As you know, I’m on tour in Europe. I’m working on a whole variety of things and incorporating the things you ask me to consider, I’m just having a hard time doing “assignments” you know, I was a terrible student and I guess I still am. Cut to the chase: let me take the summer off for our assignments and then continue when the temperature drops.
Hugs,
Rufus
My Dear Rufus,
I understand, the weather is hot here as well. Our air conditioner broke and I live in front of a fan. I concur wholeheartedly. I’m not in the mood for correcting assignments either. Let me drop you a lesson from time to time online. Take what you will, spit out the rest.
Today, I’d like you to consider the musical texture of two violins. This is the first of 44 duos for two violins written by Bela Bartok and published by Boosey & Hawkes. This is from the first volume. I highly recommend you buy and study both volumes. (You can purchase them at jwpepper.com).
I will use this music as an opportunity to address other issues besides writing for strings. Notice that the first system is indented so as to facilitate the ENTIRE name of the instrument. In some scores, abbreviations will appear on subsequent pages. Titles are normally centered; the title of this set, “44 Duos” is centered. In this collection, the editor has decided to put the individual titles flush left preceded with an arabic number.
Notice that the dynamics are BELOW each staff. The first violin is asked to play dolce, or sweetly, but the 2nd is not. This is a difference the instrumentalists will work out themselves.
The first brace in front of the two instruments is INCORRECT. The curly brace like that is for instruments played by two hands like piano, harp, marimba, harpsichord, and so on, but NOT two violins. (Shame on Boosey.) It should have been the straight brackets. You’ll notice that they chose to extend the barlines through both systems. I prefer the barlines ON the staff only.
The tempo is important. Don’t assume anyone knows what allegro means. Bartok didn’t.
The piece changes keys twice. Normally, publishers will put a double bar in front of these key signature changes. I encourage my students to do so. Bartok likely chose not to because they are such short pieces. Double barlines often denote sectional partitioning.
Glance over the first violin part. You’ll notice that every note has a separate bow. You can tell this because there are no slurs. Now look over the 2nd violin part. You see slurs as well as longer note values. This is meaningful because these two elements result in a softer or quieter sound than the 1st violin. So even though both violins are told to play “p” the first is inherently louder by virtue of the material it is playing, which is in this case more quarters and less half notes.
Look at the architectural shape of the piece. Harmonically it is ABA. The registral shape of the piece is ABA, A being the high sections, B the low. The dynamic shape of the piece is ABA, or “p” “mf” “p.” Melodically the piece is monothematic, but the accompaniment in the middle section provides textural contrast, so the effect is also an ABA.
Look over the motivic elements, you’ll see the piece is very tight.
In the second system, notice whenever there are two voices in one violin, the bowing for the upper and lower notes/strings MUST be identical. The two voices in the 2nd violin at the beginning of the 2nd system has the lower D in half notes tied, and againt it is a falling D to an A that is slurred. The slurred period is equal to the sustained period. Two measures later you see 2 quarters slurred against a sustained half note. The bow is drawn over both strings with the same stroke in the same direction. Double stops are easier when one has an open string, which is the case in the 2nd system 2nd violin part — the D is an open string.
In this three part little piece, observe how he slows down and liquidates the music to silence at the end of the 2nd section just before returning to the opening music.
Remember: effective manipulation of contrast is one of the most important elements in art.
Some things in life are important to know. Like knowing what to do with your fingers, I mean, creatively. If you haven’t seen this dude at fingerskilz, be prepared: your life is about to be changed. Yes, it will is sponsored by HP, but hey. You will never look at your fingers the same way ever again. Visit his website and look what this guy does in his spare time. I’m inspired and have started practicing creating handpeople for my dogs. (They don’t seem to care.)
Friday we went down to the Marina and had dinner on an 85 foot yacht from 1926 (sic) with some friends who are living on it for a few months. The woodwork was elegant, although the boat is in “a state of disrepair.” The smell of diesel fuel was never too far away from the olfactoric antenae. It was a beautiful sunset. Daniel took some great photos of the water. The one above shows beautiful planes of waves and shadows. I asked if he would put it in B&W, the original was a buttery brown orange.
