how musical is man?

First let me say that this is a wonderful book by John Blacking -- in fact a landmark ethnomusicological work. I invite you to read it and be inspired by its many insights and quetions. Having said that I do think there are some problem areas. Briefly synopsized, Blacking spent time with a tribe in Africa where there are no distinctions made between musician and non-musician. He then later has difficulty understanding Western music as it clearly delineates between the two (or at least that's his thesis).

I'll offer this analogy: Imagine a tribe where there are no distinctions drawn between doctor and non-doctor -- all are healers of more or less equal ability. We can probably safely assume that there's an upper limit to the kinds of healing that could occur here. In our own society (and in many, many others) there are professional doctors who spend a lot of time in training and in research and consequently give us things like heart transplants, cancer treatments, antibiotics, and so on.

So music can be understood similarly: we have all sorts of musical levels represented in our society, and consequently we get Paganinis, Coltranes, and Steve Vais. And it isn't just a Western phenomenon: if you were to learn koto in Japan you do so from a master player; in India if you were to learn sitar you would do likewise. Whether this dizzying array of talent and subsequent complexity and 'sophistication' is all for the better is hard to assess across cultures, but surely having to ability to paint with many colors is at least as good as painting monochromatically (that depends upon the artist and the viewer, of course).

But I really take issue with the fact that Blacking is so predisposed to seeing our culture's lack of musicians everywhere as a problem of elitism and of class exploitation. Perhaps a concert-goer can be "passive" and happy, but my suspicion is that the more we are musicians the more we can deeply participate in the music being offered us. And I don't know if Blacking has ever given a classical concert/recital or not, but you definitely want people to show up if you do! Perhaps 30 years ago there was some sort of elitist will keeping the masses from attending concerts (though I doubt it) but nowadays I think that classical musicians really want to reach out, which can only be done by better education. And that education would be (from my point of view) not teaching appreciation but teaching everyone to be musical. Or showing people that they have the innate talent of music and leading them toward exploiting it.

when not to cancel a lesson

I encounter this one often. Someone decides that s/he hasn't practiced enough over the week (or whatever span) and consequently decides that canceling the upcoming lesson is the best move. It's anti-intuitive but this is exactly the time to take the lesson. Why? Because only about 0.001% of people (and that's a generous estimate) magically start practicing the next week all on their own. The lesson can inspire, hopefully: if not a change is in order.

magic spells

One good way to understand the function of music is to consider that particular instances of music (songs, symphonies, chants, jams, grooves...) are magic spells. The important point here is that a song, for example, is not like a magic spell, but is a magic spell. In fact music is probably the only real, or at least reliable, kind of magic spell. There's a reason why words like enchant and incantation have to do with singing. Certain tunes can just put a smile on your face, no matter your mood to begin with, and others can bring tears to your eyes. And beyond emotions music can really entrain^{FN 1} us: certain grooves can be extremely hypnotic, or seem to aim at 'opening up' our consciousness. We'll return to this theme time and again, but it's a good idea to consider that when you make music you're actually performing magic spells that have a real consequence. Not many magicians try to make spells that are boring.

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1. There is scientific study about sounds causing brainwave entrainment. For example: if one of your ears hears a steady pitch at 440 Hz and the other ear hears one at 400 Hz, a brainwave of the difference between the two frequencies is produced -- in our example a brainwave of 10 Hz, in the Alpha range. Alpha waves are associated, moreover, with the state of the mind as it is found in deep meditative states.

the sixteen men of tain

I'm not writing this post to plug this fabulous Allan Holdsworth album (but hey, if you don't own any Holdsworth and dig on fusion why not leap in with this one?). I was listening to it the other day and I realized how mis-characterized Holdsworth really is. He's seen as a guitarist's guitarists, a shredder with awesome technique who's really only interested in the technical and so on^{FN 1}. So wrong.

If you listen to the tune "Above And Below" you'll see what I mean. It's triadic, extremely pretty, no soloing (although the stretches for holding the chords are probably virtuosic at times). Overall he seems very concerned with emotional content. There are blistering solos throughout the cd, but it's still not hard to hear that feeling is of paramount import, as is lyricism, particularly on tracks like "0274" and "Downside Up".

And of course you can hear some pretty wild and out-ish sounding stuff: "The Drums Were Yellow" features this in spades, with only guitar and drums. The soloing on all tunes is great, and a good model generally for soloists (usually progressing from simple ideas to more florid, but often interjecting nice lyrical passages).

