When I was in high school I would always argue with a good friend of mine over Debussy. She was enamored with the way the French “impressionists” of music wrote and idolized composers like Debussy and Ravel. So I decided to listen to him and decide for myself if there was anything worth listening too in his music and immediately balked. After listening to people like Berio, Stravinsky, Crumb, and Schoenberg, Debussy just seemed tame and honestly a bit too pompous. I immediately disliked him and would always tease her for liking his music. It wasn’t until I went to a concert last year that my entire world shifted.
The first “Nocturne”, Nuage, by Debussy is perhaps one of the most atonal of his time. Debussy loved his dissonant chords, he loved to leave the tension in the atmosphere and refused to diminish their beauty by resolving them. This is something I can respect in a composer: the bravery to let the audience sit in discomfort. Perhaps I had been listening to all of the wrong Debussy before this moment, but here I see a brave and innovative composer who is not afraid to explore all that music has to offer. Shifting from octatonic scales to pentatonic scales, he never sits in a key for too long. He allows the rhythms to add even more to the piece, understanding that music is so much more than just the notes. We see this use of rhythm as a huge factor in a piece (especially with shifting the fluidity of a beat) in Stravinsky, and that’s not all we can see of him in Debussy. Stravinsky might as well have written a large “FROM DEBUSSY” in his score for the “Rite of Spring”. You know that creepy little line that happens in part 2 of the Ballet: The Sacrifice, Ritual of the Ancients?
The echo of this line can be heard everywhere in Nuage, and it is just as chillingly beautiful.
Another piece that is perhaps even more exotic in it’s atonality is “Syrinx”. Originally written for a play by Gabriel Mourey, the piece is now a standard in flute repertoire and is not only beautiful to listen too on a level of interpretation and musical skill, it is also interesting to analyze. Chromatic ornamentations take us out of our comfort zone in this piece, making what would otherwise be a flute solo in Db major turn into a wonderfully complex piece.
At first, Debussy represented a composer who found dissonances pretty but never delve too deeply into them to ever be truly interesting. He seemed to be rather “safe” and stuck to what was comfortable, but after delving more into his compositions I have found myself delightfully mistaken. This can just go to show: never write a composer off for a couple of “bad” pieces. Sometimes your first impression is completely correct and the composer just isn’t suited to your taste, but every once in a while you find a composer you dislike who has written a piece you fall in love with. In music, and in most things, keeping an open mind is perhaps one of the most important aspects of exploration.
I’d first like to state that I love Hopkinson Smith’s playing. I think that as far as lute or theorbo players go, he’s one of the best and most expressive that you can find. Now when you add this to my love of Bach, it’s only natural that I would love this new CD, “Bach Suites no. 1, 2, 3”, that he has recently released (recent being within the past two years).
When I mentioned to one of my teachers at school that I was doing an arrangement of the Bach Cello Suite no 2 for guitar, he immediately gave me this CD and told me that if I loved that Cello Suite so much then this recording was a must listen, and he was right. I’ve always found lute or theorbo playing to be slightly colder than a guitar and that’s one of the main reasons that I never fully was interested in the lute, even if I found the repertoire written for it to be beautiful. With Smith’s playing, though, he seems to be able to bring out the warmth in the instrument that I haven’t heard before.
In the first Cello Suite, the Gigue and Menuets are lively and up-tempo, conveying the proper feelings that one would associate with these dances, and yet he’s also able to capture the feel of the Sarabande and Allemande. The second Cello Suite has the gorgeous richness in the Sarabande that makes it one of my favorites and it’s beautiful to listen too. In the third Cello Suite, the Gigue is just as fun and exciting as I remember, new life brought back too it. The ornaments he uses are beautiful and interesting, and overall it’s a very satisfying CD.
To top this all off, he is using a member of the lute family, a theorbo, that was invented by Sylvius Weiss in the 1720s. The sound is deeper and the basses boom out with a rich fullness that suits Bach very well.
If you have the chance to listen to this CD, I’d definitely take a listen to how beautiful his playing is on these wonderfully complex pieces.
Music and thoughts on music can be found in most places, but one of the most interesting to me is how music is seen in the eyes of philosophers. Anyone who has read a book by Friedrich Nietzsche can see his love for the arts, especially for music, in his writing. His views on it can be a powerful read for musicians, composers, or anyone who has a love of music.
