For the first time in three years, things have slowed down, affording me time to catch up and do things I’ve put off for years. I’ve scanned old photos. I’ve digitized a box full of VHS tapes — good thing, the color was going. I’ve worked on my family tree. I’ve practiced the guitar and it seems all my technique has come back, despite some stiff tendons. I’ve watched movies.

I have not composed any music this summer. As I will be composing non-stop for the next three years, I have no problem letting my creative pool be still. The result of this temporary stillness is a welling up of musical horny-ness. I look forward to and dive into composing music, not unlike the way I look forward to making love. My heart beats a bit faster, my whole body is very sensitive, my eyes are probably slightly dilated, and become very focused. But today, and of late, the waters are still, and it’s a nice break.

I have blogged less, rather, sketching out topics to write about in future posts. I’m building up a momentum to jump back in. For now, as I mentioned a few posts ago, I’m blogging to you psychically.

In my family tree correspondences, I met woman named Valerie who shared some family history and photos. The seated gentleman in the photo above is Tilberry Miles Arnold, my great-great grandfather through my mother’s mother’s father. About Tilberry, she writes:

[...] Elias Arnold was a very poor hog farmer. I asked my grandmother about that and she said that was true and Tilberry grew up I guess thinking he wasn’t going to work that hard. Elizabeth Pock, his wife, made all the business decisions and she is the one that went to auction and bought and sold cattle. She is responsible for them Ibeing able to purchase that big beautiful home (still standing incidentally). The rocking chair he is in the those pictures, is where he sat from the time he was young till he grew old. She said he never worked a lick in his life.

When I was thirteen, my parents decided to buy me a musical instrument, and debated between a saxophone and a guitar. We already had an upright piano which evidently wasn’t one of the options. On my birthday in 1963, they bought me a guitar and an instruction book so that I could teach myself. Being one of three preacher’s kids (PK), they didn’t have a lot of disposable income to afford lessons. So, I taught myself to play the guitar.

The guitar’s job, it seemed, was to provide the chords. The melody was to be sung by me. That was my musical reality for quite some time. This meant that I learned to develop a good sense of how chords go together by playing the guitar. I played folk music, Beatles, Byrds, Buffalo Springfiield, Crosby Stills and Nash, Doors, Cream, Hendricks and Dylan. I realized, looking back, that I played my guitar all the time from 1965 to 1973. Then, I got tired of pop music and got tired of the guitar. I wanted more notes. I wanted cooler chords. I wanted more of a challenge.

Sitting in my dormitory room in 1971 in Madison Wisconsin, listening to Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, my life changed. If THIS was what was going on in classical music, I wanted to be a part of it. I auditioned to be accepted as a music major a year later and was accepted.

My parents’ choice of a guitar for me had the following effects: I developed an excellent ear for playing along with whatever music was playing. This may be a genetic trait as my father’s father, and my mother’s mother’s sisters all played by ear and barely read music. I did not develop a good sense of reading music, as guitar music, especially in the 60s, did not require knowledge of reading music. All I needed to know was the names of chords. I didn’t develop the ability to pick out melodies or basses on the guitar until later when I became bored with the endless chugging that a rhythm guitarist does.

Later, when I became a classical composer, my music, at first, was harmonically driven. Then I discovered non-sung melody. The guitar didn’t have enough notes for what I wanted to do, so I studied piano in college. I was never a good sight-reader, but could crash through music at my own pace if need be. As my love for melody grew, so did my ability to write good tunes. Then I discovered the magical world of counterpoint and how it is melodic, free-flowing chord progressions.

Had my parents bought me a saxophone, my guess is that I would have gravitated more towards jazz. I probably would have played in the marching band, or the jazz ensemble in high school. I would have had a much better sight reading ability, at least for a single line. Who knows whether I would have developed a good sense of harmony playing only a monophonic instrument. And perhaps had I played in ensembles more, I might have been more gregarious and social. Instead, I gravitated towards being a loner, as composers tend to do. Perhaps my parents saw that in me as a 12-year old and that is why they bought me a guitar. Or maybe that didn’t want the sound of a honking saxophone in their house.

One of the purgatorial experiences professional musicians must endure, is the regretful party-goer: “My parents paid for me to have [piano] lessons when I was little, and I did it for a while and then stopped. I SOOOO regret not continuing in my lessons, but I wanted to …” They take a swig of their vodka, and I then absolve them of all regret as the Father-Confessor of Music, and say “…there there, if you really wish you had continued your lessons, start again next week. But budget time to practice your instrument every day. Otherwise, get over it.”

