I had a graduate student help me with an interesting project. I have a lot of MIDI files on my old 1980s IBM-AT PC computer, including all the accompaniments for all my GALA cantatas (HIDDEN LEGACIES, LETTERS TO THE FUTURE, and FLASHPOINT/STONEWALL) as well as all my portable pieces (PORTABLE CONCERTO, SHASTA, MIRABEL, and GLAMOUR AND EROS). The accompaniments would have been lost forever, but the computer still runs, and we were able to get the MIDI files extracted from the hard drive. We had to store them on 5.25 floppy disks (remember those?), and send them to a company to have them read, and then they emailed the files to me. It will be a lot of work reorchestrating all that music, but it will be a lot easier now having the basic musical information in these recovered files.
I was daydreaming about my family tree in terms of what composers I have studied with and who they studied with. Maybe someday when I have lots of time on my hands, I’ll draw an actual tree. Until then:
Through Les Thimmig, I am connected to his teacher, Mel Powell, who studied with Paul Hindemith.
Through William Thomas McKinley, I am connected to one of his teachers, Aaron Copland.
Through Robert Ceeley, I am connected to one of his teachers, Darius Milhaud.
Through Donald Martino, I am connected to one of his teachers, Luigi Dallapiccola.
Through Gunther Schuller — well he is connected to lots of people, and he helped me more than anyone in my career as a composer.
Through Randall Thompson, I am connected to Edward Burlingame Hill, whose teacher was John Knowles Paine.
Through John Harbison, I am connected to one of this teachers, Walter Piston.
Through Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner, I am connected to their teachers, Ernst Bloch, Roger Sessions, and Arnold Schoenberg.
Looming large over all these composers listed above, is Igor Stravinsky, (who never taught) my biggest influence, and an influence on everyone else as well. Schoenberg is also in this category, but he influenced me less. Leon Kirchner told me that Stravinsky urged him to be a film composer and stay out of academia. Leon turned around and said the same thing to me. Neither one of us took our teacher’s advice.
I am unaware of what comes from whom in my education or my musical language. It’s all smushed together into me.
When I first started working at UCLA, I occasionally saw a man in the halls who looked a bit like Igor Stravinksy and a bit like Aaron Copland. It was Ted Norman, our guitar teacher.
His students were always on fire. Playing cutting edge stuff, difficult stuff, and always looking for new sounds on the guitar. More importantly, he made them all compose music.
He created a little guild of artists who were guitarist and composers and cool. Check out a little website someone put up that will present a good overview of his life along with some pictures.
I woke up this morning thinking about Ted, and missing him. Here is the UCLA obit that appeared in 1997.
UCLA OBITUARY: THEODORE NORMAN
Theodore Norman, a classical guitar pioneer, composer and UCLA faculty member in the Department of Music for thirty years, died on May 29 in Los Angeles. He was 85.
“Ted Norman was by nature less conservative than most of his students and colleagues, though often three or four times their age, a distinction which provided many opportunities for the wry and subtle humor which played on the surface of his deep seriousness about music, art and life. Hundreds of his students across the world further his ideals and it was an honor to have been associated with him at UCLA,” said Peter Yates, faculty member who studied with Norman and worked with him over the past twenty-five years.
Norman became interested in the guitar while composing his ballet “Metamorphosis,” based on the Franz Kafka novel, and used a guitar in the entire composition. Today he is noted the world over for his music for the guitar, as well as for his activated instruction which makes composition a central part of the training of concert artists.
In addition to his transcriptions for one and two guitars of music by great composers, Norman wrote ten pieces for the guitar in the twelve-tone system, the first such pieces ever to be published as well as developing a system for the blind to read music.
Norman first studied violin with Willy Hess, and composition with Adolph Weiss. He played first violin in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra from 1935 – 1942, and was closely associated with such composers as Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky.
Later, Norman went to Europe, traveling through Spain, France, and Italy, meeting the leading Classical and Flamenco guitarists. In Sienna, he met Andres Segovia who became a regular visitor to the Norman’s Los Angeles home. In Madrid, he took formal lessons with Aurelio Herrero, a Segovia student. He played a guitar concert of his own compositions and the works of other composers on Paris radio.