From first glance at Nietzsche’s views on music, one must realize that his ideals are conflicted. In his book “The Use and Abuse of History”, he speaks of artists as the only ones who can learn from history and use it as a lesson in living. This is because the art of the contemporary world is built upon the blocks of past civilizations. Despite this, artists and creators are at a distinct disadvantage than the consumers of the art for these onlookers “…dance round the half-understood monument of a great past.” and have the luxury of thinking they have a monopoly on these great monuments.
“In their eyes there is no need nor inclination nor historical authority for the art which is not yet “monumental” because it is contemporary. Their instinct tells them that art can be slain by art: the monumental will never be reproduced, and the weight of its authority is invoked from the past to make it sure. They are connoisseurs of art primarily because they wish to kill art; they pretend to be physicians when their real idea is to dabble in poisons. They develop their tastes to a point of perversion that they may be able to show a reason for continually rejecting all the nourishing artistic fare that is offered them. For they do not want greatness to arise; their method is to say, “See, the great thing is already here!”…Monumental history is the cloak under which their hatred of present power and greatness masquerades as an extreme admiration of the past…. whether they wish it or no, they are acting as though their motto were: “Let the dead bury the-living.”
This passage from “the Use and Abuse of History” is a very interesting, and rather damning, way of viewing those who claim all the genius’s are dead.
However perhaps one of the most interesting of developments in Nietzche’s views on music was in his love of Wagner that then turned to disillusionment as he claimed, “Wagner belongs only to my diseases.” He later clarifies that he is actually grateful for this Wagnerian disease and also claims that “There is no help for it, we must first be Wagnerites…”
Why such bitterness towards Wagner, a man he considered an idol as well as a friend? Certainly a great deal of this disillusionment stemmed from his own personal connection with Wagner and these bitter feelings couldn’t have manifested without him first loving Wagner; however by converting to Christianity and then his nationalist German feelings and anti-semitist views, Wagner had sealed his friend’s descent into disappointment. Nietzsche wrote in his essay, “Nietzsche contra Wagner” expressing that though he admires Wagner’s ability to express suffering and misery, his decadence and overly dramatic effect, especially in using an “unending melody” is dangerous and chaotic to the rhythm. This kind of music is suffocating and according to him, music should make one feel the need to dance! Nietzsche also raises issues with the subject matters Wagner chooses to portray, “The problems he sets on the stage are all concerned with hysteria…All that the world most needs to-day, is combined in the most seductive manner in his art,—the three great stimulants of exhausted people: Brutality, artificiality, and innocence (idiocy).”
Perhaps he would not feel so strongly about Wagner if he did not feel as if the music was attempting to trick and lie to him, but to Nietzsche if you attempt to manipulate a person with music then you are destroying the very essence of music. As he states later in the essay, “That the stage should not become master of the arts. That the actor should not become the corrupter of the genuine. That music should not become an art of lying.” I believe Gilles Deleuze in his book “Nietzsche and Philosophy” understood him best when he states, “In Nietzsche, “we the artists” = “we the seekers after knowledge or truth” = “we the inventors of new possibilities of life”.”
In an earlier book by Nietzsche, “The Birth of Tragedy”, he is more greatly influenced by Wagner and sees him as superior to other opera composers who are concerned with the smallness of the modern mind; in contrast, Wagner expresses the deepest urges of the human will. He writes that we must return to a time before Socrates who was responsible for the death of tragedy as he brought in an age of rationality. This brought upon an imbalance in art, which he believed to be at it’s finest when it sat between the edge of being Apollonian (concerned with light and reason and more associated with a sense of one’s self) and Dionysian (more concerned with a primal unity whereas the individual is at peace with other’s and nature). The Apollonian nature of art is giving form, structure and coherency, whereas the Dionysian aspect brings life and passion, breathing a soul into the piece.
Although this book was criticized heavily by scholars of Greek literature, and Nietzsche himself held some reservations about it later in life, he remained steadfast about his views on Apollonian and Dionysian role in art and it certainly is an interesting way to perceive art as a whole.
