Classical Music Isn't Dead, It Just Needs a Rest

A Los Angeles Sunday Times "Arts and Culture" article gave me pause. It's called Alexy Steele, Classical Underground Impresario by Scott Timberg. In the print edition it's entitled "Mad for Classical".

Here's the story ...

An artist, Alexy Steele, a person who creates new art to earn his living, holds classical music concerts in his loft. He calls the series "Classical Underground". People flock to them. And these events are held up as a way to save classical music.

We are told ...

The Classical Underground series was inspired by Steele repeatedly being told that classical music was dead. "Whenever I get to this point," he exclaims, wheeling back on his chair as he pours more beer, "my ears would pop!"

What bothers me, of course, is that the music presented to these gatherings of creative people is all from the classical canon. Nothing mentioned in the article seems very current or adventurous. The article did refer to one piece by Prokofiev (d.1953) plus some improvisations on Bach.

I'm reminded that one principal reason people love classical music is that it helps them relax. And maybe they need to network at loft parties. All that is easier with familiar, comfortable classics; music which barely changes from one performance to the next. I conclude that in such situations the music is not meant to offer a contemporary perspective. They have other forms of art for that. I fear this music is more like a spa treatment for ones ears.

I remember a story told by Dorrance Stalvey, for many years director of the Monday Evening Concerts back when they were sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum of (what else?) Art.

Dorrance programmed a concert of music which living artists played while they worked. He asked them "What do you listen to while you work?" and they told him. He was dismayed how the result was mostly from the baroque and classical periods.

Apparently these contemporary artists - some of them cutting edge - had no clue about contemporary music. I guess that they didn't find any inspiration in modern music. More charitably, maybe listening to something of actual relevance would distract their creative process. It's easier to ignore familiar things when you need to concentrate.

The fact that visually creative people, who I would have thought ought to have an interest in other forms of contemporary creativity, instead prefer a solidly unchanging body of old music, fills me with wonderment. How would they react to musicians who only cared to view paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries?

Thankfully, the world of creative music persists even without visual artists. Another article in the Times, just one day before, outlines local activities of creative music here in the LA area - all of it improvised. Read Finding Jazz in a Cool Place. (The title is "Jazz at a cool spot" in print.)

Alas, nothing in that article speaks about creative classical music either. The words "creative" and "classical" are ideas which aren't mutually supportive. Competing against the classical favorites is not easy.

Maybe we could have a moratorium on the classical warhorses - just stop playing them for ten or fifteen years. There are plenty of other classical-style pieces for people to listen to. Audiences need a chance to catch up.

Meanwhile the words "jazz" and "creative" certainly support one another these days. I wonder if there are visual artists who would like listening to cutting-edge improvisations in their lofts. There are plenty of creative musicians looking for places to perform.

=-=-=-=-

Alexy Steele's Website: High Art Forever

Other Mixed Meters attacks on artists:
Our Culture Overvalues the Wrong Things
What's on David Hockney's iPod?

Other Mixed Meters attacks on the classics:
Everybody Loves Beethoven (Probably)
One Goldberg Equals Twelve Abbas
A Fine Line Between Classical and Parody
Me and Mahler, Me and Iowa
Combining Four Letter Words: Oboe + Blog

Underground Tags: Alexy Steele. . . loft concerts. . . underground music

Auto Destructive Rag

To the everlasting shame of National Public Radio my interest in offbeat English humor began with their early 1970's broadcasts of the Goon Show. Lately I've been listening to the Goon-inspired I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, a BBC radio show starring John Cleese and no one else familiar to Americans.

One of the hallmarks of the avant-garde in music is the presence of parodies. This is a tradition extending from Punkt contrapunkt (1958) to Einstein on the Fritz (1989). But I'm drawing a blank for avant-garde music parodies in the last two decades. I guess the a.g. is really dead and gone this time.

I was amused by a song in one particular ISIRTA episode (Series 6/11, March 23, 1969) This was a time (as we are reminded recently by the nostalgia industry) of Abbey Road, Woodstock and the Moon Landing. All of those were fictitious events, of course, mere government hoaxes.

