The Crave

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century a powerful musical phenomenon which would become known as "Jazz" began to take shape.  New Orleans had had a strong culture of African American folk music and ragtime, and when the Creole musicians were kicked out of the orchestras on the basis of their "race," they were forced to take their classical instruments and professional chops to the streets.  The subsequent merging of styles and instrumentations was an organic process from which many new types of music emerged ("Jazz" is often used as an umbrella term used).

The piece above is by Jelly Roll Morton, self-proclaimed inventor of Jazz.  Listen as the left hand holds the bass in a single key while the right journeys wherever it wishes.  You could call it a rag.  Interestingly much of the classical, European piano music from the same era not only uses similar harmonies, but the same type of arrangement.

Listen again and hear how there are strategically placed "wrong" notes.  They're not actually wrong (obviously) but they break out of the expected harmonic patterns and make you ear dance a little to catch up.  "The Crave" has some examples of 'blue' thirds: when the major and minor third are played almost simultaneously to give an emotive quality seldom heard outside of Jazz.  Interestingly, classical musicians of the same era were also fond of this sonority in different contexts. Below is a jazzy improvisation by Gabriela Montero on Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto:

Nature Jamz

The Japanese have built an enormous Marimba-like music mechanism which plays Bach in a forest outside of Kyoto.  The making of this music machine (instrument?) involved dozens of musicians, mechanics, builders, and more.  Besides thoroughly enjoying the inventive take on a classic Bach piece, I could not help but ask a number of questions.  Who is the musician?  Is each person involved a member of a hyper-modern orchestra of sorts? If someone's job is simply to set up the wooden run in the forest but he is in no way involved in the coordinating of tones, is he still a musician, or is that role analogous to an instrument manufacturer?  What if the person who came up with the idea never lifted a finger to create the sounds - what's the name of that role? Not composer, not player, but something.

After a few minutes of contemplating these question I went back and watched my favorite Japanese musical comercial:



Yes, that is a real television commercial (for soy sauce).  

Relative Major and the Remix

Recently my brother and I did a remix for local artist Brett (composed of members from The Dance Party). A lot of people have asked me how we came up with the chords we used in the intro.  Here's the original:



The track quickly establishes itself in the key of E major with the bassline wandering back and forth between E and G# and the lead guitar proclaiming a high E straight through the intro.  The mood is dancy and upbeat.  A major key is constructed by starting on the tonic note and ascending in the patter W,W,H,W,W,W,H (where W represents a whole step and H represents a half step).  So starting this pattern on E results is the E-major scale: E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#,E.

Seeking to reinvent the emotive content of the song, my brother I and went beyond just changing timbre, tempo, or style; instead, we manipulated the harmonic structure itself so that the exact same vocals heard in the original would take on new meaning against the backdrop of a different tonality (as I will explain).



I have been told that the result seems darker than the original.  That makes sense because we used the "relative minor" key: C#minor.  C#minor has the honored distinction of having its own Wikipedia page dedicated to its relationship with Beethoven.

What is a relative minor key?

A relative minor uses the exact same notes as its relative major partner, but begins a step and a half lower thus forming the pattern W,H,W,W,H,W,W - or - C#,D#,E,F#,G#,A,B,C#.  We used the chord progression: C#m, F#m, AbM, Am, C#m, F#m, AbM, C#m. Since our key uses all of the same notes as that of the original, the same vocal melody works with both versions but to a strikingly different emotive effect.

Your homework is to take a happy pop song you like and convert it into its relative minor key on an instrument!

If you liked the remix check out Rex's other stuff and hit up my soundcloud.

Classical Picks: Rachmaninoff's Bells of Moscow and Samuel Barber's violin concerto.

Food for thought...

Until I return from Colombia at the end of this month, posts will be small and far between.  I had a thought, though, on which you may care to chew (and feel free to spit it out in the form of a comment on this blog or an email).

As humans have made increasingly detailed records of music, we have changed the parts of the brain associated with musical aptitude (particularly in the west where music transcription has been held on an extraordinarily high pedistal).  Once music is written down, it is no longer an exclusively aural experience, but rather engages visual, spatial and logical aspects of the mind among others.  Music documentation in the west has followed a clear genesis from midieval transcriptions of simple, monophonic chant melodies through expansion into multiple cleffs and complex harmonies, to print and mass-produced scores, to the first records using wax tablets to render an analougue reproduction of the sound, to modern recording technology.

