Sharolyn, this one is for you. Remember seeing this for the first time back at APU? We watched it in my arranging class last night, and loved it all over again.
Updates from February, 2010
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Bernstein on Stravinsky
michael
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Music....food for our souls
Zack
The first record I remember hearing was James Taylors “Sweet Baby James”. The vinyl sounded course and dirty. The lyrics confused my 12-year old brain; I had no idea what love was, or how it felt to lose it. But the melodies spoke to me. James Taylor had this way of writing about pain and longing, without sounding whiny or….to use the parlance of my particular time: “Lame”. My parents liked his music, so I was almost forced to listen. I’ve always been glad they were James Taylor fans.
The first album I bought with my own money was the “Days Of Thunder” soundtrack. David Coverdale, Chicago, Guns N’ Roses. I grew up in a sort of racing family, so the film moved me. The soundtrack was silly, and I kind of knew it at the time. But still, I would crank that sh*t to eleven, and imagine myself behind the wheel of a speeding race car.
Grunge came along in the early 90’s, and my interest in actually making music started to take shape. Filthy guitar tones, front-men shrouded in mystery. Why were they so angry? Where did these vicious sounds and words come from? I wasn’t a particularly angry or disgruntled kid at 14. In fact, I had it pretty easy. (It wasn’t until about 15-16 that I started to get in trouble with the local police and disrupt an already dysfunctional family) But records like Pearl Jam’s “Ten”, and the soundtrack to “Singles” made me listen beyond the melody, and forced me to focus on the lyrics. At that point, I realized that pop music mattered, and that lyrics were so important; a time-stamp of an emotion; of a generation.
In 1993, I heard Counting Crows,”Mr Jones” on the radio, cutting through the static of generic “grunge/Seattle” programming. On the record “August And Everything After”, Adam Duritz poured his heart out with reckless abandon. He sang of longing and insomnia. Of love and love lost. Of finding ones true self. He washed his words in americana, and metaphor of vast panoramas and endless highways. I longed to explore the American landscape, free of parents who didn’t understand me, teachers who couldn’t teach me – and myself, whom I didn’t really know. The album, “August And Everything After” made me a guitar player, and a songwriter. It made me an artist, and it changed my heart forever. It made me a romantic. It made me truly care about music, and the effect it had on my life. To this day, I regard that record as one of the most important catalysts in my life – not just it’s musical influence, but it’s affect on the way I viewed the world, and how I interacted with it. Last year, I had the opening chorus of “Rain King” tattooed on my body: ”I belong in the service of the Queen. I belong anywhere but in between.” I see these words everyday, and yet their meaning continues to evolve.
This post is about the music that first affected you….the music that you truly adopted as your own. The music that defined you. What first moved you? What upset your heart and challenged your mind? What defined/shaped your taste for art? What made you dance and sing and shout and cry – madly and unabashedly?
Sound off… Because it this little blog has taught me anything, it’s taught me to listen. And I like to listen…
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Bobby McFerrin Takes 5
michael
I have no words for how much I love Bobby McFerrin. Check this out:
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
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Music is Vast
michael
(NOTE: Some of you already saw this on Facebook. I really wanted to post this here instead, but the server was just going nuts the last few days, so I couldn’t. These kind of thinky thoughts totally belong at the Roadhouse, not on that trashy whore Facebook.)
If you took Intro to Music Tech from me in a previous semester, the class probably started out with my patented “You all suck at music, and will likely end up working at Walmart” speech. While I stand by that speech, and think that it is largely true (especially for you, Brandon), I feel as though it may have set the wrong tone for my class.
Instead, this year, I gave a different speech. Addison Road-ites will notice several recurring themes from my posts here, wrapped up in a tidy 5 minutes diatribe on Music and Technology.
So here it is: my opening speech to the incoming freshmen.
Music is vast. It is so much bigger than you think it is. It covers more things, runs deeper, any grasp you have on it is always too small. It will always be bigger than your experience in it.
Music is vast. I call myself a musician, and in the last 4 months that has meant playing keyboards for a national commercial, writing a modern composition for trumpet, piano, and laptop, conducting a choral recording session for another piece I wrote, playing keyboards live for 100 awesome fans at Hotel Cafe, teaching a younger player how to set a tap-delay for a guitar tone, leading worship, singing backing vocals on a demo, writing two songs for a musical, and playing piano for a bad j-pop album. All of those things are music. That’s just one summer, for one person, and you should all know that I am nowhere near the top of the heap when it comes to this industry. Other people are doing far more work than I am. But all of that is music.
