Musical Perceptions

The Best of the Rest

2008-07-22T15:28:00.002-04:00

I'm inspired by the various "Link Posts" that bloggers do when they have nothing else to say. But given the recent top 50 lists I just published, I'm also interested in giving a voice to those who aren't as well known. So this will be a roughly regular feature, The Best of the Rest, a list of links to posts from blogs that aren't on the Top 50 lists.

1. Theme and Variations: A review of two CD's by the Amadeus Guitar Duo, Baroque Moments and Images from the South. "However, there is much to be said for the guitar ensemble."

2. Of Sound Mind: Falling in love with the sound of cutting apart a large oil tank with a Sawzall. "The overall effect is what you might imagine, a grandiose cacophony, but there is something about the pacing and the incidental sounds made by the removal of a panel, or the constant drone of the waves, that is kind of magical."

3. Musicology/Matters: "A PhD in Horribleness", reviewing/appreciating Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible as an unusual parody musical.

4. Fredosphere: On how writing short science fiction caused composer's block, and the final revisions to Fred's choral work, The Moon that Dreamed of Earth.

5. Joshua Nemith's Cincinnati Pianist Blog: This is a slightly older post, but still a good one: Advice for performing at a funeral. "If your pastor calls you in and tells you that the deceased person's Uncle Hank and Cousin Jimmy want you to accompany them on a banjo and harmonica rendition of Barry Manilow's "Looks Like We Made It" – smile politely and say you would be delighted. When the duo show up twenty minutes before the funeral with five chord changes scribbled on a greasy napkin, and they instruct you to just "follow them", smile again and serve up the music as best you can."

FriPod: High School

2008-07-18T23:12:00.003-04:00

I'm in Wisconsin for my 20th high school reunion. Wish me luck!

1. "Chorus: Glory to God in the Highest" from The Messiah by G.F. Handel, performed by Andrew Davis with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the Toronto Symphony.

2. "The Most High And Mighty Christianus The Fourth, King Of Denmark, His Galliard AKA The Battle Galliard" by John Dowland, performed by Sting and Eden Karamazov.

3. "Groovin' High" by Dizzy Gillespie, performed by Arturo Sandoval on Danzon.

4. "Highway Star" by Deep Purple on Machine Head.

5. "How High the Moon" by Morgan Lewis and Nancy Hamilton, performed by a) Duke Ellington, b) Ella Fitzgerald, c) Modern Jazz Quartet.

6. "In the Highways" by Maybelle Carter, performed by the Peasall Sisters on O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack.

7. "Move On Up a Little Higher" by Brewster and Davis, performed by Mahalia Jackson.

8. "Poem 1. Vysehrad (The High Citadel)" from Ma Vlast by Bedrich Smetana, performed by Zdenek Macal and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

9. "Summer, Highland Falls" by Billy Joel on Turnstiles.

10. "Thou art gone up on high" from The Messiah by Handel, performed by Samuel Ramey with Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

11. Movement 1. "The School" from Concerto for Trumpet, Percussion and Keyboard by Dalibor Vackár, performed by John Wallace, Radoslav Kvapil, and the Wallace Collection.

The Political Art Beat

2008-07-16T11:23:00.004-04:00

Good thing I included Darcy James Argue on my top 50+ list this time (he's #20). He will be representing ALL of us at the Netroots Nation convention in Austin, thus he will be the face of the arts for all those wacky liberals. Not really, as classical music already has an inside man for liberal blogging, in the form of Richard Einhorn, aka Tristero of Digby's Hullabaloo. However, I can't tell whether Tristero is attending Netroots Nation along with his blogging partner. Hey Darcy, can you get an autograph from Markos for me?

SNOB-MUSAC, Google Edition

2008-07-14T23:01:00.004-04:00

As promised, here is the Google backlinks edition of the Semi-annual Naming of Blogs Mostly Used to Scribble About Classical music. Unlike with Technorati, which only counts links in the last six months, Google backlinks can accumulate. Thus older blogs gain a benefit. The average gain in links from last December is 382, all but three of the 224 blogs measured had gained (excepting one blog that changed URLs). Like the Technorati edition, I am including the change in Google links in brackets.

