in his work. Granted I am still new to his music, and I like what i have heard, but almost all of the music that I like conveys signigficant emotion. Lang doesn’t do that for me. So, is it possible to say this is good music? I think so… lots of music I listen to don’t give me chills. For example, I like Steely Dan. I love to listen to them just to groove out. Much of rock music funtions in this way: groove music. I think Lang has some similar aspects to music that is meant to be grooved to. Then again I could be missing the whole point as I don’t understand the philosophy behind his work. Whatever Lang is all about, I think we can safely say that his music is intriguing and fun to listen to– and even if there isn’t lots of emotional content, we can still have valuable listening experiences. Perhaps with further listening, we’ll be able to tap into the less cerbral side of this incredibly complicated music.

Okay come on. Isn’t Opera supposed to be this huge high class snobby high-brow Fest? Where there are Fat sopranos and Fat tenors and everyone is fat and singing these notes that don’t really exist in the human range of singing but somehow are available to these few people. There’s supposed to be tragedy of epic proportions, mostly dealing with love and how awesome love is even though in order to truly get the princess you have to prove something.

Then there is Lang. proof that we live in “modern times.” Alegant said that he composes his Operas mostly to produce C.D.’s I believe that his Operas would be much better in person. I couldn’t imagine what the acting slash set and costume design would look like on one of these things. When the lyrics to one of the songs is completely made up and incomprehensible, how is one to understand the meaning of the Opera, or the plot. Or does it not matter. I for one know that any opera that I have seen, even if I did understand the language it was in, I still couldn’t tell what the F they  were saying. But still, there is plot in lyrics, and emotions that ties in to the Opera as a whole. Where is that in Langs pieces? I would love to see one of his Operas live, in a serious context. However If I were to stumble upon one of his Operas without knowing his music before, I would probably feel ripped off out of however many hundred Euros it would cost. I would say “Is this guy standing in the back laughing his ass off that people actually paid to see this thing?” I wonder why it hasn’t come to America yet. I mean, were so used to crap these days–broadway now runs Legally blonde the musical, and also Shrek the musical, not to mention half of the Broadway Phantom of the Opera show is pre-recorded–couldn’t we tolerate something quirky and intellectual? What would the American reaction to Lang be? Maybe he should just stay in Vienna where his ancestors are.