I am very happy the way I turned out. No, I didn’t have a career as a concert pianist, nor have I ever been a great performer, but I get by just fine. I can play along with almost anything as I’m hearing it for the first time. I thank playing the guitar for this. My sense of harmony eventually translated to the piano (keyboard harmony) and to being a composer who can look at a page and “hear” the music.

I recently bought a new guitar–first time since 1970. I realized that I know thousands of songs on the guitar, and why the hell was I not playing them or sharing them with others? The beauty of the sound has brought back a flood of all the great songs I used to play between 1965 – 1973: a golden era in popular music, and I was there, playing along.

My grandmother, Nancy Arnold Rhodes, gave me this photo album when she moved out of her home. It was originally given to her by her mother’s mother as a Christmas present in 1905, which is odd in that Nancy would have only been 3 years old. Perhaps it was an heirloom type present given to Nancy’s mother, Nancy Edy Ewing to enjoy until her daughter came of age. This book has photos of my relatives from and around Pendleton County, Kentucky.

Music: “Three Daydreams” from THREE IMPROMPTUS by Roger Bourland

As the son who was gay and didn’t have kids to raise, I’m making some of my familial contributions by tending to our family tree. It’s not that I’m desperate to make new friends or make contact with lost relatives, I just find it a satisfying hobby.

As in my previous post, I’ve assembled a photo album put together by Lavon McDonald in 1928-29. Her parents, seen early on in the photo montage, died somehow, and my benevolent great-grandfather, Charles E Rhodes, adopted her.

These photos go through her parents, her friends, and then her new family, the Rhodes and Arnolds. Marion Rhodes and Nancy Arnold marry in the course of this set and produce their only child, my mother, Jo Ann Bourland. The other hero in my life is JoAnn’s grandfather, Charles E Rhodes. Lavon has collected all of her photos and put them in one book during two probably golden years: 1928 – 1929. The pictures here are largely of my relatives and their friends and neighbors from northern Kentucky, east and northeast of Lexington.

[One question I still have is: Who is Carolyn? In Marion's arms. My notes say Rhodes. From which Rhodes?]

One of my four Great-Grandfathers was Ernest Bobbitt Bourland (1875-1949). E.B. was a minister from various cities around Lexington, Kentucky. He and his wife had one child: my father’s father.

My parents recently gave me this book and I decided to scan it and make it available. The music is from my FOUR PAINTERS: Thomas Hart Benton (2001) for piano quartet by Roger Bourland (me).

Last week, I had an entire day at home to myself. No pressing school work, my various compositional projects are all waiting for someone else to provide me with various things before I can move forward: a perfect day to do NOTHING–maybe watch some movies, and kick around the house.

It turned out to be a warm day. I got it in my teeny brain that it might be a cool thing to spend the whole day naked. Yes, naked. We have a lot of privacy, and both our neighbors on our right and left are gay, so they wouldn’t care seeing my white butt walk by from time to time in the back yard. And over our backyard fence is Queen Latifah’s second house. I doubt she’s there now anyway, and even if she were, she prefers women.

I stripped.

Holy moly, I am the whitest guy around. I looked down at my body. My belly. My cock. My legs.

I went to a mirror and spent some time looking myself over. I was slouching. Fix that. As John Hall always says: “Lift and separate.” MUCH better. Clothes hide the fact that we slouch and pooch (stick out your belly). Daniel has pointed out several times that when I’m pontificating about something in a group, I stick out my belly. I stuck out my belly as far as I could to see how fat my belly could actually be. Eeeeuuuuwwww! Now, pull it in. Much better. My trainer, Teresina, insists that all our exercises be done with your belly in: abdominal muscles engaged, so that they GROW pulled in, rather than grow pooched out.

Enough mirror time, I walked into the bedroom and immediately put on a T-shirt. NO! The game is you must be naked all day. Off with the T-shirt.

I walked out into the living room. The dogs were sitting on the couch looking at me with a kind of “What’s going on with the no-clothes thing, Dad?”-look in their eyes. I laughed and decided to go do some laundry. I’m flashing back to that old German nudist magazine from the 1950s that I inherited from a friend who died of AIDS, with all the pictures of blonde Germans playing volleyball in the nude. Men, women, boys and girls, all happy and all nude. I chuckled as I walked down to the basement. I found a pair of shorts on the floor an immediately put them on. NO! Take them off. Sheesh, it’s hard trying to stay naked. My belly pooched again. Get that belly IN. I sorted the laundry, naked. It was kinda fun.

As I went through the day, I realized that when you are naked all the time, your skin is always cool. The sweat is always evaporating in real time, not through your clothes.