Music is vast. It runs deep. It reaches out and strikes the soul, and the whole body resonates on that pitch. It reminds us, like nothing else can, that we are more than meat and bone, more than dust. We are the breath of God, created in His image, and just as he sang the world into being, we create in imitation of Him. We are the immortal echo of the eternal, living for just a little while in these clay jars, and music reminds us who we are. If you haven’t ever felt that, then I honestly have no idea why you’re here.
Music is vast, and it is shared. Music is the exchange of ideas. Melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, vibe, tone, tension, resolution – music is about the trading back and forth of ideas. And language is, frankly, a very bad tool for exchanging ideas about music. There’s a quote, attributed to Frank Zappa but probably not his, that says, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”
Technology is the ink and paper of music. It is our best tool for exchanging ideas. If you have ideas worth sharing, and again I don’t know why you’re here unless you do, then technology is you best tool for capturing and sharing those ideas.
My goal is not to turn you into geeks and nerds; that will happen on its own. My goal is to turn you into musicians. That means being fluent in the language of music, which is, increasingly, the language of music technology. My goal is to help you learn to use technology so well that it lets you do what you really want to do, which is music. The technology should be transparent, it has to get out of the way, and let you be a musician.
Music is vast. It is broad and it is deep, and it’s way to early in your musical lives to start defining yourself in narrow ways. Don’t say, “I am this, not this” or “I do this, not this”. You have no idea yet who or what you can and will be. Be big! Be curious, be broad, be deep, be soul-ish and magnificent. Everything else in this world will conspire to make you small – don’t be complicit! Resist the urge to define yourself in small ways.
Be a musician. Be vast.
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A Softer World: The Cure
michael
I follow a web-comic called “A Softer World“. It’s pretty emo – mostly everyday photos with twisted thought progressions. Sometimes, it is so perfectly poignant that I can’t stand it. Today’s comic is like that.
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Part of the Problem
michael
Zack gave me a wonderful little “Escrow Survival” gift a few weeks ago, a copy of Gavin DeGraw’s new album Free. I’m diggin on it.
If you own a copy, check something out with me. Roll to the song “Stay”, track 3 on the album. Hit play. Hear that? 3 seconds in, “have to be part of the problem.” Hear that? Yeah.
That’s what a vocal sounds like when you track it in your bedroom at 3 am, engineering it yourself, and you blow a big phat “P” right into the mic with no popper stopper. That’s not the only example on the album, but it’s the easiest one to find.
So, now I’m torn. I’m not a big fan of the perfect pop experience, where everything is ironed out and tuned up and comped together into an indistinguishable amorphous wash of frequency. But … yeah. But. There are technical flaws on this record that really bug me. I can’t enjoy that tune. Everytime I hear it, I hear the pppppop. It keeps me from enjoying some very good songwriting and damn fine singing, some of DeGraw’s best I think (the previous song “Free” hangs together so well, check it out). I find myself wishing there had been a little more attention paid to the basics of good engineering.
So, I guess I’m part of the problem.
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Jason
On Unions
I am a member of two labor unions: The Association of Pleasanton Teachers and the American Federation of Musicians Local 6 (I play trombone). In the last few months, I have been synthesizing some of my experiences where I have observed the importance of unions, and also their potential negative side effects. I would love to hear what my friends and colleagues have to say about some of my jumbled thoughts.
Musicians’ Union
It seems that every time I do a non-union gig, something weird or unusual happens. Something as little as making announcements during my warm-up time, being asked to show up and hour early (without overtime) before a concert for some last-minute rehearsal (I said no), or being told the wrong start time, and consequently staying at a church service for an hour after the stated end time. (I stayed, and received no extra compensation for my time.)
All of these stories come to mind when I agreed to play for free at the church I attend with my family this Easter. When I said yes to my church, I felt like tried to check my “union” attitude at the door and wanted to serve Christ’s church however I was needed. Then I received the first e-mail about rehearsal times. 4 hour rehearsal on Tuesday, 2 1/2 hour rehearsal on Saturday, call time an hour before the 8:00 first service. My part in all of this consisted of playing five 3-4 minute long tunes, about 20 minutes of music total. My union sensibilities crept back into my mind. Much of the rehearsal time was spent with the vocalists working out parts around the piano. My thoughts were 3 fold:
1) If I were being paid and hourly rate, they would have had me come 2 hours later during the 4 hour rehearsal, and rehearsed the vocal stuff without me.
