05:
.
Rufus is writing words for a new aria at his desk in a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. He looks up and out the window at the amazing view. So far away from New York, and London and Paris. Deep breath. But he’s stuck on a word. “What rhymes with ‘choose it’? lose it, moose it, goose it, hmmm, toos boose, AH! MassaCHUSETTS!’ He writes the word down with abandon. Suddenly, he hears a hum. Well, maybe it’s more like a whir. He turns around quickly to see something disappear from around the corner.
“HELLO?!” Something falls in the bathroom. His heart beating frantically he walks down the hall trying to hear what is going on. “Must be a rat. Shit.” He gathers his strength, resolving that it is only a rat, and marches down the hall and into the bathroom and he jumps back in shock. There is a translucent silver orb hovering above the open toilet seat with what looks to be feathers wafting down from it.
Ravel: Sorry Rufus, I had to take a pee.
(Rufus looks in amazement as he sees a teeny tiny version of Maurice Ravel inside the sphere zips up his fly and turn towards him. As if the enlarge button was pressed, Ravel’s body gets bigger and bigger until his smiling face has filled the basketball sized sphere still floating above the toilet, which suddenly and unexplainably flushes. The whir sound becomes more pronounced as it hovers closer to Rufus until it stops, about 2 feet in front of his face. Maurice’s eyes flash down, and then back up.
Rufus: Maurice! Did you just check me out?
Ravel: We never had such opportunities in my time. But never mind, I’ve come to give you just a little lesson. Something has been on my mind and I need to share it with you.
Rufus: Oh good! Is it about orchestration?
Ravel: Well, to an extent. Uh, let’s go back into the living room.
Rufus walks back down the hallway with the silver orb close behind.
Ravel: I have never had interest in writing the kinds of songs you write. And so my words are to the other side of Rufus that wishes to compose in the classical tradition.
Your accompaniments are increasingly becoming CHORD CHORD CHORD CHORD CHORD CHORD CHORD CHORD… My point being, there is no counterpoint. All of YOUR notes are just notes in the chord. I imbue each note of my chords with a life of its own. I imagine one melodic line to be a mercurial fairy that leaves trails of shimmering gold dust in its path. Another line is the Nile winding its way through the Egyptian land. The next line is a frantic sperm that has only one thing on his mind. Another line is the wise old philosopher who has much to say, albeit very slowly. And another line is a gaggle of geese in flight. And, and, and..
Do you see my boy? Each line needs to be its own creature. Its own personality. Its own timbre. Its own register. Its own metabolism. Keeping these notes stuck in CHUNK CHUNK chords is like keeping those poor little creatures on a chain gang. I mean, it does have an effect, but I favor counterpoint. And I don’t mean fugues and such, I mean a multplicity of lines occuring simultaneously. Charlie Ives told me the other day that he didn’t think anyone could ever really hear more than four things going on at once. That may be true, but I imagine it varies from person to person.
Are you with me?
Rufus: Shakes his head. Uh, yeah. That’s a lot to take in. I mean, you know, I haven’t really started writing multi-part music like that yet. I guess I’m still piano based.
Ravel: As was I, but you must open up your inner ear to make that step. Get away from the piano. Slow your time world down. You want to have instant music. Yes, inspiration can come in a flash, but it must be balanced by setting it carefully, as a jeweler would set a fine piece, or a watchmaker executes his craft. You are so impatient. Slow down. Find the persona in each voice.
That’s all.
The sphere swelled and collapsed. A piece of paper fluttered to the floor. It appeared to be a Chinese fortune cookie fortune.
Perseverance furthers.
20:
[Rufus, takes a break from composing his opera, and watching Fellini's SATYRICON the screen freezes on the face of the young, brown hair, big-eyed gay boy, whose face slowly grows and fills the entire 50 inch flat screen display. Rufus bolts, knowing this is not in the movie. "Hello?" The face on the screen slowly changes from color to color until it becomes a negative image. And then the face slowly morphs into the face of a 34-year old Maurice Ravel, world famous French composer. The entire conversation was in French, and this translation is courtesy of Rosemary Brown.]