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Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Birth of Tragedy (Trans. Douglas Smith), Oxford University Press, 2008: pp. xxxii, 28, 109, 140.
Nietzsche, F. (1957). The use and abuse of history (Revised/Expanded ed.). New York: Liberal Arts Press.
Deleuze, G., & Tomlinson, H. (1983). Nietzsche and Philosophy (Reprint ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
I’ve recently read some interesting articles on the role of music in society and how a composer should write his music based on this. There are many roles given to music, but two of the most popular opposing sides it seems to me are that 1) music should be instructive and educate the audience, and 2) music should be beautiful and expressive.
Some of the biggest examples of the first side is what we might call “academia” music, music conceived from rules given to us from studying pieces of the great composers of the past or pieces designed specifically as a sort of puzzle, to prove the intelligence of the composer and to baffle the audience with it’s complex nature. These pieces might be brilliant when studied, but with so many pieces in the world to discover, who has the time to dedicate to studying this one score? I usually find that pieces of this nature are thick texturally with little breathing room and they are usually static throughout, the texture never moving and so it lacks a climax. When I hear pieces like this, all I can think is that it’s no wonder so many people still prefer Romantic or Classical pieces to modern music. There is so much out there that is confusing to listen too because the composer has pandered too much to their own brilliance, thinking that they are somehow above their audience. As Malcolm Arnold, a composer who only died quite recently in 2006, “Music is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.” If the audience doesn’t understand your writing, then it seems to me you have failed as an artist.
Some ideas, however, can be more innovative and interesting. When I was younger, my father loved to play us the piece “It’s gonna rain” by Steve Reich, a composer famous for his strange, minimalist ideas. We started having a discussion about the piece the other night at dinner and there was a split of opinions: some people thought the piece was annoying and didn’t see the point of it, while the rest of us (my brother, father and I spearheading the campaign on this side) thought the piece was an interesting study in how taking a few steps back from chaos can show that there truly is order to be found. These pieces are intellectual but actively trying to get the listeners to understand the piece, to see something bigger behind the actions than simply “wow this keeps going, when will it end?”. When done correctly, it can open your eyes to a broader life lesson.
Moving on to the second role of music, that it should be beautiful, this is a wonderful notion. We are aesthetic creatures and loving beauty is in our nature, however simply to say that this is the purpose of such a miraculous thing seems to me the equivalent of saying a beautiful person is meant to be looked at. It can communicate to the audience just as well as it can be beautiful.Georges Bizet once said that “As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.” As artists, our duty to our audience is not to distract them from day to day pain, doing that would be a”panem et circenses” effect and I refuse to be a diversion meant to stop people from looking at what’s important. Not all of it is going to be beautiful because we show what’s relevant in the contemporary world, we show the pain and suffering as well as the joy that is happening now.
That is our duty, it is what we document through art and music. We show the passions of the people we represent. Through our voice, someone else’s can be heard.
This is a video that talks about a very interesting study about how playing an instrument effects the brain. I’ve heard before that playing an instrument is the one thing that utilizes both the right and left side of the brain. This video explains it in a bit more detail and shows how playing an instrument can be beneficial and applicable to other aspects of our life. Now who wants to pass this video along to school boards and get the funding for music programs up?
I often find that when programming music for any event, even a radio station, people tend to stick to the pieces that are battle-hardened and already tested on audiences such as Rachmaninov Piano Concertos and Beethoven Symphonies. They are the safe option and will guarantee listeners or people buying tickets as opposed to a piece written by a new composer, or a piece that is less known even if it is by a famous composer. That is why it’s nice to find a radio station that expands their repertoire and attempts an innovative playlist, also giving some interesting tidbits about the pieces you’re listening too.
Of course they do have the well-liked pieces such as the Beethoven Symphony #5, but interspersed with these crowd pleasers are pieces like Benjamin Britten’s Variations on “Sellenger’s Round” of Willliam Byrd. It seems a healthy balance of time periods as well, although they do have special programs such as “Baroque by the Bay” on Sunday mornings which is a nice way to welcome the day, or “Modern Times with Alan Chapman” on Saturdays at 10pm which is a great way to explore composers within the last 100 years.
I applaud their efforts to widen the eyes of music lovers and if you’re interested in listening to them, the link to their website is below. You can also get their app for iPhones for free.