After returning to the United States, he played the guitar part in Pierre Boulez’s “Le Marteau sans Maitre” and Schoenberg”s “Serenade,” recording both works for Columbia Records. He also developed a unique system of notating flamenco music.
I have taken the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator tests periodically throughout the past 15 years or so. (Daniel and I are both ENFJ’s) Without going into what it all means, the “E” stands for extroverted, as opposed to introverted. Over the years I’ve seen my numbers drift towards introversion. Most of my family are introverts. You’d think it odd that a preacher — a guy who stands up and addresses large groups of people every week — would be an introvert, but he is. My brother Andy has blogged on it several times. My mother, always the exuberant preacher’s wife, shaking the hand of everyone who stands in line to greet my dad as they filed out of church, is now an introvert. That even shocked my father. If I think about it, many of my friends are introverts.
I bring this up only because yesterday was our graduation ceremony. As Chair, I read the names of the graduates as they walked across the stage to shake the Dean’s hand and get their diploma. Around lots of people, congratulating lots of students, greeting parents, saying farewell to colleagues for the summer — lots of good social energy. Later, we were invited to a birthday party for M. When I got there, I realized I had ZERO social energy. I sat there, spent, like a black hole. I managed to actually rally and have some wonderful conversations with a handful of people, but I had no energy to stand around a chat with, well, yell at each other over the music. Feeling like a party-pooper, I said farewell to the host, and wandered down the hill to Hollywood Boulevard to catch a cab home. The total walk was three and a half miles to our house. As I wandered down the boulevard I was surprised that I had the energy to do this at 11:30 at night. I walked past several groups of dudes who I might have been terrified of in previous years, but tonight I didn’t give a shit. It was invigorating. I realized that I was going faster than the traffic, so I might as well walk rather than jump in a cab and sit in traffic. Why was being around strangers walking down Hollywood Boulevard invigorating, and standing around a party, not?
The evening made me realize the difference between social energy, and physical energy. In an extroverted person, there is a magnetism to other humans and an innate desire to converse. That energy seems to be variable, probably attached to some hormone or biochemical transaction or brain habit. It is not that an introvert is incapable of being socially adept, but s/he finds the social transaction exhausting. Last night, I was socially exhausted — not through any fault of the birthday boy or the party. I should have just stayed home and updated my Myers-Briggs status.
UCLA has turned out a number of outstanding saxophonist-composers that have gone on to do well. The first was Dave Koz. Dave took my electronic music class back in the 1980s. He orchestrated one of the numbers from John Hall and Amy Wooley’s LUST AND GREED IN THE SHOPPING MALL performed by the UCLA Synthesizer Ensemble, conducted by me. Dave orchestrated the song “Sex Sells” (way before Joni’s song by the same name) and did an amazing job. He may thank me for being his teacher, but Dave was and always will be Dave. All a teacher can do is encourage that Dave-ness to come out.
Dave has gone on to become Dave Koz, and is one of the founding fathers of Smooth Jazz. No matter where I go in the world, I hear his music playing is spas, restaurants, stores… Dave has done well.
The second one is Hitomi, aka Hitomi Oba who took a couple of years of music theory with me as well as some composition and electronic music. She did her undergraduate work at UCLA and just finished her MA in composition under Paul Chihara. Hitomi’s first CD, FIRST FLIGHT has just been released and is selling like sushi in Japan. Having heard about this good fortune I was interested to hear what the music was like. That day, she gifted me a copy of the CD. I listened to it on the way home from school. I was amazed at the sophistication of her lines, her tone, and treatments of a CD full of standards (with 2 of her own). FIRST FLIGHT
I can’t help but liken her sound to John Coltrane. Now, I am NOT a jazz expert, but damned if I didn’t walk into a Starbucks and I heard tenor sax playing. I looked for the PLAYING NOW sign and sure enough it was Coltrane. I got back in my car, turned the CD came back on and it was Hitomi. No, she’s not imitating Coltrane, she has digested him and building on his tradition.