My point is simple: when we listen to much of recorded western music, in a sense we are hearing an audio experience of a written description of the origional essence of song rather than pure music directly communicating in it´s origionally intended form.  No judgement here, simply an observation.  I find it interesting, too how this has often resulted in a very specific, controlled, polished, complete musical experience which lacks the emphasis on virtuosity of a single instrument or voice; hence, those coming from a european musical background (including popular) may be more drawn to the polished, recorded product than to, say, a grippingly emotional vocal performance.

I would get into how this mirror´s German opera´s emphasis on the orchestral experience, but then I´d have to spend more time at this internet cafe.

Hasta luego!

To Cover Yourself in Another's Musical Dogshit

All members of the Kingdom Animalia have physical instincts (e.g. avoid pain, seek pleasure, etc...), in humans, the vehicles of these physical instincts are emotional instincts, and to widen our purview: the vehicles thereof are psychological instincts.  We are not the only animal to have emotional instincts, and probably not the only to have psychological instincts.  My aim in illuminating these vehicles is to make plain the fact that individual humans are as instinctually compelled towards certain music(s) as dogs are instinctually compelled to roll in animal excrement. Thus pop music is born.  There may not be a specific dog whose excriment's scent is particularly moving to all other dogs, but there sure as hell is a combination of scents which will stir the nostrils of vast contingents of the doggy population. Same goes for music and humans.

In modern engineering there are sonic tools to elicit specific responses from your ears.  A skilled producer may achieve an extreme level of precision in regards to which frequencies of which sounds should be louder or softer or echo; he or she can control which sound should come from which direction and how long or short it should be held; he or she, using modern technology, may actually contort the shapes of the sound-waves themselves.  These men and women know that a bass at 50hz will make your romp shake and that a drum at 200hz will make your throat thump.  They know that even with an enormously loud sound pulsing away at those low frequencies, you will still be able to hear Lady Gaga's sweet melodies overhead.

Without having a virtuoso on the Tuba, or muddying an arrangement with excessive tympani, it can be hard for some composers to reach those depths of bowel shaking ferocity which your speakers may not even pick up in electronic pieces like this (listen to the drop at .25 on your computer speakers, then do it again on some good headphones or speakers with a sub):

Composer Max Richter's response to this conundrum is to turn to electronics.  Listen in the following piece to the time leading up to minute 2.50 (make sure it's absolutely blaring on loud speakers).

Make of it what you will, my point is that mastering preferences have changed overtime in addition to changes in simple timbrel preferences.

Remastering Albums and Interpreting Symphonies

The entire reason I started thinking about this topic was that I heard the remastered version of the Beatles' The White Album  the other day (heaven forbid that estate go dry).  While some parts sound nice and crisp, I noticed that the mastering caters to the modern pop audience and thus looses a bit of its sixties character.  Particularly the bass drum was stomping on my vibe in some of the more mellow tracks because engineers these days have an evolved (for better or worse) idea of technical 'right' and 'wrong.'  

Similarly,  when a modern orchestra plays a symphony from the Viennese Classical era there are two schools of thought as to how the piece should be treated.  In pop there's a strong sense of empirical good and bad, whereas in classical there are two equally respected schools: Classical and Romantic.  An orchestra under the management of a 'Classical' music director strives to use the exact type of instruments available in the period of the composer and tenaciously obeys all tempo marks in the origional score.  His or her aim is to provide the audience with the experience of the symphony exactly as it would have been heard by the composer.  On the other hand, a 'Romantic' music director feels that a performance is an interpretation and that the conductor should take liberties where it serves the emotive content of the concert.  The orchestra will use the best instruments at hand, perhaps extra performers will be added to beef up the aural experience.  The NSO's current director Christoph Eschenbach is notorious for his slow orchestral interpretations.  Beethoven himself was not known for his technical prowess but was able to rise above his contemporaries in public acclaim because every music fan for thousands of miles knew that he played with more vigor and emotion than his contemporaries.  In his own words: "To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is unforgivable."  What a boss.

Is That the New Beethoven?