1 The Rest is Noise: 7730 [+1170] Alex Ross (Crit)
2 On an Overgrown Path: 3680 [+1100] Bob Shingleton (producer)
3 Ionarts: 3450 [+1570] Charles T. Downey (A)
4 An Unamplified Voice: 3370 [+2858] JSU (O) [the big mover of the list!]
5 Sandow: 3170 [+610] Greg Sandow (consultant)
6 PostClassic: 3070 [+280] Kyle Gann (C)
7 Sequenza21: 2870 [+1310] Jerry Bowles (C)
8 Jessica Duchen: 2820 [+1200] (Crit)
9 Sounds and Fury: 2740 [+1420] AC Douglas (L)
10 Opera Chic: 2670 [+2458] (O)
11 The Iron Tongue of Midnight: 2590 [+1460] Lisa Hirsch (Crit)
12 Night after Night: 2400 [+990] Steve Smith (Crit)
13 Soho the Dog: 2320 [+1300] Matthew Guerreri (C)
13 Musical Perceptions: 2320 [+1230] Me (A)
15 The Standing Room: 2220 [+1444] Monsieur C (voice)
16 Slipped Disc: 2210 [new to list] Norman Lebrecht (consultant)
17 Think Denk: 2160 [+1241] Jeremy Denk (piano)
18 The Concert: 2120 [+1358] Anne-Carolyn Bird (voice)
19 La Cieca: 2090 [+1385] James Jorden (O)
20 Classical Music: 2000 [+970] Janelle Gelfand (Crit)
21 Oboeinsight: 1780 [+916] Patty Mitchell (oboe)
22 Vilaine fille: 1730 [+1039] (Crit)
23 Aworks: 1700 [+978] Robert Gable (L)
24 Mad Musings of Me: 1680 [+610] Gertsamtkunstwerk (O)
25 The Rambler: 1670 [+1016] Tim Rutherford-Johnson (A)
26 Deceptively Simple: 1630 [+779] Marc Geelhoed (Crit/administration)
27 Listen: 1530 [+797] Steve Hicken (C and Crit)
28 Trrill: 1440 [+1014] Nick Scholl (O)
29 Sieglinde’s Diaries: 1420 [+806] Leon Dominguez (O)
30 ANABlog: 1410 [+1100] Analog Arts Ensemble
31 Dial “M” for Musicology: 1380 [+888] Phil Ford and Jonathan Bellman (A)
32 Mostly Opera: 1370 [new to list] (O)
33 Musical Assumptions: 1150 [+862] Elaine Fine (C and viola)
34 The Well-Tempered Blog: 1140 [+525] Bart Collins (piano)
35 Prima La Musica, poi le parole: 1130 [+587] Sarah Noble (O)
36 Meanwhile, here in France: 1120 [+517] Ruth (cello)
37 Renewable Music: 1080 [+684] Daniel Wolf (C)
38 Wellsung: 1070 [+448] Alex and Jonathan (O)
38 Twang Twang Twang: 1070 [+356] Helen Radice (harp)
40 BLOGregular: 1030 [new to list] Bobregular (L? in Italian)
41 A View from the Podium: 1010 [+703] Kenneth Woods (conductor)
42 Felsenmusick: 932 [+462] Daniel Felsenfield (C)
43 My Favorite Intermissions: 929 [+670] Maury D'annato (O)
44 Feast of Music: 919 [+725] (L?)
45 Roger Bourland: 909 [+462] Roger Bourland (C)
46 Thirteen Ways: 892 [+599] eighth blackbird (ensemble)
47 Collaborative Piano: 872 [+592] Chris Foley (piano)
48 Yankeediva: 841 [new to list] Joyce DiDonato (voice)
49 Daily Observations: 835 [+397] Charles Noble (viola)
50 Notes From the Kelp: 829 [new to list] Alex Shapiro (C)

SNOB-MUSAC, Technorati edition

2008-07-11T22:36:00.011-04:00

Here is the semi-annual listing of the bløgösph¥re, only one month late! This is the version based upon Technorati. I'll post the Google version on Monday. Based on previous complaints, I have omitted Terry Teachout's blog. However, a new blog has taken his place at the top, perhaps also controversial. However, it is definitely about classical music. Much movement, and many new blogs in the list, thanks to Chris Foley's extensive list at Pageflakes. I'm including the change in Technorati authority this time, so you can see how much movement there was.

The list shows the rank, the blog, the TA and change from the last listing, the author(s), and the category: C = composer, Crit = critic, O = opera, A = academic, L = listener, AD = arts director, and the rest are self explanatory.
UPDATE: Corrections have been made, based on comments and email.

1 Music Meets Tech: 705 [new to list] Hugh Sung (piano)
2 The Rest is Noise: 497 [-153] Alex Ross (Crit)
3 Sequenza21: 151 [-632] Jerry Bowles (C)
4 Opera Chic: 147 [-34] (O)
5 PostClassic: 129 [0] Kyle Gann (C)
6 Nico Muhly: 118 [new] (C)
7 Sandow: 107 [0] Greg Sandow (Consultant)
8 Violinist.com Diaries: 106 [-52] (violin)
9 Ionarts: 103 [-30] Charles T. Downey (A)
10 La Cieca: 101 [-2] James Jorden (O)
11 Adaptistration: 98 [+30] Drew McManus (orchestra management)
12 Dial “M” for Musicology: 93 [+14] Phil Ford and Jonathan Bellman (A)
13 On an Overgrown Path: 91 [-53] Bob Shingleton (producer)
14 Classical Life: 87 [+46] Timothy Mangan (Crit)
15 Soho the Dog: 83 [-37] Matthew Guerreri (C)
16 Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog: 80 [-32] (bass)
17 Collaborative Piano: 78 [+23] Chris Foley (piano)
18 Musical Perceptions: 76 [+14] Me (A)
19 Think Denk: 73 [-33] Jeremy Denk (piano)
20 Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: 73 [new to list] (piano, C)
21 Jessica Duchen: 71 [-22] (Crit)
22 Night after Night: 70 [-52] Steve Smith (Crit)
23 Sounds and Fury: 70 [-6] AC Douglas (L)
24 Deceptively Simple: 62 [-12] Marc Geelhoed (Crit/orchestra administration)
25 The Concert: 62 [-9] Anne-Carolyn Bird (voice)
25 Mostly Opera: 62 [new] (O)
27 Oboeinsight: 59 [+1] Patty Mitchell (oboe)
28 CBC Radio 2: 58 [new] Li Robbins (radio director)
29 A Beginner's Guide to Classical Music: 57 [+41] Classical Convert (L)
30 The Standing Room: 56 [-9] Monsieur C (voice)
31 Roger Bourland: 54 [+7] Roger Bourland (C)
32 The Rambler: 53 [-7] Tim Rutherford-Johnson (A)
32 Mad Musings of Me: 53 [+23] Gertsamtkunstwerk (O)
34 Sieglinde’s Diaries: 51 [+12] Leon Dominguez (O)
35 Yankeediva: 45 [new] Joyce DiDonato (voice)
36 The Iron Tongue of Midnight: 43 [-21] Lisa Hirsch (Crit)
37 Renewable Music: 41 [+3] Daniel Wolf (C)
38 A View from the Podium: 39 [+13] Kenneth Woods (conductor)
39 My Favorite Intermissions: 38 [-4] Maury D’annato (O)
39 Daily Observations: 38 [+18] Charles Noble (viola)
39 Africlassical: 38 [new] William J. Zick (A)
42 Musical Assumptions: 37 [+2] Elaine Fine (C and viola)
43 The Metropolitan Opera Blog: 36 [new] Philipp Brieler (O)
44 CSO Bass Blog: 35 [-14] (bass)
44 Aworks: 35 [-5] Robert Gable (L)
44 Thirteen Ways: 35 [+7] eighth blackbird (ensemble)
44 The Well-Tempered Blog: 35 [+8] Bart Collins (piano)
48 Chicago Classical Music: 34 [-2] (L)
49 Arts Addict: 34 [new] Jason Heath (bass) yes, a second blog on the list
50 Brian Dickie: 34 [+1] (AD)
51 Vilaine fille: 33 [+3] (Crit)
52 Classical Music: 31 [+5] Janelle Gelfand (Crit)

