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.
Despite having the same composer duo as seasons 1-3, someone’s wings got clipped in season 4.
As I study the credits on IMDB.com, the music figure gone after season three seems to be the music supervisor, Gary Calamar. Was it actually Calamar’s vision that made seasons 2 and 3 so terrific? I don’t know the inside story — I can only speculate: Calamar got bought away by someone else; the WeeDS team had to cut back their music budget as commissioning all those famous musicians became too expensive; or, Ms Kohan found the music was becoming too good, so much so that it was distracting from the story.
“Little Boxes” only appears in the opening episode for programmatic reasons–which is fine. Nothing really replaces the introduction now, the show just starts after we see the “previously, on WeeDS” segment. The variable theme music has been replaced by new clever Title/Creator card. Cheaper, I’m sure.
The music for season four is fine, normal, does its job like other TV shows. Too bad.
I have become “hooked” on the TV series, WEEDS from Showtime. (I have enjoyed the extended viewing afforded by renting the DVDs.) All of us old folkies grinned hearing the show’s adapted theme song, “Little Boxes” sung, not by Pete Seeger, from whom we heard it first,
but from its wisened composer, Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978). I must confess that her performance drove me crazy as I watched each episode in the first season, so much, that I started fast-forwarding through the song.
Clearly the producers heard us because by season two, as a cover by a different artist of “Little Boxes” opened every episode. I couldn’t wait to see whether my guess of who the artist was, was correct. Names like Joan Baez, Regina Spektor, Donovan, the McGarrigle sisters, Elvis Costello, Englebert Humperdink (sic), Randy Newman, and more. My favorite–although I Iiked them all–was Michael Franti, sounding remarkably like Dylan.
Whether intentionally or not, the producers, by lining up a wide palette of accompaniments and interpretations, have made these songs “all sound just the same.” Each cover encapsulates a branch of the popular music tradition, and it is odd that after a while the variations do indeed start sounding the same. As I am finishing season three, I’ve peaked ahead and seen very little “Little Boxes” in season four. Again, despite loving hearing all those terrific variations, NEXT.
Besides this opening amusement, the show’s real unsung sonic heroes are the composers: Brandon Jay and Gwendolyn Sanford. Through season three, their music has been thrilling. They have become masters of the micro-song, of which two are usually presented in the latter third of each episode. Sometimes these micro-songs are by guest artists, but the best were written by this team. Each micro-song has a satisfying heft, perhaps a musical equivalent to the latest culinary rage, sliders. The imagined musical languages they come up with are convincing. They sound like excerpts from a larger work, but one that sounds familiar. It’s like style composition, but instead of aping a past musical language, they invent their own.
This composerly duo seems to have come out of nowhere. They have no previous Hollywood work, and it appears they were not used after season three. Clearly, they were at the right party, but they had the goods to deliver. How composers work together in this kind of situation is still a mystery to me, but hats off to this terrific creative team.
The entire music department for this series needs to be congratulated as well. The mix of old and new, familiar and not, is continually thrilling.
I have loved the story, the actors, the character development, and the cinematographic look of the show, but I will leave critiques on this level to experts.
Showtime features a website that allows us to hear all the music used in the show. What is missing is all the original music. You’ll have to watch the show to hear that.
Having finished my composition projects for the summer, I am finally returning to finishing my book on Rufus Wainwright. Having bought Robert O. Gderdingen’s terrific publication “Music in the Galant Style” I have found the book format that I’d like to have for my book: one with relatively large type, but most importantly, a hardback book that can stay open at the piano without breaking the binding. I will have as many musical examples as I am able. Each essay will have a lyric/melody/form analysis — see below.
I was shocked to see how much I’ve already finished. But in that I’m smarter now than when I originally wrote all this I’ll be revising and tweaking each essay.
My new working title is RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: ANALYTIC ESSAYS ON SELECTED EARLY SONGS. I am debating whether to keep or toss a bevy of miscellaneous chapters about Rufus, but otherwise I will focus on analytic observations and less on dish or biography.
In the illustration below, I include the lyrics, the melodic form with respect to repeated melodic figures (a, b1, c, etc.), and the formal structure (A, B, verse, chorus, etc.). Look up and down the left side of the diagram. You see abcd and their variants appearing from left to right. Each letter and its variant have their own column. What this allows the reader to see and understand is exactly when melodic figures are new or repeat. And what we see over and over in Rufus’s music is that they usually repeat, and there are limited melodic figures in each song. If you look at all the a1 figures and the lyrics to the right, you’ll know that they all have the same melody. Now look at a2; and then b; and then c; and finally d. I include a complete transcription at the end of most essays.
Statistically the “a” figures appear most frequently (12 times); the “b” figure 6 times; the c figures 8 times; and the “d” figure is rarest at 3 times. The “a1″ and “a2″ figures are the melodic hooks as well as the title of the song, “Pretty Things.” The “b” figure is a simple melodic turn that joins a1 and a2. The “c” figure is an oscillating 4th, and the “d” figure is a falling 4th that signals the end of the section.
As you look at this illustration, you see that the yellow and blue section together make up one big chunk. This chunk is repeated again, but then varied in its third appearance. Can you see what has changed?
This week I had several meetings planning our new class for all incoming Music, World Music, and Music History students. It will be a one year class, team taught each quarter by three full professors: one composer (me, all three quarters), a musicologist, and an ethnomusicologist. Next quarter I will be teaching with Jihad Racy and Robert Winter — two brilliant scholars, musicians, teachers, and people.
We sketched out the 10-week term along with written and compositional assignments. The course is called MUSIC HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CREATIVITY and is the brain child of the Director of our school, Timothy Rice.
We are very excited about this new direction in teaching musicians about music. On Monday I will be meeting with my collaborators in the Winter term Susan McClary and Helen Rees. I will reveal more as it becomes clear.
Scott Spiegelberg has turned over ranking the top Classical blogs to invesp consulting. They track thousands of websites and blogs for all areas of interest. They have an ongoing page that tracks the second by second rankings of classical music blogs. invesp.com tracks blogs using a long list of criteria:
* Classical Music Blogs: The ultimate rank
* Classical Music Blogs: by Feedburner RSS membership*
* Classical Music Blogs: by unique monthly visitors
* Classical Music Blogs: by Yahoo indexed pages
* Classical Music Blogs: by Google indexed pages
* Classical Music Blogs: by number of incoming links (via Yahoo)
* Classical Music Blogs: by the ratio of incoming links to numbers of pages
* Classical Music Blogs: by pages per visit
* Classical Music Blogs: by Google PR
* Classical Music Blogs: by Technorati rank
* Classical Music Blogs: by Alexa rank
* Classical Music Blogs: by Compete rank
* Classical Music Blogs: via Social sites
They limit themselves to the top 25, and even though I didn’t make “the ultimate rank” this blog pops in and out of several of the categories. In fact I was number 1 for a few days in the Technorati ranking — a dubious achievement, and not quite sure what it means.
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.
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.
I’ll be revising and tweaking each essay.
