Top Five Albums of 2011

It's that time of year again so break out the eggnog and headphones and check out the lists for the top albums of the year. In all honesty I'm still digesting some of the stuff that came out in 2010 and the Autumn of 2011 saw new releases by several of my favorite artists and I probably could come up with a list of top ten albums of band that continued their legacy, that being said I decided to keep it to five albums plus some honorable mentions. I have preferred not to rank them numerically but there is an inherent value judgement in the way they appear.



Barton Hollow by the Civil Wars
This group absolutely exploded on to the scene this year. I had been hearing a buzz about this duo from Nasheville early in the year and as is common these days checked out their videos first. I was impressed with the live performances, the seriousness with which they approached their craft and yet still seeming not to take themselves too seriously which is a great combination in an artist of any genre. Barton Hollow I think was the most important album of the year receiving a lot of play in our household but of course, time will tell whether or not the Civil Wars are able to build on their success. This is also the only debut album on my list.

Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes
When the single for this album came out I listened to it probably 4-5 times in a row and it seemed that the wait between the release of the single and the full album was unbearable. This is a great album top to bottom and despite the direct sonic references to Simon and Garfunkle it is still a very innovative and original album.

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues by subpop

Bon Iver by Bon Iver
I'm not even sure where to begin. This is another artist which I'd been hearing quite a buzz about, listened to a few tracks streaming and decided to download the new album when it came out. I listened to it a couple of times and thought that it was pretty creative but seemed like the studio indulgence of yet another single gifted songwriter. The self harmonies, guitar effects and instrumentation I heard on the record created a sonic texture that I thought would be impossible for most "pop" musicians to reproduce live... and then I came across Bon Iver live from the 930 club and I was hooked. I will be honest, I can barely make out a word or two, maybe a phrase in his songs so I don't really know what he is singing about but this music is some what like an expressionist painting, just enough detail to get the emotion but not enough detail that it couldn't be your song too.
http://www.npr.org/event/music/138890247/live-tuesday-bon-iver-in-concert


Ghosts Upon the Earth by Gungor
This is a case which happens so often in the GRAMMY's in which the artists previous work was soo good and yet unrecognized you feel like you have to give them something. In this case Gungor has produced an amazing follow up to "Beautiful Things". They once called their kind of music "Liturgical post-rock" in an attempt to distinguish themselves from other "christian" artists and they have even outgrown that. Essentially they are blurring the lines between art music and pop music and it is great, if this doesn't give you chills you might want to check your pulse.

The Whole Love by Wilco
In many ways this band ushered the folk rock sound back into the mainstream. Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" was on repeat when I moved into my condo in 2006 in part because pretty much everyone likes their sound and each time you listen to it their is something new there for you to discover. The Whole Love makes it to the top five not because they were able to continue doing what did so well but because they were able to take a giant leap forward and still be true to themselves and their previous record. Keeping forward momentum as an artist and not alienating your fan base is perhaps the single hardest thing in pop music and these gentlemen have done it very well.

Honorable Mentions (or bands that continued to do what they do well)


The King of Limbs by Radiohead
A great Radiohead album but it seems that they have either found their stride or run out of new things to say. If you are a fan of Radiohead this is a great album, if you are a musician who is always looking to this band for a sign of things to come you might be a bit dissapointed.


 Codes and Keys by Death Cab for Cutie
You could essentially say the same thing about this album and just substitute Death Cab for Radiohead. I will say that this is a band who's sound (medium-hi audio fidelity and "produced" sound) have tastefully been updated while still retaining the same identifiable band sound. It's a great album.

The King is Dead by the Decemberists
This is a band that was ahead of it's time, perhaps well ahead of it's time and came into popularity simply by being consistent. Hailing from the mecca of hipsterdom it is hard to tell if it was the chicken or the egg that came first. I would say that I don't think it was these guys who brought the trends on however the spotlight recently focused down on their scene only helped them shine brighter. Colin is perhaps one of the best story tellers in music of my generation and it is helped that he has a good ear for catchy melodies and is backed by fun band.


Radiosurgery by New Found Glory
Full disclosure, this is my brother-in-law's band so I am a bit biased. I grew up listening to and playing this genre of music and didn't pay much attention to these guys at first because they were from a rival scene and sell outs! Pretty funny now. I will say that although this will not get the commercial attention of their albums of their early 2000's it is probably their strongest record to date while straying true to their signature sound and fan base. In many ways I would say this is culmination of some career pop punks.


Vice Verses by Switchfoot
A great follow up to Hello Huricane which in many peoples eyes put these guys back on the map. This is a great rock album. (period) It helps that the lyrics are introspective, retrospective and even selfless at times without ever being negative or condescending, very refreshing.