MR: Hello Rufus.
RW: (Startled) Who are you? You look very familiar.
MR: I am Maurice Ravel at your age. [34]
RW: Ah yes, Hector told me to expect you. He said that you would continue with my composition lessons. Very pleased to meet you sir.
MR: Please call me Maurice–not the English pronunciation “moh-rus” but the French, “mo-rees” with the accent on “rees.”
RW: Alright, Maurice, I can’t tell you what a relief it is being rid of that fag basher Ives. What are you going to teach me today?
MR: I don’t think you need teaching at all, you are fine just the way you are.
RW: (blushing) Ah c’mon, I’m nowhere near you in my craft.
MR: True.
RW: Hey, you didn’t have to agree quite so quickly.
MR: I really have very little interest in teaching, much less cloning or imparting my own musical language to another composer. Other composers need to be who they are. So, you are who you are, and that is just fine.
RW: Teach me.
MR: No.
RW: TEACH ME.
MR: No! [long pause] Alright, but just a little.
RW: (Turns his eyes to the ceiling, lets out a sigh, grabs a pencil and lights a cigarette) Ok, ready.
MR: I have just finished a new piano piece, “Tombeau de Couperin.” It is just what you need to study in terms of letting your piano technique continue to evolve. Those early songs of yours like “The Money Song” and “The Bela Song” have an attractive sophistication that your later piano accompaniments don’t. I know, you’ve been focusing on your VOICE. Your voice will fade as you age, but your piano technique can serve you well right up to the end. You’ve been favoring the “guitar-piano” style where your accompaniments are akin to guitar strumming. Fine for a while, but I want more.
I’d like for you to compose a set of piano preludes, each in a different character. Start with a Book I, a set of 12. I’d like you to study the following pieces, and procure several different performances:
- Chopin: Preludes Op.28
- Debussy: Complete Preludes
- Debussy: Complete Etudes
- Scriabin: Complete Preludes
- Messaien: Catalogue d’oiseaux
I’ll give you a year to do it. I’ll pop in from time to time when I see that you’ve finished one.
RW: For solo piano right?
MR: Yes.
RW: This sounds like a great project, and something that will distract me from the opera.
MR: Well it’s late here, and I need to get going so I can have my walk in the park.
RW: This late?
MR: But of course.
RW: Oh, duhh. Got it. Have a nice cruise Maurice.
MR: Good luck on the piece.
RW: Good luck on your walk!
16:
FZ: I really got into studying IONISATION. I have found so much more than I ever did. I’ve typed up my analysis for you to check.
EV: Hmmml… This is amazing. I never knew the piece had this symmetry but your argument is convincing. Yes, yes, YES! Frank, you got it!
ANALYSIS
by Francesco Zappa
15:
[Ides of March, 2007; Rufus writes to Hector Berlioz begging for a different teacher.]
Cher Hector,
Please make that mongoose Charles Ives go away. He’s a jerk and really not that good of a teacher. He’s constantly popping up on my computer screen, my television, and even the GPS in my car. I can’t take it anymore. Please tell him to go away and leave me alone.
He insists on calling me Ralph because it’s more manly (and who cares what that is) and more American. Please! He has too many problems with himself to have the wherewithal to teach anyone else anything.
He kept calling passages in my music “fairy music” or “fairy dust” or “poofter tunes.” He screamed at me for about 5 minutes after hearing my new song for the upcoming Disney movie, MEET THE ROBINSONS. Please M. Berlioz, send me someone else!
Your Rufus
[Response from Hector Berlioz floated down from the ceiling while Rufus was composing at the piano. Rufus grabs the paper, looks up at the ceiling and all around--no one--and reads:]
My Dear Rufus,
My apologies for the unusual communication, but I’m having a “treatment” for my opium addiction and can’t bilocate at the moment. I responded as quickly as I could.
