Images Without Meaning

I'm sure that you know what karaoke is ... pre-recorded music for which some talented or courageous or drunken person supplies the missing vocals.  Not being either courageous or talented, I would never try karaoke.

You might also know what Music Minus One is.  It's a company which provides "participatory" recordings.  Those have recorded with some important element omitted, like a solo part, so that a student or other instrumentalist who can't yet afford to hire her own orchestra can play along with the real thing.  When I was in college I had a MMO recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.

I created a music video over the weekend.  Like karaoke and MMO, this piece lacks one important element which it needs to be a complete experience.  I'm leaving it up to the listener to provide that one element: the meaning.

Okay - music is by nature abstract and doesn't need meaning.  I've done my best not to give any external clues - like lyrics or program notes or a descriptive title.

I have provided, via video, some images to watch as the music plays.  Alas, these images were selected without regard for their meaning.  They also have nothing to do with one another.

The images are:

• four slightly swaying roses against a blue sky somewhere in Pasadena
• part of a fiber optic art work at the Huntington Library
• steps of a moving escalator reflected in its shiny metal side panel 
• the shadow of a tree on the USC campus as it blows in the wind as seen through a venetian blind
• water droplets landing in a Monterey Park fountain to which someone had thoughtfully added soap 
• a tree reflected in the lake at the Chinese Garden, also at the Huntington.

My up-tempo music clearly has nothing to do with these images.  The music does manage to make transitions somewhat in sync with the changing images and it's as close to rock and roll as I'm likely to ever write.  Not very close.

Images Without Meaning  © 2014 by David Ocker 190 seconds

Let your imagination run wild.  If you're the sort of person who makes up stories to fit the music you hear, or if you create your own mental images of music, and if this piece produces such creativity in you, please feel free to share in the comments.  Leslie, who already heard the music, said that she was expecting MONSTERS.

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The William Bell Overture (Jingle Tells)

Traditions are a bitch.

I've created some traditions while writing this blog and these have become my own little bitches.  I'm completely responsible for them.  No one else will celebrate them for me.  They're my personal sacred rituals.  Obsessive compulsions.  They demand fulfillment.  They will be served.  If I miss a year, these observances will haunt me for ignoring them.  I just know it.

One such Mixed Meters tradition is the yearly Jingle Bells piece.  These have taken various forms since 2006.  I take pride in making each new one as different and unexpected as possible.  As this autumn wore on, closer and closer to the winter solstice, I searched for a musical idea which would be both new, to me at least, and also include the trope known as Jingle Bells.

At one point I was driving while thinking on this issue.  The announcer of our local classical radio station introduced the overture to Gioachino Rossini's final opera William Tell.

If you had been with me in the car you might have seen the proverbial compact florescent bulb light up over my head.  I had had an idea: I could combine the music of the William Tell Overture with the melody of Jingle Bells.  I knew instantly that this idea would work.

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Ideas are a bitch.

At least the good ideas are.  I suspect that is how you know that an idea is a good one, by how it behaves.  Bitchy ideas, like bitchy traditions, will grab your brain with their soft little fingers and not let go.  Later, if your final product is not good, blame will not rest with the idea.  The culprit will obviously have been an insufficiently talented composer.  Good ideas, by definition, are blameless.

Here is a video about an artist who has been very successful in the art of having ideas (John Baldessari) narrated by a musician with the most gravel-toned voice (Tom Waits).  Why am I including it here?  Because much of the soundtrack is from the William Tell Overture.  Duh.  (Fun video.)

You might already know the William Tell Overture.  It is the epitome of a music appreciation course curriculum, a classical warhorse, a trite chestnut, a hackneyed tone painting that needs no description because it describes itself.  I bet it would be hard to find someone so musically illiterate, so tone deaf that they can't hear the musical depictions of a storm, birds singing or horses galloping.

The last section - the horse business - now apparently known to online music databases as "the finale from the William Tell Overture" - was for decades the theme of a radio and television show called The Lone Ranger.  That's how a bit of the opera William Tell, part and parcel of the European white-guy classical music canon, became an inextricable element of American culture.

The overwhelming majority of Americans have no interest in Italian operas written in 1829 about sharpshooter Swiss patriots.  Heck, most Americans have no interest in the first half of the overture, the part which doesn't sound like a horse.  Most Americans are not fans of classical music.

Classical audiences do seem to enjoy having a laugh at the expense of their favorite music.  People like Gerard Hoffnung, Victor Borge, Peter Schickele and Igudesman and Joo have given them the chance.  It's gotten to the point where making fun of classical music has its own long and hallowed tradition.

Another famous musical comedian, Spike Jones, didn't play to a classical audience the way the others did.  He played to a pop audience who actually were familiar with some of the classics.  I guess times have changed.  Here's his classic William Tell parody:

Apparently the tradition lives on elsewhere.  I discovered this on YouTube:

Here's a fun anecdote, found in the L.A. Times, about Arnold Schoenberg and the Lone Ranger:

Nonetheless, Schoenberg adapted to California life with surprising ease: He listened to UCLA football on the radio, wore wacky polka-dot ties and once made fun of a student's composition by galloping around the room and shouting "Hi-yo, Silver!"