Standouts from 2010: So good I was still listening to them a ton in 2011
Antifogmatic - Punch Brothers (can't wait for the new record)

Beautiful Things - Gungor
The Archandroid - Janelle Monae

Please let me know what you think, albums I need to listen to or other lists I need to check out. Feel free to comment here, on my Facebook or send me a tweet.


I recommend my good friend Greg Gibson's top 10 list as well
http://www.greggibsonmusic.com/2011/12/16/happy-holidays-and-best-of-2011/

Cheers! 

Why Music?

This address is so eloquent and powerful that I have to share it.

The original version may be found here http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/music/karl-paulnack-welcome-address

Karl Paulnack Welcome Address

One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school—she said, "you're wasting your SAT scores!" On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.
One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music? And yet—even from the concentration camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning."

In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome". Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings—people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Midwestern town a few years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier—even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.
When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute cords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?"

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

"If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."

Breaking Charecter

Been a long time since I've posted anything and a rainy morning in San Diego seems like a perfect time to break the blog silence.

There is a hoopla or rather a grumbling in the press about the resent performance of one of today's most prominent divas at the biggest opera house in the US. Ana Netrebko is not the biggest name in opera these days, that probably goes to Rene Flemming but it is arguable that Mrs. Netrebko is the diva du jour. The Metropolitan opera is the most important opera theater in the United States and though few would argue that it is the most important theater in the world it certainly is a world focal point due to the media interest, international flavor (most other theaters have stronger national ties) and the privately raised budget which is unheard of in Europe. 

While I wasn't there and can't comment on the moment or the context I would like to just add that theater is a live event and there is an interaction between the audience and performers which exactly what makes it worth watching live over seeing it on DVD or in the movie theaters. Performers are rather perceptive, sometimes too much so, of the audience and their "vibe" and on the other side, audience members are eager to show their appreciation for the performance and often want to be involved in the process.

A choral conducting colleague of mine has often lamented the fact that local audiences are so eager to applaud that they will often start on the ultimate chord of a piece without letting the sound die out from the space or even letting the musical idea come to an end. To my point of view this is a good problem to have but in the view of my colleague they are trampling all over the artistry of the ensemble.

At any rate, this article by Zachary Woolfe gives a good overview of the situation and a history of some notable similar situations.

http://www.observer.com/2011/10/grin-and-bear-it-why-anna-netrebkos-smile-got-the-critics-riled/?show=all

Opera fans profiled

Bookslut - a column from the website "The Smart Set" reviews a book about Opera fans or rather Fanatics.

The full review (found here) by Jess Crispin, is definitely worth the read even though it is from a personal rather than objective point of view. 

Ms. Crispin writes: In The Opera Fanatic: Ethnography of an Obsession, Claudio E. Benzecry identifies four distinct types of the obsessed attendee: There’s the hero, who believes he is keeping the opera house open and the art itself alive and vital. There’s the addict, who is willing to sacrifice his families, friends, lovers, money, and sanity to attend multiple performances of the same opera, to listen to the records and attend lectures and travel to distant theaters. There’s the nostalgic, for whom everything was better when it was sung by Maria Callas, or Joan Sutherland, or back in 1965, or back when people took pride in knowing about opera. Then there’s the pilgrim, the devoted subject who treats the opera house as a religious temple.

I guess those groups make sense enough to me but I don't identify with any of those. I wonder if those of us that wear the hats of both performer/artists and fans don't really count as fans. There is something about being on the inside of an industry that changes your status but I would say that if you are in the industry (whatever it is) and not a fan then you probably need to be doing something else.

The book, incase you are wondering: "The Opera Fanatic: the ethnography of and obsession" by Claudio E. Benzecry

Real life Facebook?

This add for an opera points out how odd our online lives truly are. Not the first video to do so but more tasteful than most, though I'm still not sure what the opera is about.

Enjoy

Computer Music

This blog and my writing in general would probably be much stronger if I was less personal about it and acted more as a reporter but then why would I write this in the first place? I am not a reporter, I simply do this for fun.

I doubt anyone except my one "follower" has noticed, but my blogs are primarily published on Fridays, this is because it is my day off. In general there are about a hundred other things I should be doing besides blogging but this brings me joy. Some times I find stories I would like to share during the week and start the blog but am unable to finish until Friday but most of the time Fridays are the day that I can catch up on all the stories I wanted to check out.

Today's story has me feeling a bit like Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole. I originally started reading a story about Max Mathews in the New York Times, the first person to program a computer to play music in a "...replicable combination of hardware and software..". Somewhat ironically the first piece of computer music was actually composed by a colleague of his at Bell Labs named Newman Guttman.