     Back in the day composers such as Beethoven would go about  their daily lives and when musical ideas would pop into their heads, they would sketch them down in a notebook for later use.  Perhaps when sitting at the piano, such a composer would begin to compile some melodic ideas for a piece and write them down on staff paper.  Often these "sketches" went nowhere and were abandoned.  Sometimes the composer fleshed them out and added harmony, and perhaps instrumentation and published them as polished pieces.  Other times bits and pieces were left behind in treasured notebooks, some of which have ended up in modern museums.  Several of Beethoven's notebooks are still around (BTW this is still how a lot of composition is done although notation software has changed the game to an extent).

     When Beethoven was 22 years old, he wrote his first piano sonata: Sonata Fantasia in D.  Somehow it was lost and never published.  Recently, it turned up in Bonn - it was somewhere between a sketch and a completed piece.  Most of the thematic ideas were in place but there are parts where Beethoven hadn't yet fleshed out the left-hand accompaniment.  It was reconstructed and performed a few days ago.  What you heard if you watched the video above was the world premiere of Beethoven's first and last piece...

According to Gramophone:
"There are a number of thematic similarities to Beethoven’s later works, however. The first part of the Sonata shares a theme with the trio of the third movement of his Symphony No 7. There are also several themes common to the Pastoral, Appassionata and Moonlight Sonatas."

Opium Hallucinations of Demons and Death

In 1830, only three years after the death of Beethoven, a young, French composer named Hector Berlioz premiered a piece which would change the world of art forever.  The transformative effects of his piece were felt not only in the realm of music, but can be observed to this day in theater, movies, and television.
     The piece is Symphony Fantastique, and at the time of its premiere the composer was 27 years old.  He had been born just as Beethoven had begun to test the limits of the definition of the symphony and of classical music itself.  The prodigious Berlioz took this unbridled drive to expand sonic and artistic boundaries and ran with it.  In addition to utilizing new harmonies, forms, and instrumentations, the composer introduced one particular idea which ushered in a new era.
     The idée fixe or "fixed idea" (yes folks, it is also the derivative of a modern psychological term of the same name) is a specific musical theme which represents a specific idea - or character, or place, or emotion, etc... It is a close relative, I'd say the father of the better known leitmotif made famous by Wagner, and hence a precursor for over a century of opera and film-scoring.  Without Berlioz, you bet your ass Hans Zimmer wouldn't be living in this sweet mancave. Let's see what we're dealing with here:

Symphony Fantastique is one of very few "program" symphonies. This means that the music is a direct representation of a narrative and as such is accompanied by a written program (without which the piece should not be approached). A brief synopsis of the piece's five movements:

     An artist falls totally in love, and whenever he sees his beloved her image is accompanied by a specific musical theme.  He sees her everywhere and can't handle being alone and not knowing if his love is requited.  Eventually he deals with his anxiety by ingesting a large amount of opium which, rather than killing him brings on a series of vivid hallucinations.  He sees himself murder his beloved and he witnesses his own execution.  The last movement is a "devilish orgy" complete with witches, ghosts, and the return of his beloved.  Good stuff in general.

AND NOW THE MUSIC!!!

Here's the forth movement.  Note how at times the music seems classical almost to the extent of feeling robotic, yet at others it pours forth emotion without thought to the musical sensibilities of the era.  At  6.08, after an uproarious section we hear the idee fixe for the beloved float in the clarinets and ends abruptly with a loud tutti crash and a thud which signifies the guillotine on the artist's neck:



If you enjoy this, I encourage you to seek out a live performance, download (and pay for) the music, or better yet join me for a listening of the vinyl :)  No matter how you listen, DON'T FORGET THE PROGRAM!  It's below in case you can't find it elsewhere.

"Part I: Reveries--Passions. The author imagines that a young musician, afflicted with that moral disease that a well-known writer calls the vague des passions, sees for the first time a woman who embodies all the charms of the ideal being he has imagined in his dreams, and falls desperately in love with her. Through an odd whim, whenever the beloved image appears in the mind's eye of the artist, it is linked with a musical thought whose character, passionate but at the same time noble and shy, he finds similar to the one he attributes to his Beloved. This melodic image and the model it reflects pursue him incessantly like a double idee fixe. That is the reason for the constant appearance, in every moment of the symphony, of the melody that begins the first Allegro. The passage from this state of melancholy reverie, interrupted by a few fits of groundless joy, to one of frenzied passion, with its moments of fury, of jealousy, its return of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations--this is the subject of the first movement.

"Part II: A Ball. The artist finds himself in the most varied situations--in the midst of the tumult of a party, in the peaceful contemplation of nature; but everywhere, in the town, in the country, the beloved image appears before him and disturbs his peace of mind.