And here's an article about a major orchestra performing live during a horse race.  Can you guess which piece they programmed?

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Meanwhile of course there's also Jingle Bells.  It is only a few decades younger than the William Tell Overture - but still pretty old and even more a part of our culture.

I was sitting in our backyard a few weeks ago reading.  We live on a corner so that there's a sidewalk on the other side of the hedge.  People walk up and down but can't see into our yard.  As I was reading I could hear a young girl's voice.  She was singing Jingle Bells to herself as she walked down the street.  She seemed very happy.

Her happiness now is the formative stage of her Christmas nostalgia later in life.  Nostalgia is powerful magic and seems like an essential part of both Christmas music and Classical music.  Here's the definition of nostalgia:

a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations

Nostalgia is what advertisers evoke when they use Christmas music to sell us stuff.  Someday that girl will wonder why she can be manipulated into spending money so easily when she hears Jingle Bells and other Christmas tunes.

Here is Jingle Bells being used to sell sexy underwear for men.  I'm guessing that this ad is designed to convince mostly women, not men, to buy these as gifts.

Here's a chart (from here) which encapsulates the interaction of the Christmas music industry with Baby Boomers' nostalgia for their childhoods.

The Baby Boomer part of the hypothesis is probably wrong simply because everyone, not just Boomers, has nostalgia.  These songs have been part of every subsequent generation's childhood.  Still, for all the harm we Boomers have actually done to our society over the last few decades, we might as well take responsibility for screwing up Christmas music too.

One thing to remember about these twenty songs is that they are all under copyright.  Someone - probably big corporations - owns them.  The corporations receive money each time they are played. It would not be surprising to learn that the same corporations own many of the radio stations surveyed for the data behind this chart.

The William Tell Overture and Jingle Bells are still in the public domain.  I expect Disney Corporation is probably busy trying to bribe congress into changing that.  Until they succeed, however, I am free to combine those tunes in any manner I want and even claim my own copyright over the result.

What I have actually done is to make an "arrangement".  My William Bell Overture (or you can call it Jingle Tells if that pleases you) is not really an original David Ocker composition.  Younger generations might prefer to call it some sort of old-fashioned classical music mash-up.  Science Fiction geeks might enjoy the image of creating a hideous musical mutant by splicing the melodic genes of Jingle Bells into the harmonic and formal structures of William Tell.

Whatever name you give the final piece, my original idea did in fact turn out to be a bitch.  And I have managed to celebrate another year of my personal, bitchy holiday tradition.  Also, please forgive the cheap synthetic orchestra sound.

Click here to hear The William Bell Overture (Jingle Tells) - © 2013 by David Ocker 390 seconds

I do sort of wish that I had waited a few more days before starting on this project.  I might have come up with a better idea.

P.S. There is no truth to the rumor that this piece was once entitled "I Saw the Lone Ranger Kissing Santa Claus".

Not A Happy Camper

Here are four things I guess you need to know about my piece entitled Not A Happy Camper.  Or not.

1) The title is misleading. Any notion of sadness or self-pity or uncomfortable overnight woodland sleepovers, things you might rationally expect from music entitled Not A Happy Camper, are totally missing from the music.  I chose the title the first time I saved the computer file.  That was way back, last December.  I must have had my reasons for calling it that - although I no longer can remember them.  It's possible I was in fact not a happy camper for some reason.  I certainly have been N.A.H.C. on occasion since, like when I lost all the hearing in my left ear (which is mostly back now).

Anyway - in December I wrote about three minutes of music and then I stopped.  Recently I decided to finish the piece.  No better title has suggested itself.  Or maybe I didn't bother to think about it enough.  And besides, there is a sort of tradition here at Mixed Meters of sticking with the original title/filename no matter what  happens (although usually that trick only applies to much shorter pieces).

2) After about two minutes the music is high-jacked by a famous 19th-Century French Spanish orchestral warhorse.   Everything starts off innocently enough, a cheap minimalist run-on sixteenth note feel - the kind of thing computers do really well but human performers can't keep up with.  Then all of a sudden, more or less, it veers into far left field with quote after quote from that famous piece, a wildly inappropriate sequitur to what I'd already written.

Some of you might recognize the high-jack music as a staple of symphonic pops concerts of your youth.  For the rest of you, not knowing what it is won't really matter much.   I will say that this: although most of 19th-century musical repertoire bores me to tears these days this particular piece still holds an ember of my interest.  There's a certain mysterious aura thanks to metrical ambiguity and surprising interruptions of the melodic flow.

3)  A wah-wah tuba often sounds like a bassoon.  I've used the same effect in other recent pieces, such as this one or this other one.  Basically, the sound of a tuba, as generated inside my computer (by a program called a sampler) is funneled through a band pass filter, which modifies the timbre of the sound.  Technical terms.  The filter is controlled directly from the music notation using MIDI commands.

