Mel Shapiro
I’m doing the music to a short film by Mel Shapiro called INFRARED. Mel, as you may remember, wrote the book and lyrics to HOMER IN CYBERSPACE — a musical we premiered last years. I’m playing all the parts myself using Logic 9 (just arrived yesterday). It’s the smokiest, jazziest music I’ve composed to date, but somehow the material seems to call for it. The orchestration so far is piano, pizz acoustic bass, brush light drums, and sustained strings. I’ve got a muted trumpet obbligato line in each cue if we need it — I’m leaving it out because it interferes with the dialog, but by itself, the chord progression is screaming for a melody. So, I’ll probably string together a piece made from cues from INFRARED and if we end up using the trumpet melodies, I’ll get a REAL trumpeter to play that line.
[I have some advice for electronic musicians in emulating monophonic instruments (i.e. instruments that can only play one note at a time) on a keyboard: don't let notes overlap; use ONE FINGER to play the melody whenever possible. You'll find this works surprisingly well, especially for brass. This won't work for fast passagework, of course.]
The “hit” song from the 38 minute film is called “Terrible” which is a very infectious Vaudevillian-type song that I know people will like.
I had avoided watching the recent “Who the [bleep] is Jackson Pollock?” thinking the story and punchline were all too predictable: woman finds painting in thrift shop, doesn’t realize it is a Pollock, she sells it and becomes rich. Well, this doesn’t exactly happen that way.
The protagonists in the film are two world-renown experts on art who declare that, despite the fact Pollock’s fingerprints are found on the back of the painting, it isn’t really an original Pollock — because they say so, and they should know. This was an enlightening moment, as this is the way the world works — both politics and art.
I may have spoiled the plot for you, but it’s a worth while film to watch.
A man, who I’ll call Arthur, died in 2006 at age 60, leaving everything to his mother. He was a professor of zoology. In the case that he died before his mother, which he did, his mother was to give certain things to UCLA. Some were earmarked for the Music Department. His mother died recently and several boxes of stuff were left for us to come pick up. I went down and went through them. Several boxes of LPs, mostly old recordings of romantic violin music; lots of not terribly good paintings and odd photographs that he made; a photocopy of the manuscript of the Brahms Violin Concerto; framed pictures of Rodin sculptures, and other house pictures. Also, was a large book of his poems, writings, and philosophic musings — really, a kind of diary of his life. In his living trust, besides his violin and money, the most important item that is mentioned many times is his diary. I decided to take the diary home and read it, which I did this morning.
The poems were not very good poems, rather stream of consciousness observations of the world, and whatever was going on in his life at the end. There were many pages of scientific musings that, not being my area of expertise, may or may not be of interest to the scientific world. He includes an unanswered registered letter he wrote to Stephen Hawking in the ’70s. There is a chapter on his mid-life crisis, written on his 40th birthday. There are some photos in the book, but they are all of him, standing in front of statues or buildings around the world — and no one else. He doesn’t mention anyone else in the whole book except for a beautiful Spanish boy that he met in 1967 whose hand he had the pleasure of kissing.
The wizened, older Arthur revisits the wild and crazy younger Arthur with annotations in pencil, made and initialed by him later in life with comments like “not true” or “not the whole story.”
My guess is that Arthur was a big pot enthusiast, as most of the book seems like stoned ramblings. But where was his life? It all seemed inside his head. If this guy was a zoologist, you wouldn’t know it from any of his personal writings. If he was a professor, there is no evidence that he ever had a student in his life. This diary was his escape from everything and everyone. I did a search on his name and found only an appearance of his year of birth and year of death, and that a year before he died, he and his mother made a contribution in the memory of a friend to a their synagogue. Other than these two citations, he had no internet presence at all.
Why did you die at age 60, Arthur? Did you like people? What did you do when you traveled all over the world? Did you meet anyone, other than the people who took YOUR picture?
The most amazing part of reading the book was landing on the final page. He had an order form for the book. One copy would be $52; he then made a list of the prices if you purchase 5-10, 10-20, 20-50, and if you bought over 100 copies, they’d be $34 each. I couldn’t believe that he really imagined that this book had any commercial potential. But clearly, this was one of his most sacred and prized possessions. And it is now in my hands. I really don’t know what to do with it, but keep it, like I do so many other things, and show it to the appropriate person from time to time. What happen to the millions of other diaries that get left to be found by family or strangers?
I hope someone misses you, Arthur; and if not, I certainly am thankful for inheriting your strange little time capsule. [Top picture: Self Portrait of the Arthur (no date); Lower picture: Arthur's Fantasy (1981)]
Rosarium: A Drama for Chorus and Orchestra
Act 1: Flower and Song
1. Prologue
MP3: Play audio file (rosarium1.prologue.mp3)
2. The Arrival
MP3: Play audio file (rosarium2.arrival.mp3)
3. Tenochtitlan
MP3: Play audio file (rosarium3.tenochtitlan.mp3)
4. Tepeyac
MP3: Play audio file (rosarium4.tepeyac.mp3)
5. (Link)
MP3: Play audio file (rosarium5.dont_you_know_me.mp3)
6. Santa Maria
MP3: Play audio file (rosarium6.santa_maria.mp3)
Music: Roger Bourland Lyrics: William MacDuff UCLA Chorale and the Angeles Chorale UCLA Philharmonia UCLA Opera Workshop Conducted by Donald Neuen
LIBRETTO
Rosarium
Prologue: First Song of the End-Time
Herald (Tenor Solo) Behold the End-Time, dark days, dark days of holocaust and insurrection. The End-Time is come!