"Part III: Scene in the Country. Finding himself one evening in the country, he hears in the distance two shepherds piping a ranz des vaches (shepherd's song) in dialogue. This pastoral duet, the scenery, the quiet rustling of the trees gently brushed by the wind, the hopes he has recently found reason to entertain--all come together to afford his heart an unaccustomed calm, and to give a more cheerful color to his ideas. He reflects upon his isolation; he hopes that his loneliness will soon be over. But what if she were deceiving him! This mingling of hope and fear, these ideas of happiness disturbed by black presentiments, form the subject of the Adagio. At the end, one of the shepherds takes up the ranz des vaches; the other no longer replies. Distant thunder--loneliness--silence.

"Part IV: March to the Scaffold. Convinced that his love is unappreciated, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of narcotic, too weak to kill him, plunges him into a sleep accompanied by the most horrible visions. He dreams that he has killed his Beloved, that he is condemned to death and led to the scaffold, and that he is witnessing his own execution. The procession moves forward to the sounds of a march that is sometimes somber and fierce, and sometimes brilliant and solemn, in which the muffled sound of heavy steps gives way without transition to the noisiest clamor. At the end, the idee fixe returns for a moment, like a final thought of love before the fatal blow.

"Part V: A Witches' Sabbath. He sees himself at the sabbath, in the midst of a frightful troop of ghosts, sorcerers, and monsters of every species, all gathered for his funeral; strange noises, groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries which other cries seem to answer. The Beloved melody appears again, but it has lost its character of nobility and shyness; it is now no more than a dance tune, mean, trivial and grotesque. It is she, coming to join the sabbath ... a roar of joy at her arrival. She takes part in the devilish orgy--funeral knell--burlesque parody of the Dies irae--sabbath round-dance--the sabbath round-dance and the Dies irae combined."

Feed me the ROCK(maninov)

Just had the pleasure of watching a friend perform this riveting piece:



Also, for you DC concert goers, or anyone in DC looking to become a concert goer in an affordable way BUY THIS GROUPON TODAY!!!!  http://www.groupon.com/deals/nso-jfk-center

It's three concerts for a total of $75.  That's a hell of a deal!  If you need figuring out which ones to go to you know who to ask:)

Fellow enthusiasts of music, I call on you to help preserve the legacy of Charles Ives whom we discussed in this post if you feel so compelled:

Here is a petition to immortalize his house in CT.

And for your troubles here is Ives' musical interpretation of some of that sweet, sweet New England territory:

MURDA!!!

GESUALDO - biggest hardass in music.  Murdered his wife and her lover, wrote music centuries ahead of its time, spent the last 16 years of his life secluded in his castle employing a team to physically torture him.  WTF

This video courtesy of Jon Quirk, a badass in his own right.

Back to Beethoven

So, we can all hum the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth symphony, but why is it really so important and well remembered?

The piece was revolutionary in several different ways:

Compositionaly it was the first symphony ever to have one movement lead directly into the next.  The transition between the third and forth movements is one seamless gust which served as a precedent for symphonic cohesion for centuries to come.  Additionally, the connecting passage between the movements was the first such passage ever to bring the orchestra from a dynamic marking of ppp to fff so quickly.  In layman's terms that means it gets REALLY loud REALLY fast.  Here's the forth movement in all of its Indiana Jones inspiring glory:



Those with a little more music theory experience may notice that the tonal center is basically moving from V to I over and over again creating a sense of finality and triumph.  This symphony represents triumph over fate.

Orchestrally this was the first symphony whose score includes any of the following instruments: piccolo, contra-bassoon, trombone. Beethoven simply needed more power than the traditional orchestra could offer so he did what any visionary would and broke the rules.

Many have argued that the fifth symphony is actually the beginning of the Romantic period (I would say it's probably his third symphony). Whether or not that is the case, until Beethoven's works symphonies were often a total of 15 minutes in length (that's right folks, classical music has not always dragged on for hours!), but in many Beethoven Symphonies each movement alone is more than 15 minutes. Sheesh.