I’ll be sending you an new teacher this week, my fellow countryman, Maurice Ravel. He is very different than Mr Ives, and like you, he’s, well, like you. Maurice will contact you through your instant messaging program. His handle is bolero69. He is rather shy so you may have to draw him out. Let me know how the lessons go.
Je t’embrasse,
Hector
06:
Drawing by L. Kupelwieser, 1813
Rosemary Brown had this to say about Franz Schubert:
MP3: Play audio file (rosenschubert.mp3)
[Excerpt from a ripped LP of A MUSICAL SEANCE, featuring Rosemary Brown, released on Phillips Recordings in 1970]
06:
It’s getting like Harry Potter around here. I was innocently watching Robert Altman’s THREE WOMEN when all of a sudden the screen froze and who should appear in all her homely glory? Rosemary Brown, the official channeler of dead composers who has been overseeing my work with Ives and the rest. Well, she was not in a good humor to put it mildly. Here is our conversation to the best of my recollection:
Roger: Rosie? What’s wrong? Why do you look so terrible?
Rosemary: I don’t like the comments I’ve been hearing from your readers. They are thinking I was a phony. Larry even called me a bitch. I’m tempted to pull the plug on this whole project.
Roger: Rosie calm down girl! I think that people are really enjoying this quite a lot.
Rosemary: I feel it necessary to let these cads know that I am the real thing. Have you played them any of my inspired compositions?
Roger: No, I’ve been so busy fielding requests from all these composers I barely have time to have my own life.
Rosemary: Well, I see, so if you don’t have anytime to play my work, then I think we’ll have to just close up shop.
Roger: Wait! No, you can’t do that! I promise I’ll put something up right now.
Rosemary: Hrumph. (pause) Really? (pause) Like, what?
Roger: How about the Bagatelle that Beethoven gave you?
Rosemary: That’s the one Peter Katin played right?
Roger: Yes, that’s a spiffy performance.
Rosemary: Well, alright, but you tell those disrespectful readers of yours to hold their tongues until they’ve heard the music.
Roger: Promise.
MP3: Play audio file (bagatelle.mp3)
[Peter Katin performs Rosemary Brown's channeled composition, BAGATELLE "inspired" by Beethoven.]
05:
.
[Rufus turns on his computer, opens his instant messaging program, and BLAMO! Charles Ives' face appears on his screen.]
CI: Hey Ralph! (Ives puts his nose up against the camera, and then squashes his face against the screen, looking rather silly.) Ain’t this new fangled technology somethin’?
RW: (Laughs in his machine gun giggle.)Yeah, uh huh. Hi Charlie, you surprised me showing up like this.
CI: It’s time for your lesson.
RW: Ok, let me put out my cigarette and get a pencil.
CI: Your non-romantic lyrics are really quite attractive. I knew your grandfather and admired his writing greatly. I am happy to see you have inherited his way with words.
RW: Thanks! “Non-romantic?”
CI: I applaud you for taking on the BLOOM commission and setting texts that were not your own. It brought out a new facet in your writing. I encourage you to set other’s words from time to time for the rest of your life. It invigorates your own lyric writing.
Thoreau was a great musician. The rhythm of his prose, were there nothing else, would determine his value as a composer. He was divinely conscious of the enthusiasm of Nature, the emotion of her rhythms and the harmony of her solitude. In their greatest moments the inspiration of both Beethoven and Thoreau express profound truth and deep sentiment, but the intimate passion of it, the storm and stress of it, affected Beethoven in such a way that he could not but be forever showing it and Thoreau that he could not expose it.
RW: Ok, but I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
CI: Nature dislikes to explain as much as to repeat. It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author, or composer, may of necessity be formless to his audience. Initial coherence today may be dullness tomorrow, probably because formal or outward unity depends so much on repetition, sequences, antitheses, paragraphs with inductions and summaries.
