One of my great joys as a boy was visiting my grandparents in Kentucky and looking through all the amazing stuff they had in their attic. The smells, the colors, things from very long ago resonate still in my memory.
As Chair of the UCLA music department, I have, over the past few years, been able to continue this little fantasy. Last week, a largish room was cleared out. All along the sides are little closets, some locked, some not, filled with old instruments from the last 300 years. We had no idea where they came from, who gave them to us or whether they are worth anything. I have two colleagues whom I know can identify some of them, but the others are a mystery. We speculated that some of these instruments had been donated by someone long ago, and just put in the room. We had a museum scientist on staff until the early 1990s, but he was laid off around that time. Amazing looking instruments, including a set of historic autoharps.
Fortunately, I have a staff member who has a similar love of finding old treasures like this. She will help me catalog them, research where they came from, and figure out what we should do with them.
This weekend we spent the weekend with friends in Mill Valley (CA) as well as some time on a sunset boat ride around Belvedere, Tiburon, and that general [San Francisco Bay] area. Also on the boat was a Hollywood producer with whom I hit it off, who wants to introduce me to some directors looking for composers.
I also met with a well-connected friend who wants to collaborate on an opera that could have a major premiere. I know it’s bad luck to talk about things that are only possibilities but I came home charged thinking that my life could take a major turn if either of these possibilities actually happen.
I confessed to both that I’m an excellent composer who loves to collaborate, but that my weakest suit is promoting myself — my blog is about it. When I finish a commission, I am horny to get on to the next project — not spend time promoting it. The producer blew it off saying — “ah, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you do great work, on time, and come in on or under budget.”
To date, I have been unsuccessful in predicting things that happened in my life. In 1972 I had no idea that ten years later I would go to Harvard, get a PhD and my composition selected as best piece of the year by the Boston Globe; in 1982 I had no idea that in 1992 I’d be a tenured UCLA Professor, touring America, attending performances of a cantata I wrote about a health epidemic that decimated gay men; in 1992 I had no idea I’d be writing a two hour oratorio about two apparitions of the Virgin Mary, become Chair of the Music Department, and get married to my male partner.
I look ahead to the next ten years and sense possibilities. I could wind down as Chair and Professor and ease into a well-deserved retirement; I could get a career as an opera composer and compose operas for the rest of my life; Hollywood could realize what a catch I am, and spend the rest of my days scoring films; or it could be a blend of all of the above.
I’m optimistic, but not fatalistic. I’m skeptical about the “it was meant to be” line of thinking. I think one has to set things in motion, try, make an effort, and most importantly WANT something, in order for it to happen.
Operas take a herculean effort to compose and mount. These big blockbuster films with thousands of notes per square second are also a huge amount of work. Do I really want that? Hmm, only time will tell.
In that my husband is 32, all of our married (straight) friends are having babies. Jenny keeps teasing me that I’m a baby magnet as her daughter, Katie, 14 months, thinks I’m the best.
So far, most of the babies are girls. Lately there have been more boys in the mix. Last night we went to Joe and Yumi’s house, who have 2 boys, age 2 and 3. I sat on a rug after dinner and became a human trampoline. Baby boy energy is very different than baby girl energy. They want to be held, be chased, chase them, throw the ball, and in general be a bit more crazy. I was exhausted by the end of evening, but what fun.
Daniel leaned over and said “shall we have one?” I think the answer is still no, as I would be 74 when they turn 18, which I guess is possible, but a BIG undertaking. I think Uncle Roger works just fine.
For academics, summertime is a time of recharging: reading, doing our research, catching up on projects that we didn’t have time to do during the academic year, and traveling. I note that my blogging pattern is about once every five days of late. My year has been so busy I just haven’t had the time to write every day. For my faithful readers, know that I plan to blog for the rest of my life and when I step down as Chair of our department, I know that I will be more regular.
For my summer composition work, I am just about done with my settings of Eloise Klein Healy, and will have a public rehearsal/reading of it next week with the poet in attendance, and Vox Femina singing it under Iris Levine’s able baton. My collaborator in Homer in Cyberspace, Mel Shapiro, has a short film for me to provide music for. I have another movement of a piano piece to finish. And I hope to get back to the interrupted “Mozart and the Grey Steward” a short opera with words by Thornton WIlder.
I answered one of those alarming letters warning that my airline points were going to disappear, so I had better buy magazines. I did, and now have two huge piles of unread magazines I will try to make my way through. I also have a pile of books that I plan to start finishing.
I hope to block off a few weeks to try to finish my book on Rufus Wainwright. I will be interested to hear his new opera, which should have received its premiere by now.