But in 1969 The Avant Garde was alive. This is proven by a song called "Auto Destructive Rag". Lavishly orchestrated and Tom Lehrer-esque, only the strangest among us would find it amusing. I liked it.

The singer and composer is uncredited - probably Bill Oddie. You can listen to this clip or read my transcription of the lyrics if you want an even duller, more avant-garde, experience.



And now, here is an urgent reptile joke. What changes color and goes "I say, I say, I say"?

I don't know. What does change color and goes "I say, I say, I say"?

A music hall chameleon!

And now, an educational, meaningful song. Nowadays we have Auto Destructive Art - (Look it up.) - and twelve-tone music. Will these, in a few years time, be looked back on as the good old days. (Who cares?)

(Music)

[THE AUTO DESTRUCTIVE RAG]

Some like jazz
Some like swing
I don't like
Anything
Unless it's got the feeling of tomorrow.

Make it wild
Make it weird
Preferably
With a beard
If it's soft and sweet it went out long ago.

I like music pure and cold and hard
(Like it is)(?)
I'm a member of the avant ga-ga-garde

So......
Play me a tune that has nothing to do with a Melody.
Play me a tune that has nothing to do with a tune.

Give me a suite
with no rhythm or beat
and no harmony.

Open the thing
and dismember the strings
with a spoon.

Take a good old-fashioned geetar
And plug it in the mains.

Bash it
Beat it
Try to
Eat it
Play me a suite with the brains

Oh....
Play to me soon
and don't bother to tune
up your Instruments

Oh gimme, oh gimme
That Auto Destructive Rag.

Give me a tune
that has something
to do with
Reality

Play me some bump
[....]
on a stick
Ah ah - ohohoh

Twentieth century's
full of adventures
in Melody

I wanna dance
to the sound of a man
being sick.
Bwehh.

Bring it all back!

Everybody's hummin'
A catchy twelve-tone song
No bars
No key
Absolutely
Free.
Come on.
Sing along.

[imitates operatic soprano]
oh OH oh.
Ohoh oh.
Oh oh oh Oh oh.
Ah.

Come on, you're not singing.

Ohhhh
Don't you like
Doin' that
Come on
And do with that
Melody

Oh gimme, oh gimme
That Auto Destructive Rag.

[over break]
Oh, that's terrible.

Oh they're playing our tune.

The sounds are all around us
It's the music of today [Ahh!]
Scratch it
Scrape it
Wreck it
Rape it
Everybody can play.

[Break]

Ah...
Oh...
Play me a tune
that has
nothing to do
with a Melody.
Oh gimme, oh gimme
That Auto Destructive ...
Oh gimme, oh gimme
That Auto Destructive ...
Gimme!
Gimme
That Auto Destructive ...

Yoko. Oh! No!!!!!!!!!

Gimme that Auto Destructive Raaaaaaaag.
Da da daa dada dah...

[Applause]
[Announcer]
And now it's serial time.

[Fanfare]
Here's adventure. Here's romance.
Here's a paper and pencil
See if you can do any better.
Yes.

Reach For the Sky - Part Two (The link to listen to the Goon Show "First Albert Memorial to the Moon" should still work.)
Ice Cream Wishes (Mixed Meters meets the work of Yoko Ono while eating sweet, frozen dairy fat.)
The DOcker Award for Mainstream Avant Garde (BBC related video of nothing much.)

Rag Tags: ISIRTA. . . Auto Destructive. . . BBC radio humor

Taggers With Spellcheck

I've been noticing graffiti consisting of whole, correctly spelled English words. Unusual.






Click a picture if a larger font size will help you read the words.

Similar silly MM photo essays: Crooked and Musical Merchants and Branches Before Blue and Gloves In the Wild and Fence Shadows and Graffiti Animals of California and Buckets for Babies in Pasadena and HALF GRASSED.

For extra credit use all the words "pathos" "corpse" "zeal" "riot" and "ghost" in a sentence.

For even more credit, identify the word in this picture:


This is not a test.

