Atonality's Anniversary

Alex Ross has declared today Atonality Day. I didn't do anything special to celebrate, beyond listening to some Lutoslawski while driving down to Bloomington. I'm in the midst of finishing my final grades and getting holiday plans in order. I also mini-celebrated my official letter of tenure and promotion from the university president on Friday, by going out to a local bar to hear some colleagues play an eclectic mix of Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, "Fly Me To the Moon," James Brown, Weather Report, etc. Other than an accidentally transposed synth during "White Rabbit," they sounded really tight. And to complete this random set of links and announcements, my mom sent me this Xmas treatment by Indiana University's men's a cappella group, Straight No Chaser:

I feel bad for the dreidel singer.

End Bird Discrimination Now!

In Science's letters, Alex Ross saw some older research on birds listening to music mentioned. I decided to read the original articles. In the 1999 study, Keio University psychologists Watanabe and Sato trained Javanese sparrows within two groups. One group of four birds was encouraged to stand on their response perch only when Bach's French Suite, BWV 816, was played. They received a food reward when they moved to the response perch when the Bach was played, and were punished with a blackout of the lights if they landed on the response perch when Schoenberg's Suite Op. 25 was played. The other group of three birds was trained in the opposite direction, encouraged to respond to Schoenberg's Suite. This training lasted through a minimum 40 successful trials for each bird, until an 80% correct response ratio was achieved. One bird in each group was not able to achieve 80% correct response ratios within 60 sessions, and were dropped from further testing.

After this training the five remaining birds were exposed to Bach's Orchestral Suite, BWV 1068, and Schoenberg's Five Orchestra Pieces Op. 16. Positive food reinforcement continued for each relevant group, and all but one bird were able to discriminate the new Bach and Schoenberg to a significant level. That one bird who couldn't discriminate was in the Bach group. A second test replaced the Bach music with Vivaldi's Violin Concert in A minor, RV 356, and Schoenberg's music with Elliott Carter's Variations for Orchestra (1955). All five birds were able to distinguish between these new pieces successfully. The authors note here that a 1984 study by Porter and Neuringer showed that pigeons were able to generalize from Bach to Buxtehude and from Stravinsky to Carter and Piston.

Another interesting result was that two birds who had not shown any preference between Bach/Vivaldi and Schoenberg/Carter were still able learn to discriminate between the two types of music. Thus the lack of preference was not from a lack of ability to tell the difference, but rather from personal taste.

S. Watanabe and K. Sato, "Discriminative stimulus properties of music in Java sparrows." Behavioural Processes, 47 (1999), 53-57.

Is it over?

(I'm in a questioning mood today.)

Adam Baratz has found an interesting topic to blog about from an unusual source, an LSAT study guide. The topic of discussion is Historically Informed Performance practice, which I have blogged about before. More specifically, Adam isolates possible answers to why symphonies may have played final finales more slowly in Mozart and Beethoven's days, and why audiences don't applaud between movements anymore. Alex Ross has looked at the latter phenomenon closely, supporting the comment I made on Adam's blog. You'll have to visit Adam's site to see what I said.

From Bell to Lebrecht in 8.2 seconds

1. The Joshua Bell-as-busker article I wrote about has proved to be very popular. I've had countless people visit through searches for Joshua, Weingarten, Bach, Partita No. 2, etc. And there have been many bloggers writing about it, expressing everything from approval to dismay to anger to criticism of Josh's busking skills. I stand by my statement that Weingarten and his team of reporters were very thorough in covering most of the possible angles, from rush hour needs to noise pollution to iPods. The art of busking was not addressed enough, so SawLady's criticism is a good addition to the story.

2. There is an undeclared war between Norman Lebrecht and Alex Ross about the state of the classical recording industry. It is so undeclared that each of the combatants has not stated the name of his enemy. This war has a personal front, as a colleague and I have been discussing the issue for the last (academic) year. This last week this colleague, who is very involved in the classical recording industry, pointed out that even if Lebrecht's conclusions are faulty and unnecessarily pessimistic, his books have spurred the whole classical music world. Music ensembles pick more imaginative programming. Record companies have started to look beyond the "stars" to wonderfully talented unknowns who can be recorded much more cheaply. Orchestras are starting their own recording labels to save on costs, since the digital revolution and the Long Tail effect has made it so much easier to store, supply, and advertise these recordings.

I also foresee more emphasis on chamber music over traditional large ensembles in music schools, as career choices for professionals, and as programming options for performance halls. Chamber music requires fewer musicians, fewer administrators (thus lower salary costs), less time for set-up, smaller space requirements, and lower travel costs. And unlike the joke about cost savings in Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, moving to chamber music does not sacrifice in artistry or aesthetic possibilities. In fact, I believe that chamber music gives the opportunity for a more intimate experience between the musicians and the audience. The smaller group does not require the acoustics of a large hall, nor the financial needs to play for a large audience, so the musicians do not have to be put on the isolated pedestal of the orchestral stage. Even if the quartet or octet is playing in Carnegie Hall, the lower number of musicians will not overwhelm the memory constraints of the audience. An audience cannot be expected to note and recognize each of the eighty-five members of an orchestra, whereas they can pay attention to each of the members of Eighth Blackbird in the space of a single piece, and form attachments to each of the players. And attachments will bring audiences back. Look at the draw of star soloists like Joshua Bell. [See how I have brought the categories together?] Orchestras pay ungodly amounts to soloists like Bell so people will come to their concerts. And the audiences flock because they can focus solely on the soloist, forming that necessary attachment. Yes, the conductor is often the source of focus for those pesky non-concertos that orchestras play, but the attachment is not satisfying as the maestro is faced away from the audience most of the time.

So, pay attention to the music in your life, don't mourn for the death of classical music, and notice how much intimacy you feel for your favorite music experiences.