At first I thought there would be a trend of all the blogs having reduced numbers of links, perhaps because I waited until the middle of July when everyone is on vacation. But then it seemed that while some big name blogs have lost links, they are balanced by others gaining in links. Finally, I did some math. Among the blogs already listed previously, there has been an average reduction of 24.1 in Technorati Authority, bigger than I thought. The median is a reduction of 2 TA, so the average is definitely influenced by the really big losses in Sequenza21 and Alex Ross. Taking those two outliers, the average is -4.7, much closer to the median, and reflects my second impression. So both thoughts were correct: some significant blogs have lost Technorati rank, but most have had minimal losses.

Rhythm as signifier

2008-07-09T22:18:00.003-04:00

I just watched a new political ad by the Democratic National Committee, showing how John McCain has changed his estimates of how long American troops will be in Iraq. No new information, but the background music is fascinating. At first I thought it was in an asymmetric meter, or more likely a changing meter, with 12/8 as the predominant meter mixed up with a 2/4 or 9/8 to make it sound clumsy. But it is more subtle than that. The music stays in 12/8 for the whole time. What gives this insidious feeling of incompetence is the use of syncopation. The upper strings at points sound like they are slowing down, though they always end on the right beat. The bass line at a few points shifts to an almost duple, but it isn't exactly duple, thus making it even more uneasy. But what is truly amazing is that the musicians demonstrate a real skill in playing complex rhythms that purposely sound wrong. Thus they are really good at sounding bad. I want to know who wrote this music.

Telly Monster must be excited!

2008-07-09T14:58:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's Indianapolis Star had an article about a new local company, Musical DNA, which is producing a software program for visualizing music. From what I can tell, the software maps notes played on a piano or from a recording onto a pitch-class space, with lines connecting simultaneous notes. Thus any standard triad will be represented as a triangle (leading to my post title). The founder, Ken Lemons is a pianist with a BM from Nebraska and an MM from local Butler University. He (and his funders) think that this will be useful for teaching music, either hooked up to a piano or as part of some toys:

A projector that attaches to a child's crib, projecting color-coded animated geometry of music of whatever source the parent desires.
A 12-note Simon Says game of musical geometry that teaches basic shapes of sound in a game format, including connect-the-dots.
A child's guitar, with four buttons: happy, sad, spooky, dreamy -- the four basic triangles of musical sound.

Let's see, happy = major triad, sad = minor triad, spooky = diminished triad and that leaves the augmented triad as dreamy? Wow, I do not associate the augmented triad with dreaminess. Alien, yes. Tense, absolutely. I'll even go with exotic. But not dreamy.

Overall, I don't see the big deal about this software. The "same shapes" Ken talks about do not map into any sameness on the piano: the hand position for a C major triad feels considerably different from the hand position for a B major triad; but is very similar to the hand position for an A minor triad, which is a different "shape". I don't see how the colors are used with the shapes, beyond mere aesthetics. Some of the suggested future uses imply that rhythm is also encoded, and that pitch-classes beyond the 12 chromatic steps can also be encoded. But the demonstration and the toys mentioned certainly don't show this. Does anyone else have an opinion or insider knowledge about this?

SunPod: Why I'm not president

2008-07-06T22:52:00.002-04:00

I just read a new iPod meme, which reminded me that I hadn't done my FriPod since restarting my blog. The meme, from Chad, who got it from Matt Yglesias, is the following:

1. Take out your iPod [I go straight for iTunes on the computer]
2. Press shuffle songs.
3. Answer the following: a) How many songs before you come to one that would absolutely disqualify you from being President? b) What is that song? [I'm going to list all of the songs leading up to the incriminating music.]