Tags: graffiti. . . tagger. . . spell check

Schoenberg In Hell

In my daily "spare moment" I've been reading "A Windfall of Musicians, Hitler's Emigres and Exiles in Southern California" by Dorothy Lamb Crawford. It's now $32.00 at Amazon. (When I purchased it 3 weeks ago, it sold for $25.20 - just enough to qualify for free shipping.)

The book chronicles an era that was completely finished by the time I, an exile from the Middle West, arrived in Southern California. Many things have changed here since Los Angeles received a host of Europe's greatest unwanted creative minds. Some things haven't. A fascinating book.


I just finished Chapter 6 entitled "Arnold Schoenberg". It deals specifically with Schoenberg's attempts to cope with life on the opposite side of the planet from his known world. I found the story of Schoenberg's exile extremely depressing, even tragic.

Schoenberg, of course, was a talented sincere artist of great psychological extremes. He had keen awareness of the history of music and his own contributions to it. He worked hard to explain the logic of what he did without ever denying the importance of inspiration. And he was an elitist called to point out that the future of all music would indeed reflect his influences.

Here in California he could squeeze out a living only by teaching. He found his American students woefully unprepared. The history of important European art music, like any other history, must have seemed terribly distant to them.

While on the faculty of UCLA he formulated giant plans for a conservatory-like program for all musicians, not just composers. There would even be a school for copyists! Of course his ideas were ignored. His greatest legacy today, unfortunately, seems to be the widespread image of the composer as professor.

Schoenberg's isolation on the West Coast is poignantly highlighted by a quote from his daughter about the regular Sunday afternoon salons he held in his home.

"After a while my father realized that these people were coming here to meet each other and not to talk with him.... Daddy would be sitting ... maybe completely alone, not talking to anyone, and so he decided one time that we weren't going to do this anymore. . . . For a long time on Sunday afternoons at two o'clock . . . we would get in the car and drive around the block . . . while these people came and found no one at home and went away." (p.129)

Schoenberg lived just long enough to see his teachings misinterpreted by composers back in Europe. He was hailed as the creator of a new movement called serialism, a musical reaction to the horrors of war based on very un-Schoenbergian mathematical theories. Crawford writes:

As Schoenberg found European interest in his compositions growing in the postwar period, he wrote, "There is nothing I long for more intensely . . . than that people should know my tunes and whistle them." What happened was the opposite. Leonard Stein commented "Schoenberg was not responsible for the twelve-tone concept taking over. People like [Rene] Leibowitz. . . would come in the late forties and explain his music to him!" (p.131)

All these and other aspects are detailed superbly in Dorothy Crawfords' chapter. To me they seem to describe a man condemned to both great and petty torments, incapable of overcoming either geographical or cultural isolation, unable to oppose the historical forces well beyond his control and unwilling to compromise his own devotion to principle. He found himself in a musical hell where the weather was very very nice. Wouldn't this story make a great novel? Maybe it already has.

These days significant serious music still is not native to Southern California. Talented local musicians go away to make classical careers while Southern California's musical institutions import their heroes from other places. Composers still flock here although not because of political exile. They hope for big industrial paychecks. Most of them probably have an unperformed opera, symphony or string quarter on an old external USB drive somewhere.

Remaining here, even in the age of Internet and discount airfare, means accepting a certain form of isolation. Southern California seems to be a unique place filled with talent and money - but creatively we live somewhere in the absolute elsewhere.

Reading the story of Schoenberg's later life resonated with my own feelings. In life, of course, one picks the best available choice and then lives happily ever after. Still, it is only natural to occasionally lament the lesser luminosity of the local grass. And it is revealing to discover that even the most influential musicians might have gazed across a similar fence.




The cover picture above shows (L to R) Otto Klemperer (very tall), Prinz Hubertus von Loewenstein, Arnold Schoenberg (very short) and Ernst Toch (holding a small dog).