RW: A great song has blood and guts and life experience and that you really have to lay it all down on the line. Music is fun and wonderful and happy, but it also requires pain, and you have to go through the pain in order to feel happy again.
CI: Exactly! But I mean real musical compositions, not just airy fairy songs. Real pieces! Manly pieces! When are you going to compose an instrumental composition Ralph?
RW: I tend to listen to songs as pieces of music. You know the famous story of Bob Dylan and John Lennon listening to either Bob’s or the Beatles’ new record. And Dylan’s going, “Yeah man, just listen to the lyrics,” and Lennon’s going “No, just listen to the sound…” and I’m with John Lennon on that.
CI: The sound, yes, that’s a good way of putting it. That’s what I have always thought about in my music, the sound. [pause] But one of the great disappointments in my life is being able to hear so little of my work. I worked so hard for so many years, er, uh, until 1926.
RW: Wow! You wrote all that music that music in that amount of time? You’re like superhuman.
CI: Why yes, I… (Harmony walks in)
HI: Charlie are you telling those fibs again? Don’t let him tell you he stopped writing in 1926, that’s hogwash. (She spits on the floor.)
CI: Well, he shuffles his papers, I wrote MOST of it before then.
HI: Whatever you say dear.
CI: (Looking back at Rufus) Why are you not having a woman sing your songs?
RW: I don’t understand.
CI: So many of them are about men, so I assume they are to be sung by a woman and you just haven’t found the right voice? or what?
RW: I wrote them for me to sing, I never really think about other people singing them. I mean I do after the fact, but not when I write them.
CI: But the words are about men.
RW: Charlie, I’m gay. Duh, pick up the clue phone dude.
CI: No! [long pause]
RW: Hello? [long pause]
CI: Good luck to ya fella. I’ve gotta go, I hear Harmony calling me for dinner.
RW: If you can’t deal with it, then I think it’s best we discontinue these lessons.
(Charlie’s face turns, shrinks to a point, and disappears.
RW: Scumbag!
This conversation is purely fictional, based upon and inspired by the personalities, interviews with, and the writings of Rufus Wainwright and Charles Ives.
02:
Rosemary Brown was using my computer the other day. What a surprise I had when I discovered that she had left the browser open to the Akashic Records. Silly woman, letting a mere mortal like me have access to such information. Being the curious chap that I am, I started routing around. I clicked on COMPOSERS IN PURGATORY as I figured that she wouldn’t be too upset with me, as that seems to be my job these days, being the mouthpiece for those poor souls, and I saw an intriguing link: Varese contacts Zappa. I clicked on it to find the following transcript of a lesson they had, not long after Zappa died. For those of you that didn’t know, Frank Zappa held composer Edgard Varese in the highest esteem and Frank’s greatest desire on earth was to have a lesson with him. I saw other folders with their names on them but was not given access. Still, this transcript was of interest, and may be of interest to you.
EV: Hello Frank, welcome to the other side.
FZ: I didn’t believe this was really true.
EV: Nor did I but here we are. Our records here indicate that [adjusts reading glasses] “Mr Frank Zappa (aka Francesco Zappa) has only one wish: to study composition with Edgard Varese.” I died with unfinished business as well. I was selfish in not teaching students who truly wished to work with me. My self image was too stubborn and grouchy to open myself up to too much one-on-one heart-on-the-sleeve conversation with young nerdy composers. I listen to your music and I kick myself for not being able to teach you what you wanted to learn. You imitated the surface of my music, but you kept falling back to humor and periodicity.
FZ: I don’t have a problem with that.
EV: You seem unable to transcend the beat. Just because it is there, it doesn’t mean you have to articulate it, much less hit us over the head at every opportunity.
FZ: I like to ride on the backbone of a beat in hopes people might dance to it.