As a young, classical musician in a world dominated by pop consumers, it is never a surprise to me that a common question when people hear I am a classical guitarist is “well do you ever pick up an electric guitar and just shred on it?” The first time I heard this question I was confused. “Shred?” as in play a passage of notes at maximum speed for greater effect? Of course I do, but why on earth do I need to do it on electric guitar? I “shred” when playing Bach!
But then I realized the real question people were asking wasn’t whether I could play fast or not, it was whether I was good, however due to decades of hearing guitarists they deem “good” playing fast riffs in the middle of a wailing electric guitar solo, this is the only basis they have to compare a guitarist’s talents too. Seeing as many classical guitarists have a background in electric guitar as well, I am afraid that this mentality of “playing fast equates to playing well” becomes passed down to them and they lose the reason behind classical music.
Virtuosity has definitely always been a part of music, all you have to do is look at Vivaldi’s violin concertos to see that much, however there is more behind the flashy violin solos that make the piece memorable enough to be played hundreds of years later. In my opinion, quite a bit of the guitar repertoire is missing this part. “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” by Tarrega is a famous classical guitar piece and it might be fun to play with it’s fluttering tremolo melody and it can be nice to listen too as well, however after a while I find myself exhausted by listening too it. My response by the end of the piece is “all right all right, I get it, you can play an even tremolo. Congratulations.”
I often argue with one of my friends over the value of Tarrega, a composer he contests to be one of the greatest ever. Finally sick of hearing this one day, another friend of mine went up to a flutist and asked her “Have you ever heard of Tarrega.” And she shook her head. So he asked her a different question. “Have you ever heard of Britten?” he asked, and this time her answer was, “of course.” Tarrega might be well-known among the guitarists of the world, but like many other guitarist/composers he is virtually unknown amongst other musicians. Why is this?
I believe that guitar has hit the same rut that popular music of today has. They have both become stale due to pressures to make songs “flashy” as opposed to interesting. Flashiness has it’s own purpose in music and is useful when used sparingly, however an entire piece based on one technical feat and bent on the purpose of “wowing” an audience is monotonous by the end. Benjamin Britten wrote a solo piece for guitar that is growing in popularity, and I often like to think what the world’s response to it back in 1964 might have been, in particular the response of Andrés Segovia whom I hold a special grudge against since he refused an offer from Schoenberg to write a solo for guitar (there is a quartet written for guitar and other instruments by him, but it’s just not the same!). The whole piece is based off of continuously avoiding a resolution because the guitar is restless and sleepless. This must have been earth-shattering indeed to a guitar world used to having the tonal center spoon-fed to them.
This multi-movement piece called “Nocturnal” is based on an old renaissance song by John Dowland and is, in my opinion, one of the most incredible ever written for guitar.
(my personal favorite version of it is played by Julian Bream, however this version by Alberto Mesirca is also very good.)
Britten knew how to write for the instrument, and he used it to it’s full extent, whether eliciting a single line to infuse all the richness a guitar can offer into that one note, or by taking advantage of the multiple strings and depth the guitar can produce. There is even a movement with the tremolo technique Tarrega used, however he uses it in a far more interesting way as he starts off with the tremolo in the melody but then gradually passes it down to the basses. This change makes it far more interesting to listen too! In contrast to Tarrega’s pieces written for guitar, I never get tired of listening to “Nocturnal”.
It seems the key to writing interesting pieces is to find an idea and to develop it over time in the piece, and I think it’s harder to do this while writing with the guitar in the hand. As a composer, I was taught to compose away from the instrument, at least for the majority of the time, because when you write at the instrument you only compose what you can play, or what you have already heard due to a habit of falling into patterns. When you compose using your brain, a whole new level of opportunities is opened up to you and that’s when things become interesting.
During the 17th century, the style of a Cantata, or a song, drastically changed and became more structured. These were the pop songs of those days, songs like “Clori Vezzosa, e bella: Si, si ben mio” by A. Scarlatti.