Other more or less related Mixed Meters posts:

• Los Angeles, New Music Backwater
• Something I want to discuss with Arnold
• In which David's ranting is imaginary
• 30 Second Spots - Oh, Was He Still Around
• Schoenberg and Shostakovich for marching band
• Mozart's Penis versus Schoenberg's Penis (alas, the "Schoenberg's Penis" entry in the Urban Dictionary has disappeared. I did not make it up.)
• Kraft's Encounters (William Kraft, a successful composer whose entire career has been in Southern California)
• The Rest Is Noise (especially the section about politics of music)
• The New Yorker and the Hero Composer in Los Angeles

Exile Tags: A Windfall of Musicians. . . Dorothy Lamb Crawford. . . Arnold Schoenberg. . . Los Angeles Composers

Funny Piano (part 1)

Here are some video links with one thing in common. All involve a piano and none of them involve a cat and all are kind of funny. Well, I thought so.

In the first my favorite pianist Glenn Gould introduces the "brilliant German reductionist" composer Karlheinz Klopweisser. In this short promo Karlheinz explains the difference between German silence and French silence. Watch it here or you can download the video from UbuWeb.



Next we have another larger-than-life fictional character, Andre Previn, conducting Grieg's Piano Concerto on a 1971 English television show while he was conductor of the London Symphony.


Finally we have a clip from a 1963 Jack Parr show on which then former Vice-President Richard Nixon performs a snippet of his own Piano Concerto. (Sadly the audio is missing at the end.) Tricky Dick seems very relaxed and even cracks a joke.


Funny Piano Tags: Glenn Gould. . . Andre Previn. . . Richard Nixon

Wagner with an asterisk

I expect this will be my last Wagner(*)-LA Opera-Ring Festival related post. That's because Supervisor Antonovich's now failed resolution is, most likely, the high-water mark of the anti-Ring Festival movement. The Gettysburg of anti-Wagnerism in Southern California. Another failed rebellion. Mike A.'s totally impractical suggestions lost by a vote of 3 to 1. I'm pretty sure it would have been 4 to 1 if all five Supes had shown up.

I have one final suggestion for the opera company on how they can allay the fears and complaints of people like me, the unwashed non-fanatical normal people who don't care for opera, can't afford to buy tickets, wouldn't have the patience to sit through a whole performance if they were given tickets for free and who number well over 99% of LA County's population. (My calculation for that made-up statistic is in a footnote here.)

My suggestion is simple. It will cost nothing. It will reach everyone who ever sees Ring Festival advertising, promotion or propaganda. It will be understood by all Americans because it is copied from baseball - which was America's pastime before Nascar. This idea will provoke the unitiated to ask the right questions. It will repeatedly remind the fanatics about the downside of their addiction. Not one program or event need be altered or canceled. Any event, no matter how relevant or tangential to the subject of Richard Wagner, be it academic seminar, hip-hop concert or country western musical, can easily be accommodated. This suggestion will in no way impede efforts by our local oligarchy to get Los Angeles recognized as a great European city by producing their very own Ring.

And it will get me to shut up.

To see how overwhelmingly simple this idea is, check out my version of the LA Opera Ring poster. My apologies to the company for modifying what is obviously their property. This is, in my opinion, a great graphic - simple and to the point. I took a very small, postage-stamp size Gif from their website, enlarged and sharpened it by hand so the text was kinda readable. I added only one small element. Can you spot it?



Yep, there's a little asterisk (*) after the composer's name. The asterisk means that some special circumstance of which everyone should be aware affects the name to which it is attached.

An asterisk, just like in the baseball record books. Everyone, at least everyone here in the U.S., understands that when some guy breaks the hallowed home-run record by hitting 756 of them in one season but does it by taking performance enhancing steroids, he gets an asterisk in the record books. And he also doesn't get into the Hall of Fame. Here's the LA tie-in.

I propose that the LA Opera should add the asterisk to the name Richard Wagner each and every time it appears in their publicity, program books, public displays -- everything!! Even on Festival letterheads. .

Put the asterisk on the COVER of the programs, on the huge banners hanging in front of the Chandler Pavilion, on the flags hanging from the lightpoles on Grand Avenue. Put the asterisk everywhere that the word "Wagner(*)" appears. Make absolutely certain that it appears on the expensive souvenir tomes that the Ringnuts and Wagnerds will treasure for years and decades to come.