1. Lullaby and Doina by Osvaldo Golijov.
2. Eine Alpensinfonie by Richard Strauss.
3. String Quartet, Op 18 No. 5 by Ludwig von Beethoven
4. "Asia felice hor ben posso chiamarmi" by Andrea Gabrieli. This is actually from a CD called Politics, Dialogues and Pastorales, but I don't think it disqualifies me.
5. Su le sponde del Tebro by Alessandro Scarlatti.
6. The Natural World by John Harbison.
7. "Southwest Blues" by Bob Levy.
8. Gloria by Francis Poulenc.
9. Piano trio by Martin Bresnick.
10. Trumpet concerto in Eb by Georg Philipp Telemann.
11. "Cocktails for Two" by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslo. Ooh, this one advocates smocking and drinking, but not really a problem.
12. "Roll 'Em Pete" by Joe Turner. Well, if leaving a wife for someone else didn't disqualify John McCain, this isn't a problem.
13. "Ich hab'im Traum geweinet" from Dichterliebe by Robert Schumann. Weeping did in Edmund Muskie, but that was public, not in dreams.
14. Symphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms.
15. Clarinet Quartet, K 496 by WA Mozart.
16. "The First Time" by U2.
17. Concerto for Orchestra by Jennifer Higdon.
18. Trumpet Concerto in C by Johann Christian Fischer.
19. The Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It's got battles, so everything's good.
20. Symphonie funebre et triomphale by Hector Berlioz. The composer did take opium, but for a different piece.
21. "Searchin'" by Lieber and Stoller. It can sound like stalking, but also compares the narrator to police.
22. "A Heart Full of Love" from Les Miserables. Okay, this is both an elitist latte-sipping musical, which also advocates revolution, and has an escaped convict as the good guy and the police officer committing suicide. Not good for a presidential candidate.

Doctor, it's terminal!

2008-07-04T20:12:00.004-04:00

A colleague in the Theater department is working on an interesting paper about what counts as a terminal degree in the arts. In doing so, he asked for feedback on the unique situation of music departments, which have a potential of three different terminal degrees: PhD, DMA, and MM. Since our university does accept the MM as a terminal degree for studio professors, my colleague was wondering why a musician would pursue the DMA. My interpretation is that music departments/schools/conservatories are very slowly transitioning from an old model of professional experience to the newer model of academic credentials, allowing many gradations within. Wikipedia claims that the first DMA program was started by Boston University in 1955, though I have memories of Eastman's Howard Hanson being involved in the creation. And here is some confirmation.

Hanson introduced the Doctor of Musical Arts in creation or performance (previously only given for musicology). “A doctorate in piccolo playing?” sniffed a critic. “That’s right,” Hanson agreed, “but only for good piccolo players. At least we won’t make bad musicologists out of good performers which should be a boon to both musicology and performance.”

Regardless, the introduction of a new degree takes time to gain acceptance. At this point, there are still many music professors who finished schooling before DMAs became widespread. But this isn't the only reason MM's are still accepted as terminal degrees. A premium is still placed on professional experience, often gained by musicians who had no plans to become university teachers and thus did not pursue the doctorate. This "doing" expertise is echoed by the MFA for Theater, Creative Writing, and Studio Art that is also accepted as a terminal degree.

How do you feel about the differences between a college professor who has a DMA versus one with an MM as the terminal degree? And what do you think is the future of academic credentials in music performance/conducting/composing? (I'm especially looking at you, if you aren't too busy remodeling your house and planning a wedding.)

Bob Dylan, Attorney at Law

2008-07-01T21:49:00.003-04:00

A family member and Dylanophile sent me this interesting International Herald Tribune story about Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts citing the Bard of Duluth in his dissent last week:

''The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing,'' Roberts wrote. '''When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.' Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).''

Alex Long, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and perhaps the nation's leading authority on the citation of popular music in judicial opinions, said this was almost certainly the first use of a rock lyric to buttress a legal proposition in a Supreme Court decision. ''It's a landmark opinion,'' Long said.

Is this truly meant to be convincing? As the article points out, Roberts doesn't use the quote with the meaning Dylan had intended. Roberts twists a statement of anti-materialism into a justification for protecting a phone company's money. So why even bother quoting from a poet/songwriter with whom Roberts clearly doesn't agree? My guess is that Roberts is trying to fool himself, either that he is cooler than he really is, or that there is some poetic truth to his money-grubbing ways. Either way, it is just sad.

Hearing Intervals

2008-06-17T09:28:00.003-04:00

I'm (finally) reading David Huron's Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. In fact, last night I was reading Chapter Seven out loud for Weasley, to help him calm down in his new crate. He apparently finds mental representations of pitch to be very soothing.

One section that struck me was David's debate about the perception of intervals. He thinks that he doesn't perceive the actual intervals, but rather hears the separate notes as scale degrees, which he can then use to identify the interval. I don't have the book with me right now, I'll add the relevant quote when I'm home later. But it is basically this: 1) hear two notes, 2) recognize that they sound like the beginning of "Here Comes the Bride," 3) therefore associating the second note as tonic 'Do' and the first note as 'Sol,' 4) identify the interval between Sol and Do as a Perfect Fourth. Many people would skip step 3 as a conscious part of their process, but it would still be a lower level association that helps them recognize the melody in the first place. Now, here is my issue. David says that following this process is identifying separate notes, and then figuring out the relationship (the interval), much like people with AP. But I don't see how one can identify the second note as Do without hearing the relationship between the two notes. I agree that consciously hearing a Perfect Fourth and hearing Sol - Do are different processes, but both still rely upon the relationship between the notes. This contrasts with the AP perception, which would be 1) hear two notes, 2) label the first note as B3, 3) label the second note as E4, 4) identify the interval between B3 and E4 as a Perfect Fourth. The two notes are given labels that do not depend upon the other note, whereas identifying one note as Do is to place both notes in a tonal context.