As I listen to how she “plays” a melody, it made me think about how one would describe the technique of “jazzing up” a melody. If I am honest with myself, “jazzing it up” means playing as though you are tired, or weary, or drunk, or stoned. It is somehow a chore to stay with the beat, so you just stagger through an alternate rhythmic world that magically gets back to the beat at just the right moment. More notes are added to the tune as a running commentary on the original. (I am referring more to slow songs or ballads, not up-tempo numbers.)
It is easy for me to imagine John Coltrane stoned or tired or drunk, or just being himself and playing this music. But as I look at the sweet eyes and not stoned or drunk face of Hitomi, and hear her play saxophone, I am confused. In my mind’s eye, I imagine a black male playing in a smoky nightclub, and when I open my eyes I see a beautiful, slight, Asian woman. Is there a gender bender issue going on here that makes her already terrific performances even sexier? It doesn’t matter, Hitomi is terrific. It is not smooth jazz, it is take-your-jazz-like-a-man (er, woman) jazz.
After watching CALIGULA — a film that for years I had avoided watching for some reason — I discovered a wonderful composer of so-called spaghetti westerns, Bruno Nicolai. He collaborated with Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota in the Italian cinema universe. He has a modest website that was put up by Bill Reynolds. He scored CALIGULA using a pseudonym (Paul Clemente), I can only assume he was nervous about the X-rated content in the film. Here is a brief bio that Reynolds supplies:
Born 1926: He studied piano, organ and composition at the Conservatory Of Santa Cecilia. His teacher for piano was Aldo Mantia, and for composition was Geoffredo Petrassi. While at the Conservatory he met Ennio Morricone who also was studying with Petrassi. A friendship began that would last many years.
He has composed for theatre, TV and movies. Between scoring movies he also conducted scores by Carlo Rustichelli, Luis E. Bacalov and Nino Rota. He conducted many of Morricone’s scores, and played the organ on some of them and also co-scored some with him. Many of his scores have and are still being released on his Edi-Pan label.
He gained popularity with his scores for spaghetti westerns, and wrote music for other types of films. He died in 1991 leaving behind his wife and three daughters.
[Here are some of the album covers from his various films.
Composers get used to civilized and noncommittal responses that usually mean “I didn’t get/like it.”
Top of the list is: “Congratulations!”
Next is the seemingly interested by ultimately not “I thought it was INTERESTING.”
Both “interesting” and “congratulations” can actually mean what they mean, but the composer must learn to perceive TONE in order to know which one they mean.
Shake hands and shout like a pirate: “You’ve done it again!” and it’s never exactly clear what “it” is.
And then there is the “let’s avoid talking about the music” approach and focus on what was clearly a great performance: “What a terrific performance!” with a big smile gets you off the hook.
There is a new one that popped up this year: “Gosh! That was such a lot of hard work!”
And now that I’ve got my poor reader confused as to what you say to a composer upon hearing their new composition. Try one of these:
“I love the flow.”
“I need to hear it again if you want me to say something intelligent about it.”
“It wasn’t my cup of tea, but I still found it interesting.”
“The range of musical languages was puzzling but satisfying.”
“I cried in the …”
“My favorite parts were…” [composers may pretend to not be interested, but they are.]
“Why did you use the electric guitar in …”
“The love duet reminds me of …”
“I especially like when it …”
“It makes me think of [spring time in the desert].”
After all, as Igor Stravinsky said: “Music is much more important than just ‘to like’.”
I am thinking about the word “moved” as in “I was ‘moved’ by her performance.”
This state of being “moved” is perhaps a self-induced sense of well being, often at the point of tears — being overwhelmed by an emotion, an emotion that if you give into it you will cry, and if you don’t, you’ll have a lump in your throat, making it difficult to speak or sing. While being moved by something, it is common for the hair on my arms to stand straight up. This phenomenon is referred to as getting goose bumps, or “chills down my spine” or other descriptive phrases.
I’m certain I could find some document explaining the biochemical fireworks that go on during the state of being “moved” but I’m happy to just experience it.
