Our students in the Music History, Culture and Creativity have a final project that involves providing music to a one minute clip of film, excerpted from the actual working print from which Paul Chihara worked. The excerpt is from a famous anime film and has SMPTE time-code streaming on top.
The class of 80 each has to score this one minute segment using only QuickTime Pro 7 ($29) and Audacity (available on both platforms and free). Quite a few students used GarageBand. The three professors have been discussing composing, and affect and effect and issues in film music around the world; we’ve had two guest lecturers speak about film music from different perspectives; and NOW they get to compose film music themselves! This is a real coup for me; the notion getting a class of 80 students composing film cues as naturally as if they were doing harmony exercises.
I am also quite satisfied that they taught themselves. I went over the process once in class, I put up a forum that so they could ask each other technical questions, and many used it.
In that adding music to video/film is becoming technologically easier and easier, why not add it to the list of musical exercises all music students should be required to do?
When I first came to UCLA, many of my colleagues referred to this chap as “Jamie”–a nickname he now supposedly loathes. He did his Masters work at UCLA, was a TA, a classmate of Mark Carlson, and was on the way towards getting a PhD, but the Roger Corman films started coming fast and furious. Juliana was an undergrad with him at USC. My dear friend and patron, Ronnie–who lets me stay in her Palm Springs house to compose and goes with me to new music concerts in LA–is his cousin. And despite all these connections, I had never met James until last Thursday when he came to speak to our composers about his work on Avatar.
He was soft-spoken at first, and as the two hour session went on, he became more forceful and clearly enjoyed talking and teaching these young and eager students–also his biggest fans. Many of them stayed afterwords to have their picture taken with James. He graciously stayed late to pose and speak with them.
Some memorable quotes and paraphrases:
He has tremendous respect for John Williams. “In a class by himself.”
Cameron was clear that he did NOT want any themes or melodies. “A tuneless score.” [WOW!]
JC kept a tight hold on the reins for the entire score.
JH graciously acceded that it is JC’s vision, his movie, his world. He pushes until it’s right.
He spoke about his collaboration with Wanda in their effort to find a sonic palette “unlike anything we’ve ever heard.” Of the 25 instruments he culled, JC rejected 20 of them. JH ultimately blended these sampled instruments into his orchestration.
He seemed proud of that his orchestration, “which I do myself” is rooted in tradition, but adding these new [sampled/world] instruments transforms it.
JH, when asked what his favorite score was, admitted that he couldn’t pinpoint one film, rather cues from a variety of films.
Juliana asked whether he would ever write an opera; he said ‘no’ but he would LOVE to write a ballet.
“I could never make people cry in my concert music. In my music for film, I can. [...] I loved having the opportunity [in TITANIC] to help the audience fall in love with two characters; and knowing that they will both die offered me a unique musical challenge.”
I found James to be a true gentleman; a smart businessman; an excellent teacher; an sensitive artist with a big heart; and a composer who loves the art of collaboration, despite not always getting his way.
When the composition area at UCLA interviews perspective undergraduate students in composition, one of the questions we ask them is “Who are your favorite composers?” James Horner has been at the top of that list for five years running. I confessed that statistic to Horner as the session wound down. He was clearly touched. Another student [winner of this year's Jerry Goldsmith Award] confessed that James was his childhood “hero.”
For someone who had been described as quiet, shy and private, I saw a gracious, generous, sensitive but outgoing and humble man. He promises to come back for a future visit.
I loved Glass’ work in Koyaanisqatsi. Music is foreground; hand in glove with the imagery. Some of his other film scores seemed, to me, heavy handed: imposing themselves on the scenes rather than providing underscore.
Philip Glass’ score for THE ILLUSIONIST is his best yet. The harmonies are fresh; the melodies are new; the textures are new; he tailors his cues beautifully to the scenes, rather then the torn-off abrupt ending the minimalists have tended to favor; there are a wide range of dynamics (he used to favor terraced dynamics, mostly loud).
