Back from Beantown

I was offline for the last four days, attending the national meeting of the Society for Music Theory. I had a great time, seeing old friends and teachers, listening to stimulating papers, and having possibly the best dinner of my life at Julien's, thanks to my generous big brother. I'm not going to blog much more about the conference, as I'm still digesting the things I heard. I'm also inspired to work harder on my own research and writing, so a little less time at the old blog-wheel.

I do want to point out that Jaquandar has finally taken up my film music meme, willingly undertaking the longer list. To answer his question, the course will be on all uses of music in films, including source music. I also want to point out that not all source music is diagetic, nor all underscoring non-diagetic. A literal definition of "diagetic" is being produced by the narrative. One can imagine cases where source music is not directly part of the narrative, and there are plenty of cases where the underscoring is a direct result of the narrative (in Amadeus, Mozart imagines the music he is composing, which we hear in the underscore).

More on Countertenors

It's serendipity that I received this comment a day before I attended a recital by Steven Rickards. The recital was very good, including a hilarious love duet between Steven and Gabriel Crouch. I also liked song cycles by Gerald Finzi and John Gardner, both based on texts by Shakespeare. And now to my commenter. Here's what Mr. Lynch says:

I have sung countertenor since 1966 and have more than once felt the insult of gender discrimination. Regardless of one's musical tastes, it is simply wrong for the same reasons it's wrong to exclude women from practicing medicine. However you dress it up or rationalize it, gender discrimination is what it is. In California, it's illegal as to professional singers working for a non-religious employer. When public funds or facilities are involved it's illegal, period. I'm a lawyer by trade, and I'm itching for the right case to litigate this issue, which I'll gladly do pro bono. And by the way, the Episcopal Church has a specific canon against gender discrimination in all aspects of lay ministry. This isn't a musical taste issue, but a human rights issue.

I don't accept that this issue has to be about gender discrimination. Vocal performance is about more than just the tessitura. The timbre of a countertenor's voice is quite different from that of an alto, just like the timbres of a harmonica compared with a clarinet. No one would suggest that it is discrimination to prevent a harmonica player from auditioning for an all-state orchestra, even though that player could play the same notes as a clarinetist (or flutist or violinist). This issue is not about male versus female, it is about blended versus unblended tonal colors. Others have made the argument that countertenors can blend with female altos or sopranos, and I can accept that possibility. I can also accept the possibility that the Texas Board was influenced by gender stereotypes in making their decision, which is wrong. But to assume that this has to be the case, that is unfounded in my opinion. The Episcopal Church sees no contradiction between its canon against gender discrimination and its many Men and Boys Choirs, which do not allow female membership. Nor with its Girl choirs which do not admit males. Neither do I.

That fine line between idiocy and genius

Frank Samarotto of Indiana University took it upon himself to create a list of bad dissertation titles.

I have to say, I'd really want to read #4, 8 and 10.

1. Uncertainty in Music: A Definitive Survey

2. The Catalan Influence on the French Augmented Sixth Chord in the Music of Engelbert Humperdinck

3. The Voicing of the Final Chord in Music of the Classical Period

4. A Syncategorematically Recursive Hedra-Lattice of Poly-PC Postponement: A Theory of Atonal Silence

5. Heinrich Schenker: Threat or Menace?

6. Prolonging the Agony: A Schenkerian Approach to Muzak in the Dentist's Office

7. “Where Are All My Favorite Notes?” A Statistical Tabulation of Every Pitch-Class in the Serial Music of Webern

8. A Violist Walked into a Barline: Rhythm and Meter in the Structure of Viola Jokes

9.Three Times a Lady: Triple Counterpoint in the Music of Britney Spears

10. The Whole Step: Our Misunderstood Friend

A point for the EP crowd

Dave Munger has another post about music and emotion. Researchers at the University of Toronto found that people with extensive musical training are better at detecting emotions in speech prosody (the pitch patterns used in speaking) than those without musical training. This fits in the arguments of Benzon and others that music arose before language as a means of communicating emotion. It also agrees with the notion that music has continued as a human activity as a means of exercising our emotions. If musical people are better at reading emotions, they are more likely to make lasting connections with other people, and hence increase their likelihood of survival. And this is why human cognition has evolved to enjoy listening to and creating music. A leap is made here, as the study only looks at performance, and did find that singing was not as effective as keyboard training.

Blogging warm-up

When you've taken a break from blogging, it is important to do a good warm-up before embarking on any extensive posts. Thus I give you, yet another movie-meme. This time, it's comedies.

Airplane!
All About Eve
Amelie
Annie Hall
The Apartment
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Blazing Saddles
Bringing Up Baby
Broadcast News
Caddyshack
Le diner de con
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Duck Soup
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Four Weddings and a Funeral
The General
Ghostbusters
The Gold Rush
Good Morning Vietnam
The Graduate
Groundhog Day
A Hard Day's Night
His Girl Friday
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Lady Killers
Local Hero
Manhattan
M*A*S*H
Monty Python's Life of Brian *
National Lampoon's Animal House
The Odd Couple
The Producers
Raising Arizona
Roxanne
Rushmore
Shaun of the Dead
A Shot in the Dark
Some Like it Hot
Strictly Ballroom
Sullivan's Travels
There's Something About Mary
This is Spinal Tap
To Be or Not to Be
Tootsie
Toy Story *
Les vacances de M. Hulot
When Harry Met Sally...
Withnail and I

Films Whose Presence in the Canon I'm Particularly Gratified to See (pick up to five): Airplane!, Blazing Saddles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, This is Spinal Tap, Toy Story

Films in the Canon Whose Presence Should Not Be (pick up to five): Austin Powers, Dodgeball, A Hard Day's Night, Shaun of the Dead, Sullivan's Travels

Films I'd Pick to Replace Them (pick up to five): City Lights, What's Opera Doc?, One Night in the Tropics, Stripes, It's a Mad Mad Mad World.

Fastest Slide of the West

David of Hot Brass has the link to the trailor of Kit Bones - the fastest slide in the West, starring Christian Lindberg and Håkan Hardenberger. You've been warned.

Don't you hate it when life intrudes on blogging?

1) My parents visited for the weekend.
2) I got an early birthday present: The Lord of the Rings exhibit. (Which was really cool.)
3) I got another early birthday present, teas from Adagio Tea. (Mango, Berry Blues, and the Green Tea sampler.)
4) We thought my wife's purse was stolen, complete with birth certificates from our trip to Canada. So cancelling credit cards, putting alerts on our bank accounts, filing police reports.
5) The university orchestra concert.
6) We decided to stop looking for a house to buy, and instead started to look for a house to rent for awhile.
7) Pumpkin carving.
8) Mask painting.
9) Trick-or-Treating.
10) Candy eating.
11) Advising students on course scheduling for next semester. Each day I seem to get more students advising with me, including those who already have other advisers.
12) We discovered that the purse was not stolen, but left at the university library. Yet we are without credit cards until the new ones arrive. Fun!

So I'm finally back blogging, spurred by a request to advertise a fine classical music resource in Vancouver. Classical Vancouver is a web portal with concert calendars, lists of artists and resources, and links to arts-related news. I think this is a great idea for all larger cities to emulate. A one-stop-shopping approach to the fine arts makes it easier for artists to find each other, and for audiences to find concerts to attend.