Where I've been

2008-06-15T23:12:00.003-04:00

I missed a week of blogging, due to several things. The main event was my basement flooding with 3 feet of water, from water squirting through my earthquake-damaged foundation, and from the sewers backing up, both from getting horrendous amounts of rain on Wednesday through Saturday. So I spent the next few days cleaning the basement with the help of a good friend, and then arranged for a new water heater, new furnace, and the installation of a sump and sump pump so this won't happen again. The other distraction was my Father's Day gift today, a nine-week-old dachshund puppy that we have named Weasley. I realized that I have managed to avoid blogging about any of the family pets during the four years of my blog, so I will rectify now. Going in order of age, I present Weasley (9 weeks), Gracie (also about 9 weeks, lives with Mary), Archie (1 year), Milk (4 years), and Buster (14 years, lives with Mary). Not pictured, the gerbils Pumpkin and Ginger (six months, live with Mary).

FriPod: Singer

2008-06-06T14:45:00.003-04:00

Today we celebrated Stan Irwin's life with the funeral and interment. He was a great man and a great singer. Besides a series of tracks that mention singers or singing, I'm including Stan's CDs.

1. "The Birds will still be singing" by Elvis Costello, performed by him with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters.

2. "River sings a song to trees" from City Scape by Jennifer Higdon, performed by Atlanta Symphony Orchestra - Robert Spano.

3. "Choral: Wir singen dir in deinem Heer" from Christmas Oratorio by J.S. Bach, performed by Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Wiener Sängerknaben & Hans Gillesberger.

4. "Do you hear the people sing?" from Les Miserables by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil, Herbert Kretzmer, performed by Original Broadway cast.

5. "Sing Sing Sing (with a swing)" by Louis Prima, performed by Benny Goodman on Live At Carnegie Hall.

6. "Singing Princess" by Harry Gregson-Williams & John Powell on Shrek soundtrack.

7. "Singt dem Herren, alle Stimmen" from The Creation by Franz Joseph Haydn, performed by John Eliot Gardiner; English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir.

8. "Spem In Alium (Sing and Glorify)" from Black Angels by George Crumb, performed by the Kronos Quartet.

9. "1. Moving and in a singing style" from Variation Movements by Robert Henderson, performed by Terry Everson and Susan Nowicki.

10. "Marche des pelerins chantant la prière du soir" from Harold in Italy by Hector Berlioz, performed by Colin Davis.

11. Improvisations sur les chants paysans hongrois, op. 20 by Béla Bartók, performed by Claude Helffer.

12. "Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo" from String Quartet op. 135 by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by the Alban Berg Quartet.

13. "Saliam cantand' al cielo" from Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi.

14. "Cantando, quasi rubato" from Trumpet Concerto No. 2 by Jukka Linkola, performed by Jouko Harjanne.

15. Irwin Sings Gershwin.

16. Requiem Op. 48, by Gabriel Fauré, performed by Stanley Irwin, William Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Indianapolis Christ Church Cathedral Chorus of Men and Boys.

17. Messiah by George Frideric Handel, performed by Stanley Irwin, Steven Richards, Daniel Segner, Tyler Webb, Christopher Freeze, Andrew Breuminger, Indianapolis Christ Church Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys.

Call for Blogs

2008-06-05T10:38:00.004-04:00

I will be compiling my Semi-annual Naming Of Blogs Mostly Used to Scribble About Classical music (SNOB MUSAC)*, with publication in one week. I'm planning to work out some new statistics from the rankings, in efforts to keep up with the recent competition in classical music blog ranking. I will be using previous lists, my blogroll on the left, and Chris Foley's list of 220 on PageFlakes. If you know of a blog not on any of those lists, or have a particular URL you want me to use in compiling the stats, indicate so in the comments to this post. While I will be checking all the blogs I have listed to see if they have updated in the last six months, I'd also appreciate any notes about blogs that have closed shop.

*Okay, it is really called the Top 50+ Classical Music Blogs, but that doesn't have nearly as amusing an anagram.

What're you reading?

2008-06-05T10:12:00.003-04:00

Terminal Degree has a new (to me) meme up, based on the top 100 books marked unread by LibraryThings users. The job is to bold those books I have read, underline the titles I read for school (I'll try to remember), and italicize those I started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights (saw the movie)
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A novel
The Name of the Rose (saw the movie, would like to read the book sometime)
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway (I saw The Hours, does that count?)
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver (sadly, not yet)
Wicked: The life and times of the wicked witch of the West (I'd rather see the musical)
The Canterbury Tales (in Middle English, no less!)
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange (saw the movie)
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible (I really should, she is a DePauw alum)
1984
Angels & Demons (I wasted enough time on Da Vinci Code, thank you)
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (saw the movie)
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist (saw countless movies and musicals)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince (I read part of it for school)
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes: A memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (saw the movie)
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit (no Lord of the Rings?)
In Cold Blood: A true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

So, I've read 33 books, almost all for fun rather than for school. I'm very glad I was required to read James Joyce, and in a class setting so I could learn many of the cool things about that novel. Great Expectations felt like a soap opera, I didn't like it as much as other Dickens' books. Pride and Prejudice was okay, but I have no desire to read any other Austen books.

Hellos and Goodbyes

2008-06-03T15:17:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I got to have lunch with Bryan Alexander, of NITLE. I had met him a year ago, and it was great to touch base again. He has my friend Carlos all excited about using online games to teach opera. This is basically using Second Life or Worlds of Warcraft to stage a performance, like in this Jonathan Coulton song.
Granted, it isn't perfect in any sense, but might help students to better understand the interaction of music and drama. We also spent time talking about blogging, Allen Ginsberg, and film music. It was a nice break after the bad news from the weekend.