(not my favorite recording of the song, but it starts 55 sec in)
This particular Cantata is known as a da capo aria and follows a very familiar form, a form strikingly similar to the “verse, chorus, verse” used in modern pop, though back then it was known as “ritornello, A1, ritornello, A2, ritornello”. The main difference is that modulation, or changing the key, was a common way to differentiate between the sections. This shift in tonal center is enough to make the piece even slightly more interesting, anything that is a change draws the ear and when done correctly it can become a very memorable part of the piece. Perhaps this is something modern pop artists should take into consideration. In a form based off of simplicity, you don’t have to do much to make the music more interesting. Even a little bit can go a long ways.
Virtuosity is never a thing to shy away from, however when used excessively it becomes monotonous and ego-fueled. Like nearly everything in life, a balance must be found between the “shredding” that shows physical and technical talent that impresses the audience, and the interesting dynamics of the musicality that not only show the mental prowess of the performer, but also takes the audience along on a journey.
One of the era’s I find to be filled with incredibly and beautifully written music is also one that is usually disliked by guitarists to play the most. The Renaissance is filled with dense music that can be blocky and awkward feeling to play at times due to the fact it was not written to be played on the guitar, however a CD by one of my favorite guitarists, David Russell, proves that when played correctly the music is rewarding and wonderful to listen too. As a bonus, the CD Renaissance Favorites for Guitar, lives up to it’s name and does indeed have a recording of some of my favorite pieces by my favorite composers.
John Dowland has long been a notable composer due to his poignant tunes and trademark melancholy themes in both lyrics that he writes for singers as well as inside the music itself. Dowland has always been a source of amusement to me in stories I have been told of him, or even just the title of his pieces such as “Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens” which translates to Always Dowland, always doleful. This pun-filled title just about sums up Dowland’s writings, humor-filled once you look past the depression that is usually the outer-casing.
Geographical boundaries were a big part of how music spread and while England was still entering the Renaissance, Italy was beginning to transition to Baroque. I enjoy thinking of Dowland’s reaction to the music when he arrived in Italy with the objective of studying with Luca Marenzio in 1595. No matter how adept he was at composing, there is no doubt that Dowland was a conservative composer and going to a country that was on the brink of transitioning to the Baroque period was probably quite a shock, not to mention he was accused of treason on top of all this. However I believe that the music written in this period are some of the most interesting and beautiful, so his journey there must have had some influence.
Francesco Da Milano is another composer that I find especially amazing and he’s perhaps not quite as famous as Dowland, but he definitely deserves to be. The reason behind this is that he didn’t write songs for lute and voice so his repertoire was never expanded as much to different circles, however his compositions are thick and filled with contrapuntal treasures that are a joy to listen too (just as much as they are to discover and pander too as a performer).
Overall the Renaissance is a period of time ripe with opportunity for guitarists, however many of them get discouraged by the thick textures involved. They should view these less as a reason to shy away from this period and more of an opportunity to broaden their technical skills and overcome new obstacles. The beauty that the music of the Renaissance period can hold will make the journey worth it.
Jarring Sounds is a duo based out of the Bay Area that has just released their debut CD. When I first went to their concert, I’ll admit I was just going to support my colleagues and was hopeful that I would find some interesting new pieces to absorb and be amazed by, but did not expect much out of the ordinary. Their musical pairing of mezzo-soprano by Danielle Reutter-Harrah and guitar by Adam Cockerham was not anything unusual and I thought they would play the same run-of-the-mill pieces, rehashing out the same cliches.
I was never happier to be wrong about something.
They proved themselves to be an extraordinary pairing of musicians; Reutter-Harrah’s voice is perhaps one of the most beautiful I have ever heard live and it translates well onto recording. With a richness to it that well suites their pieces, she flawlessly reaches the notes with a carelessness that makes it a joy to listen too. Another nice surprise was that Cockerham does not just play guitar, but also a lute and theorbo which are older guitar-like instruments for those who are unaware. Their repertoire ranges from renaissance to modern, never wanting for diversity or innovativeness.
Their CD starts off with French Baroque composer Pierre Guédron and the thick chords combined with the light and almost dancing vocal line balance well. After having set such a beautiful and promising precedent to the CD, they then take us through a regional tour of composers from France to Italy to England, the tones of these Baroque pieces are as diverse as the regions, ranging from joyful and carefree, to darker and more mournfully beautiful tones.