Think of it as changing the name "Richard Wagner" to "Richard Wagner(*)" You can just edit your word-processor spelling dictionary to make the asterisk omnipresent. I think that the asterisk is sufficient. No footnotes are required if the asterisk really is everywhere. Sure, a footnote would be nice. It could read "Richard Wagner's name is forever stained because of its evil use by the German National Socialist party."

If my suggestion is followed every person who comes into contact with the Ring, with the LA Opera and with their Ring Festival will be forced to think about why that asterisk is there. Remember, it's Their Festival not My Festival because, if I had been there, I would not have attended. When the Simple Child asks "Why is that asterisk there?" you can reply "Because Wagner was Hitler's favorite composer."

It's as easy as that.

Of course, like all do-gooder suggestions, this will be ignored. It will be ignored by the Ring fans even if the Opera does add the asterisk exactly as I have suggested.

Come on. Allow me my fantasy. In reality LA Opera will only add asterisks if they are forced to - like the cigarette companies are forced by the government to add a notice about smoking being hazardous to your health. And they'll position them graphically in out of the way places. No smoker really pays attention to those notices - at least not consciously. And no true Wagner fan will see the asterisk. At least not consciously.

We at Mixed Meters like to mix things up. Combining things no one ever expects to see combined is our thing. Along that line, here's a picture of the back of a Brazilian Marlboro pack. This one belonged to our houseguest, Joao. He's a worm-guy from Sao Paulo.


I assume everyone, anyone will get the connection of this picture to my suggestion about the Wagner asterisk. The asterisk is a very simple, subtle idea not in your, er, face like this cigarette ad. Both are warnings that certain actions can have bad results.

The asterisk would show us that the LA Opera has a real understanding of the opposing point of view. Sadly, Supervisor Antonovich has shown that no one can force them to change their plans. And they won't do it just to prove how nice they are.

Or will they?


Want to read more of my blather?

Worm-related posts on Mixed Meters: here, here and here.

Wagner-related posts on Mixed Meters: here, here, and here.

Opera-related posts on Mixed Meters: here, here, here and here. (A couple of these have to do with both Sex and Opera!)


Ring Tags: Ring Festival LA. . . LA Opera. . . Mike Antonovich. . . Richard Wagner

Trial and Error

This is a test. This is only a test.

This test takes the form of a little 30 Second Spot I wrote last month. Leslie picked the name, Trial and Error. Back then I uploaded it to Facebook because I could. I didn't upload it here because MOG (where I've uploaded previous audio files) seems to have removed their embedded player feature which you might have noticed in previous MM posts - like this one..

I found another embedded player in the form of a Google Widget. And here it is. Can you play it? Can you hear it? Remember, you heard it here first - unless you heard it on Facebook already.

Comments on this widget are encouraged. Does it work well for you? Comments about the piece are possible too, if you care.



Trial and Error Copyright (c) 2009 David Ocker 48 Seconds

What's a 30 Second Spot? (This is one of the earliest MM posts so be sure to read my update in the comments.)

What's a widget?

Trial and Error Tags: 30 Second Spots. . . Trial and Error. . . David Ocker

Mike Antonovich and the Ring Festival LA

Here is a resolution to be voted on by the five Los Angeles County Supervisors next Tuesday. It is item 6 on the agenda. Read it here. Or read this:

6. Recommendation as submitted by Supervisor Antonovich: Direct the Chief Executive Officer to send a five-signature letter to Marc I. Stern, Chief Executive Officer of the LA Opera, and members of the Board of Directors requesting that the “Ring Festival LA” shift the focus from honoring composer Richard Wagner, to featuring other composers as headliners, to provide balance, historical perspective and a true sampling of operatic and musical talent. (09-1698)

The full actual proposed resolution looks like this:


Click the picture for an enlargement or download the pdf here. Or read this:

MOTION BY SUPERVISOR MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH
JULY 21, 2009

Los Angeles Opera’s upcoming Ring Festival LA, which celebrates the work of composer Richard Wagner, a racist whose anti-Semitic writings were the inspiration for Hitler and the holocaust, is an affront to those who have suffered or have been impacted by the horrors of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialistic Worker Party.