The whole campus is mourning the loss of our friend and colleage, Stan Irwin. He died on Saturday after suffering a heart attack while driving to Indianapolis. Here is the impressive bio provided by DePauw's website:

Over the course of his long and distinguished musical career, Irwin performed at the Zürich Opera, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Barbican Centre, and with major orchestras in the U.S. and Great Britain. As a 1987 winner of the World Wide Voice Competition in New York he was awarded contracts to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Lincoln Center and, in his 1988 British debut, the Brahms Requiem with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Irwin performed five times at Carnegie Hall, twice as a recitalist and three times as a conductor.

The New York Times called Irwin, "A performer who can project a wide range of subtle, shifting emotions." Hans Hotter, with whom Irwin studied in Munich, described him as possessing "a bass-baritone voice of high quality in timbre, which he is in good command of," noting a "fine artistic sensitiveness, together with a gift for interpretation ... especially evident in his singing of the German classical Lied."

Irwin joined the DePauw School of Music faculty in 1975. "As a professor, a mentor and a friend, he has impacted many lives at the University," notes DePauw President Robert G. Bottoms. "Our hearts go out to Stan's wife, Jane, and his family, and I express the feelings of a great many in the DePauw community who interacted with Stan over the years. He brought much respect to our School of Music, one of the oldest in the United States, and his warm presence and many contributions will be greatly missed."

Irwin performed more than two dozen roles in opera, most of the major works in oratorio, and an extensive song repertoire, including roles such as Boris and Germont, the Bach Passions, Elijah, the Verdi Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem, Berlioz’s dramatic symphony Romeo et Juliette, and Schubert‘s "Winterreise“ and "Müllerin" song cycles. He has also appeared in world premiere performances of John Eaton’s Peabody Award-winning opera Myshkin (Keller) for PBS and Italian television, Schibler’s The Late Expiation (Marquis) at the Zürich Opera, and David Ott’s song cycle "Renascence" (Millay) commissioned for Irwin and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. He has also recorded for the Gothic and Four Winds labels and has been artist-producer of two compact discs of American popular classics, Irwin Sings Gershwin (1999) and Night & Day: Cole Porter Songs of Romance (2003).

As a conductor, Professor Irwin made numerous high profile appearances at world-renowned sites such as Carnegie Hall with the New England Symphonic Ensemble and Chorus, the White House and the Vatican. He also prepared choirs for performances under such eminent conductors as John Nelson and Sir David Willcocks and orchestras including the Philharmonia of London and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Former voice students of Stanley Irwin, the longtime director of the DePauw University Choirs, have appeared with many orchestras and opera companies, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City Opera, Washington Opera, Opera Quebec, Minnesota Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and the Glimmerglass Opera.

Stan had a wonderful sense of humor, a very generous spirit, and a big heart to match his football-player physique. His voice was both powerful and rich, and he used it with incredible sensitivity. Now he can spend eternity teaching God how to really project with resonance and clarity. Good bye, Stan.

FriPod: Birth

2008-05-30T14:28:00.003-04:00

My children's birthdays were this week, with a joint birthday party held tomorrow. By the way, I'm experimenting with Amazon's MP3 widget, providing examples of the current FriPod list to the left. You can click to listen, and purchase the MP3 if you are interested. Yes, I get a small cut for each purchase, but nothing for clicking.

1. "Birth of the Red Violin" by John Corigliano from The Red Violin soundtrack.
2. "Birth" from "Lieutenant Kijé" Symphonic Suite, op. 60 by Sergei Prokofiev, performed by a) Dallas Symphony Orchestra, b) Los Angeles Philharmonic.
3. Birth of the Cool performed by Miles Davis.
- "Move" by Denzil Best
- "Jeru" by Gerry Mulligan
- "Moon Dreams" by Chummy MacGregor and Johnny Mercer
- "Venus De Milo" by Gerry Mulligan
- "Budo" by Bud Powell and Miles Davis
- "Deception" by Miles Davis
- "Godchild" by George Wallington
- "Boplicity" by Cleo Henry
- "Rocker" by Gerry Mulligan
- "Israel" by Johnny Carisi
- "Rouge" by John Lewis
- "Darn That Dream" by Eddie DeLange and Jimmy Van Heusen

What is Music Theory?

2008-05-29T10:37:00.004-04:00

This summer Carlos and I are revamping the four-semester music theory curriculum here at DePauw. We want the students to become independent thinkers, not relying upon a textbook to tell them how to perceive music. While we will still use a textbook as a reference source for the short term, we will also be assigning readings from scholarly articles and monographs for discussion. It will be particularly interesting when the students encounter opposing viewpoints. They will have to think about which perspective they agree with, and why (or why they disagree with both perspectives). I had some success this semester with the final analysis papers. The students had to analyze a multi-movement or multi-song Common Practice work, developing their own theses to argue. Several students looked for articles or books on their subject, but then confronted these previous analyses, arguing for or against various points. I was very pleased with the results, as well as their responses to my constant challenges to write of their personal reactions to the music, using specific musical facts to explain their reactions. They also practiced this type of analysis in their blogs, though they tended to stick to answering the questions posed in the exercises rather than using the questions as jumping points to create their own theses. The new curriculum will include compositional exercises, as part of the See it, Say it, Read it, Write it pedagogical stance. I want the students to be able to recognize musical features, and an important way for them to learn this is to compose these musical features for themselves. There are additional benefits to compositional exercises as well, but that is my main purpose for this curriculum.

