Because it's about ME!

My article is being featured tomorrow at Drew's place, but it is already up at the dedicated TAFTO site. I've been enjoying the other entries, especially seeing all of the sites in Robert Birman's video that my kids and I visited during Spring Break in Louisville. But seriously, read my contribution, because it will BLOW. YOUR. MIND. Though I may have gone a little too far in suggesting that all conductors should wear wet suits...

Top of the YouTube Charts

Okay, not at Ahmed the Dead Terrorist levels, but the music program at a New Jersey Episcopal Church has reached 1.4 million hits with its YouTube videos of the pieces performed during services. Bravo to Wayne Burcham-Gulotta for putting these videos up in an effort to educate and serve his parish. It is a model that all music programs should consider, though ticket-selling groups may have to consider how best to navigate rights and dilution of product. Give audiences the opportunity to rehear a work so they can understand it better. Provide an analysis so they can appreciate some of the nuances. Spark a desire to learn more about the piece, the composer, the ensemble, the genre, or the time period. In the case of religious groups, combine musicology and theology in the education process, or provide musical sources of pastoral care. I've been thinking about the mission of musical groups lately, and the clear rightness of these videos (simple, no splashy production values but with good information added) really speaks to me.

Music Plagiarism

I've been reading Popdose lately, partially to bring my pop sensibilities to the twenty-first century, partially because Chad Orzel quoted part of their Mellowmas series and it was too funny. In my readings I came across this comparison of Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy" and 4 Non Blondes "What's Up?", both from a pop era with which I am much more familiar. First, this reminded me of a post I wrote awhile ago on Nickelback, about what makes up a song's identity. To be fair to Dw. Dunphy, the melody starts almost identically for McFerrin and 4 Non Blondes, allowing for the shift from reggae beats to a straight four on the floor. But the second half the stanza for "What's Up?" is different, and it is definitely the hook for that song. And, I really like the mashup between these two songs, the juxtaposition of opposite emotions on the same harmonic base appeals to me.

Second, this story reminded me of an NPR story I heard recently about Men At Work getting sued for plagiarizing "Kookaburra" for their song "Down Under." I have a problem with extended copyright in general, because of this sort of nonsense that could impede the creation of new art. Does "Down Under" significantly sample "The Kookaburra Song" (a friggin' 4-bar melody)? You judge (listen to the flute part in the Men At Work piece):



This idea of egregious lawsuits deserves unnecessary censorship (though no one deserves Barney):

Stravinsky and Money

No, these are actually two separate topics, combined into one post. First, Michael Monroe has spent his summer well, creating Mr. Stravinsky's Random Accent Generator. Click through to see what and why (though the later question might well be WHY?!!!!)

Second, another article appeared in today's IndyStar about the Venzago/ISO stir. According to Venzago's manager, the issue was money. The ISO administration wanted Venzago to take a 50% cut in salary for this year, and to go with a podium fee payment system for 2010-11 instead of a standard salary. According to Drew McManus' compensation reports, Mario Venzago made $395,764 last year, with the base musician salary at $72,800. CEO Simon Crookall earned $256,823. I don't know if Simon will take a salary cut this year, I would certainly expect it as a good moral booster. Another part of the newspaper article mentions that the ISO had a budget shortfall of $293,000, and they laid off eight front office staff this year.
Update: I missed the little arrows in Drew's charts which show that Mario had a raise this last year, and Simon did indeed get a salary cut. I don't have a subscription to Drew's site to see how much the cut was. Mario's 2006-7 salary was reported in the newspaper as $388,695, so it looks like he got about $5000 raises each year.

Shake up at the ISO

News rushed out in the Intertubes yesterday that Mario Venzago would not be returning to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra this season. I received a notice through Facebook (I'm officially a fan of the ISO), and then read a little more about it from local blogger Chantal. But then today's newspaper had a very different take, and unfortunately somewhat tabloidy. The source for the information is someone, Cassie Goldstein, who had been laid off in February, someone who did not have president Simon Crookall on her favorite person list. And her statement that only one offer had been made to Venzago seems highly unlikely and is directly contradicted by Simon. Ms. Goldstein just seems to read like a hanger-on from celebrity scandals who try to make it sound like she knows more than she really does. I could be wrong, she might have been directly involved in the negotiations. However, I know Simon (he's the senior warden at my church), and while I'm not surprised that there could be a personality conflict between him and Maestro Venzago, I would be totally surprised that Simon would negotiate in bad faith. I prefer to think that it was a negotiation that broke down, perhaps because Mario Venzago wouldn't spend more time in Indy, perhaps because of money issues, perhaps about who makes artistic decisions. But that both sides did negotiate fairly and honestly, and just couldn't come to a consensus. Would you like to try on my rose-colored glasses?

It is interesting to read the comments in the online version of the story. This is actually the number one post on the newspaper's website right now, showing a high level of interest. However, some of the comments are by people who are attracted by the tabloid aspects rather than through caring about the ISO. And many of the comments show the same lack of awareness about the facts of most online venues. One commenter complained about the lack of new music, when the ISO actually does a good job of programming and commissioning new pieces.