A trip to London, Paris and southern France later in the summer will be our big vacation this summer. I plan to visit my parents at least once in Phoenix; two or three sabbaticals in Palm Springs; several trips to the Bay area; and a possible quick trip to Kauai.
The UC system is facing huge cuts. It appears we will all be taking 8% cuts to our salary for a year. The Herb Alpert School of Music is completely revamping its undergraduate curriculum, so I will be having meetings this summer and fall to work on that new reality.
I am still loving my Palm Pre, and am so relieved to be rid of the iPhone. I have colleagues who live for the iPhone apps, so they will likely never switch. I realized that I don’t really need to convert anyone to the Palm. I’m still thrilled that Apple is becoming so ubiquitous.
I hope to be more social this summer and establish a more regular exercise program to keep this body in good shape.
And finally, just the thought of doing NOTHING sounds terrific to me.
Today is Mark Carlson’s birthday — Happy 57th, Mark! He is six months older than I, so Mark gets to go through the experience before I do. As I expected, the not-divisible-by-five years are less notable. We agreed that reaching 50 was monumental, and now, we both see 60 not too far away. I don’t ever regret getting old (if “regret” is the right word). I am enjoying the aging process. Although I overheard a conversation the other day at physical therapy that sounded like my own recent visit to my doctor:
“I know it sounds weird, but I prepared a list of issues I wanted to bring to my doctor’s attention. I keep a list so I don’t forget. But then I looked at the long list and realized this was what aging has in store for me. Oy!”
I’m having physical therapy for a sore hip. I just had a tumor taken off my knuckle and still have four hideous stitches in my finger. Besides that, I seem to be ok — not bad for a 56 year old.
Yesterday, the new Amazon Kindle arrived. I’m just about done reading the introduction of how the thing works and what it can do. I love the ability to change the font size. I find I read so much faster at the size that works for me. I realized that I don’t miss the physical act of turning a page. Pressing the “next page” button works fine, and I don’t foresee any hand troubles for Kindle users, trouble common to users of gaming devices. The screen is not backlit, rather, reflective — like a piece of paper. I find I’m I like it quite a lot. Yes, I love actual books, but I think once I get used to it, I’ll be happy to say farewell to books as “things.” I’m starting by stopping my subscription to the LA Times, as paper, and subscribing as a Kindle user.
The day before, I bought the new Palm Pre from my local Radio Shack store. (Most of you may know: I composed the ringtones for the device.) In that my two thumbs, nearly cover the entire keyboard, I was skeptical about whether I could use it. I am using the center of my thumbnails, and this works amazingly well. I can’t type lying in bed yet as I could with the iPhone, but I’m practicing.
The operating system is the best there is in terms of hand-held devices. The iPhone seems like a Mac Plus in comparison. I have loved my iPhone, and am happy to see so many people finally realizing what a great company Apple is, and buying iPods and iPhones and Mac Books etc. But I am enjoying the Pre so much more. Yes, the iPhone has a ton of apps that make it a terrific platform, but I imagine that it’s only a matter of time before there will be an equal number of apps for the Pre.
I’m starting to hear my ringtones out in the world now. So cool! Although it was odd to be awoken this morning to two of Daniel’s Pres going off at the same time, each with a different ringtone. They blended perfectly! If you haven’t heard the default ringtone, Sprint included it in recent video they made. Check it out.
Mark and I are turning into Jefferson and Adams — great friends who have some major differences of opinions. The only pertinent disagreement we have at the moment is our preference in music notation programs: I love Sibelius, he loves Finale. I tease him and say that he just doesn’t want to learn a new set if commands and that learning new software is just too hard. He counters and says he just doesn’t like the user interface nor the look of Sibelius. We just have to agree to disagree. But it’s clear that Mark is the old dog in that he is 57 now, and I am a somewhat old dog, who, at 56, is still up for learning new tricks.
Vox Femina, one of the great women’s chorus in America, received a grant from the City of West Hollywood to commission a composer. They chose me!
Iris Levine brought me a stack of books by women poets who live around LA, and I chose Eloise Klein Healy. I have been in Palm Springs setting as many as I can get done in three days. So far, three and a half.
It is fun getting to musically “know” a poet for the first time. Trying to figure out what the tone is, and whether to go with it or provide a contrast to it. Is she being funny here? or ironic? Would she mind if I put another word (i.e. syllable) here for rhythm’s sake? Different poets bring out different kinds of melodies from a composer. Having already written two sets of madrigals by Mexican/American poet, Francisco X Alarcon, the music I’ve written for Vox to date has a bit of a south-of-the-border feel to it. Eloise’s poetry, not so much. She has witty sense of humor. For some odd reason, I find myself wanting to write counterpoint with Healy’s poetry.
