A Poem

Today is National Poetry Day in Great Britain. In honor, I shall post a poem.

Truth burns with the light of a thousand suns
Beautiful as Hell, tortuous as a clear day.

In the hands of a liar, Truth screams and twists,
cutting the wielder as well as the listener.

Honest people fear Truth as much as the wicked.
It makes no distinctions, offers no quarter.

Truth may seem comforting,
until its cold heat shines on your own heart.

Yet even Truth quails and bolts
when asked, "Does this make me look fat?"

Do we need models?

Two months ago, I wrote a post about Bret Aarden and Paul von Hippel's article in Music Theory Online about chord doubling. In the extremely new latest issue, Roger Wibberley finds faults with their model. He argues that Aarden and Hippel's model
misses the main point of compositional theory, the motive of the composer.

Yet these principles or "rules" can only provide an abstract insight into the composer's Means (i.e. his specific technical articulations) that identify each individual Opportunity (i.e. each specific recorded instance of triad notation). No such model can explore a composer's actual reason or Motive for realizing an opportunity in the way he did.

He then goes on to try to prove that their statistical method is bad, but he makes a big mistake of sampling, trying to compare the results of a 10 chord pair sample with those of a 3,603 sample size. von Hippel and Aarden handle this issue thoroughly in their response to Wibberley, so I will instead focus on his more intriguing statement, that of the purpose for a compositional model.

Wibberley lays out three attributes for a meaningul compositional model: motive, means and opportunity. The means identifies the techniques that can be used, the opportunity looks at the possible uses of the techniques, and the motive examines why the composer chooses a particular technique. Up to this point, I am in total agreement with him, with the caveat that not every good model will cover all three attributes thoroughly. Some models will detail all the possible ways to move from one chord to the next (the opportunities) and illustrate which ways were used by composers (the means) in a given style/genre/period. These models are more general, meant to cover a whole musical language. Other models are very specific, looking at the means used by one composer or the means used by many composers when faced with a specific context. These specific models will focus primarily on the composer's motives. These specific models rely upon the work of the general models, either internally or externally.

But in Wibberley's third paragraph, he claims that motive is all that matters, that means and opportunity are not important.

What I am suggesting is that a composer's choice of note doubling or chord spacing (or anything else for that matter) was never made simply in order to follow established rules and procedures. Rather each choice was made only because it was a composer's "preferred solution" that was deemed at that moment to be aesthetically and artistically the best available. As soon as musical practice is described in terms of "rules" we immediately step away from the language of the musician and become engaged with that of the theorist. What therefore begins life as an artistic musical expression then simply ends up trapped in the world of "theorist-speak".(1) [the footnote assures the reader that "theorist-speak" not meant to be pejorative but rather as a distinction between theoria and practica.]

I first object to the suggestion that theorists are not musicians, though in fairness Roger is probably using "musician" as shorthand to signify performers and composers. But more importantly, Roger makes the mistake of thinking that models detail proscriptive rules. Models are meant to be descriptive, defining compositional languages in the general and the specific. If a composer makes a surprising progression or voice-leading, we can only call it surprising if we know what expected practice is. And general models tell us what expected practice is.

Theorists sometimes get carried away with the creation of partwriting rules or counterpoint species, forgetting that these pedagogical techniques are meant to model normative compositional behavior. These theorists (or theory teachers, more likely) drill partwriting into their students, marking off every instance of parallel fifths or voice overlap that occur in both exercises and music literature. But most theorists (and many theory teachers) realize that the goals of theoretical models are to give musicians the tools to describe both expected and surprising behavior in compositional practice.

A different Defense of Marriage Act is needed

Chris Brooke has dug deeper into the Country Music Suicide issue. Apparently, there is a strong correlation between listening to country music and divorce, with divorce as the strongest cause of suicide.

The GSS figures report that 27.4% of country fans report marital disruption as opposed to only 18.4% of nonfans, and they're quite a bit more likely (61.8% to 40.2%) to have a gun at home, too, as Table Two, "The Relationship between Musical Preference and Having a Gun in the Home, 1993" clearly shows. But with the new figures they're using no longer suggesting a straightforward relationship between the amount of country coming through the radio and the tendency of whites to top themselves, they explore a different angle, suggesting that "country music might be associated with suicide through indirect effects, as well as interaction effects... For example, given its preoccupation with the travails of love, it is conceivable that country might be predictive of urban divorce rates". And, yes, a simple regression shows that "country music had the strongest relationship to divorce" and that "divorce, in turn, is the strongest predictor of suicide." My goodness. And among the divorced population itself, the authors hypothesize, those who like country music might be the ones more likely to kill themselves, as "divorced people would be the most apt to be receptive to the sad messages in such songs". Indeed.

It is clearly time for our intrepid Congress and Administration to protect the sanctity of marriage from the insidious effects of country music. Sure, the defense of marriage is really a matter of states' rights, but can we really trust Tennessee to make the right choice and bomb Nashville? Clearly a Constitutional Amendment is necessary.