Telly Monster must be excited!

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?

Tradition and Innovation

Many of the participants of DePauw's Post-Classical Symposium have already blogged their views: Tim Munro of eighth blackbird (Part 1, Part 2), Greg Sandow (Part 1, Part 2), and Eric Edberg. What finally got me stirred enough to comment was a lecture given yesterday by the Dean of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. He was talking about the concerns of the Episcopal Church, with declining attendance and lacks of connection between clergy and laity. Dean Hall has been exploring ways to change seminary education to train priests for today's environment. Replace church with concerts, seminaries with conservatories, and priests with musicians, and you have the discussions from the Post-Classical Symposium. In both cases, there is a tension between celebrating tradition and pushing for innovation. In classical music tradition is found in theory and history classes, ensemble repertoire, and the canon studied in lessons. Religious tradition holds to certain interpretations of Scripture, core values of morality, etc. But because not enough people are going to concerts or churches, there are moves to innovate, by altering the canon (Episcopal pun intended) or the organizations. Emphasis on chamber music and lay ministers, rock-influenced classical music and rock-influenced liturgical music, these efforts to progress and grow can also be taken as disrespect for traditional values. Listening to Greg Sandow and Joe Horowitz, it is clear that these gentlemen greatly respect the traditions of classical music while looking for ways to change it. And just as the tensions in the Episcopal Church could be alleviated by realizing the respect for tradition as well as growth, the tensions involved in "saving" classical music also need these reminders.

Scores just want to be free

Slashdot reports that Project Gutenberg has volunteered to host IMSLP's catalog. What isn't clear is who will vet the legality of the scores, since Project Gutenberg has said it will host "as much [...] as is legally possible" and says that many of the scores mentioned in Universal Edition's cease and desist letter could also be hosted. The quote ends with "when the legalities have finally been worked out." So who will be working out the legalities? IMSLP's creator doesn't have the time or resources, that is why he closed down the database. And Tim points out all of the difficulties in investigating copyright legality. I won't get too excited until more clarification is provided.

In the meantime, Bob Kosovsky of the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has provided some other sources of public domain scores:

Sheet Music Archive
Choral Public Domain Library
Chopin Early Editions
Werner Icking Music Archive
Indiana University's William and Gayle Cook Music Library, Variations
Eastman School of Music's Sibley Music Library, this service will take requests for public domain scores, putting all legal requests up on the website.

Corporations 5,312 - Public Interest 2

Scott Strader informed me that the International Music Score Library Project has gone down. Follow the link to find out the details of Universal Edition's Cease and Desist and the IMSLP owner's decisions. I had just pointed my students to this resource last week, so they could practice dictations while on break, away from the music library. And my students have access to a good score library for most weeks of the year. What about those musicians and music lovers who don't have academic affiliations? This is very sad and I hope some other institutions, especially groups like CMS, AMS, SMT, and MENC, do take up the mantle to provide a fully legal version.

Post-Classical Symposium

DePauw University's School of Music will be hosting a symposium on Post-Classical music education next month (November 30-December 1). Members of ensemble-in-residence eighth blackbird will be involved, along with Joseph Horowitz and Greg Sandow. Symposium organizer Eric Edberg has blogged about the symposium, though unfortunately the blog he created for the symposium seems to be offline. But I thought I'd mention the symposium now because Stephen Brookes has written an article about Horowitz's Post-Classical Ensemble in the Washington Post, thoughtfully reproduced on his own blog. The idea of re-energizing concerts is good, but it must take into account the fact that many classical music lovers like the ritualized atmosphere of the average concert, with prescribed costumes and/or behavior. And that there is nothing wrong with that attitude. The difficulty comes in balancing the desires of the "old" audience with the "new" audience, as is shown in Eric's own experiment with a post-classical concert environment (read the comments). I think Horowitz's programming ideas are very interesting and seem to be successful, as is the Bang-on-a-Can model, and multitudes of other ideas. Alex Ross' latest New Yorker article talks about how the internet has been used in a wide variety of ways to promote music (sadly he doesn't give me any link-love). Much like the Long Tail concept in music publishing, I think many musical ensembles can adapt to the Long Tail concept by aiming for niche audiences. Not all ensembles need to do the same thing, there is no one magic pill that will work for all audiences. That is the frustration I get reading some of the polemics by Norman Lebrecht and Greg Sandow, that they portray an idea that there is one concept of "classical" that has died or is dying, and only they can save it. This is probably unfair, but it is still the impression I get. So, what are your thoughts on Post-Classical music composition/programming/education/etc?

Links

Cognitive Daily on Absolute Pitch.
One point about this study that Dave didn't emphasize is the bimodal distribution. Many people, myself included, regard absolute pitch as an ability that exists on a continuum. But most of the participants of this study either had no AP ability, or had very strong AP ability. Some of this might be due to the task, unlike the Levitin study that showed how many people can sing their favorite music within a semitone of the correct key.

Mind Hacks on epilepsy in rap music.