The seventeen second piece is titled "the Silver Scale" and it absolutely fascinates me. I would love to compose or better yet commission a piece for organ based on this very short musical idea. I can't seem to find a decent audio or video clip of the piece on the interweb that I can embed in the blog, if anyone does upload or track a clip down please let me know so I can share it.

Mr. Mathews and Mr. Guttman were both working on a project to get computers to listen and speak (in English) which considering the time frame (1950's) seems very sci-fi. It is remarkable and cool that the first step they took down that direction were musical ones. Essentially, the first words of a computer were SUNG!

Bicycle Built for Two (also known as "Daisy Bell") by Harry Dacre

Perhaps history will find this a significant moment in the balance between computers and humans. I have no idea whether the work that these gentelemen did had any bearing on the current speech recognition that currently exists in our mobile technnology but it certainly must have had some impact. Perhaps it is an exaggeration or an overstatement but it certainly seems as though this was the birth of talking computers even if it took much longer to mature into a viable technology.

For those of us that are fans of science fiction and enjoy indulging the theories about a future in which computers/machines battle humans for control of the world, this would be a big step towards making that a reality. Of course this is played out in many books and movies with scenarios ranging in style from militaristic (Terminator series) to juvenile romance (Wall-e) or artsy (9) to special effects magic (Matrix).

The singing of "Daisy Bell" was enough of a landmark that Stanley Kubric had the villainous computer HAL sing it as he died. In some ways this is the sci-fi version of a typical scenario in opera in which a charecter is inflicted with some mortal wound and then proceeds to sing a five minute aria as they die. My personal favorite is "Dido's Lament" from Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas considered the first English Opera, sung here by Jeff Buckley

When I go back and listen to "Bicycle Built for Two" it now seems so eery in the context of those sci-fi scenarios. To me it just screams for treatment in an opera.

I think that the time has come to set 2001 a Space Odyssey for the operatic stage. Much of the staging could be rather simple and if the emphasis is put on the score then "special effects" could be minimal. The most haunting and perhaps appropriate introduction could be that of a computer singing the role of HAL. Technology exists now so that this need not be some recording but rather a pre-programed computer which responds to the movements and sounds of the actors, orchestra and conductor.

Now which pill do I need to take, is it the blue or the red, I can't remember...

Amazon goes Gaga over new album

I know, I know, that headline is awesome. Your probably thinking that I have a career waiting for me at some regional newspaper if I ever decide to give up my "career" as a professional musician.

In all seriousness I'm floored by the recent move surrounding Lady Gaga's new album "Born This Way". Released on May 23rd it sold over 1.1 million copies in the first week, the first album to do this since 2005. The music market has clearly changed and for the first time ever an album (Born this Way) sold 660,000 digital downloads.

This was helped in no small part to an exclusive sale of the record by Amazon for $.99 a download! When I first heard the buzz about this I figured it was $.99 a song and that iTunes and other competitors were using their new model of $1.29 a song. I could not even imagine that it was less than one dollar for the entire record!

The New York Times, in an article by Ben Sisario, is reporting that Amazon is paying full wholesale price for the album and is taking a loss to sell it for 99 cents!

Amazon paid Interscope’s distributor, Universal, the full wholesale price for the album — between $8 and $9 — and accepted the difference as a loss, according to several people briefed on the sales arrangement, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the details. Billboard reported that Amazon’s two-day sale yielded about 440,000 digital sales; if correct, that would mean that the retailer lost more than $3 million on the promotion. (Amazon declined to comment.)

That Lady Gaga would sell her own record for essentially a tenth of what it's "worth" does not surprise me, in fact, I would almost expect a move like that from her. A dollar for an album is not quite what Radio Head did but certainly in the same league and for someone who is as keen for attention as any artist in my generation there is almost no other choice than to do something drastic in the marketing of the album... but it wasn't her!

I have no idea why Amazon would take such a loss on this one artist except that in two days Amazon had 440,000 digital sales of one album. That has to be a record. And I'm sure a boat load of those were previous iTunes customers who had not checked out how easy was to use the Amazon cloud and downloader.

I seriously doubt that Amazon will tell us the number of first time customers they got in that two day sale, but I'm willing to bet that it was worth at least $3 million in advertising.

Who gets this?

Who gets classical music?
There are definitely some circles of classical music listeners, thankfully smaller and smaller, that are into classical music for scene or perhaps more accurately, to be seen. Some don't spend much time with the music at all and rarely get past the surface but clearly this class of 12 year olds are into this in a very real way thanks to some brave educators and performers.



NPR: Deceptive Cadence - Don't underestimate younger audiences



Perhaps they will one day be like the guy I saw on Friday night leaving the opera blasting "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée", the famous tenor aria from Carmen, with the windows rolled down as if it was some pop song as he left the parking lot.