Brohann Sebastian Bach

What a hardass:

"In the summer of 1705, [Bach] got into a brawl with a student named Geyersbach. Geyersbach had insulted Bach's musical abilities and began to threaten him with a stick. Bach then reportedly called Geyersbach a "nanny-goat bassoonist" and Geyersbach retorted that Bach was a "dirty dog" and took a swing at him. Bach drew his sword, but Geyersbach jumped on him, making swordfighting impossible, and they fought until other students were able to break them apart. Later in the year, Bach was given four weeks leave to study the vocal music of Dietrich Buxtehude Another legend claims that Bach walked the entire 200 miles to Lьbeck for these studies. The four week leave actually turned into four months, which did not please Bach's superiors. Also, the new musical techniques that Bach picked up did not go over well and rumors were spread about his impropriety with a young woman. He eventually left this poor situation to take a job in Mьlhausen in June of 1707."

And some excellent quotes:

Beethoven:

"Only the pure at heart can make a good soup."

"Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken."

Elvis:

 I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

Mahler:

"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music."


Stravinsky:

"A good composer does not imitate; he steals"

 And now, perhaps you can tell me if this is music...

 

Some enchanting music to start your week off right:

A new take on something you've heard before:



From the Jim Henson movie "Mirror Mask"

Something classical which will make you want to conquer dragons (if you listen to the whole thing)!



And this is how I spent my Sunday:



Have a nice day - you'll be hearing from me soon...

Original Classical Music by Peter Valente

Unless

Overview: “Unless” is based on the children’s book “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss. “The Lorax” deals with themes of natural beauty and the destruction thereof at the hands of consumerism and capitalism. “Unless” is my translation of the book - at some points literal and exact, at others loose and impressionistic - into a musical medium. The message put forth in “The Lorax” was particularly poignant to me during the composition of “Unless” because I wrote the piece in 2009/2010 (without access to a piano) while living on the Pacific island of Pohnpei; Pohnpei is a place of immeasurable natural beauty which is currently facing the deleterious social and environmental effects of an imported, money-driven culture. Below is a cursory walk-through of the seven movements in the suite.  I do hope you make it all the way to the bottom, it is worth it (because some movements are wild and others conventional).

The Street of the Lifted – mirrors the eerie opening of the book in which the narrator finds himself walking through an inexplicably desolate world. This movement establishes the key of the Onceler as B minor.

Playing, Singing, Humming pt. 1 – represents the untouched natural world of the trees, bears, swans, and fish, each of which has its theme introduced here. With the exception of the tree theme, the natural themes are in two flats – a key which opposes that of the Onceler. The twinge of melancholy at the beginning of the movement derives from the fact that it is the Onceler who is regretfully whispering the story.

Brownish, Mossy, Sharpish, and Bossy (suggested listening given time constraints) – contrasts the other movements in that rather than representing a specific point in the book, it represents one particular character’s journey from when he is introduced until he leaves at the end of the book. That character is the Lorax himself. The Lorax’s key signature is clear – no flats or sharps. As he is the sole mediator between nature and the Onceler, his key signature is exactly between the two. The downward run at the beginning of the movement is the first tree being chopped and crashing to the ground. The chords that follow show the Lorax springing forth from the stump. Towards the middle of the piece the listener hears many trees of the forest falling one after another. The final section prominently features a C-sharp and is hinted at earlier in the movement. It represents the Lorax flying away in the end of the book. In the final movement this episode is respelled, again using the C-sharp to show the Lorax flying away.

Without a Face – is a musical snapshot of the frenetic whirlwind which follows the Onceler’s business activities. In the book, the more the Onceler establishes his factories, the more the once peaceful landscape becomes a torrent of traffic and machinery. The many shifts within this movement help to evoke a feeling of instability. The movement begins in the key of the Onceler, but modulates a tritone away before returning. The rhythmic feel and textural style are also subject to unsettling fluctuation.

Playing, Singing, Humming pt. 2 – presents the tragedy that has befallen the once idyllic natural world. In the book the creatures are forced, one by one, to leave their old habitat; In this movement the once cheerful themes of the creatures are one by one turned to minor tonalities. In some cases the accompaniment has been changed to a more modern, almost bluesy feel so that it can be said that modernization itself has distorted the themes. Throughout the movement the tree theme is heard, but only the first three notes. Over and over again the three eighth notes at octaves are heard, but never once the entire theme. Only stumps remain, and they are scattered everywhere. Listen for the influence of Santigold!

