Roger Bourland
writes about music and life

I just picked up Daniel Levitin’s new book “The World in Six Songs.” A thrilling read and is truly coloring the way I think of music nowadays. Quite refreshing.

I had grown tired of listening to our local classical radio station playing Vivaldi and Telemann all the time, and news just makes me nervous these days, so I was thrilled to find that my new car had XM Radio in it. Zillions of channels of music for whatever you are in the mood for. And, unlike most radio for the past 20 years, you can actually find out WHO the artist is right there on the screen. My unit only shows part of the longer titles and I have to guess the complete titles. If I can’t figure it out, I whip out my iPhone, turn on Shazam, sample a chunk of the song, and it sometimes will tell me who it is and let me purchase it right there at the stoplight. Scary huh?

What I have loved, is that it is such a marvelous way to get to know new music that you might never have heard of. It’s such a hoot that people like Bob Dylan have regular shows that he narrates and picks songs for. His banter is almost poetry sometimes. You hear the blur between his singing and his speaking.

I can flip the channel and hear spa music for days. Float on soft synth music, meditation music, druggy music, trance music, and so on. And then FLIP and you are hearing close harmony from the 40s, FLIP metal music FLIP news FLIP Christian enthusiasm FLIP twelve channels of classical music FLIP I’m in the mood for folk these days. I get to hear so much early to modern “folk” music. It’s a music that resonates with me and it’s a joy to find it.

My point in all this, is to celebrate XM radio in opening even college professors to all kinds of new music. I used to think it was a luxury. Now, I’ve discovered a lot of music, AND it’s deductible.

Take a look at the syllabus of the theory class I’m teaching this quarter. It has students from all three music departments: Music, World Music, and Music History. I am having a blast combining them. The syllabus has the current week at the top. Look at some of the videos we’ve discussed in class. We’ve also done good work on our species counterpoint to balance the rock n roll. Now, on to harmony. This week, everything is I, IV, and V. Listen to Week Eight to hear chords that just have one chord (Madonna), two chords (Rufus Wainwright and Miss Peggy Lee) and then on to I IV V with Louie Louie, Twist and Shout, Guantanamara, Guantanamera, Winterlude, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and Homeless.

If you don’t know I IV V, listen to Celia Cruz teach it to you in “Guananamara.” Listen to the bass go “ONE” “FOUR” “FIVE” over and over again. It’s a poor quality video but a great performance.

I am in Mountain View today, killing time while my husband gets some work done at Palm. Google provides free wifi to the city so I’ll take advantage of that and write a post.

I used to love going to metaphysical bookstores. I’d walk in knowing that the book I needed to read would pop out at me and say BUY ME. There is a terrific one here. I went in and browsed. Nothing jumped out. I guess I’ve lost my enthusiasm for metaphysics and religion.

I feel that I’ve done my homework, so that when I die, I will be ready if there IS life after death, and if there isn’t, no matter.

I used to hate it when I would ask my father about some spiritual truth and he would answer: “it’s a mystery.” Now that phrase is my core belief.

The arrogance of faith is increasingly something I have a hard time dealing with. Just as one has a hard time changing dentists or barbers or operating systems, changing one’s belief systems rarely occurs, so what is the point of arguing about religion?

The word “marriage” is so drenched with religious entitlement, I was skeptical when Mark Leno told me he was going to go to war over that word so that gays and lesbians could marry.

The problem is that church and state are dangerously entwined in this activity. Even though traditional marriage has a secular and sacred component — the licence (secular), and the church ceremony — religionists insist that marriage can ONLY be a sacred act, governed by what is written in the infallible bible. How can you argue with faith? You can’t. God said it in the bible so it must be true.

As I watched thousands of queers in SF angrily walk to protest Prop.8, I kept wondering why we have to fight over a religious status (marriage) rather than inventing a new word or status, devoid of any religious baggage. I bet that if Prop 8 were worded differently it would have passed.

Instead of buying any spiritual books I bought “The World in Six Songs” by Daniel Levitin. I realized that composers are indeed ministers or priests, but, thank dog, without any words to screw up people. The message goes right to the heart, and if it doesn’t you turn it off. Music never promises eternal life or imposes crazy rules. Each person gravitates to the music they like, and there is no going to hell if you have different tastes. And, thank God, there is NO musical bible.

I’m flying up to San Francisco to celebrate our good friend and colleague Andrew Mogrelia’s 50th birthday. Andrew conducts internationally and is a professor of conducting at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. It will be fun to see all my SF friends again and it’s a great town to visit (my heart belong not to SF, but to LA).

Yesterday in class I gave my students a reality commercial about ways that people can earn a living and having music be a part of it. A little shot of reality is always a good thing for freshmen, especially if they are on the fence as to whether continue as a music major.

A sweet performance by Joseph Smith and pictures of the composer, Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884 – 1920) — one of my favorite gone-too-soon American composers, and the namesake of my license plate [GRIFFES].