Electric guitars are famous for having wah-wah sounds, often controlled by a foot pedal.  Unlike an electric guitar  you couldn't have an effective real-life wah-wah tuba because there's no way to suppress the actual acoustic sound of the instrument.  With a computer such bizarre things become possible.  You can decide for yourself if they're desirable.

4).  Not A Happy Camper is not my wackiest piece ever.  In my opinion that honor still belongs with this particular craziness.  Other nominees up for the award are here or there.   "There" has an even whackier sequel.

Click here to hear Not A Happy Camper, © 2013 by David Ocker - 413 seconds.

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Not A Happy Tagger: 3 Minute Climax. . . Emmanuel Chabrier. . . Espana

Who Cares If You Listen

Milton Babbitt probably did care if you listened. He didn't choose the title of his famous article called "Who Cares If You Listen".  (Read it here if you care.)

I actually don't care if you listen to my music.  Go ahead listen.   Or not.  It's your choice entirely.  The music is there if you want to play it.

Caring whether you listen or not tends to make me feel bad.  I know this from experience.

It should not be surprising that feeling bad is something I try to avoid.  I write music because it makes me feel good. Why should I do anything to turn a feel-good experience into a feel-bad one?  That would be really dumb.  Spending my time writing music is dumb enough.

Click here to hear Who Cares If You Listen - © 2013 by David Ocker - 165 seconds

Who Cares If You Listen is one of those perpetual motion pieces that sound good on a computer but are really hard to perform.  There's lots of percussion.  If you DO listen you could listen for the "Who Cares If You Listen" theme.

It happens several times in the middle section.  Try singing along.

There's also a moment in Who Cares If You Listen when two mystery instruments enter very briefly.  Extra credit for the first person to identify those sounds.

Do Not Remove Tags: Who Cares If You Listen. . . David Ocker. . . 3 Minute Climax

Jinglemonics

As my contribution to home front morale in the continuing War Against Christmas this is the first of two musical offerings - the annual Mixed Meters composition based on the familiar pagan hymn Jingle Bells.

This 2012 opus is entitled Jinglemonics (a made-up word with no previous Google search results).  The title alludes to the prominent use of the band-pass filter which gives a general feeling of cheap electronica music.  Enjoy.

Click here to hear Jinglemonics - © 2012 by David Ocker, 247 seconds

And while I'm on the subject of Mixed Meters' Christmas Memes (starting in 2006), it does seem that the notion of Christmas Penguins is slowly starting to disappear.  Sure, I still notice them but they're not nearly so common as in previous years.

I found this set of used Christmas Penguin Salt and Pepper Shakers in a second hand store in San Juan Bautista California.  Just where you'd expect to find them.

Are you wondering what, 'xactly, a "Christmas Penguin" is?  Basically it is any depiction of a penguin in a scarf or winter hat especially if it's intended as a cute allusion to seasonal cold weather.  Extra points if the penguin is shown near a polar bear, igloo, moose, Santa Claus or other icon peculiar to the Northern Hemisphere.  It's a geography thing.

See bunches of previous Mixed Meters' Christmas Penguin pictures.


Harmonic Tags: 3 Minute Climax. . . Jingle Bells. . . Christmas Penguins

A Terrific Soporific

A Terrific Soporific is a piano piece.  I've added a critical review directly into the title.  You must use your own judgement to decide if the review is accurate.  Please try to stay awake.

One night, last week, I was really tired.  I should have gone to bed.   Instead I began this piece.  When I finished the first section I added another contrasting section.  Then, for reasons beyond my ken, I composed a four-voice fugue.  The fugue ballooned to nearly half the piece.  There's a coda too, if you care.

So, the form of this piece might be called "Prelude and Prelude and Fugue".  In this day and age a fugue will put anyone to sleep.

I've written a couple fugues before, long ago, but never one with four voices. By and large, the rules were followed - at least the rules I could remember.  I included lots of strettos.  This is the most chromatic music I have ever written.

Most likely this fugue, just like any other fugue, will remind you of J.S. Bach. The first theme of the fugue is a rip-off of Bach.  Later, there's another theme that is Bach.

Click here to hear A Terrific Soporific by David Ocker - © 2012 David Ocker 464 seconds

If you need help remembering what a fugue is or if some visuals would help you follow the different voices or if you relate more to young music students than to aging baby boomers like myself, maybe this video will be more interesting.  It's also Bach.

Thanks to OboeInsight, the blog where I encountered this video.

I Couldn't Sleep is another recent piano piece of mine with a title that references somnolence.

More information than you care to know about fugues.

I found  quotes about Bach.  Here are a few I liked:

Sun Ra:

Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.

Charles Mingus:

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

Xavier Cugat:

I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.

Isaac Mizrahi:

If you try to have a fashion show with Bach fugues and John Coltrane, it doesn't really work.

Stretto Tags: prelude and fugue. . . Bach. . . piano music. . . David Ocker

I Couldn't Sleep

Yesterday, after eating dinner on the seventh level of hell (which, to be fair, featured several very tasty salsas), I fell asleep in the overstuffed chair in my office. A couple of hours later, I awoke, still very sleepy. Just couldn't keep my eyes open.