I stopped in front of a mirror again. You’re slouching. Get those shoulders back. Our clothes hide our posture. I looked at my little bush above my cock. Why did evolution put that there? What is it’s purpose other than preventing your penis from sticking to your body. So, I trimmed it. Hmm, Much better. Hell, men trim their faces everyday, why not down there as well?

Another inconvenient aspect of being naked all day, is that when you sit in certain chairs, those chairs were designed for people WITH clothes to sit on. So, sitting on my Aeron chair puts a grid pattern all over my butt. Many chairs don’t let your butt breathe, so you sweat. Not comfortable. The best solution seemed to be to put a towel down on the couch or chair and that worked well.

Cooking naked, especially sauteeing or frying brings up real issues. I broke down and wore a denim (so butch!) apron while I cooked. My front was protected. By around 8 pm, I got tired of the game and put on some warm fuzzy lounge wear. My skin felt so much more sensitive to those clothes having been naked all day.

I realize that it would take a lot of work to really get used to being naked, but I think I just might try. Our clothes hide so much (besides our private parts), and seeing poor posture and poor body habits is important to our health, and knowing what our bodies really look like.

Yesterday I had the honor of being initiated into Phi Beta Kappa. I’m not sure what I did, but was happy to be among this august group. There were 256 graduating seniors who stepped up to the microphone, said their name and major, and what they will be doing next year. It was amazing: many were going to law school or med school, many had three minors in addition to their major. No musicians. Except for me. One other colleague was inducted; she gave a four minute talk. When my turn came, three and a half minutes of my music for CAGES was played. The crowd of a thousand was wonderfully quiet and receptive. I didn’t say anything. Just sat and listened while they listened and watched me listen.

Before and after they kept saying PBK this and PBK that. My brain kept going into autocorrect mode, hearing it as “peanut butter.”

Diary entry:

This is a busy time of the year for teachers. Final lectures, final exams, final meetings, deadlines for various and sundry things, parties, and grading papers.

I lectured last week, the last week or the term, in MUSIC HISTORY, CULTURE and CREATIVITY about orchestration. The class must orchestrate a little piano piece I’ve assigned. They have a choice of the Ravel “Pavanne,” a movement from Stravinsky’s “Les cinq doigts,” a Schumann children’s piece, and the first Gymnopedie of Satie. On Tuesday I orchestrated two of my own piano pieces using SIbelius notation software. I had the piano piece already copied, so orchestrating involved copying, and filtering layers of the music and assigning and adapting those lines to the instruments in the orchestra. That process proved to be impressive to some and terrifying to others because of the additional terror of not knowing the software.

On Thursday, to balance the technologially-based demonstration on Tuesday, I passed out four blank orchestral pages and had students orchestrate the Stravinsky “Moderato” (from the same set) in class using only paper and pencil while the faculty and TAs walked around and guided them through the process. This was important because a number of students confessed to being terrified of having to write for orchestra. It’s true: I remember the first time I ever wrote for orchestra, having to “stretch” your brain to think for that many instruments, and it kinda hurts in the process. By the end of the class, I’m certain many felt more at ease.

My writing effort of late has been focused on editing and writing our department’s self-review––an exercise required of all academic departments. It is an interesting process to think about what we (the UCLA Dept of Music) are as a department: our strengths and weaknesses, and to see how much we’ve grown.

Last week at Royce Hall, James Conlon conducted the UCLA Philharmonia and Chorale in thrilling concert featuring Schoenberg’s “Survivor from Warsaw.” I remember singing that piece as a freshman and just being amazed by it. I can still sing it from memory. Nowadays it seems like “Survivor” is truly a protest piece, not so far from Bob Dylan, really. The piece was preceded and succeeded by short pieces by Schreker and Zemilinsky. I must say I LOVED the Schreker. It was a momentous day in the history of the department. It was also very cool to have the Schoenberg sons and their wives in the audience, looking very pleased. Neal Stulberg’s narration was captivating if not down-right creepy. It was thrilling. (I would have amplified the men’s chorus btw.)

MISC TO DO/DONE:
I’m gearing up to do Joe Bauer’s new short film, AMBUSH, working on it today.
I graded 80 little piano pieces last weekend and have 80 orchestration to grade next weekend.
I get to go to Palm Springs later this month. Yes!
School has stopped but still a lot of meetings left, then graduation next Saturday, where I get into my Harvard drag and announce the names of our graduating students. My academic life will slow down significantly after that ceremony.

The day after my school’s graduation, my sister in law has her graduation and party at our house, so that will be a lovely way to end the year. Why I remember when she was just a girl! [Julia is SO smart––it's amazing.]