2) There are many people in the church who donate much more of their time and expertise than I do, and that humbles me. We are currently without a music pastor, and many lay musicians are maintaining the high quality of our program.
3) I am glad I brought a good book to read. (I am an orchestral bass trombone player, I know how to come prepared!)
On Sunday, I am embarrassed to say, I arrived a couple of minutes after the 7 AM call time. No need to worry, as rehearsal as far from commencing. the first thing that was rehearsed, at 7:20 once all forty musicians were in place, was a vocal solo accompanied by a single keyboard. This went on for about 10 minutes or so. After 7:30, the whole ensemble did a sound check for a couple of minutes.
In contrast, when I arrive at a union gig, it almost always starts and ends on time. Announcements are made after the clock has begun. They are brief. On the rare occasion that service goes overtime, I (and everyone else) get compensated. Our time is given a great deal of respect.
Teachers’ Union
This brings me to my membership in the teachers’ union. In the 1980s the teachers in Pleasanton went on strike to demand more respect of their time, their professionalism and of course, to demand more money. Teachers are constantly being asked to do things that are not in their contracts. Much like the requests made of me at a non-union gig, teachers are asked sometimes to go on overnight field trips, spend non-paid hours filling out detailed report cards, bring home essays to correct, etc. In this context, I bring up that Pleasanton teachers were recently asked to work 2 fewer days and take an equivalent pay cut for the upcoming school year. For teachers who had gone on strike to gain the pay, benefits and respect that we current teachers enjoy, this was a tough pill to swallow. The pay cut would preserve programs for students, and jobs for our fellow union members. How responsible for providing programs to students are teachers? Are we entirely responsible, and should we carry a burden for a large chunk of the budget cuts through a cut in salary? (We would be providing a tremendous benefit to the community at no additional cost to the community.) Are we somewhat responsible or not at all? I found myself solidly on the side of “take the small pay cut for the good of our students and the teachers that were given lay-off notices (pink slips) for next year”. I had trouble understanding why any teacher would be again saving programs within our district.
The Connection
I had a better understanding as to how some of my teaching colleagues could vote against taking a pay cut to preserve programs after this recent Easter. Since I was not being compensated for my time, it was easy for those in charge not to use it efficiently. If I don’t say to my church, “You can’t do that again next year, or I am not playing,” then they have no incentive to be more time efficient.
Similarly, if teachers simply say, “Don’t cut programs! Take some of my money!” this will automatically become the first choice for fixing budget problems. Other solutions will be skipped and avoided. It was remarkable to me when a young pink-slipped teacher voted NO to this pay cut, when he of all people had something to gain (the likelihood of his job).
I have been bouncing back and forth on these ideas. If you carry the “no cuts for teachers ever” idea too far, you can end up hurting students by allowing programs to be cut and newer teachers to be laid off. If you offer and inch in pay cuts today, you might be asked for a mile tomorrow. I am trying to find a balance between these opposing concepts.
Where We Are Now
The teachers in Pleasanton agreed to forego 2 days worth of salary and we will have a 2 day longer Summer… IF the communty matches our efforts. We traded less money for more time (furlough). The caveat is that the community has to come through as well, and a parcel (land) tax that will be put to the voters in Pleasanton on June 2 has to pass for the teacher 2-day furlough to occur. I like this approach because it ensures that everyone in the community will sacrifice, not just the homeowners and not just the educators.
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The Trouble with Twitters
michael
A very nice summation of everything I hate about Twitter. For those of you who are textually inclined, here’s a more thinky version of this same idea.
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re:write
michael
The goal of my music and ethics class is to have the students write a thesis paper, 25-30 pages of well-developed argument. I set milestones along the way: by this date, you need to have a thesis selected, by this date you need to show me ten pages of writing, by this date your draft needs to be ready for peer review, that sort of thing. This week is one of those deadlines, when I meet with the students to review the first 10 pages of their paper and a fully developed outline of their argument.
I ran across one of the students in passing, and he mentioned that he didn’t have anything to show me (I wish he were the only one). He then mentioned, rather flippantly, that he wasn’t all that worried, because he knew that he could knock out a “great paper” in no time once he had finished his research.I left the encounter feeling very frustrated, for two reasons.
