In line with my new commission, I’ve ordered a new mandolin, made by the same company that made my banjo. A medium priced instrument with a nice sound, good enough for me.
Formerly called “electronic music” this course has morphed into a class preparing the composer to learn about the technical process of composing music for motion pictures. We will study and work in LOGIC PRO.
Music 176/226C: Compositional Technologies
Wednesdays, 3 – 5:50; fall 2006
Professor Roger Bourland
SYLLABUS
• Wednesday, Oct. 4 , 2006: Bach chorale orchestration (in class demo)
Asst. 1: orchestrate a Bach chorale using Logic Pro. State the chorale three times in three different keys: the first should emulate orchestral instruments as effectively as possible; the 2nd version should be quiet, contrapuntal, utilizing non-western sounds; the 3rd should be climactic. Insert a brief transition between each verse.
• Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2006: Bartok Mikrokosmos orchestration (in class demo)
Asst.2: Orchestrate a piano piece from Mikrokosmos Books 3, 4, 5, or 6. Make it thrilling and not boring. After orchestrating one take, bounce it, and then deconstruct the sound file into chunks.Improvise an accompaniment to this variation. Transpose the third take up an interval of your choice with a larger orchestration.
• Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006: Performances and critiques (crits) of Bach and Bartok orchestrations; discussion and listening to poetry read by poets
• Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006: Musical accompaniment to poetry (in class demo)
Asst. 3: A collection of famous poets reading their work will be on reserve in the studio. Find one, two, or three that make sense as a collection. Accompany the three using Logic Pro. Do not get in the way of the poetry. You may cut up the read verses to insert interludes.
• Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006: Crits and repertoire
• Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2006: Underscore (in class demo); Crits and repertoire
Asst. 4: Provide underscore to a given scene (TBA). Your job is to provide soft underscore that stays beneath the dialog and sound effects. The music should be audible, but the best job will be one where the listener barely know there is music. Less is more.
• Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006: Pro Tools demo; Crits and repertoire
• Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006: Opening credits (in class demo); Crits and repertoire
Asst. 5: Provide music to the opening of a provided film (TBA). Use instrumentation that is appropriate to the style of the movie.
• Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006: Crits and repertoire
• Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006: Playback of opening credits cues and underscore.
All work is to be turned in on CD or DVD. Make one copy for yourselves, and leave one copy with Prof Bourland. Your files will be deleted within the academic year. Regular attendance is expected of all participants. You will be asked to comment on each others’ work; civility and constructive criticism are the most valuable offerings.
In the TMI (too much information) department, Daniel sent me this cheery note that listening to music while having a colonoscopy will make us feel better about it all. Having just had one 3 months ago, I must admit I don’t remember a damn thing. “Light” sedation. Uh, yeah.
Musicians have in centuries past been more servants than promethean super stars. I just received a handsome commission for a work for mandolin, cello, and piano. Like with EMILY, I’m going to buy a mandolin, learn to play it, and then write the piece.
For some reason, I came away from my college education thinking that writing gebrauchsmusik was “beneath us.” We certainly wouldn’t want to turn into a Paul Hindemith-type composer who has a sonata for virtually every combination––but why? All composers have written gebrauchsmusik, the only ones who haven’t are the ones with the Prometheus complex. I’m happy to take on an earth-bound commission like this. With this one, a husband wishes to offer up a 40th anniversary present for “putting up with me all these years.” This commission has an additional twist: I’m to have the piece recorded so that he can give it to her as an anniversary gift. It’s not for them to play. I’ll be giving them a piece of music, not unlike selling a painting––something they can hold and keep and hear at the press of a button. What fun!
Thanks to Susan for recommending me to these people. (”My favorite composer who writes music that people actually like.”)
[Painting: "Quarreling Musicians" by George de La Tour (1625-30)]
Composer, Mark Carlson (2006); photo by Roger Bourland.
Mark Carlson came over early for some new head shots. This one was my favorite, although it wasn’t the one he ultimately chose.
I find it interesting, speaking of how our brains make sense of the world, to see what pictures people prefer of themselves––myself included. I remember when I was 15, there was only one picture of myself that I thought was really me (see below), and only that one. In all the others I looked like the nerd that I was, and those really weren’t me. Or when I hear myself on an answering machine, I can’t believe that THAT is really me. My brain kicks into self defense auto-correct mode and labels it THAT’S NOT ME. And therefore it isn’t. (Isn’t that called self-denial?)
Roger Bourland III at age 15.
After all the photos were downloaded, Daniel edited one, sent Mark copies of his faves, and we jumped in the car and went over Laurel Canyon (took forever) to go to Joe’s new home. He was there with Henry (his partner), and D, a young, passionate writer/director and a small group of friends was to gather to have a dinner. Graham and Alex arrived, G looking like a proud papa, having finished CAGES and quite happy with the results. I was tickled to hear that even the (straight) Dolby 5.1 dude, Evan (British), was caught crying several times during the film. Joe gave up trying to conceal his own tears when he saw and heard the film in its new form for the first time.
After dinner, we all piled into the music room. Mark played a Schumann piece, and an original one (gorgeous we all thought!), and I played and sang Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” and Rufus Wainwright’s “The Maker Makes” (part of it) and “Dinner at Eight” and then we all went home.
The other day I commented how, in Sudoku, when a solution appears, a whole slew of additional answers and clues appear––kinda like life. It occurs to me that the opposite is also true. When you make a mistake, a single mistake, [in Sudoku] you base future decisions upon that erroneous solution and they are usually ALL wrong. Life can be like THAT too.