Speak Truth to Power – describes the futile conversation between the Lorax and the Onceler. The key signature is one sharp which is right between those of the two characters. The piece is jarring, mechanical, and unyielding. In measures 13-25 the main themes from the third and forth movements are woven into the right hand creating an intercourse between the music of the Lorax and that of the Onceler. At the end of the movement the falling of the last tree is heard. Listen for the influence of Nine Inch Nails!

Unless – is a short, serene picture of the end of the book, fraught with tinges of melancholy. The form of the movement can be broken down into a simple ABAB'. The B section (m. 13-15) represents the Lorax flying away and thus contains the C-sharp from the end of the third movement. The B' section (m. 30-36) represents the seed at the end of the book which the Onceler gives to the narrator, and the hope for which that seed stands.

And that's where it stands, hope you enjoyed...

Nick's Picks - Volume I

Happy Monday and welcome to the first edition of "Nick's Picks" in which I will be exploring - in classical terms - a piece of electronic music of Nick's (Nick Valente aka Rex Riot) choice. This week's pick: Tommy's Theme by Noisia.

The first section (or as the classical folks are fond of calling it: the exposition) runs from 0:00 to 1:05. We will call this section A.  We can break the A down into two main parts and a codetta (return to the home key after the exposition). The first main part of the A section we will call a repeats four chords - C#minor, A, F#minor, G#minor - the entire time.  While there is no further harmonic development within a, almost every iteration of the four chords ushers in a new voice.  Plucked (pizzicato) strings with drums, synths, hi-hats, basses.

At 0:39, the key and instrumentation both change. This is b.  The same four chord progression is played but this time it sounds three semitones higher, or in the key of E minor. It becomes E minor, C, A minor, B.  This key change on its own would create a striking shift in atmosphere, but Noisia couples it with the addition of a choral melody to beautiful effect.

From 0:51 to 1:05 there is a string codetta.

The next section we can call B.  While no new harmonic material is introduced, Noisia makes this section as distinct as can be from the previous section through the use of timbre. Also, the iterations of four chords from the a and b sections only occur twice each before switching and each progression is played three times in the B section.  So you can break it down as a'b'a'b'a'b' with a' and b' being variations of a and b.

At 2:22 A returns.  It is repeated from the exposition but shortened to create symmetry with the B sections.

At about 3:00 B' is heard and lasts until the Coda at 4:20.

Simple right?  It's the timbre that makes all the difference.  It would be hard to play this song on guitar and keep it interesting the whole time because it's just the same two sets of chords repeated over and over.  That said, the amount of energy which went into the creation of these specific timbres is what makes the piece great.

Alcohol + Pete + Shostakovich = ?

 I came home drunk last night (this morning) and wrote a brief diatribe on twentieth century symphony then somehow had the sense not to post it... And now in the clear light of sobriety I change my mind. Enjoy:)

"Dude, Here’s the thing with a lot of the twentieth century composers of classical music. They were in such a mood of  “my art is so damn brilliant you can’t even understand” that part of the era’s aesthetic became being really unintelligible. So you take something like Mahler or Shostakovich and listen to his symphonies and you realize that when he rails hard in that music he fucking rails SO hard, but then when he goes off the deep end and gets all introspective he goes so far beyond what’s cool to anyone but himself.  Like take Shostakovich 8^th symphony: I guarantee that this piece would absolutely dominate your mind if you sat down and really engaged your ears and brain with the entire thing, but I also guarantee you wont even be able to stay awake until that point because there’s so much ‘weird’ shit that would bore you before then.  It’s like there was Penderecki and there was Shoenburg and this is what falls inbeetween. Same goes for Mahler, if you can make it all the way through one of his symphonies to the epic finale scherzo movement it will blow your mind, but I guarantee you you WONT make it all the way through.  He has a symphony where it's written in the score that the horn players fucking stand up in the finale so that they can have maximum force. like a boss..   BUT the thing with Shostakovic is that he had to play the delicate balancing act between appealing to Stalin’s taste and appealing to the peoples’ taste and that balancing act became an art in itself."

The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

Theme And Variations

      This piece by Frederic Rzewski is a flamboyant example of the "theme and variations" form.  There is the initial stated theme (at 0:43 after he finishes thoroughly adjusting the sheet music), and then several variations of that theme follow.  This is not quite the same type of theme and variations that would be heard in Mozart's day, in the modern era composers are able to take many more liberties with their variations. In the following video variations begin at 0:54, 1:23, then a transition from 1:51 to 2:00 and into a violent variation which lasts until 2:12 when an airy, abstract variation takes over and so forth... see if you can follow along.