So ... I went to bed.

Of course, once in bed I couldn't fall asleep again. I spent a tossing and turning hour during which I began to imagine little flurries of piano notes.  Finally I got up, went to the computer and started composing.

I called the piano music I Couldn't Sleep.

Listen to I Couldn't Sleep
© 2012 by David Ocker - 197 seconds

Another of my pieces, much weirder and more complex, also uses piano sounds: Oil and Water Mix


Sleep Tags: sleep. . . piano. . . 3 Minute Climax

Bernie Madoff's Golden Parachute

Bernie Madoff's Golden Parachute is a piece of my music.  You don't have to read about it.  Just click here to listen to Bernie Madoff's Golden Parachute right now.

Bernie Madoff might be the biggest crook in the history of the world. He created a ponzi scheme masquerading as a Wall Street brokerage house which stole as much as $20 Billion and might have been going on nearly 40 years. He was arrested in 2008 when the recent "George Bush" recession made it impossible for him to keep robbing Peter to pay Paul. Madoff realized that the jig was up and confessed to his sons.  They turned him in.  Six prior investigations by the SEC had failed to notice that anything was wrong.

A Golden Parachute is severance pay for corporate executives.  When a CEO is fired they often receive such a payout.  This is irrespective of how well they did their job.   Here's a list of the largest-ever golden parachutes.  It includes Angelo Mozilo (who was accused of insider trading during the recent mortgage bubble; he got $44 million), Michael Ovitz ($130 million for working just a few months) and Michael Eisner (who collected a $1 Billion bonus for making Disney strong enough to control U.S. copyright legislation.)

I don't know whether Bernie Madoff had a formal golden parachute agreement with his company.  If he did it wasn't worth the paper it was written on because after his conviction he had to forfeit all his  wealth.  Since he knew full well that what he was doing was illegal it's doubtful that he expected to retire with the same level of comfort and splendor in which he lived.

Still, Bernie Madoff lived the good life while he could.  I've seen estimates that his fortune was around $800 million.  He lived in a New York penthouse.  He created a philanthropic family foundation and gave money away to charities.  After his conviction he was sent to prison in North Carolina.  He'll be eligible for parole in 2139 (when he's 201 years old).

America likes its criminals.  We often celebrate their stories with works of art - mostly movies and television shows these days.  Jesse James, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde - the list of hero/crooks is a long one.  Makers of such entertainment must cover their ass morally by making sure the bad guys die at the end (or at least go to prison).  Of course to be popular these stories must have a great deal of action including chases, gunplay, daring heists and sanitized love-making.

In comparison, Bernie Madoff's story is a yawn.  In this age, when the "greed is good" philosophy is no longer even slightly controversial, the tale of how one boring guy in a suit sat in an office and quietly stole a pile money beyond the dreams of even the most avaricious thief, might actually sell lots of movie tickets.  Bernie Madoff Gets Rich could be just as popular as the movie about Facebook.

The plot of the Bernie Madoff story will seem familiar to opera fans.  It's Faust by Charles Gounod.  Bernie plays the part of Faust himself (although his victims might think of him more as the Devil).  In the beginning Bernie/Faust, of his own free will, makes a deal with Mephistopheles and is rewarded with riches and other perqs.  But the deal is good only for a limited time only.  After that, the devil claims the hero's soul and sends him to Hell. 

Being sent to Hell is Faust's own golden parachute.  And Bernie's too.  These days many of us don't believe in a actual physical post-death fire and brimstone eternal torment.  Being sent to prison in North Carolina for the rest of our natural lives, however, is a pretty darn good substitute. 

I wonder how many Americans would make the same deal with the Devil that Bernie made: trading a few years in prison for decades of wealth, influence and notoriety.

Listen to Bernie Madoff's Golden Parachute © 2011 David Ocker - 149 seconds

Here's a WSJ article about what Bernie's life is like in prison.  He is Inmate No. 61727-054 at Butner Federal Prison

There are many variations of the Faust legend - not just operas. Read more about them here.

Madoff Tags: Bernie Madoff. . . white collar crime. . . Faust

Oily Sheen

Some of the video shots which I make with the "point-n-shoot in my pocket" just demand to have music added to them.  This is one of those.

It was a rainy day in Pasadena.  I was walking along Lake Avenue where I encountered a large puddle at the entrance to a super market parking lot.  The puddle had formed because of a stopped-up drain.  On the water's surface there was a little oil from which light reflected.

As I filmed,  a car passed through the puddle and then someone walked right in front of my camera.  The car created waves which are what the piece is really about, I guess.  I edited the person's legs out completely.

Oily Sheen © 2011 David Ocker - 139 seconds

One of my previous video pieces was filmed on the same block, across the street. Here's that one as well:

(Sometimes I Feel Like A) Newspaper In Traffic © 2010 David Ocker - 99 seconds (click the title to see the original post)


Another Mixed Meters "oil and water" reference is my "piano" piece entitled Oil and Water Mix. No video there, just music.  That piece is 666 seconds long.