I now have a nephew and a niece who want to move to LA. (These pix from 2000.) It’s an expensive place to move to I’ve warned them, but if they can get on their feet, it will be nice to have family near by.

On Saturday, we had two little families over for dinner, one has a 12 month old boy named Julian, and the other has an 18 month old girl named Julia. Cool symmetry, and they liked each other quite a lot. Good fun to watch the kids and parents interact.

(Our dog) Cody is undergoing chemotherapy. One week injection, the next pills, the next he has off: this for four cycles. He’s doing just fine. Turns out, dogs to much better than humans having chemo, because they don’t know they have a life threatening illness.

Now that Susan’s and my husband have jobs that take them out of the city, we’ve become a fun couple for going to concerts. Last night we went to two: Lana Chae gave a spirited first performance of my THREE IMPROMPTUS for piano followed by a performance of the Goldberg Variations. (I composed the piece to be paired with the Bach.) After a quick dinner in Westwood we zipped back to Royce in time to hear the Missa Solemnis, with Don Neuen conducting the Debut Orchestra and the amassed UCLA Chorale and Angeles Chorale with four terrific soloists.

Last night I watched some foreign film before dosing off. The final image was amazing! It was an aerial shot of about 20 men in a wide open field trying to catch an escaped ostrich. So funny and fun to watch. It put me right to sleep with a smile on my face.

[Photo credits: Stravinsky image in Public Domain; #1,2,3 by Roger Bourland; #4 by Raymond Knapp]

I fell in love with Big Sur as a senior in high school. I discovered two books: “Gestalt Therapy Verbatim” and “In and Out of the Garbage Pale” both by Dr Frederick Perls–aka Fritz Perls. He looked kind of like a Jewish Santa. Mischievous, outgoing, pushy, loving, confident, outrageous, and ultimately a very smart man. My take on gestalt therapy was that it is an unhealthy thing to build on an unstable foundation–a principle in architecture, Christianity and in life.

I never went to the Esalen Institute or participated in any therapy, I only read Fritz’s two books. In a session, he would bring a person up to chat with him, almost like a TV talk show –in front of an audience. Through dialog, he would find the person’s UNFINISHED BUSINESS and work on it, trying to FINISH it. I found the philosophy cathartic.
—
By former partner, Bruce, an avid bicyclist, and I traveled to Big Sur many years ago and did some insane mountain biking up and down those steep hills. That was my first experience visiting that magical place.

Last weekend, Daniel and I attended Nate and Katie’s Big Sur wedding. Even though I have sworn off camping for the rest of my life, we were booked in a “cabin” at a campground that had a heater, bed and private bath. I still am puzzled why people love to camp out and surround themselves with suffocating campfire smoke. It’s so polluting and just gross.

As my husband was officiating the wedding, I, with Matias and Jenny (above) scoured the area for warm clothes. Matias and I found hats at the Phoenix shop, beneath Nepenthe. Buses took the wedding party 15 miles down the coast, south of Esalen, to the wedding site. The trip was terrifying to many, staring down sheer cliffs to the amazing aquamarine ocean below. I prayed that our bus driver wouldn’t have a heart attack en route (he didn’t). When we got there, the site and view were breath-taking. The temperature was in the 50s and dropping and the wind was probably at 30 mph. BRRRRRR. All of a sudden, all the women in their gorgeous gowns slipped on their husband’s jean, or coat or blankets. Everyone was freezing cold. The ceremony, even though it was held hanging off a sheer drop, was held on a calm and warm spot. Daniel did a beautiful job, although I asked that he not be tempted to become a full-time minister, and as my grandfather told my father when hearing his son wanted be a minister, he replied: “A minister?? You’ll never make any money doing that!” And besides, one in my family is sufficient. Nate n Katie looked beautiful. I hope they have lots of children and pass on their smarts, beauty and personality to future generations.

The landowner built a huge bonfire that everyone immediately crowded around. Katie was concerned that people were not having a good time: wrong, they were, it was just a bit cold. The groomsmen looked like a group from the British Invasion (Manfred Man?), and they posed with the bridesmaids and newlyweds for all kinds of fun shots (see below). The dinner, even tho the wind was howling and cold, was delicious.

Katie’s father, owner of Coleman Vineyards, shared his wine with the party and most kept warm by drinking lots of it. After much dancing and partying, the group got back on the buses and made their way back up the coast.

It was a fun group: people from Palm, RIIM (Blackberry), Apple, Yahoo, and Google were there. It was a real silicon valley wedding–a foretaste of my retirement, I suspect.

Glad to be back in warm SoCal. Best wishes to you both, Nate n Katie!

[Photos by Wesley Yun]