     This form always makes me think of the forth movement of Brahms' forth symphony which follows the form: passacaglia.  A passacaglia is similar to a theme and variations; A simple bassline is stated, then repeats throughout the entirety of the piece while the accompaniment changes.  I have posted this piece before but here it is again... try to hear the repetition in the bass as stated by the low brass in the beginning.

Max Richter and Subtle use of Electronics

First of all listen to this gorgeous menage:



Second, here's an example of a piece which must be considered classical but which employs a very tasteful use of electronics:

A couple treats to chew on :)

This piece by Alfred Schnittke may at first sound like the thousands of other hymns you have heard in your life, but really turn on your ears and engage your brain on this one and you will find something more. This is a lesson on harmony.  Harmony is combination of tones.  Listen to the chords, the tones which sound together are not the same major and minor chords we usually hear in classical music, and furthermore the progression of chords and the cadences (where the progressions end up) stand apart from much of what you may have grown up singing in church... ENJOY!

For contrast, a good excersise would be to listen to 30 seconds or so of the first, then spend the same amount of time on this more "traditional" hymn and see if you can hear the difference.

On Timbre - A Treatise

   

     Today we discuss the one concept which has its grip so tightly locked around modern music that it will define this era when considered in retrospect by scholars in centuries to come.  That concept is called "timbre."  This post is very long and comprehensive, but it is without question the most important post thus far and those who can find the time to absorb it will reap great benefits.

Timbre - In simple terms, timbre is what makes a particular musical sound different from another, even when they have the same pitch and loudness.

     That is the most straightforward definition I can find online.  Timbre is the quality of a sound.  It is the difference between the sound of my voice singing middle C and a trumpet playing middle C and a violin playing middle C.

     A friend once asked me pessimistically "Where are the musical geniuses of today? Why is there no living Bach or Mozart or Beethoven?"  One has only to look in the right places to find them...

A Brief Historical Overview:

 

      Throughout the history of Western Classical music the pendulum of aesthetic preference has swung back and forth between the intellectual and the emotional, the contrived and the primal, brain music and heart music.  This undulation has been steadily accelerating.  Of course in every era the greatest masters are those able to bridge the gap and uncompromisingly fulfill both sides of the musical spectrum.

    In the Baroque era (approx. 1600-1750) the defining musical concept was counterpoint.  Composers like Bach relied on counterpoint to get their emotive messages across to listeners.  To generalize, there were essentially two dynamics (loud and soft), and everything ended with a major key cadence.  The baroque era was characterized by outlandish sorties into uncharted and emotionally rich, dissonant harmonic grounds.  Heart music.  It is no wonder that the work of J.S.Bach stands out from this era as particularly masterful because his scores were also so intellectually rigorous that a student of music can find enjoyment in them with only her or his eyes.

     The classical era (1750-1827) ushered in many new musical structures and arrangement styles.  Categories like "Symphony" and "String Quartet" became crystallized by Haydn and Mozart and adherence was paid to rules of key and modulation and tonal centers... Long story short the emphasis was on structure and form.  The classical period was one which emphasized the intellectual side of the music which is probably why Beethoven's temperamental style pushed the genre beyond its former limits.  Fun fact, the term "scherzo" now widely used to describe a fast, stylized dance movement really means "joke."  It originated when Haydn would make sections at the end of his string quartets which sounded like several fake endings before the piece actually died.  There are accounts of players sight reading these pieces for the first time and bursting out laughing because they found the false endings so funny!  Example.

     Beethoven is either seen as the end of the classical period or the beginning of the Romantic period (My favorite of periods).  I date the Romantic period from 1800-1900.   The music of this period is characterized by sweeping melodies and more developed, daring harmonies.  The guiding/defining musical concept was harmony and melody of course continued to develop and play a great role in shaping the music.  Composers began stepping outside of the traditional structures and experimenting with all of the harmonic tools at their disposal to evoke great emotion.  Less importance was placed on adherence to strict rules of form and structure.  The term "Romantic" does not refer to romantic love, but to the expressionism and passion ubiquitous in art of the era.  Heart music.