I don't want to over-simplify this album: it's harmonically complex and very interesting compositionally, and all the performers are hot. But it does bear mentioning that this is not an album unconcerned with mood. Music is multi-dimensional, and an intellectual apprehension of it is often needed to fully enjoy it (think of fugues where we have to keep the theme in our head, or keeping track of a song's form, etc). But still music accesses our 'precognitive' areas, areas that trigger moods and feelings. As Ricardo Muti said before conducting Beethoven's Fourth (I believe with the Philadelphia Orchestra) "Music is feelings." And this is its strength.

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1. I dig on guitarists whose main motives these are all the same, so I'm not defending Holdsworth from something I don't like.

beyond the 13th chord

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: a 13th chord contains all the notes of its scale, so how can you go beyond it? That's a good point, but if you consider that a 13th chord consists of 7 different tones and that there are an available 12 from the total chromatic then there are obviously 5 tones remaining which could be used harmonically (if so desired). Vincent Persichetti goes over this in his fabulous book Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice. He does state that the 'unwieldy' terms of 19th or so aren't normally employed (that is the descriptions, not the chords) but let's just see if we can wield one -- even a bigger one -- anyway.

Consider the following chord:



From the G2 up to the E4 we have a G13 (dominant) chord. When we get back to the G it is sharpened, the sharp 15th. Next in the series is B, but here flattened, so a flat 17th. And so on. It is quite unwieldy to label such a beast:
G13#15b17#19#21#25
(There is no possibility in this type of chord of altering the 23rd to produce a new tone: can you see why?) In this case on a chart it would seem better to indicate something like "TC" (total chromatic) or some such, but seeing a symbol like G13#15 shouldn't pose a real problem...

those rests can mean something

The rest is a potent creative factor.
--Vincent Persichetti, Twentieth-Century Harmony

This post is particularly aimed at classical guitarists, but it does apply across the board more or less. Sometimes when confronted with rests in music it's debatable as to whether they're really to "played" (if you will) or not. I have one test that can help determine this: if you encounter a rest where it would've been easier for the composer to have not written rests and instead have written a longer note value then the rest should be observed. If you write music you'll know that this is the case. It takes extra effort to pen (or to click) in a rest. For a clear example that all of us probably know consider Sor's Study Op.30 no.20.


Also consider the 10th measure of Sor's Divertimento op.1 no.1.


Here it would've been so much easier simply to write a dotted quarter note, so it's a pretty safe conjecture that those rests really need to be there (i.e. that low G needs to get cut-off on beat 2 -- and yes, it should be a G, not an E: this sort of misprint is common, and you'll get used to it when you read from facsimiles).

The opposite can be true, too, of course. More on that in a later post...

c.o.m.a. at abc no-rio

A plug here: if you're in the NYC area please check out the excellent musical event called C.O.M.A. (Citizen's Ontological Musical Agenda) which happens almost every Sunday evening around 8pm at ABC No-Rio (located at 156 Rivington Street between Clinton & Suffolk...
here's their site). Usually two ensembles perform after which there's an open session, so bring your instrument of choice (or voice for that matter) and join in: it's very deep, and fun.
$5 Donation.

concerning tuning

I've played with some people (mainly guitarists) whose very integrity is greatly diminished even by the suggestion that they ought to use a tuner. My plea is: please use a tuner. Especially onstage. It's highly annoying for someone to spend 5 minutes audibly tuning at the end of which process the state of being in tune has not been achieved.

But that's a simple fix. Pushing a little further, however, we may ask: how do we know what "in tune" is? Or, if we do use a tuner, how does the tuner know? Basically that aspect of tuning (i.e. the theoretical underpinnings of a specific tuning system, and that there are tuning systems -- plural) is largely overlooked. Equal temperment (for keyboardists and fretted string instruments) has carried the day since the 18th century. Buuut it's not a system that everyone's comfortable with.

Click here to read a great article about the first major tuning system used in Western music, the Pythagorean. It gets very technical, but if you read the Basic Concepts section you'll be well on your way to understading a phenomenon faced by early keyboardists, viz. that not all keys were 'equal' in the sense that their respective intervals were not of the same sizes. (While you're there be sure to check out the parent site, too, medieval.org...there's a lot of fascinating, thought-provoking stuff to be encountered.)