We are moved by many things, but very often it is music that moves us regularly. In this way, composers and their associates, performers are in many ways pharmacists and magicians. By disturbing the air in a particular manner, they can lull an audience into a trance as if they were under a spell or on drugs. I try to remind my students of that fact. And like any talent, skill, or ability, one must use it with discretion and not abuse it.
Being moved by something carries with it a life tonic that is very much like a built in therapist and exorcist. Whether singing along in your car or with your iPod or with an orchestra, music moves us, changes us, invigorates us.
HOMER IN CYBERSPACE has finished its run. Since critics are discouraged from reviewing student events at UCLA Theater Department, I can’t offer you reviews. One rather rather grouchy and clueless review appeared in the Santa Monica Mirror online that sounded as though it was expecting a play and was annoyed to find it so cluttered with music that just got in the way of the story. Uhh, will someone give this person the clue phone?
I skipped the Saturday matinée and it turns out that the audio system DIED just before Conference of the iGods. Mel vamped till ready, the show stopped for 15 minutes and then went on. What was lost were the individual tracks of my music, so the sound gang put up my stereo mixes and everything was fine. Kinda. Certain songs contained an instrumental double of the melody that may have surprised the singers. But considering all the technology in this show, it was amazing that more didn’t go wrong. It seemed that almost every night, poor Parnia (Demeter) would disappear from the video projection, although the audience would hear her voice. Often a back projection would disappear followed by “the blue screen of death.” Some cursed “that damned Dell” and another blamed it on “that 32 year old cable that bridges this theater with Melnitz Hall.” I’m sure it was just a poltergeist, probably called Odysseus.
There was an interesting (unscripted?) ending last night. When the curtain falls at the end, it is not clear whether O and Penelope stay together or not. In the curtain calls, O and Penelope are in the middle, and then separate to opposite sides of the stage, giving the impression that indeed they DID go their separate ways. Last night, Kevin (O) held onto Grace (Penelope) and tugged her along with him to his side of the stage, giving the impression, on the last night, that they stayed together, living happily ever after.
Last night was the final and probably the best performance.
– - -
Excerpts from emails, heard and overheard comments about “Homer in Cyberspace”:
“The melodies are fabulous.”
“It’s a lot to take in on one listening.”
[Everyone loved the sirens -- male and female -- all wanted more.]
“I HATED the synthesizer sounds.”
“I normally hate synthesizer sounds, but your palette was ravishing. I loved it.”
“…a superb play and historic event”
[Those that found the plot tricky to take in on one hearing seemed confused at intermission and less so at the end of the show. I think that's a good thing.]
“This is a trip!”
“I couldn’t always understand the words, and when there is plot being told, and I can’t understand it, that is a problem for me.” (This chap had a hearing aid. Hearing aids make everything monophonic. The cocktail party effect disappears and sonic dimension flattens. So, I can imagine prerecorded music being balanced with the voices of the actors singing and speaking, could be exhausting.)
“What I enjoyed most in Homer were several of the large ensemble pieces, the one where the crew thinks they’re homeward bound, great ship set and always great energy, at times too fast for me, and then the scene with, I presume, Zeus and the rest of the gods-gang, parts of the Hades and Persephone scene, and the occasional choral moments were nice –”
“I really liked the music.”
“Reminded me of CANDIDE.”
“The style of musical was fresh and interesting — sexy, hilarious, and beautiful at the same time — represented and supported the mood of musical. I still remember the “101010101″. That was brilliant, and memorable moment. It must be a challenge to write music in various styles, but you successfully did. (honestly, that’s not what I normally expect from classical composer’s work). You are truly Stephen Sondheim in UCLA!”
“I keep wondering what I’m missing by not knowing who Homer was.”
[One cast member made it clear she would have LOVED to have a solo in the second act. "Sorry, I didn't write the story."]
“I heard some resonance with Rodgers and Hammerstein in “Part Time Lover” am I mistaken?”
“Not at all” I replied.
—-
I guess I have become “the hugging composer” or something. After every performance, people lined up and gave me hugs.
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