The cinematography is continually breathtaking; stellar performances by Edward Norton, Rufus Sewell and Paul Giamatti, and Glass’ score rounds it out. The music doesn’t really sound “minimalist”– if anything, it sounds “classical”––”serious”––continually effective.
Glass’ reward for providing such tasty underscore, is that he gets to let loose in the end credits, a cue called “Life in the mountains.” Here is that cue: lovely, don’t you think? A long way from Music in 5ths.
I remember when Frederic Rzewski came to visit us at Harvard in the composition seminar. I remember when Musica Electronica Viva came and performed at UW Madison. “The People United…” is emblazoned into my brain. I have the LP and he played it for us in the seminar. He reminded me that one shouldn’t ask questions about anything over 10 years ago as he doesn’t remember — which turned out NOT to be true, as he remembered plenty of amusing stories from his past.
Today he came to UCLA for a visit with our student composers. I was delighted to see a good turnout. FR was in great form. Cantankerous, funny, and blatantly honest about the various questions. Gloria Cheng served as the interviewer and did an excellent job. He doesn’t believe in styles (”some have them, some don’t”), there are no commonly accepted master composers in America, most young people are mostly concerned with money (”we thought our music could save the world, we were wrong, but at least we believed in something”), and (and I agree), the 20th century was filled with technique-isms — methods not unlike machines for cranking out music. “Life is not symmetrical, logical, or necessarily always pretty. Music should imitate this.” Someone asked whether he knew a technique (sic) for freeing the mind of such machines: “Shut the door? Turn off the phone? Light some cannabis? Everyone has their own method.”
The most shocking story of the day was the history of his famous “The People United will Never Be Defeated.” Before he wrote the piece, he asked the composer of the tune itself, Sergio Ortega, whether he could use the tune in his piece, to which Ortega responded “of course.” The problem was: it wasn’t in writing. Ortega died of cancer in 2003. Ortega’s publisher refused to give Rzewski permission, so they now own Rzewski’s piece. Curious, maddening, but unfortunately, true. [Moral of story: don't use or quote music under copyright without permission.]
[Photo of Rzewski (L) and Bourland (R). Bourland doing HIS best to also look cantankerous.]
This piece was commissioned by my old classmate, John Strickler, who at this time was a doctoral student in conducting at USC and wanted a contemporary work for his final recital. It was this connection that later took me to Los Angeles, as I was to rent a room from him when I first moved to LA.
Looking back at this piece almost thirty years later, I hear much. I hear quotes from some of my Soliloquies, especially the flute one and the clarinet one. At one time I had planned my own cosmic “Universe” symphony, and some of the music written for that surfaces here.
In my last year as an undergraduate in music theory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, we spent an entire year applying different analytic techniques to the Berg Violin Concerto. In retrospect, I hear some of that music peaking through. I also hear myself slowly moving away from atonality, and towards a melodic-based music.
Gunther Schuller published this piece in his Margun Music press, and later assigned it to AMP.
The Smiling Spider for soprano, soprano sax, viola, cello, and piano (1983) mp3
Words and music: Roger Bourland (quotes from Charlie Chaplin)
Performers: Composers in Red Sneakers, Karen McVoy, soprano
Publisher: Yelton Rhodes Music
The story behind this piece is actually pretty funny. The Composers in Red Sneakers decided to offer their “Concert 8 and a half” anonymously. There was a perception that our faithful Boston Globe critic favored some of us over others. This would solve that.
At the time I was infatuated with the paintings of Odilon Redon, having composed an orchestral piece called “Scenes from Redon.” This was a painting that hadn’t found music yet.
Add to that, I had just watched [I think it was] Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” and heard this catchy little tune that I couldn’t get out of my head. You’ll also hear a quick quote of “Do Not Foresake Me Oh My Darling.”
Add to that, I had just seen a documentary on TV discussing the mating habits of tarantulas, how the female can eat the male after the mating ritual if he’s not careful. This seemed dramatically pregnant and at least amusing.