To provide balance, historical perspective and a true sampling of operatic and musical talent, the LA Opera should reevaluate and rearrange the festival’s programming to delete the focus on Wagner and incorporate other composers as headliners including Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Schubert, Schumann, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn and others.

I, THEREFORE, MOVE, that the Board of Supervisors direct the County’s Chief Executive Officer to send a five-signature letter to the Marc I. Stern, Chief Executive Officer of the LA Opera and members of the Board of Directors requesting that the Festival shift the focus from honoring Wagner to featuring other composers as headliners.

I've blogged at length about the proposed opera festival in this article: Ring Festival L.A. - Wrong Festival L.A. in which I make a number of suggestions on how the Los Angeles Opera might better represent the various opinions about Wagner held in our community.

I do not think Supevisor Antonovich's suggestion to replace Wagner with other composers is such a good idea. I do think that formally asking the opera company to consider these issues is an excellent idea.

My best idea in that blog post was that the Opera should promote their Recovered Voices program during the festival when visiting Ringnuts might hear operas suppressed by the Nazis.

My wildest idea was to create a fringe festival - celebrating not some dislikable dead German guy, but the creative arts right here in Los Angeles. I wanted to call the fringe festival Wrong Festival L.A. If such a thing actually happened I'd be the first to suggest that they find a better, more positive name.

Carie Delmar, a writer and opera critic, has posted an article (here at Opera Online) about why a Wagner festival is not a good idea for Los Angeles. (I cannot get her article to format properly in any browser, so I just select all the text and copy it to another program for reading.) That article seems to suggest where Mike Antonovich might have gotten his list of alternate composers.

And you might want to contact the Supevisors and tell them that it would be okay for them to write to the Los Angeles Opera with the suggestion that other viewpoints need to be heard during any Los Angeles Wagner festival.

GLORIA MOLINA: molina@bos.lacounty.gov
MARK RIDLEY-THOMAS MarkRidley-Thomas@bos.lacounty.gov
ZEV YAROSLAVSKY zev@bos.lacounty.gov
DON KNABE cpedersen@lacbos.org (his chief-of-staff)
MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH fifthdistrict@lacbos.org


POSTSCRIPT: Wanna find out what I wrote after this resolution failed at the July 21 Supervisors meeting? Read Wagner With An Asterisk.

Ring Tags: Ring Festival LA. . . LA Opera. . . Mike Antonovich. . . Richard Wagner

Musical markings

This post was inspired by amusing emails I received. But be warned: unless you are now or have ever been an orchestra musician you're probably not going to get it.

For some reason Gustav Mahler wrote instructions in his symphonies in the German language. Many American musicians need these translated into American. This is a letter to members of some orchestra with a list of Mahler's markings and equivalent English versions. (There's one really good viola joke. Here is an exhaustive compendium of every other viola joke.)

(Following the Mahler is sheet music to Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz (from "A Tribute to Zdenko G. Fibich") a famous opus by the mysterious John Stump, who sells authorized copies of his music here. Other stuff too, if you make it that far.)

MAHLER MARKINGS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

Several weeks ago, we sent you a list of translations of the German markings in the Mahler. We now realize that this list contained many serious errors. These sheets contain the correct versions. So we don't waste valuable rehearsal time on this, copy these corrections into your part immediately.