This ain't American Idol

Sing for your Life - Daniel Bergner NYT

In recent years the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, otherwise none as the Met Competition, has been compared to and fed off the attention of the amazingly successful American Idol TV Show. Though there are a number of similarities to both competitions which are the supreme rulers in their individual areas of interest, to go too far with the comparisons in some way takes away from both events.

What I think has made American Idol so successful is not the competition or even the music but rather the stories behind the singers and the drama created as the stories unfold before our eyes. This article by Daniel Bergner appearing in the New York Times on May 19th, 2011 is a fantastic glimpse into one of those back stories.

Truly one of the most personal stories I have read about classical music in quite some time.

Sing for your Life - Daniel Bergner NYT

Kids and "classical" music

One of my core beliefs is that children, all children, deserve exposure to the arts of as many cultures as possible including our own. In particular I think that there should be as little distinction between styles as possible so that they are able to make up their own minds based on good information

NPR recently featured this story How Do You Introduce Classical Music to Kids?

Being married to a woman who group up in a household of classical musicians I encountered someone who primarily listened to classical music growing up. It was what was playing on the stereo at home and in the cars when they drove around town, it was the dominant style of music in her life and while it isn't the first choice of music that she listens to in the car or around the house, it does make it's way into the rotation.

Classical music simply will not survive as a viable genre if we depend on exposure to come through the education system alone and to count on people who consider being a fan of classical music to be part of upper-class taste.

Catching up, part 2

Part 2, really?

Yes, I had way more to say than I thought about the National Jukebox and I even edited myself down to the point where I'm not sure I said what I meant to. Oh well, I'm not really a writer I just like to share stuff.

Here are the other arts articles I wanted to share this week.

A Pitch for New Music - David Lang
The title of this article is a pun and I won't really say much about the article except that it compares Baseball to Classical music and you should totally read it. It is a bit lengthy but absolutely worth while and if you do read it please come back and comment about it because I would love to get the discussion going on that one.

New beginning? Or beginning of the end?
This is an article from Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer... no, not the National Iquirer, the Philadelphia Inquirer and it's a pretty legit paper.

A little back story.

The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra is one of the "Big 5" orchestras which is a rather prestigious designation even though it is outdated. (Some might say that all prestigious designations are inherently old if not outdated). New York is the cultural heart of the United States and arguably the world and during the mid-20th century all five of these orchestras had annual concert series in New York City which put them at the forefront of the musical landscape in the US.

Although Philadelphia is one of the oldest cities in America and has long ties to cultural institutions the fact that it is mentioned in the same league as New York, Boston and Chicago (3 of the other 5) let alone that is some peoples minds above Los Angeles or San Francisco is due in no small part to the prestige of the orchestra and the Curtis institute of music which would not exist if it were not for that orchestra.

So when Peter Dobrin asks whether or not Philadelphia even needs an orchestra virtually anyone who bothered to read the story would have gasped. The orchestra in Philadelphia is as much a part of the town as the Packers are to Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The other more recent portion of the story is that the Philadelphia Orchestra recently filed for bankruptcy for a number of reasons which are not all clear to me. Negotiations between the orchestra and the musicians have not been going well and in part it seems as though filing for chapter 11 will allow the orchestra management to be a little more aggressive in talks with the union.

This ties in to the book I just finished reading Mozart in the Jungle by Blair Tindall which is, as the subtitle suggests, about "Sex, Drugs and Classical Music". More than that it is also a good history lesson on the how American classical music, namely major symphony orchestras, got to this point which many would argue is an unsustainable system.

I have to say that every where I look I see unsustainable music organizations which I can't imagine will be here in 20-40 years whether that is POP music, opera companies, church music or local semi-pro choirs/orchestras. I just don't know how they'll keep their heads above water unless they change.

I am fully confident that this music will last whether people pay for it or not. As Ms. Tindall argues in some ways what we are seeing is a market correction and we may find ourselves at a more realistic view of how our art fits in the overall culture and will in all likely hood be more accountable to public taste. (Ironically Ms. Tindall jumped from classical music to print media which I believe is also undergoing a similar process)

Catching up

So it's been a while since I've posted anything with this blog and that is due, in large part, because my laptop was stolen at my work. I never got it back and I gave up scanning Craigslist for it a couple of weeks after it went missing. I did however get a new laptop and hope to one day even launch my own website. Until then this blog will do all I need it to.

For me the thing that happened in the last few weeks that I'd like to share was the release of the Library of Congress "National Jukebox" program/website which has made available 10,000 historic recordings, most of which recorded on the old cylinder recording system.

Although there are very few that I would bother putting on my iPod so I could listen as I work out or drive there are a ton of really interesting recordings available. The Atlantic monthly made a list of the 9 best recordings 9 best recordings from the national archive.