Add to that, a friend’s pet tarantula had just died and I asked whether I could have the body. He said yes.
For the performance, I tied the spider to a roofless umbrella which the soprano holds while singing to the spider. The piece opens with the soprano skipping onto the stage with the umbrella inside a guitar case. She opens it, takes out the umbrella, and begins to sing her love song to the dangling arachnid.
There is an amusing little dance break where she dances and spins the umbrella with the spider hurling in circles. At the end, she can’t stop singing “Ta ta ta taaaa…” until the sax player (her boyfriend actually) goes up and tickles her in the armpit.
It shouldn’t have been too difficult for the Boston audience and critic to tell that this piece was by me: who else could be so silly? And I still got a good review.
Ta ta ta ta ta taaaa
Ta ta ta ta ta taaaa
Tarantula my beloved spider
On my shoulder in the moonlight tonight
When your leggies touch my hands I shiver
And I quiver when you whisper my name.
Now you might think it rather odd
To be in love with such a beast
But I really rather like him
And he smiles a lot at least
And if he asks to marry you
You can be sure that he’ll be true
As a husband a tarantula is really quite a feast!
Hand in hand by the edge of the sand
Nuptial bliss, I’ll devour thee with a kiss.
Leggies locked, cosmic kisses of death
Dancing spiders, a crazy kind of love!
Recent Dreams for horn trio (1989) mp3
Music: Roger Bourland
Performers: Richard Todd, horn, Debra Price, violin, Delores Stevens, piano
Publisher: Yelton Rhodes Music
Commissioned by Pacific Serenades, “Recent Dreams” was written during a period when I was having a lot of vivid dreams. Each morning, after waking up, I made musical sketches that somehow encapsulated those dreams. As dreams can be rather flee flowing and puzzling, so is this piece. Having known Rick Todd to be one of the greatest horn players in the world, I felt free to write almost anything for him. Hearing the piece after 20 years have gone by, I like the piece quite a lot. It could possibly use a little tweaking here and there, but all in all, a good piece.
A hornist discovered that I had written this piece and asked to see it. It’s copied in a piece of dead software, so all that exists now is a photocopy of that score and will need to be recopied someday [the plight of many composers]. I realized that I had not digitized the piece as well, so I’ve now taken care of that.
It’s been a wild and woolly time for all us teachers: auditions, interviews, quotas, deciding who to take, and wanting to admit more than we have space for. On Saturday, I went out to a new restaurant and had a lovely salad. Three hours later I was in misery from intestinal cramps and, well, food poisoning. In bed for 48 hours, the clouds finally parted on Monday afternoon.
Still fragile, but much better, I gave a 2 hour presentation on my life as a composer to my class. It was a cathartic experience looking back on a pretty wonderful life. The students seemed to enjoy my talk and my music.
That night I attended a pre-concert concert for donors and citizens of West Hollywood given by Vox Femina, who, with funding from the city, had commissioned me to compose HEALY MADRIGALS for their March 20 concert downtown. I got to meet lots of donors, and was happy to meet Abbe Land, the mayor of West Hollywood–a vivacious and gregarious woman who has a big heart and a personality to match.
The venue did not have reverberant acoustics and I realized some of the phrasing was suffering as I had expected there to be a certain amount of reverb in the hall. I also realized how composers’ music changes when we set different poets. Setting Eloise Klein Healy’s poetry really brought out some different music in me. I listened to some of it thinking: did I compose that??
Yesterday I met with my guardian angel, RC, who has been on my case about being so terrible about promoting my music. We sat and listened to about 6 pieces. RC loved them all and will be working with me to get performances. What a gift!
Another week and a half of school, then we get a break. I can’t seem to ever catch up on my email. I’m sure I’m not alone. Daniel came back from the Philippines yesterday, so it is wonderful to have my spouse home again.
With the subtitle of “The Most Bizarre Musical Number Ever Filmed” it got my attention. It’s really worth watching cuz it’s so bizarre! It just keeps going, getting stranger and stranger! Try to stick it out till the end.