EV: As I begin to compose, I close my eyes, and imagine being set in motion in space. I have the sensation of moving forward but there is no sound. No wind whistling through my ears. No clock ticking. No animal body pulse utterances from the act of walking, breathing, pulsing. There is no periodicity: only forward momentum in time. There are moments when periodicity reigns, but they quickly evaporate back into moving through space. For humans, time is the way the brain copes with matter moving through space, and to articulate that dance, in sound, is our job.
FZ: Everything in the universe is one note.
CB: Yeah but you’re supposed to say “bulbous also tapered.”
EV: Who was that?
FZ: Captain Beefheart.
EV: I don’t understand you young people these days. Where was I? I perceive your music often liked to flirt with, how do you say? the nasty, or the perceived nasty–pushing the boundaries of what can be talked about in a rock n roll song. I must confess that my favorite rock song you did was “What’s the ugliest part of your body?” [Here Edgard stands up, grabs an imaginary microphone, adapts a strikingly campy look on his face and sings], some saaay your nose, ba ba ba some saaaaay your toes, I think it’s your mi-hind, think it’s your mind, think it’s your mi-i-i-i-i-i-nd.”
FZ: Gosh Mr Varese, I’m flattered.
EV: I also like very much your Uncle Meat, not so much Yellow Snow.
FZ: It’s all about the big nasty.
EV: See. It’s your nasty obsession. Well, everyone can have their own demon. I had mine. One fantasy I always wanted to build into a composition was taking one of those spotlights from a corner of a penitentiary, and hide it in the middle of an orchestra. I’d have the music bring the listener to the place I want them to be, and then BLLLLLLAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH! Up on a pole comes the spotlight. I move it all over the audience, blasting everyone with intense LIGHT! Ahhhhh! The brilliance of that move!
FZ: Sit down Mr Varese, you’re shaking all over. You’ll hurt your throat!
EV: Ah yes, carried away, where was I? Ah yes, moving through space. My music chronicles things I see as I move through that space. I, of course, “imagine” these things, but that’s composition. Now I don’t always compose that way, but it’s a technique I’ve heard you try to imitate, but never got to what was really behind the musical gestures.
FZ: Call any vegetable.
EV: [Oblivious] One more thing I want you to understand, is my alternative to sustained notes. TV and motion pictures have long stretches where all you have is long held notes.
FZ: Everything in the universe is a….
EV: That’s fine in movie music, but in concert music, why not articulate it? Repeat the notes. Not just in periodic values, in new rhythmic arrays. [Here he sings something that sounds very Varese-like in a funny kind of trumpet tone.]
FZ: Uh huh. Do you mind if I smoke?
EV: And one last thing. I want you to study my IONISATION. I mean really study it. I’ll send you a PDF of MY score so you see my energy in the notation. I will ask you questions about the score in our next lesson.
FZ: Alright. What kinds of things do you want me to look for.
EV: I will expect you to know everything about the music. Now if you will excuse me, Louise and I are going to a new Moliere play and I can’t be late. Good to see you old boy. I’m happy that I can help you, even if it wasn’t until after we both died! [He slaps Zappa on the back, turns and walks towards the door and evaporates. Zappa remains behind, staring, smoking, legs crossed, thinking about how happy he really was having finally had a lesson the the great Varese.]
—-
Update: This post has been translated into Spanish here.
[Varese photo and manuscript image © Museum Tinguely. Visit their amazing online exhibit of other Varese-iana.]
27:
Ralph,
I’ve been watching and listening to your recent scena and before Harmony and I go off to dinner, I need to point something out that will help it. Too much of the scene is the same dynamic. Give us a section that is breathtakingly quiet, and a section with a ear-blasting volume ol’ Berlioz would envy. Apply the same thing to the registral shape of your overall scene. Right now, you are flooding the bass, baritone, tenor and alto range. There is not a lot of highs. Strip away the bass for a while. It can become fatiguing. You’ve done these things before. I’ve heard them in several of your songs. You need to do it to this scene.