Oily Tags: Oily Sheen. . . water video. . . oil and water

A Combination of Jingle Bells and The Internationale

Mixed Meters returns to the airwaves with my Jingle Bells-related musical offering for the 2009 holiday season. Listen to A Combination of Jingle Bells and The Internationale by clicking here.  Or keep reading.

It has become a yearly Mixed Meters holiday tradition to compose and post a piece of music based on Jingle Bells.  The previous pieces are

• Jingle Bulls (read or listen) 2006, 231 sec.
• Jungle Bells (read or listen) 2006, 209 sec.
• Jingle Bills (read and listen) 2007, 30 sec.
• One Note Open Sleigh (read and listen) 2008, 38 sec.

Why Jingle Bells?  Because it's simple, everyone can identify it instantly and it has an unassailable association with our greatest annual holiday of corporate marketing and excess consumption.

Why Christmas?  Because, as a non-Christian, every year Christmas music makes me feel isolated and this is my way of taking a bit of control over it.  If you like traditional Christmas music, seriously, you won't like these pieces.

Why am I posting this in May?  Because here at Mixed Meters time has no meaning and the new piece wasn't finished until the end of January anyway.  Things happen when they happen.

What's with the title? The title  A Combination of Jingle Bells and The Internationale directly reflects the structure of the music.  These two familiar themes are presented prominently (but not lovingly) within the texture of the music, in combination.

Why two themes?  By combining two famous themes, which I chose more for their cultural references  than for their musical content, I hope to create some sort of meaningful dialogue expressed through music.  It's an audacious attempt and not entirely successful except for the occasional listener who cares passionately about the themes themselves.   Most often a composer who wants to convey meaning just adds text or lyrics.

Anything else besides the two themes? Yep. There's plenty of my original material as well.  The most notable being a melodic fragment which reappears several times.  You'll hear that first at 2 minutes 19 seconds.

Previously I did a similarly two-themed piece called Wagner and Schubert Have Intercourse.

What's The Internationale? The Internationale is a musical anthem of socialist and communist movements.  At one time it was the national anthem of the Soviet Union.  It is not as universally recognizable as Jingle Bells unless you happened to grow up in a Communist country.  If you're not familiar with it, I suggest you listen to one or two of the mind-boggling number of recordings found at a website called Russian Anthems Museum.

The Internationale appears first in A Combination of Jingle Bells and The Internationale at one minute and 17 seconds.  All the music up to that point is my own.

Here are a few lines of lyrics, with which no real American could ever agree, from verse 3 of The Internationale:

The state oppresses and the law cheats
The tax bleeds the miserable
No duty is imposed on the rich
'Rights of the poor' is a hollow phrase

What other melody did The Internationale remind you of? As I was composing I couldn't help but notice similarity to a theme by Johannes Brahms.  The Brahms will be familiar to ex-clarinetists everywhere.  What the heck, I put that in too.  (No idea what I'm talking about?  Listen to the first 10 seconds of this and then listen to A Combination of Jingle Bells and The Internationale at 3'38".)

Why The Internationale?  Because, as an anthem of godless communism, it seems like a good opposite to the anthem of godly capitalism, Jingle Bells.  And having it be in the public domain helps me avoid any capitalist guilt.

What does Sergei Kuryokhin have to do with this piece?  Kuryokhin was a Soviet pianist, composer and avant-gardist who passed away in 1996.  Last December, when I was casting about for a theme to pair with Jingle Bells (and also planning to write my post Sergei Kuryokhin - Pianist of Anarchy) I heard The Internationale referenced in two of his large ensemble performances recorded in 1988.  "Perfect," I thought.  The words "A Combination..." in my title are a small homage to Kuryokhin's wonderful solo piano album Some Combinations of Fingers and Passion.

What does Che Guevara have to do with this piece?  Nothing.  But I needed pictures for this post and Che, an icon of communism, has become a potent icon of capitalism.  That duality seems to reflect the two themes in my piece.  I previously discussed Che-based marketing in my MM post Che's Brand.

The Rolex ad shows him wearing a watch that today would cost at least $5,000.  (Anyone want to contribute a translation of the German?)  It came from here.  The Peter Griffin/Che Guevara drawing came from here.  The Mad Magazine cover came from here.  The woman wearing only carrot bandoleros is apparently Che Guevara's granddaughter in an ad for PETA.  Read about it here.  The Photoshopped Che Visa card came from here and the Che Santa from here.

No more delays.  It's now time to listen.  A Combination of Jingle Bells and The Internationale  327 seconds  Copyright © 2010 David Ocker

As an encore here are two non-Jingle holiday related pieces of mine from the first Mixed Meters Christmas season.  They were written in the same Christmas spirit as the others.  (Yes, the first dozen seconds of these two pieces are identical.  The titles are both apocryphal lyrics from the song Winter Wonderland.)

• And Pretend That It's A Circus Clown (read or listen) 2005, 36 sec.
• Until The Alligators Knock Him Down (read or listen) 2005, 40 sec.