I was sparked to start blogging again, and to write about my summer efforts, because of James Cook's misunderstanding of my perspective on music theory. I do like to talk about harmony, but my conception of harmony is not as a discipline that can be separated from counterpoint, form, or motive. I mash together Schenker, Riemann, Meyer/Narmour/Huron, Schoenberg, Hindemith, Helmholtz, Rameau, Weber, Koch, Riepel, Tenney, and countless others for my understanding of how notes interact horizontally and vertically. I like Schoenberg's conception of key relationships, Schenker's wisdom on hierarchical organization and harmonic prolongation through contrapuntal functions, neo-Riemannian spaces that show how strange progressions can make sense as part of a cycle*, David Huron's expansion of Meyer's and Narmour's work on expectancy, Hindemith's conception of harmonic tension and how it can be generalized to plus-triadic harmonies, Weber's and Helmholtz's very different empirical examinations of music, Tenney's exploration of consonance and dissonance, etc. I want my students to explore at least some of these theories for themselves, to develop their own conceptions of harmony, as well as rhythm, timbre, and various bigger pictures like semiotics.

As I'm thinking about this, one thing I need to include in the theory curriculum is a discussion on what music theory is for. TTU Music Theory Department explains the two basic approaches, analytical and compositional. I won't repeat Michael Berry's excellent explanation, follow the link to read it. Also follow the link to read James Cook's view on what music theory is for: to explain how music is composed, and to provide a metalanguage for describing all music. I want music theory to spark new ideas on how to perform music, to spark new ideas on how to listen to music, and to inform us more on our interactions with the arts. But again, I don't want to shove my definition down the throats of the students. I want them to wrestle with this, encountering James Cook's view as well as many others.

I welcome any suggestions of reading materials, perspectives, or topics to consider as Carlos and I work on our curriculum.

*At some point I will blog about the recent Science article, "Generalized voice-leading spaces" by Callender, Quinn, and Tymoczko. This is a recent development out of neo-Riemannian theory that is quite interesting.

Time to start

2008-05-18T21:17:00.003-04:00

Today was DePauw's Commencement ceremony, made more poignant because it was the last for our retiring President Bottoms after 22 years of service. The student speaker pointed out that he was only six weeks old when Robert Bottoms became president. I waddled over in my post-race legs to play in the band, thus allowing me to get up and stretch during the individual names. Playing in the band did not save me from the dangers of regalia, as most performing faculty robe up. The suggestion of hiding things under robes came up today while chatting with a junior saxophone major. He wants to do something exciting when he walks across the stage next year, and I pointed out that he could hide a soprano sax in his robes and play a lick after getting his diploma. A colleague solved the handshake-grab-diploma problem with the neck-strap. I know, not an obvious solution for a saxophonist, but it still works.

Alive!

2008-05-17T21:59:00.005-04:00

I survived the half marathon, but as I predicted, it was a long 13.1 miles. 2:31:36 long to be exact. I had hoped for a 10 minute mile pace, and kept with that through the first seven miles. But as the table shows, miles 8-13 were not kind. There were hills that slowed my running to a crawl, and eventually forced me to insert some walking. I did manage to run the last 1.1 miles continuously, though it was very slow. My last 5k was a laughable 41:56, almost twice what I can normally run that distance. I am now going to put on some Biofreeze that the free masseuse gave me, and go to bed.

Mile Pace
1 -- 9:51
2 -- 9:42
3 -- 9:52
4 -- 10:23
5 -- 10:13
6 -- 10:12
7 -- 10:21
8 -- 11:56 (big hill)
9 -- 13:11 (started walking)
10 - 13:58
11 - 13:31
12 - 14:45 (make the hurting stop)
13 - 12:24 (I have a little pride)

Average Pace: 11:35

FriPod: Long

2008-05-16T11:03:00.005-04:00

I've been locked away grading since getting back from Wisconsin. That, combined with an exhaustion from the various emotions I've expressed lately, has led to my blogging silence. It has also kept me from running for the last three weeks, and I am participating in the first Geist Half-marathon tomorrow. Hence the FriPod topic: it's going to be a LONG 13.1 miles.

1. "As Long As I Live" by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, performed by Benny Goodman Sextet on Charlie Christian: Genius of the Electric Guitar.

2. "Behrani's Thoughts - Long Ago" by James Horner on House of Sand and Fog soundtrack.

3. "How Long Blues" by Carr, performed by the Count Basie Orchestra on The Essential Count Basie Vol.1.

4. "How Long Has This Been Going On?" by George & Ira Gershwin, performed by Sarah Vaughan on How Long Has This Been Going On?

5. "The Long Black Veil" by Marijohn Wilkin and Danny Hill, performed by Mick Jagger & The Chieftains on The Long Black Veil.

6. "Long Day" by Spang A Lang on Spang A Lang.

7. "The Long Run" by Don Henley and Glenn Frey, performed by the Eagles on Eagles Greatest Hits Volume 2.

8. "Long, Long Journey" by Leonard Feather, perfomed by Louis Armstrong with the Duke Ellington Orchestra on The Best Of Duke Ellington: Centennial Edition.

9. "Through the Long Night" by Billy Joel on Glass Houses.