The reason I mention this is because, at this point in the game, it seems that it might be worth exploring Pythagorean, or Just, or other tuning systems, largely because a lot of music made these days doesn't modulate wildly, or at all. At any rate it would be interesting to exploit the colors that the 'new' intervals provide, particularly in music that is free or consists of massive drones. Actually it would be interesting (again in freely improvised situations, but not only) to have different members tuned to different systems, again for the color of the 'new' intervals which would be produced...in this situation there could be unisons that wouldn't actually be a perfect unison!

the functionality of music

Without a proper understanding of a music's purported function it's obviously very difficult to assess its success, let alone its value as good/bad, exciting/boring, etc. E.g. one might hear a typical comment concerning Gregorian chant (so-called) that it's 'boring'. One might respond 'duh'. Its entire function is to deliver liturgical text, and usually to do so in a way which elicits a prayerful attitude. If the same music were submitted to a club as a great dance mix then boring would be an appropriate assessment.

Determining what a music's function is is not always so easy. It's pretty much known by all that jazz or classical music during brunch or at a cocktail party is there to fill in the gaps in conversation, etc. [This is not a pejorative statement by any means. I play background guitar music from time to time (actually as often as I can!) and of course there are people there who do listen, but generally it's an easy gig from a pressure point of view. Also I was once in a bar in Opera City (in Shinjuku, Tokyo) at evening when a pianist came in and started playing Satie, etc. "Even" as background music it totally transformed the room...] But what is the same music's function when performed in a concert hall, or at a club where people are generally quiet and pay attention to the music? What was the function of a Pink Floyd concert?

an essay in cosmology -- new york city pop band cd no2 now available

Just to plug myself here: The New York City Pop Band's 2nd cd An Essay in Cosmology is now available everywhere (formerly it was only on iTunes) in mp3 format.


Here are some of the liner notes:

Picking up a thread left behind by the band's earlier effort A Soft Liquid Joy (especially that of The Lonely Magnetic Balloon), this album is a dream-like exploration of the dark, the subtle, the fantastic, the grotesque, the nocturnal, the erotic and the ephemerality of all things. Drawing inspiration from collage techniques, pantonal improvisation, impressionism, gagaku and the way that sound and light behave in the fourth spatial dimension -- particularly as they relate to the differing flows of time in such a space -- the sonic creation is now a thin and sparse shimmering now a thick, rich tapestry of sound. Mainly but not completely foregoing traditional concepts of melody and of standard chord progressions one finds that in this record the limits of patience and of good taste are often tested. But not for any self-indulgent reasons: the entire piece is an opportunity for meditation, for reflection, for a good time in general.

The debt to the past is immense, and as has been detailed elsewhere, the “influences” on this work are much more than simply what we like (in fact the awful and horrible have impacted us more): it is the totality of the past that is flowering here. But in any list of specific artists/works we have to make mention of Louis and Bebe Barron, particularly their score for the 1956 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet.

On this recording the New York City Pop Band is Charles Ramsey. The material was built up out using guitars triggering a Roland VG-8 and a Roland GR-1, the classic Alpha Juno 2, a Casio CZ-101, a Boss DR-770 and various software synths.

Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing...

in c

I just performed this great piece by Terry Riley with a very special incarnation of the New York City Pop Band at the Yippie Museum last night. It went extremely well, especially for not having been rehearsed at all (one of my parameters for doing the piece). All of the people who played in the ensemble were great at free improvisation (across many styles) and that helped tremendously with this piece.

I brazenly disregarded some of Riley's suggestions for performing the piece, which is of course well within the right of the performer. I think here that Riley probably gets over-specific to a certain extent because classical players (here meaning people who only play classical music and never improvise) might feel a little lost without some measure of stipulation beyond the cells that make up the score.

Here are the two main things we did that I feel make the piece more interesting:

1. It was a small ensemble of 6 performers. Of course this work sounds great with a large number of players (I think Riley recommends something in the neighborhood of 35, can't really remember) but with a small ensemble the material is really easy to process for the listener. For example it was very obvious -- and quite hypnotic -- when some of the players would lock into a pattern and keep it going for a long period of time.

2. A steady pulse was only more-or-less maintained. In addition to augmenting the rhythms of the cells (i.e. converting 16th notes to 8ths, 8ths to quarters and so on) we would deliberately phase the rhythms when we happened to land on the same material. This was to me extremely cool, added some excitement to sections of the piece, and worth exploring more and more...


The performers pictured above are (from left to right): Tom Blatt, Robyn Siwula, Charles Ramsey, Leslie Purcell Upchurch, Ken Silverman and Blaise Siwula.