The Music Teacher did it

Last night Mary and I went to the last night of the university’s production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Three-quarters of the cast and pit are current or former students of mine, who had been pestering me for the last two weeks about when I was going to attend. I foolishly thought that my students, including the lead actress in the role of Chairwoman Eliza Cartwright, merely wanted me there to boost the audience and to possibly get feedback from a respected professor. I found out that I had never been so right and so wrong at the same time.

But first I must explain some features of the musical. It is a play within a play, something that confused some students in my First Year Seminar class who reviewed last week’s performances. The interior play is a dramatization of Charles Dickens’ last and unfinished novel of the same name, a mystery about the disappearance of a young English gentleman who could’ve been murdered by his jealous uncle (and music teacher!), his fiancée, a rival for the affections of his fiancée, the rival’s protective sister, an Anglican priest, the priest’s assistant, the drunken crypt keeper, or the opium den owner and former prostitute. The exterior play is the production of this mystery by the troops of the Music Hall Royale, a parody of Victorian theater, complete with a famous male impersonator in the title role, a missing actor (he’s drunk) forcing the Chairwoman to assume the role of Mayor as well as narrating the show, and “Going to the Races.” The exterior players interact with the audience before and during the show, with plenty of ribald jokes both planned and improvised.

Because Dickens died before solving the mystery, Rupert Holmes decided to make the musical a “Solve-it-Yourself” production, in the same vein as the movie Clue or the play Shear Madness. First, the cast conducts a mock vote on whether Edwin Drood really died, or if he merely went missing. He always dies, so the actress can rant about how she was screwed over and flounce off the stage. In this production the actress storms back across the stage later, wearing her Victorian street clothes and carrying a very cute (and remarkably well-behaved) 8-month old dachshund. Next, the real identity of a mysterious bearded man is determined by audience vote. As a rag is held over each candidate character, the audience votes by applause. Last night a run-off was required by a tie between two characters, resulting in the unlikely result of Rosa Bud disguised as the old man. The vote for the murderer is conducted by the exterior players who mingle among the audience and tabulate the choices. (Last night it was the drunken cryptkeeper, Durdles.) After these choices are acted out, the Chairwoman announces that a love story must be concluded. So the audience must vote for a female character and a male character to fall in love. Unfortunately, the vote-by-applause for the female character ended in a tie after two run-off elections. So the Chairwoman uses this opportunity to wreak vengeance upon her innocent theory professor. Perhaps I called on her too many times for sightsinging, or made my exams too hard. After all, I am unimaginably evil.

Chairwoman Eliza Cartwright, who in real life appears to be a delightful young woman, announces that a single person will break the tie: me. She makes me stand up and announce my choice. As the first choice, “Helena Landless”, is a current student of mine and the second choice, “Princess Puffer,” is a former student, I naturally said, “This is hard. I’ve had both of them in my classes.” Given the bawdy nature of the whole production, an instant outburst of laughter masked the last three words. So it appeared that I had announced sexual relations with two of my students. And the Vice President of Academic Affairs was in the audience. I’m looking forward to my interim review this year! Thankfully my file is officially closed for the review, though there is always the tenure review in two years. As a typical oblivious professor, I blithely continued on. “I pick Helena, as I will have to face her Monday morning.” Thinking the torture was over, I sat down. But then the vote was taken for the male part of this democratic matchmaking. This vote was quite clear, as the plentiful number of SAE members in the audience cheered on their frat brother, “Neville Landless,” the sibling of Helena. So not only had I said that I had “had” one of my students, I also picked her to be part of an incestuous relationship. Many people made sure to point that out to me after the show was over, including my students, my colleagues, and “Helena’s” mother.

Theater is dangerous business.

Tim McGraw, patriot or health risk?

In my high school speech class I gave a persuasive talk on the dangers of country music. I detailed the monotonous harmonic progressions that could hypnotize drivers; the suggestive lyrics that could encourage divorce, drinking, and truck driving; and the potential for certain vocal twangs to puncture ear drums. It was a very popular speech, and apparently one ahead of its time. Steven Stack of Wayne State University and Jim Gundlach of Auburn University have published a study of "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide." They found that listening to country music did cause an increase in the white suicide rate, "independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability."

Yes, I did become aware of this study because it won the Ig-nobel Award in Medicine this year. But it is also a good example to include in the unit on music and social behavior of my psych of music class. And frankly, everyone should be aware of the dangers inherent in country music. I'm watching you, Faith Hill.

(via Pharyngula)

Perhaps an improvement?

In an effort to connect with those security moms, Dick Cheney and George Bush have embraced their feminine sides.

Handbook of Music Psychology (2nd ed)

I think I have found the textbook for next semester's course on the psychology of music. The Handbook of Music Psychology, edited by Donald Hodges, is more rounded than Diana Deutsch's The Psychology of Music. It includes discussions of music therapy, the social psychology of music, and has a great introductory chapter on the discipline of music psychology as a whole. It doesn't go into great detail in places, but that's where handouts and supplemental readings come in. Now I need to make up the syllabus and create the handouts. Thankfully I have some free time in January to finalize all the details.