FriPod: Death

2008-05-09T22:09:00.002-04:00

This was a difficult week. Besides the normal end-of-semester activities, I already had planned to attend my grandfather's memorial service in Wisconsin this Saturday (tomorrow) with my kids and ex-wife. But on Tuesday, Jane Acres, Mary's cousin and my daughter's godmother, died after battling cancer for years. And her funeral in Canada is scheduled for the same day. Naturally we all had overwhelming feelings from Jane's death. She was an incredible person, so spiritual, so funny, so full of love. Jane was a great role model for Kate, showing how to face death with grace and spirit. So Kate and Mary are up in Canada for her funeral, and I'm in Wisconsin with Ben (the five-year-old) for my grandpa's memorial. He was also a special person, sharp as a tack the day he died at 96 years, spirited and a lover of life.

1. "Come to Me (Fantine's Death)" from Les Miserables by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boubil, Herbert Kretzmer.
2. "Death and the Maiden" by The Clogs on Lantern.
3. "Death of Anna" by John Corigliano from The Red Violin soundtrack.
4. "Death of Kashchei" from The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky, performed by Philharmonia Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor.
5. "Etudes; Death of Kaspar" by John Corigliano from The Red Violin soundtrack.
6. "Let Us Garlands Bring, Op. 18 - 1. Come Away, Come Away, Death" by Gerald Finzi, performed by Bryn Terfel, Malcolm Martineau.
7. "Kijé's Death" from Lieutenant Kijé Suite by Sergei Prokofiev, performed by the Dallas Symphony.
8. "O Death" performed by Ralph Stanley on O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
9. "O Death, where is thy sting?" from The Messiah by George Fridrich Handel, performed by Florence Quivar, John Aler; Andrew Davis, Toronto Symphony, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
10. "Ogre Hunters - Fairytale Deathcamp" by Harry Gregson-Williams & John Powell, from Shrek soundtrack.
11. "People's Revolution; Death of Chou Yuan" by John Corigliano from The Red Violin soundtrack [a lot of death in this movie!]
12. "Since by man came death" from The Messiah by Handel, performed by Andrew Davis, The Toronto Symphony, The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
13. "War is Declared / The Death of Charles" by Max Steiner, from the Gone with the Wind soundtrack.

Make me weep

2008-05-05T22:21:00.003-04:00

Dave Munger reports on a new music cognition study. Andrea Halpern et al, have shown that non-musicians can identify the difference between major and minor melodies, but only when they are labeled as "happy" or "sad" rather than "major" or "minor." This gets at the difference between perception and cognition. Musicians and non-musicians (I hate that label) alike can perceive the modal differences, but interpret them differently. This difference remained even when trained on either strategy. Now, the training was in the form of playing major and minor melodies and saying "this is major" and "this is minor", with no other theoretical underpinning. So it makes sense that nonmusicians would be more comfortable with antonym-pairings that make sense outside of musical jargon. The brain electrical activity maps are cool, showing typical denial-of-expectation reactions for the minor music among the musicians, and no expectations among the non-musicians (I still don't like that label).

Dave has written about other music cognition research here, here, here, and here.

Name that Tune

2008-05-03T22:32:00.016-04:00

Another meme has caught my attention, and is a fine way to procrastinate from reading all of those student papers. I am to list the first line of 25 random songs from my iTunes collection, and let you dear readers guess the names of the songs and the artists. I'm sticking with vocal numbers, and only those in English. In many cases the title will be easy, but the artist may not (though I'm not listing any obscure personal recordings). I do include classical music if it is in English.

1. ~~Born to lose, I've lived my life in vain.~~
2. ~~He was a friend of mine.~~
3. One Two Three One
4. ~~If the night turned cold, and the stars looked down,~~
5. ~~I'm a gonna tell you how its gonna be.~~
6. ~~C'mon baby, let's do the Twist.~~
7. ~~Friday night I crashed your party, Saturday I said I'm sorry.~~
8. ~~I wonder as I wander up under the stars.~~
9. ~~Good day to your Honesty.~~
10. ~~Patching the roof, and pitching the hay, is not my idea of a perfect day.~~
11. ~~Ali dances and the audience applauds.~~
12. ~~There, out in the darkness, a fugitive running, fallen from grace.~~
13. ~~I thought I'd write to Juliet, for she would understand.~~
14. ~~High row de boatmen row float in down the river Ohio.~~
15. ~~Oh when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you.~~
16. ~~Gospel train is comin', you'd better get your business right.~~
17. ~~Black black black is the color of my true love's hair.~~
18. ~~There she goes, there goes my baby.~~
19. ~~Care of St. Ignatius House, Willoughby Drive.~~
20. ~~The Lord gave the word.~~
21. ~~Unchain my heart, baby let me be.~~
22. ~~He was a hard headed man, he was brutally handsome, and she was terminally pretty.~~
23. ~~I'm nobody's baby, I wonder why?~~
24. ~~You better come on in my kitchen, babe it going to be rainin' outdoors.~~
25. ~~I have a lover, a lover like no other.~~

As you guess the right answers, I'll strike them out, just like Phil has been doing. And feel free to mock my listening choices, or lack there of.

FriPod: May Day

2008-05-02T12:42:00.002-04:00

1. "But Who May Abide" from the Messiah by George Friedrich Handel, performed by Samuel Ramey with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Davis.

2. "May It Be" by Enya on The Lord Of The Rings - The Fellowship Of The Ring soundtrack.

3. "Now is the month of maying" by Thomas Morley, performed by The King's Singers on Madrigal History Tour.

4. "Sheep May Safely Graze" by J.S. Bach, performed by Rolf Smedvig, trumpet/Michael Murray, organ.

5. "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel on Glass Houses.