     The late 1800s and early 1900s saw the birth of impressionism.  Composers such as Debussy began experimenting with scales and harmonies outside of the usual major and minor.  By definition, impressionistic music is highly personal and left up to the listener's interpretation, rather than being explicit and striving to reach a universal emotive standard like the music of Romanticism.  It is about the listener's individual impression rather than the composer's universal expression.   This lead into Atonal and 12 tone serial music.  Schoenburg and his followers created a system which treats each of the twelve tones equally and therefore has no key and some would say no emotive content... very few people find enjoyment from listening to 12 tone serial music, but occasionally scholars will sit down and examine the musical scores and figure out the intricate patterns of notes.  Mind music.

A quick, colorful intro to 12 tone serial music:



     Why waste all that breath on the past?  In the 20th century, classical music splintered and with the advent of new recording and communication technology music took several new directions.  I trace one more general pendulum swing to heart music and back before we arrive at the present but music has taken so many divergent paths that it becomes more difficult to generalize.  HOWEVER the point of looking at past eras is to determine the musical characteristics which drove the creative and musical evolution of the times.  Obviously Rhythm and Melody came as soon as we began banging sticks on things and singing, then counterpoint, structure, harmony, even mathematical purity have all had their time as the driving forces in music.


What drives music today? What is the force which pushes it along and separates this from other eras? Where is all of today's genius focused?

TIMBRE

     With the technological explosion of the past twenty to thirty years, our capabilities of making new sounds have become virtually limitless.  On top of other obvious benefits, electronic media allow composers to hear what they produce as they produce it; the equivalent would be having an orchestra with you at all times while composing a symphony so that you could constantly tweak the sound to perfection.  The great parallel between classical composition and electronic composition is that both require the mental task of manipulating notes on a canvas (page or computer screen) to be performed by someone else.  As far as the skill sets go, the two are no different from one another.  The main distinction is that it is a lot easier in this day and age to come across a computer program which will play your music than it is an orchestra.  I say with %100 certainty that if Beethoven were alive today he would be producing electronic music.  

     Those who claim that music is not developing, or that it is getting dumbed down, are not observing just how far the quality of recorded sound has come in mere decades.  Just because a piece repeats the same chords over and over again doesn't mean that the engineering of the sound carries no intellectual weight.  That said, the best artists are always those who integrate the common trends with a more timeless sensibility in regards to musical balance.

     Obviously nobody can say definitively who the greatest musician alive is, but if you ask me it's Richard D. James. This was my answer when my friend asked where all the modern geniuses had gone.  James accomplished things with electronic media twenty years ago which current musicians are still hard-pressed to replicate.  His work has shaped modern classical, popular, and electronic music and left a lasting impact on today's creative paradigm.  Here is an electronic piece of his produced more than fifteen years ago, and here is a more classical piece of his from the same album.  ALL of the glitched out mind-dance music (even some of the Brittany tracks I've heard recently) you have ever heard has in some way been influenced by James, he is the pioneer.


Then why hasn't he been recognized as such by the classical community? 
     He has.  The BBC and other orchestras have recorded orchestral versions of several of his pieces. Composers such as Stockhausen were openly influenced by his work.

Here's a great remix he did combining composer Philip Glass's "Heroes" with David Bowie's "Heroes"



Creepy.

     The electronic musicians are not the only ones, though, to discover the power of new timbres.   Many contemporary classical composers are venturing into uncharted sonic territories (as seen in the video at the top of the post).  Across the board, Timbre is the edge, the frontier in musical evolution today, and in the history books you can bet it will be the characteristic by which this era in music is remembered.   Where do we go from here?  Remember, the great composers are those who are able to use the current creative discoveries outside of the limited context of the current trends.  We are already seeing a dialogue between classical and electronics; classical music's evolution comes when the timbrel tools of today are seamlessly incorporated into the rich tradition which has been passed to us over hundreds of years in written notation.


It's beginning to happen:






An interesting phenomenon has cropped up with classical musicians performing renditions of electronic music... since they don't have the same tools of timbre they are forced to take their own liberties with the arrangements to make up for it.  Take this piano version of "Blood Red" by Feed Me:





In order to honor the value of contemporary music's contribution to the Western Classical tradition, from here on out Friday will be Nick's Picks day in which my brother Nick Rex "Riot" Valente chooses one electronic piece which I will dissect from a classical standpoint.  Nick is a prolific electronic musician whose album "Beyond" is out today on Play Me Too Records.

BOOM!