German in bold type (English translation in parentheses)

Langsam (Slowly)
Schleppend (Slowly)
Dampfer auf (Slowly)
Mit Dampfer (Slowly)
Allmahlich in das Hauptzeitmass uebergehen (do not look at the conductor)
Im Anfang sehr gemaechlich (in intense inner torment)
Alle Betonungen sehr zart (with more intense inner torment)
Getheilt [geth.] (out of tune)
Von hier an in sehr allmaehlicher aber stetiger Steigerung bis zum Zeichen (From this point on, the spit valves should be emptied with ever-increasing emotion)
Hier ist ein frisches belebtes Zeitmass eingetreten (Slowly)
Haupttempo (Slowly)
Noch ein wenig beschleunigend (slowing down but with a sense of speeding up)
immer noch zurueckhaltend (with steadily decreasing competence)
sehr gemaechlich (with indescribably horrific inner torment)
Etwas bewegter, aber immer noch sehr ruhig (Somewhat louder, though still inaudible as before)
Alle Betonungen sehr zart (with smallish quantities of fairly mild inner torment)
Gemaechlich (Intermission)
Ganz unmerklich etwas zurueckhaltend (Slowly)
Etwas gemaechlicher als zuvor (Slowly)
Zurueckhaltend (Gesundheit)
Von hier ab unmerklich breiter werden (as if wild animals were gnawing on your liver)
Ohne cresc. (without toothpaste)
immer noch etwas zurueckhaltend (Slowly)
vorwaerts draengend (Slowly)
Hauptzeitmass (Slowly)
Allmaehlich etwas lebhafter (screaming in agony)
Ohne Nachschl[age] (without milk [sugar])
Kraeftig bewegt (Slowly)
Alle (second violins tacet)
mit dem Holze zu streichen (like a hole in the head)
mit Parodie (viola solo)
sehr einfach und schlicht, wie eine Volksweise (Slowly)
daempfer ab (eyes closed)
ploetzlich viel schneller (even more ploddingly)
Den ersten Ton scharf herausgehoben (Do not play until the buzzer sounds)
Am Griffbrett (as if in tune)
aeusserst zart, aber ausdrucksvoll. (radiantly joyful, despite the itching)
wieder zurueckhaltend (increasingly decreasing)
noch breiter als vorher (better late than never)
Nicht eilen (no eels)
Allmaehlich [unmerklich] etwas zurueckhaltend (much faster [slower] than conductor)
Lang gestrichen (heads up)
Lang gezogen (heads back down)
Die werden allmaehlich staerker und staerker bis zum (fp) (In the event of a waterlanding, your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device)
Am Steg (Slowly)

Want to know what the German really means? Copy a phrase and click here.


FAERIE'S AIRE and DEATH WALTZ
Click on the picture to see all the spiffy little details.


Fairie's Aire and other similar notational nightmares (some of them intended seriously by the most important and impressive of important, impressive composers) may be found here, at a blog called Dark Roasted Blend.

MODERATO NON TROPPO by David Ocker
(I guess this is my Tribute to Fairie's Aire and Death Waltz)

I probably created this in the eighties when my work was still done with cheap, reliable pens, ink and straightedges instead of with expensive, bug-ridden computers. Judy Green, proprietor of Judy Green Music, had changed vellum suppliers (that's the translucent paper onto which music was copied). She wanted me to test the new paper.

So I sat down one day with the sample sheet of vellum and proceeded to write this, er, piece of music. There's no real title so I'm calling it by the first tempo indication Moderato non troppo ("not too moderately"). My principal consideration as a composer was whether the paper held the ink well. I wanted to know if it would smear and other similar musical things. (As always, click the pic for enlargement.) Notice Judy's logo and address in the lower left.


The original of Moderato non troppo hangs in my office to this day - attached to the side of a bookcase with a piece of scotch tape.

DOCTOR SCHMUTZIG??

Has anyone ever heard of the Doctor Schmutzig Method for Holzblasinstrumente?

I remember a small, comedic musical-instruction pamphlet which I probably saw in college. The woodwind instrument it teaches looked suspiciously like a vacuum cleaner. I cannot find any reference to this online. It's possible that I remember it imprecisely.

Once, after I mentioned the pamphlet to Leslie, she started calling me "Doctor Schmutzig". Not because I know how to play a vacuum cleaner but because I'm so good at making a mess.

I'd like to reacquaint myself with this little "gem". And I'd like to prove to her that I didn't just make it up. (Maybe I did.) Any help in this quest will be gratefully received.