In case you are too lazy to go look up that article I have decided to include some of those recordings as well as my commentary on them.

The first recording for your amusement is "O Soave Fanciulla" from La Boheme, performed by Enrico Carusso and Nellie Melba.


When I was in college and obsessed with opera singers and trying to be one I listened to everyone I could and read any book or magazine that came my way. It seemed like was always hearing about the "golden age" of opera singers and truth be told I was never sure when that was but my best guess would have been about the first half of the 20th century, give or take a decade.

As I was an aspiring tenor I was always hearing referances to names like Jussi Bjorling, Enrico Caruso, Franco Corelli, John McCormack and on down the line and of course purchased and borrowed recordings. To my modern ears tempered by studio recordings I just can't get over the tone quality. To me these singers all sound thin and unattractive with none of the richness or "ping" that I would expect a great singer to have.

Beyond the tone I am frankly unimpressed with the phrasing, breathing  or dynamic contrast one can hear on those recordings. Now, I will say that I imagine this is due to the recording quality not being able to capture any of those subtleties. Moreover, I think it's possible that singers had to altar their interpretations to coordinate with the orchestra and achieve some sort of balance for this technology.

That being said, there is an odd shift in vibrato over the scope of recorded history. It seems that vibratos have become increasingly wider and as a result slower than you can hear on this recording. In fact, at times I don't hear any vibrato in the sopranos voice which would be virtually unacceptable by today's standards.

What I do find rather interesting and illuminating is to contrast this with purely instrumental recordings in which tone and technique have changed little in this time.

This next recording is alleged to be the first true "Jazz" recording in that it is not just ragtime music with a swing rhythm but it also incorporates the syncopation and most importantly improvisation that we come to expect of jazz music.









What is of particular interest to me is the tone of the Clarinet in this recording. The most notable on first listen is the extreme high notes it chimes in at the "head" of the piece. The high note, an E flat, makes me think that it is possible that the clarinetist is using the smaller and therefore higher E flat clarinet but that is a rare instrument used primarily in orchestral situations so is not likely.

Aside from the remarkable tessitura of the clarinet is the tone of the instrument on the record. It is rather shallow and not nearly as rich as I would expect from a player who clearly has a solid grasp of the clarinet technique. Though I am no expert on Clarinet or even woodwinds in general I am confident that a beginning to intermediate player would easily be capable of a more rich tone. The vibrato while fast is not unusual in Jazz music and is similar to the rate of the vibrato of the singers in the previous recording.

I find this important because from that observation I realize that the tone quality is inherently altered in these recordings. You are probably thinking "no duh" but the distinction is important to me because I can fairly easily imagine a higher quality clarinet in that mix but I find myself unable to do that with the singers. I'm not sure if this is because I'm more critical of the singers or if it is because there are still other stylistic elements that have changed more over time and I can't seem to reconcile them.

At any rate I find these recordings fascinating and I hope you take the time to explore them and let me know what else I should listen to!

 For more listening
http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/

Playing with your heroes

I'll just come out and admit that I don't actually care for the music of Beyonce very much. I became aware of Beyonce as a member of Destiny's Child back in the early 2000's and had heard rumors of her family (I thought it was her mom) essentially creating the group as a launch pad for Beyonce cutting other "members" of the group after they tried to separate from family management. I can't corroborate this but I did have an understanding that it was all to make Beyonce a star by any means necessary, and that really doesn't jive with me.

On the other hand her music is everywhere now and speaks to a lot of people, particularly young inner city kids. Some of those kids at Harlem Public School #161 have worked very hard to put together a flash mob routine choreographed to one of Beyonce's songs.

Ok, once again being honest, flash mob really isn't my thing either. Although I have some sort of performance in my blood, showing off in front of a unsuspecting crowd and inflicting your art on them kinda freaks me out. When I watch these flashmob videos I get goose bumps... and not because it's good. That being said, I think flash mobs democratize the art and put it in the hands of everyone in many ways and I think that is cool. Art is not for the few or the elite, it is for everyone. There are no inherent differences between the stars and us, we put those there.
As easily as those walls that separate the performer from the audience, the star from the people can be put up, they can just as easily be torn down...



I think every kid, and maybe if we're honest a few adults as well, dream of doing their thing alongside their heroes. Whether it is the bottom of the ninth bases loaded at bat, the air guitar solo, or even fantasy role play I imagine all of us have experienced the ecstasy of those imagined situations.

The kids at PS 161 clearly spent hours working on the moves for that song, watched the video countless times and probably envisioned themselves right along Beyonce in the video and it came to life! Not only that but they stayed right with the routine the whole time and barely missed a beat. They lived that dream moment to the fullest and I'm sure they will never forget it.