And then there's this solo bass clarinet arrangement of a piece often heard at Christmas.  The performance is from 20 years before Mixed Meters was born.

The Ocker Scale

This piece is nearly 2 years old. I remember, back then, that I still wanted to change some things about it. So I flagged it in my mind as "unfinished".

Now, however, I can't remember what I wanted to change. And since it was written in an earlier version of Sibelius I imagine that working on it again would require more remedial effort than I'm willing to expend.

So, here it is, just as it was when I left it.


The text of The Ocker Scale defines the steps of the Ocker Scale, a subjective measurement tool for music listeners. It can be used to succinctly express personal reactions to new works of music directly to the composer or to other listeners. It would be perfect backstage after a concert. Or you can use it in a comment to a blog post. Only a number need be given. Lower is better.

Click here to hear The Ocker Scale - Copyright (c) (p) 2007 2009 by David Ocker 258 seconds

Leslie Harris, in her Mixed Meters debut, is the narrator.

Please leave your Ocker Scale number in a comment. Be honest. I can take it.

This Is Not The Title EITHER

As promised and explained here, this is the sequel to This is not the title entitled This is not the title EITHER. You should probably listen to one of them before you listen to the other. Another piece of advice - play it loud!!

The two pieces are very similar. They have one melody and one sound effect in common and everything else is different.



This is not the title EITHER has:

• a section influenced by the wondrously crazy music by the Kocani Orkestar, an oriental Romany Macedonian brass band
• another section influenced by the piano stylings of Art Tatum, the famous jazz pianist who seemed to have four hands. (Read a MM post about Tatum's recent comeback tour here.)
• a little piano lick which I cut from the first piece but didn't want to throw away. Listen for it at 36 seconds and at 210 seconds.
• a lot of musical phrases and rhythms based on the number seven
• a laugh track

Click here to hear This is not the title EITHER
Copyright (c) 2008 by David Ocker - 400 seconds

The title of this piece may not be the title of this piece, but it is not a fake title. Read about fake titles here and here and here.

These are not the tags EITHER: title. . . self reference. . . David Ocker. . . Art Tatum. . . Kocani Orkestar

This Is Not The Title

You can listen to my piece This Is Not The Title. Skip to the end of this post, past all the verbiage and pictures, to the part about the sequel and then click on the link to hear my piece which is entitled This Is Not The Title.



The title (or not the title) of my music is representative of the long, earnest, eggheaded tradition called self-reference. Read quite a lot about it here, in an article entitled This is not the title of this essay. Here's one quote:

You have of course, just begun the sentence that you have just finished reading. (Peter Brigham)

Some "serious" composers often have just a holy heck of a time picking titles for their creations. In my opinion this is because music is not really about anything; it's abstract. This recent New York Times article by Allan Kozinn discusses the problems composers have choosing titles. The wonderful blog The Detritus Review posted a totally pointless deconstruction of Kozinn's article.



Kozinn mentions the young composer Caleb Burhans who

... keeps a list of lines from films, television shows and advertisements, as well as random overheard phrases that catch his ear, pinned to the wall over his composing desk.

I've been doing something similar for quite a while - except my "composing desk" is virtual and it's at Starbucks. And of course Caleb's composing desk is in New York, so it's more important than mine.

Here's a picture of my real desk. You can click it to enlarge. Notice OJ the cat sleeping in the foreground. The music on the easel and on screen is John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer.


In the upper right corner, next to the Lucky Strike sign, is a famous picture of a pipe by Rene Magritte. The pipe picture probably inspired me to chose the title This Is Not The Title.

I wanted to call it This Is Not Music. Unfortunately, unlike Magritte's title, This Is Not Music would be an outright lie. In our post-Cageian age anything can be music - even that crap he wrote. Or the crap I write. Or the crap you write. No matter what it is. No matter what we call it. Or not.

"Enough about the damn title," I hear you say, "What about the music?"

The music of This Is Not The Title was inspired by a host of irreconcilable musical moments which happened to cross my consciousness in sort of the same way I take pictures.

It began with music I heard from this post, They Were Doin' The Mambo - Hillbilly Style at the WFMU blog. I also incorporated a small bit of a fifties R 'n B novelty tune about cavemen - sorry I can't seem to find that one again. And there's a Tito Puente lick in there as well.

Later in This Is Not The Title there's a long exact quote from my piece Bombed. Bombed has three movements: "Into the Stone Age", "Pan Am 103" and "Out of Your Mind". Both Bombed and The Death of Klinghoffer were written in 1991.

I sent a preview mp3 of This Is Not The Title to my friend Scott, Mixed Meters' reader in Boston. He wrote back:

I also really like 'This Is Not The Title'! It reminds me of so many of the cliches in the pop music I loved when I was in high school (Yes, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, Incredible String Band, etc.)

I have no clue what Scott is talking about but he's a professor so he must be making sense. I have never consciously listened to Yes, Gentle Giant or Incredible String Band. I do remember one Jethro Tull album in college because J.S. Bach wrote part of it.


THERE IS GOING TO BE A SEQUEL!!!!