Charlie
25:
Much of mankind throughout history has honored alleged communications from “beyond” whether that beyond be from God, Satan, long dead Saints, angels, or other creatures big and small. Although Christians don’t like to fess up to this, the Bible has a lot of channeled material in it. Anything out of the mouth of a prophet alleges someone or thing else using them as a mouthpiece–usually “God.”
It is perhaps no surprise that having come from that Judeo-Christian heritage, that I might at some point ask that question that Miss Peggy Lee asked us: “Is that all there is?” and look for other sources that aren’t 2000 years old. And I did.
Some of the first channeled stuff that attracted me was the complete works of Emmanuel Swedenborg. This dude had long discussions with angels all the time, and transcribed them all. I couldn’t get enough of him. He was even a respected scientist and scholar. But then I read the part where he described Jews as living in the “muddy” part of heaven (or was it hell?) and most of them devoted themselves the the jewelry industry, I closed the book, never to return.
My next heroine was H.P. Blavatsky who seemed to be devoted to esotericism for esotericism’s sake. She had access to several beings that passed through, or channeled “information” that helped her write her magnum opera, ISIS UNVEILED and THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Her successor, Alice Bailey, wrote at a stunning pace and continued promulgating the Theosophical doctrine, whatever that was. I read a whole variety of lesser known channels–The Great White Brotherhood, Elizabeth Claire Prophet (oy!), Edgar Cayce (yawn), the Ultimate Frontier group, and more. The best cosmology and philosophy of them all was The Urantia Book, although the book was “tainted” by an overzealous power hungry leader who allegedly tampered with most of the book. My last gasp of open-minded channel-surfing was the Kryon series, an entity around the size of a large house whose purpose was to adjust the earth’s magnetic poles and our awareness along with it. Wow!
In music there have been some composers associated with mystical traditions: Cyril Scott, Dane Rudhyar, Gustaf Holst, and Alexander Scriabin to name a few. Arthur M. Abell wrote, or made up his book TALKS WITH FAMOUS COMPOSERS and interviewed composers about their spiritual views and compositional habits. I have always loved what Brahms said about his inspiration in this book. The accusation that Abell’s book is pure fiction didn’t tarnish my memory of the book in the way that MADAME BLAVATSKY’S BABOON bruised my respect for theosophy, and how Martin Gardner’s URANTIA: THE GREAT CULT MYSTERY, and the 4-volume set of the SHERMAN DIARIES elucidated the corruption I hadn’t been aware of.
I came away with the realization that power corrupts. People control others through ignorance, power, and fear. Sheer steely will can make you powerful, regardless of how smart you are. We can and do believe anything. I know because I have. Not only that, but we love to persuade others to believe what we do.
Nowadays I keep my bullshit filter on high.
Speaking of which, Rosemary Brown’s lovely LP issued by Phillips came into my hands through some cosmic connection about 25 years ago. My friends and I have giggled over whether this “really” sounded like Schumann or not, or Liszt, or Beethoven, or Chopin. I learned only this year that she died in 2001. This seemed a perfect opportunity to have her return as a bossy manager for stranded composers in purgatory, or fermata-tory. And so now after Hector Berlioz has offered Rufus Wainright composition lessons for the past year, he has turned over the responsibilities of training Rufus to Charles Ives. The two are not getting along terribly well, but stay tuned.
I told Kevin about this new drama on my blog, but admitted that I wasn’t really channeling it. Kevin, who is spiritually open-minded came right back with “how are you so sure that you AREN’T actually channeling those composers?” I wasn’t sure what to say, except “well, I’ve done my homework on these people. I know what they’ve said and done and can extrapolate and imagine their opinions without too much effort.” To which Kevin only folded his arms, nodded his head, smiled and said “mmhmm, see?”
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