Beyonce showed that even though she did whatever it took to be a star, she is not to proud to jump in line with a bunch of dorky kids who are real people and real fans. That speaks loads about her character and maybe even more impressively, she can really move. She nailed that dance routine, which was probably only learned for the video, in some major high heels.

Impressive.

We can all learn from this and the lesson is different from each. As a spectator I will try not to judge other artists and presume to think that they are not also real people. As an artist I am encouraged to share my work with as many people will listen will have it.

Opera Commisions

Why is it that major symphony orchestras are commissioning more new operas than the major opera companies?
The short answer is that there are actually more major orchestras than there are major opera companies. The second short answer is that in general, American symphony orchestras are slightly more adventurous than their counterpoints in opera. That's sad.

The good news is that a Pulitzer has been handed out for a new opera, Madame White Snake, which is very exciting and I sincerely hope this helps it break into some of the major houses. I would think that San Fransisco and New York (City or Met) would have an interest in it given the cross cultural connections of the story and those cities. Once a set and costumes are constructed other cities could then go about renting the production and remount it, one of the ways operas spread and costs are cut.

Here is the story in the Boston Globe
Work commissioned by Opera Boston wins Pulitzer - Culture Desk - An Entertainment and cultural blog by The Boston Globe

Now if The Importance of Being Earnest (see my previous blog) won a Pulitzer that would really be something. I guess we'll wait and see.

While I think any fan of new opera is absolutely thrilled that these major players are commissioning operas, I think most would agree that opera is something that needs to be fully produced (costumes, staging, dance, sets, etc.) to be truly experienced. The word opera is the plural form of opus which essentially means "work" or perhaps "creation". Composers often will number there works "opus number ..." to denote what order there pieces were written. The collected works of a composer are called their "opera" though that term is little used today because in American English we have such a strong connection with a certain artform. Still, the roots are there.

Opera (as an art-form) is a collection of several different creative works; the musical composition, vocalists, instrumentalists, visual artists (set-design, construction, lighting, etc), actors and often dancers, all in one. In some ways it is the culmination of "classical music" maybe even a the high point of western culture from 1750-1900. Any how, I think opera still has something to give is and will only die when it stops being new so I'm glad that there is new opera out there.

Promissing New Opera

Music review: L.A. Phil premieres Gerald Barry's sensational opera 'The Importance of Being Earnest' | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times

A new comic opera? Written by an "avante garde" composer? Initially well received by critics? It almost sounds like satire or some kind of April fools joke. What seems even crazier is that it was commisioned not by some great Opera school or company but by symphony orchestra! I won't be able to make it to this series of concerts in LA but I do hope that this initial reading by major players in the music world opens doors for a staged production some time in the near future. Of course in opera time lines near future is likely still five years away.

Levine's legacy

In the weeks following James Levine's announcements regarding his leadership at Boston and then the Met we heard much about his frequent absences and little about those that filled in for him. One of the good things that came out of those withdrawls is the opportunities they created for some younger conductors. Perhaps we will be hearing more about Julian Kuerti and the other assistants who have filled in for Jimmy and some of the other big name conductors over the years.

Julian Kuerti following his ‘individual path’ - The Globe and Mail

At 91, Ravi Shankar seeks new musical vistas - SignOnSanDiego.com

Easily one of the most iconic figures of 20th century music and one of the first and most important people to cross genres, Ravi Shankar embarks on a world tour! Incredible. At 30 a world tour seems like a daunting and energy consuming endeavor to me and he is 91.

At 91, Ravi Shankar seeks new musical vistas - SignOnSanDiego.com

The search for the perfect band name

The search for the perfect band name - chicagotribune.com

I am not alone! In my journal I keep a running list of band names that spring into my head, and though it does put me in a unique class of nerdiness (ooh, right that one down) I am clearly validated in my interest. I think that for anyone who has ever had a band, finding a name is one of the most difficult things you can do. Obviously the name brings a certain sense of identity and often times associates the performers with a genre.

The days of one name are over, at least one preexisting word. New words or odd compound words are not only acceptable they are almost encouraged. When I was growing up in southern california there was a strong third wave Ska movement and bands were always looking for ways to put the words "ska" or "tones" into their names. Bob Marley's original backing band the "Skatalites" were icons in our minds and Boston based "The Mighty Mighty Bosstones" were also legends. Other similar names included the Skeletones, Skankin' Pickle, Skandel and on and on. We even used to have a song called "Surfin' Skafari" ... I know, we we're awesome!

