Rhythm as signifier

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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).