This Is Not The Title has a sequel. I will post it soon. The sequel to This Is Not The Title also has a title - or maybe not. What do you think the title will be? What won't it be? Please feel to make suggestions - maybe your title will be no better than mine isn't.

Click here to to hear This Is Not The Title
Copyright (c) 2008 David Ocker - 337 seconds.


Interested in the self-reference thing? You should know about this book.

This is not the title is the prequel to This is not the title EITHER. Listen to that here.


These Are Not The Tags: title. . . self reference. . . Rene Magritte. . . David Ocker. . . composing. . . desks

30 Second Spots - Laugh Track

Here's Laugh Track featuring vocalist Peter Sellars. This has been up at my MOG blog for over a month which means I'm a month behind in my blogging.

75 seconds - copyright (c) 2008 David Ocker

Somewhere in the left column of Mixed Meters are links to mp3s of my own music. Yes, I'm a failed composer but I continue to write music.

Some of those left-column links have not worked recently because Earthlink, provider of slow intermittent overpriced DSL service, saw fit to discontinue the storage service I was using to provide them to you.

This has now been fixed - no thanks to Earthlink. All links to my music should be functioning. (If you find one that doesn't please let me know.)

I doubt anyone missed access to this music. Here's a list of the reappeared tracks. Remember, there are no excerpts at Mixed Meters: all mp3s are complete, unedited, unexpurgated and incomprehensible. I've provided a tag line for each piece to accentuate your listening incomprehension.

All Music (c) (p) David Ocker
Click titles to listen:

Electronic Pieces

(Remember, I write this stuff on a laptop at Starbucks so it can't be any good.)

The Real Jejune Vasectomy (2'41")
Here is actual Mixed Meters' reader fan art for The Real Jejune Vasectomy provided by Mixed Meters' reader and artist Eric N. Peterson.

20 Balls in My Fingers and I'm Not Done Yet (0'34")
Melody and title both came to me in a dream.

Bill Kraft's San Francisco Waltz Toon (1'20")
AFAIK, Bill has never listened or danced to this music.

The Boy Scout Copyright Police (2'53")
Three 30 Second Spots in one. Inspired by the musical excerpt on the Boy Scout Respect Copyright badge

In A Pissy Mood (4'42")
Pissy music inspired either by pissy cats or pissy people. You pick.

The On and Off Topic Blues for Alex (2'48")
Two related pieces ("On Topic" and "Off Topic") inspired by the desire to avoid a boring composers salon.

Thinking With Other People's Words (8'29")
A meditation on being manipulated by politicians. Vocals by Dub-yah.

The Best Thing About Led Zeppelin (4'03")
Play it loud to understand why Leslie calls this "the scary piece". The title is a trick question - there is NO best thing about Led Zeppelin.

Not So Cuckoo Cuckoo (3'31")
The familiar samba, Tico Tico, Ockerized. I'd like to see someone dance to this music. Ha ha.

Jingle Bulls (3'51")
The familiar Christmas tune, Ockerized.

Jungle Bells (3'29")
The same familiar Christmas tune, Ockerized differently.

That's It, No More (0'33")
Your Host Rex is the vocalist.

The Manuscript Ends Abruptly (0'52")
Based on unfinished Schubert, this piece is dedicated to the memory of the late LA Times music critic Daniel Cariaga.

Ancient Clarinet Performances

The first three are live recordings from my New Music America '85 recital.

The Allegro Fourth Movement from the Symphony Number 3 in F Opus 90 by Johannes Brahms by David Ocker (8'51")
Bass Clarinet Solo - yes, I put my own name in the title.

At Sixes and Sevens (4'22")
Bass Clarinet improvisation

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies (2'26")
by P.I. Tchaikovsky, arranged and performed by David Ocker on bass clarinet. This was the encore.

Voluntary Solitude (13'04")
A failure at the one attempted live performance, this is a piece from my graduate music studies in 1976 - for clarinet and live electronics. Studio recording.

Over 68 minutes of music!! If that's not enough, go to my MOG blog

I really do like to get comments, preferably positive. Please comment.

Find other art by Eric N. Peterson here and here and here.


Ockerized Tags: David Ocker. . . composer. . . mp3. . . 30 Second Spots. . . Peter Sellars. . . Earthlink

3 Minute Climax - In A Pissy Mood

One of Mixed Meters two readers pointed out recently that we're close to defaulting on our contractual obligation to post cat pictures. So we interrupt the Balloons & Bunnies series for this: a sculpture of Garfield the cartoon cat which I found abandoned on a Pasadena street recently. Can you tell what it really is? (Answer below).


We've still got only 4 indoor cats. Here they are in order of seniority. OJ, the old man of the group, contemplates taking a nap.


Ivy contemplates what a nice set of whiskers she has.


This is Crackle, contemplating whether my camera is good to eat.


This is Spackle, contemplating whether she might be able to catch the birds outside.


This is McTee - the scrawny outdoor cat - contemplating being fed. Our backyard has become a very popular place for many neighborhood cats, all contemplating being feed. Also possums and skunks.