Here is a piece I love to hear (but not all the time). “Pierrot Lunaire” conducted by the composer, Arnold Schoenberg (exerpts here). I’m just imagining what his face must have looked like while he was conducting this. I love the wild energy of this piece. (The eccentric singing style is called sprechstimme.)

Opus 21, from 1912. On words by Albert Giraud. From the first part: Der kranke Mond. From the second part: Nacht; Gebet an Pierrot; Raub; Rote Messe; Galgenlied; Enthauptung.

“Heavy, gloomy giant black moths
Massacred the sun’s bright rays (…)
And from heaven earthward bound
Downward sink with sombre pinions
Unperceived, great hordes of monsters
On the hearts and souls of mankind
Heavy, gloomy giant black moths”

“Pierrot ! My laughter I have unlearnt”

Erika Stiedry-von Wagner, recitation
Rudolf Kolisch, violin
Stefan Auber, cello
Eduard Steuermann, piano
Leonard Posella, flute & piccolo
Kalman Bloch, clarinet & bass clarinet

Recording dates from 1940, but was re-issued in 1951.

Russell Steinberg invited me to visit a few of his classes at the Milken School. There is one room that is “the music room” and both classes were there. The students were smart, ranged from 9th grade to 12th, and had all been studying an instrument for 8 to 11 years. I spoke to them about college and then a bit about being a composer and a musician. It’s a vital school and Russell is doing a terrific job with the students.

There was one moment that was priceless.

A girl came up as said “Dr Steinberg, I’m sorry I couldn’t be in class last time, I had to go to my brother’s bris.” The good doctor forgave her and immediately the class burst into chatter about who had been to a bris recently.

That was an excuse for missing class I had never heard.

[Photo by Russell Steinberg]

This weekend I am able to be in Palm Springs for a composing weekend. No dogs, no husband, no books and music and videos and other activities I do to avoid composing. Earl Kim used to tell us that he would rearrange the books in his bookcases in order to avoid getting to work. Yesterday, I got to work right away, although I felt residual stress all day. Today I was awoken by violent winds, winds that seemed to blow away the remaining stress, along with all the fallen palm fronds and branches all over town.

The rain and winds have cleaned a very dirty southern California and we’re all glad. Some sustained rain is needed for a very dry state.

My new piano piece is now two minutes long and starts very much like the Beethoven “Waldstein” sonata — repeated chords — but not as intense as Stockhausen’s Klavierstuck Nr IX (see below). My initial impetus is to avoid counterpoint and melody and favor harmony and rhythm. This is not so hard as I am able to tap into my past as a rhythm guitarist for a whole slew of bands I played in in high school and college: US Blues, Cobblestone Road, Triad, The Yahara River Valley Boys, and Contraband. What fun! But this time I have a LOT more notes at my disposal, and I’m not limited to arm strumming or finger picking on 6 strings. I have 88 keys. I’m following the old French school where melody rides atop harmony, I am avoiding the Italian alternative where melody is supported by harmony.

I’ve been staying at Casa Rubin — Ronnie goes for walks, and suns by the pool and I work. Later in the day we go see a movie and have a lovely dinner out. She stays up and reads, I crash only to get up at 5:30 in the morning to get to work.

The desert is effective in degaussing the electrostatic magnetic charge one builds up living in the city.

*smells the desert air*

Klavierstuck Nr. IX by Karlheinz Stockhausen, performed by Michail Goleminov

Our late friend Martin Nathan was classmates and old friends with Michael Crichton in Harvard Medical School and subsequently in Los Angeles. My partner at the time, Bruce Westland and I went to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics with Marty and his partner Sam, and Michael and his wife and had a memorable time.

Marty and Michael were both very tall men. Michael commissioned a couch during the period he wrote “The Andromeda Strain” that he could nap, read and write on. He gave that couch to Marty some years back. Then, in 1986 Marty gave the Crichton couch to Bruce and me. Bruce bought a Lady Kenmore sewing machine and recovered the rotting Naugahyde that covered the couch. Today the couch needs reupholstering and maybe some new legs to make it a bit higher off the ground. We keep an old comforter on it and the dogs have taken it over.

I was very sad to learn that Michael died yesterday of a private battle with cancer. I loved his novels and am sad that the stream of his work has stopped. He was always able to take cutting edge scientific discoveries or possibilities and weave them into epic dramas. He was wise enough to be able to foresee the dangers of technologies.

I will miss this great writer.

Proposition 8 succeeded here, so it appears my marriage is dissolving before my eyes. Yes, it’s not clear what the future holds for the 18,000 lesbian and gay couples that got married this year, but still, I’m really saddened by it. It’s hard to be angry at 5 million California voters. It was really close, but not close enough. I hope that the whole issue comes back as legal civil unions without the religious stickiness of the word “marriage.” Until then, Daniel and I will return to being domestic partners. We still have tremendous benefits in California, and being employed by the University of California is even better. So, we’ve lost nothing but the word.

I look at the statistics and see that people from age 18 – 29 were largely supportive of gay marriage, while people over 30s are against it. So, it looks like we just have to be patient.

Sigh…