The Last Protestant Dinosaur on 20 ways to make the Episcopal liturgy more welcoming. Points 5, 6, 9, 15, 16, and 20 are about the music. One quote: "THE GLORIA (ack, ick,) this is praise? no, this is impenetrable dogma set to shitty music."
I like the Gloria's from most of the masses sung at the cathedral. And priests have such potty mouths!

The Chicago Cultural Center is hosting a discussion on the music industry going green.

Don't give up your day job

I'm pleasantly surprised to admit that I agree with Norman Lebrecht about something. He wrote a post about the principal 'cellist of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Said 'cellist, Nathan Waks, once was head of music at the Australian Broadcasting Company. That part isn't important. What is important is that Mr. Waks has another job alongside playing with the orchestra, as CEO of a winery (Nathan Waks also wrote a comment to the post). Mr. Lebrecht points out that this model leads to a much happier life, compared to full-time orchestral players who get burned out. What struck me about the post is that the concertmaster, Dene Olding, has a similar arrangement to the new concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Zack De Pue. He is in the popular chamber group Time for Three. The ISO has also hired Alexander Kerr, a professor at Indiana University, to be the principal guest concertmaster when Zack is on tour with his other chamber groups. The day job can be teaching, composing, playing in a chamber group, or running a bistro.

Stuff Online

First, a new online music journal, Radical Musicology. Unlike many other journals, RM provides a blog for discussion of the articles, an update on the email list that talks about Music Theory Online articles. The first volume of RM looks interesting, if beyond my area of expertise. The closest would be Gustavo Azenha's article on the affects of e-commerce on the music industry, something I've blogged about several times.

Second, Dan Brown (no, not that Dan Brown) has written an online book about Bach, entitled, Why Bach? He sent me a password, essentially an Advanced Review Copy of the book, and I've been slowly reading it. Brown uses the online format well, with links to MIDI-produced excerpts and scores peppered throughout the text, and color-coded text describing these examples. As an example, he talks about an embedded appoggiatura within an appoggiatura. In the text, the smaller figure is in red, matching the red bracket of the example, while the larger figure is mentioned in green to match the green bracket of the example. The MIDI examples are sometimes annoying, particularly the faux voice sound for the chorales. But they still help get the point across, with an engaging text intended for "the lay music lover [...] though I'd like to think there are things in it that will interest the expert as well." (from the Foreword) Dan Brown is selling this e-book for $7.95, which can be paid via PayPal. Pop scholarship of music has reached Azenha's internet age.

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.

Classical Recordings: I'm not dead yet!

I'll admit it, I was the skeptical college professor mentioned by Eric Edberg. After that talk, I also did some googling. Searching the RIAA website, I found their Research and Data site, with total sales and Consumer Profiles. First, the whole recording industry has gone through a cycle in the last ten years. In 1996 $12.5 billion of recordings were sold*. In 2005 $12.3 billion were sold. The high point was in 1999 ($14.6 billion), during the crazy days of Amazon free shipping. The low was in 2003 ($11.9 billion). Classical recording sales has followed the same trend through this time, maintaining a rather constant 3% of market share. In digital sales, however, the Classical genre does much better. As a Guardian article from last spring points out, classical music accounts for 12% of iTunes sales. And 2005 Year-End Statistics for RIAA show that the recording market started in an upward trend after 2003 when download sales started being recorded. But this is sales, not production.

I couldn't find any industry-wide data, but I looked at Deutsche Grammaphon's catalog to tally their number of releases each year. Here it is:
Year # of releases
1982 8
1983 18
1984 29
1985 38
1986 19
1987 75
1988 52
1989 72
1990 56
1991 39
1992 53
1993 72
1994 86
1995 120
1996 90
1997 88
1998 94
1999 109
2000 85
2001 77
2002 116
2003 129
2004 145
2005 235
2006 273

A very steady upward climb, with the normal fluctuations expected from a random walk (so I understand from some Econ colleagues). Granted, the huge increase in 2005 and 2006 include re-releases as DG (and all the other record labels) rush to digitize their back catalog. But even so, there are plenty of new releases in these last two years as well. Finally, I point to a relatively old Wired article on the Long Tail. I think too many of my colleagues and their acquaintances are still thinking in the old brick-n-mortor economic mentality, including the speaker from last night. The new digital economy allows for niche markets to thrive, including the various Classical niches. Independent labels such as Canteloupe have taken off, with great access through Amazon, iTunes, eTunes, etc.

I will agree that the major labels did cut many of their artists during the late 90's, probably most from panic when sales temporarily levelled off in 1997. As Greg Sandow (via Eric) points out, Classical recordings did rely upon subsidies, so cutting high-priced artists would shave some expenses, at least from a knee-jerk middle-manager perspective. But I will have to see conclusive data refuting what I have seen, to convince me that the Classical recording industry has indeed died. So consider this a bleg, repeating what Eric asks for: actual statistics along the lines of: "In 1980, there were X new classical releases; in 1990, Y; in 2000 Z; etc."



*Estimated, based on shipping data.