Now for a piece of music I wrote last month. The title was inspired by human emotions. Just try to tell me you've never had a pissy mood. But since this post is about cats, In a Pissy Mood is dedicated to our long-suffering upholstered furniture which lives underneath large sheets of plastic. We suspect Ivy of being responsible.

click here to hear In A Pissy Mood

Copyright (c) 2007 by David Ocker - 282 seconds

Listening tip: try to identify the Theme of Repeated Minor Annoyance.

Explanation of 30 second spots (check for an update to this in the comments)

Previous Mixed Meters Pictures of Our Cats - here or here or here or here


Pissy Cat Tags: cats. . . OJ. . . Ivy. . . Crackle. . . Spackle. . . Garfield. . . David Ocker. . . Mixed Meters. . . 3 Minute Climax

The Garfield sculpture is a headboard for a bed. Here's part of a bed spring that appeared at the same spot a few days earlier.

3 Minute Climax - The On and Off Topic Blues for Alex

Alex is Alex Shapiro - composer, moderator and blogger, a tireless crusader for new music in Los Angeles. Her blog, Notes From The Kelp, could be the only music blog with more items about marine biology than Mixed Meters. Her composer website is here.

There are actually two new pieces that you can listen to. First is The On-Topic Blues for Alex the Moderator. It's short and to the point. By itself it would be categorized as a 30 Second Spot.


Second is The Off-Topic Blues for Alex the Composer which uses the same material, lasts longer and wanders absent-mindedly off the trail, so to speak. Since I prefer you to listen to them in this order I've put both into a single mp3 file, separated by a silence.

Anyone expecting real blues music will be severely disappointed.

Listen now. Afterwards, if you're still curious, read The Backstory (below) which also goes off topic. Otherwise you uncurious types have got better things to do, right?

click here to hear The On-Topic Blues for Alex the Moderator and The Off-Topic Blues for Alex the Composer.

Copyright (c) 2007 by David Ocker - 198 Seconds


The Backstory

It all began with THIS CONCERT about which Jerry Zinser wrote THIS REVIEW at Sequenza 21. (Note the comment by me.) Alex Shapiro, seeing this exchange, wrote to Jerry and myself inviting us to THIS EVENT.

Here's an excerpt from her email:

Next Sunday, the 21st, I'll be moderating another ACF-LA Composers Salon . . . .These are really wonderful gatherings of composer and musician colleagues that we've been doing for nearly six years, about four times a year. I know you'd have a good time!

Naturally I had no interest. This was my response:

My apologies for responding with the stark-raving truth - but a Composers Salon is the sort of event for which I have no interest or patience. I've promised myself that I'll try to use the time I would have spent attending avoidable events making up my own music.

But thanks for the invite - if I actually do write music on Sunday, JANUARY 21, 2007 from 2-5:00 pm, how about if I name the piece after you somehow?

You never know what I might come up with!

And so, dear Readers, it came to pass that on Sunday January 21, 2007 from about 2 p.m. to about 5 p.m. I trekked with my laptop up to Starbucks and composed The On-Topic Blues for Alex the Moderator honoring the fact that Alex, in her job as Salon Moderator, was at that very moment keeping people on the topic, whatever that was. And at the same time I was also avoiding the topic, whatever that was.


Alas, not long afterwards I had an idea. A piece of music that was "On-Topic" ought to be counter-balanced with another that was "Off-Topic. " And so, with the firing of those random neurons, the project was inflated beyond an excuse to avoid being bored.

I took much longer finishing "Off Topic" than "On Topic". As I got more and more off topic I was forced to reconsider what being on-topic meant - and I revised The On-Topic Blues slightly - I cut stuff out of it.


As I worked on it I passed through The Five Stages of Creativity - the emotional roller coaster which all creative artists pass through while making things up. First is Enthusiasm, then Amazement, then Disgust, then Acceptance (or Resignation). The final stage is Forgetfulness. I'm still waiting for Forgetfulness on this one. (Check out THIS INTERESTING ESSAY at Soho the Dog which provoked this idea.)


Alex Shapiro is a very active composer who writes many different sorts of music. I don't know if she's ever written any larger pieces for Concert Band. I do know that the name ARNOLD SCHOENBERG is an anagram for HER LONG BAND SCORE.

Curiously, ALEX SHAPIRO is an anagram for HIS LAX OPERA. I'm not aware that Schoenberg contemplated writing any music about Los Angeles International. (The Anagram Generator is HERE.)


A note about the pictures. The first two are of the same pipes at the same gas station - before and after they changed the color scheme. The last two are actual neon signs in Pasadena photographed last night (while on a mission to procure take-out food HERE) and Photoshopped to a flat red and blueness. Good girls should click HERE and bad girls may also click HERE.

Explanation of 30 second spots

Alex Tags: Alex Shapiro. . . composer. . . on topic. . . off topic. . . blues. . . ACF-LA. . . American Composers Forum. . . Jerry Zinser. . . anagrams. . . David Ocker. . . Mixed Meters. . . 3 Minute Climax