Read Mixed Meters' rant about Mahler Me and Mahler, Me and Iowa.

Notations 21 is a website which has many examples of "innovative notations".

Thanks to David Avshalomov and John Steinmetz for sending the inspirational emails.

Music Marking Tags: Gustav Mahler. . . music notation. . . Fairie's Aire. . . John Stumpe. . . moderato non troppo. . . Doctor Schmutzig. . . Method for Holzblasinstrumente

Squawk!

Several weeks ago, while Leslie shopped for bizarre flesh-eating plants at the Los Angeles County Arboretum (located in Arcadia which shares a common, unarmed border with Pasadena), I made video of the peafowl for which the park is quite well known. The results were just too cute not to use in a piece.

When we moved to Pasadena there was a peacock living on our new property. We named him Mister P. He lasted about a year. This piece celebrates one of the several annoyances associated with living near peacocks.



Copyright (c) 2009 David Ocker - 244 seconds

The next time I make a video, remind me to bring a tripod and take more framing shots.

Another picture of Mister P is here. He used to present his full display to the front grille of the Volvos.

You could watch an earlier Mixed Meters Movie Moment about birds: Birds Who Don't Know The Words

Tail Feather Tags: peacocks. . . Squawk. . . David Ocker. . . Arcadia CA . . LA County Arboretum

Mommy, who is Michael Jackson?

One afternoon last week, judging by the special coverage on every local Los Angeles television station, you'd have thought someone had flown an airliner into a skyscraper. The actual news, of course, was that Michael Jackson had died suddenly, mysteriously, before the world could even learn if his comeback would be a success.

The concerts next month could never have generated as much money as the act of dying will. The extra positive media exposure and public forgiveness are incalculably large. What a great, if unintentional, career move.

However high his psychic apogees as the "King of Pop" his low points must have been frightening. His parents rode him hard and put him away emotionally wet. He spent his adult life searching for lost youth, questioning his fading talent, explaining his bizarre behavior and hiding his face from cameras - a living hell like that could be no worse than the imaginary fiery afterlife everyone seems to believe in..


But everything is different now. (I heard someone say exactly that on a TV news program.) Amidst the OJ-like media excitement over the as-yet unannounced upcoming Jackson funeral plus expectations of lawsuits, box sets, tribute productions, interviews of his children (once they turn 21), documentaries, made for TV biopics and, eventually, enough tell-all books to fill an elementary school library, America wants to know right this minute how the future will remember Michael Jackson.

Many people think Mike will end up at the top of the dead media legend tree next to Elvis. Hardly likely. My guess is that he'll end up several branches lower as the biggest name from the second-most relentlessly conformist and trivial era of popular culture ever. But the post-baby boom generation finally has its own John Lennon. Or is he their Tupac Shakur.

The important issue is whether Michael's fan base will replicate itself over time. When the current five-year olds who are listening to their parent's Michael Jackson albums grow up, they'll reproduce. Here's an imaginary conversation around the year 2040 between one of those kids and her tweener daughter.

Daughter "Mommy, who is Michael Jackson?"

Mom "He was a singer your Grandmother used to like when she was your age."

Daughter "Why does he look so funny."

Mom "Because he had plastic surgery to make him look younger."

Daughter "His eyes are sad. Why was he sad?"


Mom "Because he was so talented and so rich and so famous that he became unhappy."

Daughter "I thought famous people were always happy. Where is he now?"

Mom "He died a long time ago when he was fifty."

Daughter "No wonder he was sad. Fifty is REALLY OLD."

Mom "Don't tell your Grandmother. Now finish your bowl of Mr. Fizzy Mango Flavored Enviro-flax Sugar Treats and then you can watch that new show that you like on the 3-D Disney channel. Won't that be fun?"

Daughter "Oh boy!" Long pause. "Mommy, who is Miley Cyrus?"



The Michael Jackson Through The Year 2022 graphic came from here. Gessner Allee is, apparently, a theater in Zurich. The graphic is at least 3 years old.

Big Eye Tags: Michael Jackson. . . King of Pop. . . Death of Michael Jackson