Do I cheat and look at the answers? Yes, sometimes, but I only check to see what I have done correctly. Only when I’m really stumped will I do this. Then, I erase all the incorrect numbers along with my scribbles, and do NOT copy any of the answers: I won’t put down a number unless I am certain how IT is the correct number. Why cheat?
What is lovely in Sudoku, but sadly not undoable in life, is that you can erase incorrect solutions and start over.
From time to time, a page from a book jumps out at you like a revelation on fire. Daniel J. Levitin’s new book, THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC is rocking my world. I’m only on his first chapter (What is Music) and am impressed at how well he concisely brings the non-musician up to speed for reading purposes. His summary is fresh, whimsical, and not classical music oriented. It was a page from the introduction that blew me away:
The word pitch refers to the mental representation an organism has of the fundamental frequency of a sound. That is, pitch is a purely psychological phenomenon related to the frequency of vibrating air molecules. By “psychological,” I mean that it is entirely in our heads, not in the-world-out-there; it is the end product of a chain of mental events that gives rise to an entirely subjective, internal mental representation or quality. Sound waves––molecules of air vibrating at various frequencies––do not themselves have pitch. Their motion and oscillations can be measured, but it takes a human (or animal) brain to map them to that internal quality we call pitch.
We perceive color in a similar way, and it was Isaac Newton who first realized this. [...]. Newton was the first to point out that light is colorless, and that consequently color has to occur inside our brain. He wrote, “The waves themselves are not colored.”
I have told people that I devote my life to stuff that evaporates in the air, and leaves a memory (music). I knew my career was a peculiar one, and was floored to re-realize that every color and sound I see or hear are constructs of my own mind, and ultimately, maya (illusion). The flippant phrase “you create your own reality” now seems more of a truism than I had ever imagined.
I guess this means that there is no guarantee that creatures from other planets could perceive our paintings or our music. I would imagine that dance and sculpture be more universal, in the literal sense.
But what is even more baffling, puzzling and thrilling, is that music is way, way beyond just sound. And the fact that earthlings understand music is even more amazing, and fortunate for people like me. Levitin cites a friend (we’ve all had similar ones) who know absolutely nothing about music theory, notation, musicology, or performance, but can identify (for instance) middle Coltrane, or early Coltrane, and who is playing, and what is different about the “sound.” So many people have this enormous intelligence for music but have identity crises over their inability to play Mozart concertos, or a Hendrix solo. Accept the kind of musical talent you have, even if it isn’t the kind that pays the bills.
Those illusive entities called notes, that our brains construct, string together to create melodies; the melodies soar over sustained chords that move together but more slowly, as though listening and sympathizing with the melody.
Music, and for that matter, musicians are magicians. They can biochemically change you in the turn of a phrase. The “change” occurs only in the listeners brain. It doesn’t corporally “exist.” But you look into the eyes of the enchanted listener, and you see that it does.
Relax and look at some fabulous photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson and a song sung by Edith Piaf.
French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is often regarded as the father of modern photojournalism – his influence on 20th-21st century photography is incalculable – many of his photographs are hallmarks of photography as a recognizable art form … he termed his method ‘The Decisive Moment’ – from the 17th-century Cardinal de Retz: “Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif” (”There is nothing in this world that
does not have a decisive moment”) … He defined the method as: “… the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms that give that event its proper expression.”
In order, these are the persons that appear in this piece:
1. Cartier-Bresson
2. Truman Capote
3. Arthur Miller
4. William Faulkner
5. Samuel Beckett
6. Susan Sontag
7. Ezra Pound
8. Robert Lowell
9. Paul Valery
10. Igor Stravinsky
11. Simone de Beauvoir
12. Jean-Paul Sartre
13. Albert Camus
14. Marc Chagall
15. Marcel Duchamp
16. Alberto Giacometti
17. Henri Matisse
18. Igor Stravisnky
19. Jean Renoir
20. John Huston
21. Marilyn Monroe and John Huston
22. The Dalai Lama
23. Martin Luther King, Jr.
24. Robert F. Kennedy
25. Che Guevara
26. Duke and Duchess of Windsor
27. Carl Jung
28. Edith Piaf
[Thanks to ThatGuyArt]
The September issue of the Choral Journal arrived today (for you non-choral nerds, this is the magazine published by the American Choral Directors Association) and it featured an article about composers who have set the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The author dutifully and generously wrote about my DICKINSON MADRIGALS BOOKS 1 & 2 for women’s chorus, published by ECS Publishing for 3 pages, including some handsome musical examples.
“['Answer July'] shows the variety in metric stress and dynamics to illuminate the conversation going on between the poet and the personified month of July…” (Susan Davenport Stewart)
I’m very proud of these 20-year old Americana pieces.
Graham and I spent a grueling 8 hours composing and recording “sound” throughout the film: Lo pads, high sustained pitches or climbing, little sonic stings here and there. Paul Simon once said that the sound is the most important thing he listens to in his music, not the words, melody, or chord changes, but the sound. It was Dylan’s orchestration, sound that pissed everyone off in the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Not the words, not the music, but the SOUND. I just picked up the new book, THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC (more on that later) which has been thought provoking, and this notion of SOUND was one of the elements discussed at length. Ironically, I read that chapter the day Graham asked me for SOUND supplements in the film.
I think I will start incorporating this element in my teaching of music theory. “What does this music SOUND like? State the obvious.” will be a refrain this year.
Oh yeah, I finished the music for CAGES today.Whew! Tomorrow I’ll get to hear it all in a Dolby 5.1 theater. I hope my music, and my SOUND will stand up in the theater. They never taught me about creating SOUND in theory class. Live and learn.
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