18:
Today at Hugo’s I had a new waiter. I noticed he had a treble clef tattooed on the inside of his right forearm, and a bass clef on the inside of his left forearm. I couldn’t resist asking whether he was a pianist, so I did.
“No, I’m a keyboard-guitar-bass-drums player” he rattled off as though he’d said it before. Upon learning I am a UCLA Professor in Composition, he told me that he had been a composition major and that I kinda looked like HIS composition teacher at NYU. “It was a great education but none of the stuff prepares you for what you really need to know.” I asked him in my most professorial tone whether he could write and fugue or an invention. “Yes, I knew it all. I knew it in highschool, and then I had to sit through 2 years of Music Theory just cuz every one has to. Don’t get me wrong, you learn the rules so that you can break the rules, but that doesn’t get you too far in the real world.”
He had no idea that I had just been kvetching about the same thing to my colleagues but I dared not confess that to this excellent composer-waitperson.
18:
This just in from washingtonpost.com. Professor Barbara Block at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station has been tracking migration patterns of various creatures over the Pacific Ocean. The image was seductive. There is so much information in it. I didn’t see the key to which colors are birds and which are whales and which are seals, but it didn’t matter. You can see where they go year after year. Prof Block has a stealth team that tags the fish and animals so that satellites are able to pick up and record the migratory patterns.
A beautiful piece of information!
[Photo © 2006 TOPP]
16:
I have incorporated teaching the music notation software, Sibelius, into my first year music theory class. I gave one two-hour lecture on the basics. I then had a two-hour workshop where different students came up and used the software in front of the others, copying an assigned passage while the others watched on the screen. Their assignment was to copy a portion of whatever piece they are playing or composing at the moment. They were to then photocopy or scan the original, and email me Sibelius or Finale document. I am amazed at their ability to pick up this software and make it work so quickly. The music they copies was not “Come to Jesus” in whole notes, but complicated notational stuff. I didn’t have one question or student visit during an office hour. Somehow, they all learned it and did it.
I should point out that for the first nine weeks, I insisted that everything be notated by hand, and I insisted on excellent notational skills: half notes had to be the right angle, stems the appropriate length, dynamics expression markings all in the right places, and so on.
I am more and more finding the term “music theory” an unsatisfactory name for what I think need be taught to young music majors. Perhaps “music materials and literature” would suffice. But theory? Let’s come up with a new paradigm.
15:
I just stumbled upon a man who loves to paint martini themed art, and it’s really quite wonderful. The one above is called “Martini Genie” and Mr Godard has these program notes about the artwork:
In this image our lucky olive has found the magic lantern. When the olive rubs the lantern, a gorgeous genie appears and grants his three wishes: 1) Find a hot Olive Girl 2) Be invited to the Olive Party this year 3) To be filthy rich! Now that’s livin’!
15:
When a doctoral candidate in composition is ready to begin his or her dissertation, their first meeting is a meeting where the candidate meets with the committee to defend their dissertation topic. It is here that the faculty advise: “be sure to read…” or “you’re biting off too much” or “your proposal seems rather modest for a doctoral dissertation” or “you realize this piece will never be performed.”
My most recent charge is Severin who defended his dissertation topic the other day, and it was a memorable one.
The piece is largely an improvisational format, where the experience is primarily for the musicians, the participants, and not necessarily the audience. In fact, when one faculty member pushed and asked “do you care what the audience thinks?” the answer, after two beats was a resounding NO. “I don’t care about what future generations think about my music. That is of absolutely no concern to me. I am only concerned about the here and now.”
Part of the unspoken tradition imparted to young classical musicians is that they have to be world famous in order to “make it.” I try to dispel this notion whenever I can. I tell them: “You can be a successful oboe teacher in Dubuque, Iowa and have a good, successful, fulfilling life.” Our desire to be canonized in our music history books needs to be cauterized.
I often wonder whether music is not unlike a wonderful meal. One that you remember for a while, and then it needs to be refreshened. Composers are like aural chefs. And that’s ok. I see, during performances of my music, how my music touches the audience, or doesn’t. And more and more, I am adapting Severin’s confession as my maxim. The whole notion of culling favor with the future while ignoring the present is silly.
Carpe diem!
15:
I’m almost finished with a new project that I can’t tell you about yet. But here’s a hint. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
14:
My brother suggested that as my blog turns one year old, that I consider changing the name. I think he said ROGER BOURLAND, so that it was clear who was behind it. I picked Red Black Window last year as a poetic image, and also the name of the middle movement of my THREE DARK PAINTINGS. It’s cool, but it doesn’t mean that much, or it can mean what you want it to. So, I like Andy’s suggestion, but I’m toying with morphing the two names to BOURLAND’S WINDOW. Kinda sounds like a Virginia Woolf novel. Or a Hitchcock movie. Or me in my rocking chair looking out at the world.
14:
Yay! Statistics for classical blogging nerds like me. By referring to those constantly changing Technorati rankings, Scott Spiegelberg has ranked the top 51 classical music blogs on his [17th ranked] blog, Musical Perceptions. You’ll be interested to know that Red Black Window was ranked 19th, and Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise was on top at number 1.
14:
I stumbled upon a wonderful singer-songwriter/composer that I recommend you listen to: Andrew Bird. He has been steadily releasing albums since 1997. I say “stumbled” when in fact I was looking on iTunes for anything new by Rufus Wainwright and saw that “others who bought Rufus also bought Andrew Bird.” So I took a listen and was happy, very happy to find an amazingly talented fellow. I immediately bought the CD pictured above, and WEATHER SYSTEMS. He is a violinist, classically trained, although I don’t know what that means as his bio is sketchy.
What is amazing about his voice is that, whether he knows it or not, his voice channels voices we have all and know and have loved over the years:
Lou Reed, Jackson Browne, Rufus Wainwright, Donovan, a few Joni Mitchell slides, Jim Morrison, David Crosby, Chris Martin (Coldplay), Bono, and David Byrne. Well, that’s what I heard on my first listen. The more I listen to his voice, the influences fade, but they are there. Posed with these influences, real or imagined, his future looks bright to me.
And get this: the guy is a really good whistler. When he whistles, the chords drift back towards the 19th century American parlor song.
The songs are in the line of Lennon and McCartney and Rufus Wainwright. Smart understanding of how chords go. Great orchestration, effortless flow.
As I said, I don’t know much about him. Is he gay? I don’t know, I can’t tell. He doesn’t look gay, but since when has that been a criterion? But these lyrics have the answer. Or not.
But if you think there’s something else
Well you’re right, there is
There’s something else
But if you think I’m gonna tell you, think again
Why should I even think of telling you what there is
Yeah, ’cause silence is knowledge
And knowledge is power
I’m under explicit orders to dare not speak its name
Listen up, I just work here
Oh I dare not speak its name
I can’t keep talking about it
Oh, I dare not speak its name
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