My latest creation of a compound word turns out to be a real term already which totally kills the allure. I combined the brand name Xerox with graphic to form the compound word
"Xerographic" and of course that term already exists and refers to Electrophotography which doesn't sound sexy at all. Before I realized it was an existing word I worked on variations of it such as; Xerographical, National Xerographic or the Xerographics. Oh well.

These days strings of words or even a phrase is more common. I'll skip the existing names because I know you're really interested in what I came up with... My two front runners are "Larry is on to something". Since Larry is my father in law I'd rather not go down the road of "onto" rather than "on to". Another idea was "Exercise Induced" which could have albums or tour names like Exercise induced... asthma, bliss, exhaustion or my favorite "funkiness". I can just picture those retro looking cartoon type drawing of some guy with a sweat band, 70's shorts, tank top and high tube socks on something like an elliptical machine with smelly squiggles coming from his armpits.

The ultra nerdy band name that I've been hung up on lately is "Daniel Sitteth" which is a reference to an obscure memory device for formal English diction. The rule is that when "ew" follows D, N, L, S, T and H that it is pronounced (in formal settings) as a diphthong: EE-OO. Side note: "the Diphthongs" is already a band name. I actually would advocate that it should be "Daniel Sippeth" because if you did not apply this rule to the word "pew", people will think your diction really stinks! Unfortunately "sippeth" is no longer a recognized word in our language so there goes my hope for this variation gaining any acceptance.

I'm not sure where this will take bands in the future. Perhaps they will spend all of their creative energy working on their names and not have much left over for writing music or maybe this will only spur the creativity and we will reach new heights of artistic expression. I'm pretty sure that as long as teenage girls think that guys playing guitar is cool there will be new bands and new band names.

Conductors or lack there of

Jimmy Levine's withdraw from the Met and BSO schedules continuing to get press, this time from Anne Midgette who is generally up there with the other big names in music journalism (Anthony Tomassini and Alex Ross). Before Maestro Levine's announcment there was a discussion going on fueled by Norman Lebrecht's (another big name) book "The Maestro Myth" which essentially stated that conductors were egotists and unnecessary. Anne simply connects the two discussion points and adds her own brief but to the point comment in the last paragraph of the article.

Semi conductors? - Classical Beat - The Washington Post

The fight for "Public Domain"

Early on in my career I had no problem copying music at will. There was a certain disconnect between the people who created this music, the "big" music publishers and me. Perhaps I had that same feeling about recorded artists, record companies and consumers. The older I've become the less that holds true, in large part due to meeting some of my favorite artists/composers and getting to know more about the system.

I now have a lot of respect for what people create and the idea that they deserve to be paid for what they do. The margin of "profit" for music publishers and composers is razor thin and although the costs add up, the price per piece of music is rather nominal (around $2 per choral octavo per person). I was recently told that for a composer to make a "living" they need to have about 50 pieces currently in print. That may not seem like that much but when we are talking that some of the best composers in history had perhaps four times that number of pieces over a 30 year career it looks a bit different. If you were quite industrious and were able to crank out 10 publishable pieces a year, you'd have to keep that up for five years before you could quit your "day job". Incredible.

All that being said, I do think that once a piece enters the public domain it should stay there. I don't think there is any reason a composer or writers great great grand child should be receiving money for a work created 100 years ago. The tricky part comes when you try to obtain the printed music. A new edition or a more recent plate (for printing) can have a separate copyright which I believe needs to be respected. There are two primary ways around this; to enter the original composition into your own music notation software and publish that on the internet, or to scan the original edition (now in the public domain) and publish that on the internet. The former method is found on the CPDL or the Choral Public Domain Library, a wiki site and the former is found at the IMSLP or the International Music Score Library Project

The highest honor for a choir in the United States is to be invited (via application process) to perform for the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association. This is the best of the best and is usually dominated by choirs in academic settings, particularly college. In the program notes for each piece the composer, publisher and catalog number are cited, like an endorsement of the musical selection.I attended the convention this year in Chicago and it was my third time at an ACDA event; two national and one regional.  This was the first time that I had ever seen program notes which admitted use of scores from the CPDL. To me that seems remarkable that directors would admit to using these scores which are none to be less than scholarly and full of errors but I guess times have changed.

Don't get me wrong though, I think this is one of the best things that could happen for students of music and in a way democratizes access to some of the finest literature. As digital archives improve and user based libraries expand the musical and indeed cultural fabric becomes more rich. I believe that everyone should have access to the worlds best art but I also believe in the artists right to benefit from their creations.

Restoring Copyright to Public Domain Works - Adam Liptak - NYTimes.com

Another interesting article, this one about the Music Director of the Toronto Symphony.