The CD then takes a new turn into the modern era as the next piece is the Songs from the Chinese by Benjamin Britten followed by Under Milk Wood Songs by Stephen Goss. The Old Lute from the Britten set is especially hauntingly poignant and beautiful, the vocal line appropriately withdrawn in spots to create the perfect introspective illusion.
Meanwhile the Goss set is a hidden treasure and a pleasant surprise. Originally poems by Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood Songs takes us on a journey full of sweeping and powerful emotions. Sometimes the emotions are those of calm, and sometimes those of anxiety but the key to listening to this piece, as it is with any music no matter which era it be from, is to embrace the emotions. Reutter-Harrah’s beautiful voice eases the blow of some of the more dissonant of moments in the more gentle movements, while Cockerham’s intense playing in the more active movements make for a very effective performance. My favorite moments in the whole CD happen in the 3rd and 4th set of poems of Under Milk Wood Songs as tension and resolution are in near constant battle.
Overall, the beauty in this CD and the thoughtfulness put into the repertoire as well as the quality of playing make it a rare gem. I’m looking forward to seeing what Jarring Sounds has in store with it’s future endeavors and would recommend this CD to anyone looking for a refreshing change this summer.
Musicians are solitary creatures by nature, and this can be a beneficial thing because in order to perfect their craft they must spend hours upon hours alone in their practice rooms honing their skills and technique. This is a necessary part of learning an instrument, however sometimes I think that a performer has spent a bit too long in the practice room repeating a phrase over and over until perfection. We are taught that practice makes perfect, that repetition is key, that you must hammer away at those notes over and over again. Then why is it that even if you do this you are not guaranteed to be considered a musical genius?
My parents, who are great supporters of music, recently went to a competition where they live called the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation. Neither of them have taken much in the realm of a music theory class so “understanding the music”, as one might put it in a University, wasn’t something that might have crossed their minds. They didn’t go there to say to themselves “well there’s a modulation. We have transitioned from G to A, how remarkable! However did Beethoven achieve this?” They represent the 99%; the much larger amount of people who will go so that they may experience a sensational performance and wish to be guided by the performer who will take them on a journey.
My father would tell me about the performers they listened to that day in the competition and both he and my mother were filled with nothing but praise for the amazing players. They all had outstanding technique, hitting nearly every note to perfection. If they had any mistakes, they were impeccably intertwined into the performance so that you would not even realize that an error had occurred. They were professionals.
So how do the judges choose who is the winner?
According to my father it wasn’t even a contest. By the time competitor Andrey Gugnin had finished his pieces, it was clear to most in the audience who would be heading home as victor that year.
Now this is very interesting that a spectator would know how to choose the winner out of a sea of talented and hard-working performers. How were they able to tell?
Starting at 1:18:30 on this youtube link above, we see the winner Gugnin beginning to play Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky. An energetic and enthusiastic performer, he brings his joy for performing as well as his love of the piece to the performance and I believe that this is what sets a professional player apart from an inspiring and incredible player. A piece played with technical skills and perfection is appreciated, but without any soul in the performance it can also be boring. I often tell people that I would rather see a performance where the player takes chances and might make mistakes than a performance that is technically beautiful and perfect but is static with robot-like playing.
The biggest mistake I see guitar players make is that they think if they make facial expressions or dramatic gestures that it will equate to a soulful performance. Let the facial expressions and gestures be a byproduct of your enthusiasm for the piece, as if you are experiencing the music as a member of the audience as well, otherwise it can come across as tacky. If you truly are passionate about the piece, then it comes across and the audience enjoys it more. It’s evident in the video above that he absolutely loves this Mussorgsky piece and he’s trying to convey that love to his audience. His second movement after the Promenade, the Gnomus, is amazing with the dramatic contrasts in dynamics and his facial expressions being organic rather than put on for a show.
That was why he deserved to win, and musicians everywhere should take away a lesson from this.
It is a necessary evil that we repeat phrases over and over again in the practice room, but leave that in the practice room! We spend so much time on a single piece that sometimes we may forget the joy of playing it. Every performance of the piece must be approached with the experience of playing it hundreds of times, but also with the fresh joy, passion and love of hearing it for the first time.
That kind of performance is what makes musical legends.
the music corner 