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Saturday was an all-time temperature high in LA. Brutal. We went to a wedding in Irvine. J is my former student, and his wife L got married in a church, and then the ceremony was held outside in 107 º temperatures. There was dancing, and standing around waiting for drinks is the blazing sun. I was surprised that no one died. I wrote about “The Hippy Wedding” last month, well this was THE HOT WEDDING. J and L were good sports sweating profusely while trying to look cool, calm and collected while posing for photos. The bartenders nearly fainted. The grandparents left early (thank God, we were all afraid for their health). The band featured 8 singers who danced around and tried to look cool doing their slick dance moves. Everyone was drenched in sweat. Miraculously, no one seemed to have any problems. When we left, the sun was setting, the night only slightly cooler, everyone was dancing, sweating, and smiling.
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Today I start work on the film CAGES, which has been recently re-edited. The film originally had half my music, half smooth jazz music. For a variety of reasons, the producer and director have decided to have an all-Bourland score, so I’ll be busting my ass for the next two weeks providing another 25 minutes of music to the film. I’m doing the whole thing on Logic Pro. I have an amazing sound library from which to draw.
The holes left by some of the amazing songs that used to be in the score is a bit terrifying in terms of stepping up to the emotional “plate” to use a baseball term. The air conditioner has been broken, and the temperatures have been in the 100s in LA which makes it tough. I get a bit dizzy around 4:30 and make myself go somewhere cool for a couple of hours.
My first chamber opera is done (FLIGHT INTO EGYPT) and Juliana Gondek will premiere it on Feb. 22 at UCLA. I’ve got the main line through the second chamber opera, MOZART AND THE GRAY STEWARD, finished as of yesterday, and will now put it down to do CAGES. Vladimir Chernov and Michael Dean will premiere this work on the same night, playing, respectively, Mozart and the Gray Steward.
Next month, assuming I am a good boy and finish CAGES and MOZART, I will go to Hawaii for 10 days with Mark Carlson. Mark has a piece he has to finish there, and I’ll be composing ALARCON MADRIGALS BOOK III for Iris Levine and Vox Femina/LA for this season. Then assuming I finish ALL of that, I’ll return to being a teacher at the end of September.
I always loved dancing to this song. I think the dance style was called the Pogo, where you jumped up and down like a pogo stick. It was part of the whole punk thing. My friends and I always understood that “turning Japanese” meant masturbation. Maybe it’s a British thing. I hear that French men use the phrase “polir le Chinoise” or polish the Chinaman, to mean the same thing. “Chinaman?” That was a term my grandparents used. I never hear it these days.
The Vapors made six singles and “called it a day” after their manager left in 1981.
Here’s a real find: early Joni Mitchell (called Joan Anderson at that time) singing a song from 1965 called “Favorite Color.” In this song, she plays with a capo, a little bar that is able to be placed up or down on the neck of the guitar and a kind of instant transposer. Her guitar accompaniment is high up in register. This affords the marvelous range of her voice, both the notes as well as the timbre, to come through. The guitar is in one of her custom tunings. I love watching her eyes. She seems to offer piercing looks into her listeners eyes, and then they lose their focus, going inward to look at the next line of lyrics. She then looks down at her left hand making a chord change, and then readdresses the audience. Her composure is solid; her skin is beautiful, and that makeup — I didn’t know she wore make up — it disappeared by the time her first album came out.
From the CBC show “Let’s Sing Out”, recorded in Winnipeg, Manitoba October 4th 1965.
k. d. lang sings Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams.” A star studded audience is blown away. Listen to the beautiful structure of the melody. Roy really knew how to build to a climax. So does k.d.
“Beliefs, once acquired, have a kind of inertia in that there is a preference to alter them as little as possible. There is a tendency to reject evidence or ideas that are inconsistent with current beliefs, particularly if they undermine central beliefs; this is known as the principle of conservatism.”
[from “Six Impossible Things before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief” by Lewis Wolpert; (2006) Faber & Faber, London.
Isn’t it this unfortunate stubbornness that has killed so many people in the name of belief?
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Some things in life are important to know. Like knowing what to do with your fingers, I mean, creatively. If you haven’t seen this dude at fingerskilz, be prepared: your life is about to be changed. Yes, it will is sponsored by HP, but hey. You will never look at your fingers the same way ever again. Visit his 
“Beliefs, once acquired, have a kind of inertia in that there is a preference to alter them as little as possible. There is a tendency to reject evidence or ideas that are inconsistent with current beliefs, particularly if they undermine central beliefs; this is known as the principle of conservatism.”