As I set and copy each poem, I make a PDF of the score, the text, and a mock up/mp3 of the music, and send it to Eloise, Iris, and my husband. Hot off the press.
Some of my colleagues were standing around grousing about something yesterday. I joined them and found them complaining about students.
“I can’t believe that these kids have only come to 50% of my counterpoint class! BW just texts during class and it drivesme crazy. When I was in college, I NEVER missed classes.” Another joined in: “I’m having the same problem with my graduate students. Some have missed 4 of 10 seminars.” “My students just don’t read. I assign reading for class and very few of them are prepared.” “I didn’t make my students buy any books so as to save them money during this bad economy. They STILL don’t read.”
I encouraged them to give them bad grades. We went on:
“Why, I remember going home from school every day with an arm-load of musical scores. I couldn’t wait to learn about some new piece of music. Kids today don’t seem to have much of that fire. They do, barely, what is required and not much else.” Another piped in: “I couldn’t believe how unsupportive of each other they are. They don’t attend each others’ recitals. Few of them attend performances of their teachers’ work.” “I rarely see them at new music concerts.”
Is it the fluoride in the water? Were they spoiled rotten by their pampering baby-boomer parents? Or has the autism spectrum widened to include total boredom that doesn’t somehow relate to Facebook, talking on the phone, texting, or partying?
Alan Tower and I fell out of touch for a while but reconnected this weekend. We have been friends since 1971, from the dorms in UW Madison and were able to spend five hours on Saturday night talking, eating, and playing music. He says I taught him guitar and was an early spiritual teacher as well. He’s surpassed me in both of those areas of late. His career is blooming, and he is fusing his cosmic philosophies and concern about the earth, into his musical persona.
One of the highlights of our visit was his asking me to sit down for a vibrational massage. He pulled out one of his triple chambered huacas (a custom made ocarina with roots in South America) and played right into my face. Later he sat me under a self-made wooden umbrella, designed to hear inside that space. He jerry-rigged a one octave pump organ with holes on a piece of wood, each with a little ivory lever that slides to the side. The more open the hole is, the louder. He pretuned the chord to be a 1-5-8 octave and fifth drone. I was encouraged to sing along, which I did. I tapped into my Tibetan Buddhist tendencies and started singing low tones. After a few minutes, I actually got down to a low G (sic).
Later we sang some Beatle songs, PERFECTLY in tune. Our blend was remarkable. All that singing was the perfect exorcism for a stressful week in the state of California in May 2009.
I’ve been to quite a few weddings over the past few years and have written about most of them. The one last week in Las Vegas took the cake. As I went through the event, it was a bit shocking, but in retrospect saw it as Performance Art, which may or may not have been intentional.
We flew into Vegas around noon on Friday, in time to get to the Palms to see the Imax showing of the new Star Trek movie (terrific!). Afterwards we went upstairs to their blissfully smoke-free lounges for a light lunch. We were surprised that there wasn’t any gathering of the clan for a dinner and party, the night before the wedding, so we took the opportunity to go to Fleur de Lys for an elegant dinner. We were shocked to see the enormous piece of wall art that features 3500 pink roses in little vials with water, that are kept fresh every day by some dedicated worker. This seemed mind-boggling for being out in the middle of the desert.
We stayed in the Luxor which was fine. The smoky casinos really bugged me this time. The view from the 21st floor was amazing. One takes “inclinators” to traverse the pyramid, not elevators. Daniel referred to the experience as a cross between a subway and an elevator. On the way back to the room we stumbled upon the bride and groom, drinking with friends at one of the many elegant bars. We chatted for a while, and I turned in early.
The next morning we got to spend time in the spa and get deep-tissue massages. Finally, we got some direction as to a group activity: we were to meet near the exit at 4:45 to go to the chapel. The small group took taxis to the Graceland Chapel, where we were let out and led back behind the building to a parking lot, where the groom was already visiting with his family and friends, drinking beer. “Tailgating” is the term they used. Luke warm Coors lite isn’t my idea of a civilized offering, but to go with the flow, I had one.
It was a surreal event: drinking beer in the back of the Graceland Chapel, waiting for the groups ahead of us to finish. It was a warm night. There we were across the street from a bail bonds shop, and a store called WEED, next to a couple of out of business offices. After a half hour, the bride arrived in the white limo with her girl friends. She stayed in the limo, to pump the drama of her exit. And when she finally came out she had a cigarette that she kept dramatically gesturing around, making us feel as though she were going to put a hole in her dress. No, it was just part of the act. The bride is an actress, and a very good one. Her face is quite expressive, and she used those two assets all night long.