First, nobody can knock out a great paper in no time. The best anyone can do is knock out a great draft of a paper, a first writing. This is a recurring theme from my students; I keep getting first drafts handed in as final papers, because they’ve waited until the last possible moment to write them. When there are obvious errors, errors that any decent editor would have caught just by sniffing the ink, I know that nobody has read this paper but you. Nobody has edited for you. Nobody has done a critical review for you. Which means you’re handing in a paper expecting me to do it. Well, I will, but I do my editing with a red pen in one hand and a gradebook in the other.
Flip open any great book, any well-crafted work, and you will find the author thanking a whole list of people who graciously interposed their critical eye between the author and you, the reader. They are friends and colleagues, loved ones, and professional editors, all of whom serve the monumental and laudable goal of making sure the author doesn’t look like an ass. As a student, you have access to all of those same tools – peers, friends, family, a writing center staffed with editors. Their goal is make sure that your ideas connect to your reader with minimum hindrance by the medium. Writing is not a solo endeavor, not really, not at its best, but when a paper rolls off the printer 10 minutes before it is due it must be. And as a result, I end up grading your first draft.
My second frustration goes much deeper. In 16 years of schooling nobody, including me apparently, has managed to communicate to this student the actual value of writing a long format paper.
I don’t care about the paper. Really. The ink is pointless. I care very deeply about the process of writing a paper, because I believe that it is still one of the best ways to organize sustained, focused, rational thinking about complex topics. I care very deeply that you learn how to do that kind of thinking. The reason I was so frustrated by the student’s response is that the most important part of that process happens after you finish writing the paper.
Writing the paper is a prolonged period of pressure, cramming ideas into your brain, fighting to make logical connections between disparate bits of data. The intensity of pushing all of these ideas into a coherent, organized stream of thought requires reduction, and is mentally exhausting. You finish, hit print, the paper is done, run to class, hand it in, head home, take a nap, and then something magical happens. All of those ideas that you have been pressing down on begin to float freely. They start to shake loose from your organized stream of thought, loose from their moorings, and they rise. They bump into each other in new and interesting ways. They reorganize, like water molecules crystalizing together in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. You begin to understand things in new ways, ways that you were prevented from seeing before because your brain got in the way.
Two days after you finish writing a paper, the ideas you spent so long collating will have reorganized into something that really makes sense. Brilliant connections emerge. Small threads that barely emerged in the initial reading take on new significance as your brains chases them down in the noise beneath conscience thought, using the mental energy recently made available by the lifting pressure. That’s when you sit down and rewrite.
The way to make a writing project really useful is to research, write, release, rewrite, research, rewrite, release, rewrite, continuing the cycle until you arrive at conclusions that have the inevitability of all great ideas. That’s the way to arrive at mastery of a topic. When the topic at hand is your own value structure in an ethically complex situation, that kind of clarity is essential.
It matters to me. What you think about these topics matters to me. How you arrive at your thinking matters to me.
You will stand in front of a school administrator and have to argue that the purpose of education is the development of persons, not the development of merely useful skills, to argue that cutting music education is a dereliction of duty, and it is vitally important to me that you do it from a place of deep knowledge and the passionate conviction of rightness.
You will hold the phone in a long pauses, knowing that you cannot possibly agree to play under the circumstances being presented, also knowing that it is real money you are turning down, and it is important to me that you know why you are saying “no”, or that you know what it will cost you to say “yes”, and that the knowledge be more than merely notional, that it be the result of sustained and careful thinking.
You will run down your list of players to contract for Easter services, and you will skip the names of better players to hire those share your faith (or you won’t), and it is important to me that you have grasped with full rigor the tension between art-as-art and art-as-function when you make that choice, that the conversation between theology and aesthetics has taken place in your mind before you make your calls.
It matters to me how you have arrived at your thinking on these, and the dozens of other topics that emerge as thesis papers.
There are other ways to do this thinking, but this is the way that has been placed in front of us, for now. If it matters to you like it matters to me, embrace this process of read/think/write/rethink/rewrite. Don’t cheat it by counting words and chasing ink. Give it the time it deserves.
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Reading List
michael
In one week of meeting with senior music majors about their thesis papers, I’ve recommended all of the following books:
The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
I wish I had the budget to just buy a dozen copies of every book that’s ever changed my life, and give them away to students who walk into my office.