Chorus Warring images collide: the orphans and the amputees, bewildered brides arrayed in black and highways thick with refugees. I am Sarajevo, Kigali and Beirut. I am a house divided, the sniper and the parricide. The global village trembles and braces for attack. Surely these are final days!
Herald Behold the End-Time, strange days, strange days of irony and deconstruction. The End-Time is come!
Chorus There’s a loud, insistent wail in the Land of the Disenchanted, where justice is a thing-for-sale and compassion is out of fashion. I am California and New Jerusalem. I am the late Utopia, the Promise spent and Hope denied. The bureaucrats assemble to handle the details. Surely these are final days!
Herald Behold the End-Time: fierce days! “Vengeance is mine!” cries the Earth… Read the rest of this entry »
The Crocodile’s Christmas Ball and other odd tales (2002) Music: Roger Bourland Lyrics: William MacDuff UCLA Chorale, Donald Neuen, Director UCLA Wind Ensemble, D. Thomas Lee, Director Roger Bourland, conducting
1. Tropical Christmas
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball1.mp3)
2. A Proper Cat Reflects upon the Holidays
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball2.mp3)
3. After Halloween
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball3.mp3)
4. Santa Claws (Daniel Cummings, tenor)
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball4.mp3)
5. Down Home Christmas on Mars (Roger Bourland, solo)
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball5.mp3)
6. The Crocodile’s Christmas Ball (Tim Mussard, baritone)
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball6.mp3)
7. It Isn’t Christmas (Juliana Gondek, soprano)
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball7.mp3)
8. A Fly on the Wall
MP3: Play audio file (crocxball8.mp3)
LYRICS
The snow is falling The sleigh-bells calling All across the frozen North. It’s oh, so grand In this winter wonderland, Now is the very best of times! But it’s December the twenty-fourth And I’m longing for warmer climes… I’m dreaming of a tropical Christmas Just like I knew when I was young, Where palm trees sway Beside the bay And Santa Claus rides In an open Chevrolet. I’m dreaming of a tropical Christmas Whenever “Silent Night” is sung, Where Santa and His elves are tanned And carolers sing With a mariachi band. Deck the malls with cotton snowballs, Paint a frost on the window pane. Christmas can be just as jolly With a holly Made of polyurethane. I’m dreaming of a tropical Christmas Where lights on lemon trees are hung. The snow-bird sports Black socks and shorts And flocks to his kind By the pools and tennis courts. Christmas day we’ll open presents Then we’ll swim in the balmy sea. After dinner we’ll retire To perspire By the fire on TV. I’m dreaming of a tropical Christmas Just like I knew when I was young. Where moonlight pours On sandy shores I’m longing to go In December, for it seems A merry Christmas Is the very Christmas You remember in your dreams. Read the rest of this entry »
Flashpoint/Stonewall (1994) Music: Roger Bourland Lyrics: John Hall Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles Jon Bailey, conductor Recording by Chuck White
1. Invocation; Evocation; Flashpoint Stonewall
MP3: Play audio file (flashpoint1.stonewall.mp3)
2. DreamDrag
MP3: Play audio file (flashpoint3.dreamdrag.mp3)
3. A Different Child
MP3: Play audio file (flashpoint2.different.mp3)
4. The Parade
MP3: Play audio file (flashpoint5.parade.mp3)
5. Shame
MP3: Play audio file (flashpoint4.shame.mp3)
Some good friends had dinner with Kathleen Turner last week. The conversation that stood out was KT relating one of her pet peeves: fans complimenting her.
“OH MISS TURNER, I LOVE YOU!” (In a grouchy voice) “You don’t love me, you don’t know me; you love my work.”
“OH MISS TURNER, I LOVE YOU!”
(In a grouchy voice) “You don’t love me, you don’t know me; you love my work.”
Tell it like it is girlfriend!
A raw, angry, and provocative must-see interview from XXXXX, music critic of many publications, who has seen the need for and income from his reviews plummet. Bloggers (I guess, like me, although I have no plans of replacing a music critic: they’d have to pay me to do that) are doing it for free. It’s a transition to a new way of thinking about music criticism. I’ll leave it to much smarter scholars than I to sort out what lies ahead. I know that my blog readership is higher than some well respected music critics, but I think that that is only the case because I’ve been doing it longer ON THE WEB. Bloggers who stick to it, build readership. My readership statistics show a very slow rise since January 2006. Any blogger or critic on the web who sticks to it, will show a gradual rise over the years.
via videosift.com
Yesterday, on my third day of staying home with the flu, I heard the mom next door trying to teach her son some Michael Jackson songs.
“Beat it… beat it…. beat it….” Hmm, not sure what the rest of the words are. Let’s try another. “Thriller…. thriller…. dum dum dum da da da de…” Hmm, don’t remember those words either. Let’s try “Billy Jean.. doo doo doo” Oh dear, I don’t seem to be remembering any of the words. Wait! I remember another: “We are the world, we are the doo doo..” I can’t remember that one either. Oh drat!
I couldn’t help out as I could never understand the words either.