I like this paragraph.
“Peter had music in his bones,” Mr. Shaw said in an interview at the orchestra’s offices in a stately building across King Street from its performance home, Roy Thomson Hall. “He had the highest standards. All this requires a little bit of gray hair, but he also had an enthusiasm to grow. He wasn’t in a position to say, ‘Oh, another music directorship.’ He wants to grow as a music director.”

Peter Oundjian, Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director - NYTimes.com

On a somewhat related note, New York Times are going to be changing their online viewing policy starting March 28th. Readers will be limited to 15 articles a month which really sucks. So far the only way around this that I've found is if click on the link via twitter which will be a mess. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and I predict that it will be messy and not all that favorable for most folks.

Football to Opera

Interesting story about footballs players (generally pro or college) transitioning to opera. It is obviously unusual for people to crossover but it certainly doesn't have to be a one or the other type mentality. The article may be of interest to music teachers who are looking for ways to recruit males or reinforce and support the ones they have.

Feel Locked Out? Can’t Find Work? Try Opera - NYTimes.com

the Steinway Diaries

Journals and diaries are rarely as interesting as one might hope but this one certainly has promise. The diary of one of the members of the American Piano dynasty at an interesting time in the nation's history. What is really cool is that the manuscripts or rather transcriptions will be available to all online. In all honesty I probably would be willing to by an edited and annotated version of this because undoubtedly there will be a lot of useless info without some historical and/or personal context.

A Gateway to the 19th Century: The William Steinway Diary, 1861-1896, at the National Museum of American History | Steinway on the Superhighway | By Stuart Isacoff - WSJ.com

From tragedy to beauty...

Japanese Cultural Fest Will Go On at Carnegie Hall - NYTimes.com

San Diego City Arts Cuts

Although I am no longer associated with San Diego City Schools or even a resident of that district, I do connect to this story.

I am a product of the SDUSD arts education program. In fourth grade I had class recorder instruction, in fifth grade I played saxophone in the band. In high school I joined the marching band, jazz band and choir. My music teachers were very supportive and instrumental (couldn't resist) in my development as a person and as a musician. I was encouraged to try anything and went on to participate in honor choirs, honor orchestra and honor jazz band. After I graduated I worked as a music instructor at my former Middle School and assisted in an honor choir performance.

As a professional musician and as a music educator it is sad to see young people denied these opportunities. I believe children should be exposed to as many possible positive influences whether that is organized sports, arts, literature or whatever. Even if the influences don't seem to "stick" I do believe they come back around as adults.

Any how, I hope to expand this blog at a later date possibly to submit in defense of these programs.


School music, arts programs on chopping block - SignOnSanDiego.com

Performance Practice

I was just talking to the church choir about how "early" music and "performance practice" are the trend now in classical music so it is interesting to see this article which more or less says that the early music genre has arrived in the mainstream.

Early Music and Period Instruments Are Having a Moment - NYTimes.com

Opera singers in movies

Sure, they can sing (opera), but can they act? - Washington Post article by Anne Midgette 2/19/11

It is true that most classical singers get very little training in acting through school. Any degree program in classical voice that I have heard about is a music degree and focuses primarily on vocal technique, repertoire and musicianship and the only stage training comes (if they are lucky enough to have it) through the opera studio class. For those that enter the profession by other means acting instruction is done "on the job" and rarely extends to anything outside of opera. Both of those routes to operatic careers leaves a lot of room for the development of acting chops.

In my opinion being a good actor boils down to awareness. Awareness of your own body and emotions (portrayed) as well as how you relate to other people and objects on the stage and most importantly an awareness of your character (even if it is simply a chorister) and how it relates to the story and to the other characters. I think the place where singers get into trouble is that they are so focused on their own vocal technique and movement that they forget or fail to participate and relate to the other characters on stage with them. In a sense they fail to RE-act to the contributions of their colleagues.

It is quite amusing to see all of this play itself out on a stage. Having sung with the San Diego Opera Chorus for quite some time now you can tell in advance what certain people will do with a given staging. The most valuable thing for a chorister to keep in mind is the awareness of their place on the stage (and being true to their character). So many times we tend to clump or form lines which don't read well out in the house. The other tendency of the chorister is to drift to somewhere they don't belong, namely down center (the forward most part of the stage), a place generally reserved for principals (leads) or the whole chorus as a single character.

I am not a great actor, probably not even a good one but my awareness is always developing and as such I think I can do a good job filling space.

Why a new blog

I've decided that I would stop bugging people on facebook with all my links to Arts related articles. The minimal comment section doesn't really provide room for espousing an opinion and truly the vast majority of my friends simply do not care. Now if something is particularly important to me I can post it in both places or simply blog about it here and link my blog to my facebook page.
Plus, often I want to come back to articles or ideas and facebook makes that quite difficult so for the time being I will be sharing arts related stories I find interesting in this place.