An early Leonard Cohen song revisited in a live performance in San Sebastian in 1988. Cohen’s performance here hasn’t changed much from his original recording. A dark and galloping song. There is no dominant in the opening verse. His sexy flat-six chord has three notes of a French augmented-6th chord (F A B) with a ringing E before it finally resolves to the dominant; a distinctively Spanish sound. Chord progressions that feature a fall from flat-six to the dominant include IV6 to V, the three augmented-6th chords, McCartney’s parallel bVI-flat7 to V7 (”Honey Pie”), and now this chord, which could be described as a flat-six with a flat 5 and a major 7th. The F A moves down to E G#, while the B E are common tones between the two chords. I propose we call this a Spanish flat-VI chord. It is a common progression in Flamenco guitar literature. This harmonic progression is the most violent move in the song.
What a find! An historically interesting lipsync performance of “Christine’s Tune” by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman on the Flying Burrito Brothers first album. Gram is very silly (or drunk) in this video and Chris is having a great time. We see the infamous Sneaky Pete Kleinow on steel guitar, as well as Chris Ethridge on bass, and the very cute but drunk Mike Clark on drums (he claimed late in life that he was always drunk in these days). The clothes they are wearing are all Nudie designs and seen on the cover of the first album (pic above was from the same session).
I have a long affection for ties even though I don’t wear them any longer. During high school and college, I hitch hiked a lot. My standard garb was jeans, a sport coat, and a tie loose around my neck. When I first got the job at UCLA in 1983 I wore ties. My students always commented about them in my student evaluations. I wasn’t ready to become “Prof Tie” so after I got tenure I stopped wearing them. I always imagined that I might become one of those natty professors who always wears a bow tie. That hasn’t happened yet. As I looked around the Faculty Center yesterday, I realized that most of my academic colleagues were also not wearing ties. The Chancellor and his crew all do, but then he’s the Chancellor.
Yesterday Jackie and I were interviewing candidates for an important staff hire for our two Departments. The conversation at one point veered towards attire when the candidate confessed that s/he chose to not wear a suit to the interview. I confessed that I had debated wearing a tie but didn’t, choosing to wear a black turtleneck sweater with a thick, grey Armani cardigan sweater. Regarding the tie, Jackie, an African-American woman, wrinkled up her nose and said “WHY would you want to do that?!” — her tone indicating that she was relieved that I was NOT wearing a tie.
So many baby boomers dress as they did when they were college students. Guilty as charged. And not wearing ties was one of the remnants of our rebellion.
I discussed the three options for musical drama these days a few weeks back, trying to decide what HOMER is — a musical, an opera, or a musical drama. The script calls it a musical drama, but when I asked Mel what he called it at our reading last week, “it’s a musical” — I reminded him about what he wrote in his script, but he came back again “it’s a musical.”
I got to thinking what other elements make a piece an opera instead of a musical, and I guess it would have to be dramatic numbers where the music is constantly changing, there is no verse-chorus structure, and dramatic action is occurring. That doesn’t usually happen in musicals. HOMER has at least 5 numbers that fall into this category, so by this definition our piece is a hybrid. Musicals have songs and operas have arias. Both of them feature good melodic writing and, usually, accessible musical language. Songs lean towards popular music, arias lean towards classical art songs. Operas have recitatives, musicals don’t. HOMER has arias and songs and dramatic numbers.
Calling a piece an opera will set in motion critics who only review operas, not critics who review musicals. They come expecting to hear what they think an opera should be in the early 21st century. And if they don’t, they pan it.
Consider Jake Heggie’s new “Last Acts” that was premiered by the Houston Opera in February: the critics seemed cruel to him, as they often are. He is writing accessible music that borders on being a musical. Or shall I say, a sophisticated musical. The dallasnews.com referred to the language as “…a cross between palm court and Broadway musical.” In context I suppose this was supposed to be an insult to those in the know.
What would have happened if Jake called his piece a “musical” or a “musical drama”? Might he have had better reviews? I am happy to report that ultimately the world has not listened to the crappy press Jake has received, as his operas are getting performed over critics’ dead bodies world-wide (or more precisely, their barbs mean less and less coming from the declining power base of the traditional newspaper).
I suspect that my future dramatic musicals will be critically panned if I call them operas as well. Hmm, let’s see: musical? or opera? musical? or opera?
How ’bout an “operical! “or a sophisticated musical? YES!