Finally, we were whisked into the little chapel. We all took our places with great anticipation. We were warned no photography or recordings could be made, as there were already 3 cameras in various places around the room, for a DVD copy of the service.
The groom walked in and proceeded to the front to wait. Then, a fellow, who turned out to be the officiant, appeared at the back. A chunky pleasant fellow with a gray suit and a book in his hand. Then, the bride walked in. The officiant stood in front of the bride to explain what was about to happen. “Who are you?” We heard her say. “Why are you telling me this?” More mumbling.
Then Elvis walked in. He chatted with the bride. The accompaniment to “Falling in Love Again” kicked in. Elvis offered his arm to the bride and they walked up the very short aisle to the front, while Elvis tried to sing (the arrangement was out of his range, but no matter: the reverb and slapback was effective).
There were some amusing dramatic moments in the exchange of the vows. When asked to be faithful forever, she looked at us with a puzzled expression, then at the officiant, and said “I guess that’s a YES.” And to “…until death do us part?” she responded “How ’bout two years? five years? YES!” The groom later groused that she got more laughs than he did. Well, she did.
The after-wedding party was at the Stratosphere a few miles away on the 103rd floor. A stunning view. Being the snob I seem to be, the libations were wanting in quality, so I drank water until around midnight and then decided that we would return to the Luxor. The bride, and her new sisters-in-law had disappeared into the ladies lounge, and the smell of smoke was coming through the door. Fearless, I walked in to say goodnight to our wild bride who was already three or four sheets to the wind. ROGER BOURLAND! THERE ARE 364 OTHER NIGHTS OF THE YEAR FOR YOU TO SLEEP AND TONIGHT IS NOT ONE OF THEM. YOU ARE NOT LEAVING! I smiled and gestured a little kiss. Was THAT an air kiss? she furiously yelled. I leaned closer and kissed her on the lips. Then, one by one, all the other smoking women, came up and gave me a kiss as well. I heard them all agree that “I only have ever kissed my husband, how cool!” I cut it short after doing the rounds, but then the door flew open and a furious staff member came in yelling that he was going to press charges about their smoking in the girls room. They all put out their butts and fled. A few minutes later, police appeared, went in, started laughing, and then left.
Although we promised to meet up with the bride and groom back at the Luxor, we never found them. The bride was last scene shooting craps in the casino in her wedding dress. What a character and what a weekend!
After a week of crafting possible cuts to our department’s budget, I drove up to the beautiful Lake Arrowhead area to attend an annual meeting, whose sole purpose is to give seed money to innovative curricular ideas. We arrived on Friday night; had cocktails and a lovely dinner, followed by a short meeting, and then we all retired to our rooms to finish reading the 36 proposals. Saturday morning and early afternoon were spent sitting around a large square table discussing each one.
As we finished early, I called Ronnie Rubin to see whether, by chance, she was in Palm Springs. I was tired of being cold and in the mountains. To my delight she was free and single. We went out for a lovely dinner, strolled down the main drag, I bought a new very cool rubber and stainless steel bracelet, and we drove home. I drove back to LA early on Sunday; Ronnie stayed to watch two more movies and returned at night.
I returned to grading 51 analyses by my students of pop songs of their choices, along with the YouTube link. I found I could only grade around 8 or 9 at a time, as listening, analyzing, and grading each song was exhausting. I have to admit that I loved the opportunity to assign and grade this project. The students learned from it as well.
At the same time, the midterm project for the class was to record and perform an original composition that features a falling bass line. It could be for (and was) for any instrumentation, and in any style. Then, they had to convert the file to an mp3, upload it to the class website, and then comment on each other’s pieces (which they did). Then in class this week, we listened to them all, and I gave brief critiques to each of the students. This was a delicate process as for most, this was the first time they had ever had a performance in front of peers. I consoled them before we began: “I know that for some of you, today might be like those dreams where you are naked in front of the class (or workmates) and can’t do anything about it. But hang in there.” The comments that the students made on the website were always helpful, collegial, encouraging and friendly.
I found out from several Chairs from other departments that I am teaching a heavy load for a Chair. One said she taught one course a year, another two courses: I teach 3 big classes along with 5 – 6 private composition students per term. I know that may sound light to some, but trying to do that and go to all the meetings one has to as Chair, can be overwhelming.
I am thrilled that I seem to be catching up. My To Do list is shorter. I think I can take this weekend off. Oh wait: I have a new choral piece to compose for the City of West Hollywood!
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