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.
I thought I’d make a quick post in honor of the United States Independence Day.
Let’s turn our attention to an opera written by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini that was based in a land far-far away. Yes, I’m talking about Madame Butterfly.
If you don’t know the plot of this tragic opera, it is about a 15 year old girl named Cio-Cio San (or Madama Butterfly) who marries a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy named Pinkerton. Although she marries him for love and even converts to christianity for him, he marries her for the convenience of a wife in Japan before he goes back to America and finds a “proper” wife, utilizing the lax divorce laws in Japan to get out of the marriage. When he leaves, Madame Butterfly gives birth to a baby boy and waits 3 years for his return like a diligent wife, but when he shows up to take the baby so he and his new wife can raise the child, she is devastated and commits suicide, which surprises absolutely no one seeing as this is an opera.
Now despite the problems I have with the plot of this opera (the fact that Madame Butterfly revolves her life around a man and eventually kills herself over said man irritates me to no end), I overlook the plot for the beauty of the music. Madame Butterfly might be a perfect example of how racism and stereotyping effects even music, but Puccini makes it work in this opera. I imagine it is similar to how people always raise a fuss about how Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness is racist, but you read it for the beauty of his writing.
Whenever Madame Butterfly sings, we hear a traditional and simple Japanese sounding phrase to emphasize her nationality. This is used as a perfect example of exoticism, but what we must remember is that exoticism does not embody the music of whoever it was taken from, it merely shows the tip of the iceberg. We hear this charming and simple phrase that people can recognize as sounding Japanese, but it should not be used as a guide to their music by any means! Music from Japan can be incredibly complex, but Puccini, of course, has not the incline or time to hear or analyze the traditional music. He must use only small simple structures to build his own musical piece over. But this creates a stereotype in music and passes it on to the character of Madame Butterfly showing that she is the perfect archetype of a Japanese women: innocent, dutiful, meek, and bound by honor.
And now to the American stuff.
Interestingly enough, Puccini employs a similar tactic when writing music for Pinkerton. In the background, we can hear the Star Spangled Banner being played quietly, but still very evidently. If Madame Butterfly is the stereotypical Japanese women, then Pinkerton is the stereotypical full-blooded ‘Merican that his theme of the national anthem would suggest. He’s charming (to a point where it’s almost cruel when you know his plans to leave her), handsome, and almost kingly in his charismatic influence over the people, however he is also very ignorant in many things, especially in how selfish he is. He does not realize the consequences of his actions and never thinks on how what he does will affect those around him.
Is this the America we portray to others? Perhaps this 4th of July we should take a minute to put down our sparklers and think about this “stereotypical, full-blooded American”. Because if Pinkerton is our perfect archetype as Puccini might think, then we might want to start re-evaluating some things.
I go to the Conservatory of Music in San Francisco and too many times I hear from my colleagues that they are frightened to play Bach because they find the interpretive part of his works intimidating. Although it’s true that classical guitarists, and musicians in general perhaps, view J.S. Bach as a technical feat to overcome and then fall flat when you get down to the musical aspect of it, it does not have to be that way. Counterpoint, my dear Watson, is they key here and I fear that classical guitarists are too used to the writings during the classical and romantic period which focus on the harmonic patterns rather than the linear contrapuntal structure which is an integral part of any self-respecting Baroque composer. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too harsh seeing as I had a remarkable teacher by the name of Stan Funicelli who was very knowledgable in the subject of counterpoint and he was able to guide me through the intricacies of it, but the fact that all guitar teachers are not incorporating this into their lessons when teaching about Bach (as well as other composers) is certainly problematic.
When it comes to counterpoint, Bach is King.
I don’t want to get too much into interpreting Bach as that could take way too much time and would be an encyclopedia-sized book rather than a blog post, however to talk about Bach and the tabooed Augmented 2nds, I have to delve briefly into that. Anyone who has taken a Music Theory class knows about stepwise motion of lines as without it a piece of music would have no direction and would turn into a jumble of notes with no direction. It is because of this that an Aug 2nd was rarely used by composers in the Baroque period: it would create a break in the line and sound more like an arpeggiation then a line. We are taught in music theory classes when writing four part harmonies that you never create this break in the line and if you do, you have to resolve it in the opposite direction of the leap by step. When it is pointed out that Bach will do this at times without resolving the leap, the student will be confused when the answer is “well that’s an exception to the rule.”
Um….what?
An “exception” to the “rule”? What does that even mean? And why can he do it but we can’t?
Well the answer to that is because Bach is such a badass that he never breaks any rules by incorporating an Aug 2nd thanks to how meticulously thought out his counterpoint is.
That’s right, Bach beats the system by using the system. That’s how amazingly sneaky he was.
Bach frequently uses a Aug 2nd, such as a F and a G# together, in a short scale wise pattern as if this was no more than a Major or minor 2nd, which can make his music sound almost exotic and certainly adds a mysteriously beautiful quality to the section. However why is this allowed? It is because in the next beat or on the same beat in the next measure, he will usually resolve this so you discover that the G# was never actually part of the line to begin with! That’s right, he actually did just create a break in the line and he doesn’t care that he’s continuing without resolving it because he will resolve it in the next measure, you just won’t realize it until then. He uses this device to create tension in his works, and it’s the amazing control he has over the building and decreasing of tension that makes him stand out as the amazing composer he is.
In the picture below you can see a two measure excerpt from the Prelude of the Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor (read in bass clef), one of my favorite of all his pieces. In the two note pick up to the third beat of the measure (starting on the F to G#) we have the aug 2 and then it moves up to an A as if that resolves it, but then it leaps right back down to the F as if that was the start of an arpeggiation so with the D, F, A, G#, and the C it just sounds like a D9 chord. This is thinking harmonically and will sound very different then if you play it while keeping the counterpoint in mind.
In reality, it is two lines going at the same time: the F holds over under the G# and A while the G# and A simply ring in the ear until the line is continued in the third beat of the next bar as it goes up to the B.
It takes a while to get used too this new way of thinking, but once you begin to understand it, you begin to see that something you originally thought was a 7 or 9 chord was really 2 or 3 lines moving at the same time around each other, it simply might take a measure to continue the line. Once you see it in this view, though, you gain a new insight into the puzzle that is the Bach manuscripts and a whole new world of possibilities is opened on how to perform Bach, which notes to hold over and which notes to cut off.
Not only that, but it becomes exciting when you see all the ways the Bach defied traditional ways of writing in the Baroque period but he never broke any rules, he just slithered his way around them because that was how phenomenal of a composer he was!
Hello! I am a classical guitarist and I started this blog with the intention of it acting as a sort of diary for my thoughts on pieces as well as other random music-related things that I happen to find. On this site I will review concerts, not only of guitar, as well as classical pieces that I find and analyze passages in works ranging from Bach to Stravinsky that I find interesting.
the music corner 