For those of us working in academia, as those of you not may remember, our years are divided up by the academic terms. At UCLA we are on the quarter system where we have three 10-week terms per year (wait, shouldn’t that be a tri-mester?), and the second quarter is about over. This week is exam week and next week is spring break.
The most important thing for me to get accomplished by the end of March is to provide a complete piano vocal score for HOMER IN CYBERSPACE as well as a CD with me singing all the parts which will be distributed to the cast and crew on the first day of class. This weekend I finished orchestrating the whole piece and am now going back over each number, cleaning it up, tweaking it, making it pretty, and living with the orchestrations.
Meeting deadlines is an important part of being a composer. I’m happy that I will make this one. I took on the commission before I knew I was going to be Chairman so I am doubly happy that I have survived this trial by fire. I took on a new job, and managed to get the music to a two and a half hour musical done in nine months.
I am determined to take a 2 or 3 month break from composing to finish my Rufus Wainwright book and then move on to MOZART and the GREY STEWARD project this summer. But first I need to review scholarships and teaching assistantships with our Vice Chair. Ah the joys of chairmanship!
Here is a video of Stephen Stills on the Dick Cavett Show. Wow! What a circle of stars. Sitting next to him are Joni Mitchell and David Crosby, and I saw Grace Slick, Jorma Kaukonen and Marty Balin (?) from the Jefferson Airplane.
In my life as a folk singer I loved to sing this song. The mode of the verse is major, the mode of the “chorus” is minor pentatonic. The guitar is in D tuning if I remember correctly. I love the poncho Stills has on.
The content of the lyrics and his tone make it sound like he is the wisened old sage passing down words of wisdom while rocking in his rocking chair, puffing on his pipe and staring into the distance. At least that was the image I always had. Everyone else around the circle looks like they are, well, mellow. This video was filmed right after Woodstock.
“4 + 20 by Stephen Stills”
.
So, in that song, Stills talks about being 24 years old. In this song, John Sebastian of the Lovin Spoonful sings as if he is an old man “And now a quarter of my life has past…” And what it the pitch he is singing on the hook “Darlin be home soon.” It’s as though he can’t make up his mind which note to give us so he gives us both as a kind of tremulant begging tone.
“Darling Be Home Soon” (Sebastian) by the Lovin’ Spoonful
.
In “My Back Pages” Bob Dylan declares “…ah but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” The Byrds covered ths song and adapted this line for their “Younger than Yesterday” album
“My Back Pages” (Dylan) sung by Bob Dylan
.
And here is recent cover by Roger McGuinn (Byrds) playing the song solo on his Rickenbacker. May I take this opportunity to let you know if you’re thinking of what to get me for Xmas, I’d like this 12-string Rickenbacker. Having that guitar was my biggest wish in high school and I’ve never had one.
“My Back Pages” (Dylan) sung by Roger McGuinn
.
And let’s have one more superstar cover at the 1992 Dylan tribute. I see Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and George Harrison all tip their hats to Master Bob.
“Someday Soon” (first draft of accompaniment)
Music by Roger Bourland
Words by Mel Shapiro
from “Homer in Cyberspace
It is customary, at least on older operas, to have a passacaglia or ground bass at some point. OK, my piece is kind of opera kind of musical, but I couldn’t resist having one in HOMER. So here it is. (For those who don’t know, ground bass is one that repeats over and over. The musical excerpt below shows you the bass line which you can follow throughout.
Last night Mark and I went to hear the UCLA Philharmonia perform. The first half was Webern’s 6 Pieces for Orchestra followed by the Mahler “Songs of a Wayfarer.” The second half was the Beethoven Eroica. I was thrilled Mark agreed to my usual plan of staying for half the concert. I know the eroica symphony, have heard it too many times and agree students need to know it as well. But I’ve heard it enough. And the first half was a complete meal for me. My musical stomach is smaller these days. 45 minutes or less is just fine. Especially when one of them is a new work.
Part of my problem is a physical one that I share with my father: a very long torso. This makes sitting for long periods of time fatiguing to my back. Ditto opera, movies and long rides in planes, cars or trains. Sometimes I’ll take a naprosyn before sitting for a long period and that helps. It may just be a problem unique to professional musicians and music teachers. Music is special, and we want to keep it that way. Three cheers for short concerts!
—
During the concert a cricket sang along with the Webern. It actually kind of worked. I had heard complaints about our cricket from others, he does have a rather loud voice, but it gave a kind of calming feeling to the event.
rss feed
