Last week the Los Angeles Times interrupted its continuous coverage of the Academy Awards to run a Mark Swed review of a recent Los Angeles Philharmonic concert. The program was all-American (unless you refuse to accept something written by a Argentinian composer as American). It was anchored by an old Aaron Copland chestnut and included a non-film score and a piece by a native of Modesto.
The Phil will repeat the same program on tour in Europe. Swed enthused that "Dudamel prepared to inject a dose of L.A.'s brash, even reckless, attitude toward the cautiously conservative classical music establishment." Look out Europe, L.A. is really gonna rock your world.
Swed's review text, however, failed to mention the most interesting part. You had to read the caption of a picture found only on an inside page of the print edition to learn this tidbit. Here's the picture. Click it to see it larger. Can you spot the big news?
Yes, Alberto Ginastera will be performing his own piano concerto. That's remarkable because Alberto passed away in 1983. Not only is the Philharmonic shaking up the cautiously conservative establishment half a world away, they're now able to bring musicians back from the dead. Is there nothing they can't do? I'm very impressed. Imagine how impressed the Europeans will be.
And it must be true because I read it in the Los Angeles Times.
Mistakes in captions are, I'm sure, part and parcel of modern newspaper budget cutbacks.
Here's another example I clipped from the L.A. Times many years ago. Apparently they published this on March 17, 2002 because this article is on the back of the paper. I'm surprised to discover that I have never posted it to Mixed Meters.
Can you spot the error this time?
Yes, the man is playing a contrabass, not a cello. Duh.
Yes, it's another installment of the longest running Mixed Meters silly obsession: pictures of products or companies which use musical terms in their names. Believe it or not, this is Number Ten in the series. (Click here to see them all.)
Yeah, some of these are stretching the point. I am unapologetic. Click a picture for a close-up.
This time around we start with a viewfinder for a writer who makes a living creating music and follow that with a small boneless meat flute. Yum. Then two musical performance techniques - one for eating on a harp, the other for groups of singers who need a place to live.
Part two begins with a cold, diary-based sequence of musical tones, followed by a shorter sequence used for interior design. There are two variations on simultaneous groups of notes, one if you're having ear, nose and throat problems, the other for coloring the tips of your fingers. Either a high female singer or some words in a song will sartorially leave you in stitches.
Part two ends with a two-fer: a master of achieving exactly the right frequency on a mobile musical instrument.
Part three is all drinkable.
We begin with a hot caffeinated liquid which will make you sing Hallelujah. (This was submitted by an alert Mixed Meters' reader, the diving composer Jeff Laity. That's a first. Thanks Jeff.)
This is followed by a health conscious operatic showpiece for women, one which first needs to be mixed with water. Next there's a lemon of a grand opera wearing a winged helmet and a fruity rhyming South American dance. Then a winey high-pitched string instrument and a study piece translated into Spanish.
We end, as always, with some fast, dry bubbly. Drink up. As they say in old Mexico, L'Chaim.
With Extra Butter and Naughty Last Movement started out as a single piece. That ur-piece kept getting longer and longer. It was getting close to two minutes! I noticed that I had created two unrelated sections. So I severed them like a musical Ben Carson separating conjoined twins. I doubt that qualifies me to be a Republican presidential candidate either.
With Extra Butter and Naughty Last Movementboth have unhelpful titles. Do not attempt to relate music and title. One of these titles was selected in the classical 30 Second Spot manner - an overheard phrase; in this case it was on television rather than at a Starbucks. The other title was selected in the current Mixed Messages manner, using a random phrase generator. I'll let you guess which is which.
With Extra Butter and Naughty Last Movement aren't terribly interesting. Expect no transcendent meanings, elegant harmonies or beautiful melodies. There are no revealing formal structures, virtuosic performances or clever twisted endings. These are simple pleasant brief quiet musical moments for piano. They will take less time to listen to than it has taken you to read these paragraphs of exegesis.
If you don't know about my on-going composition project The Seasons then this post might lean towards the obtuse. Sorry. There's no time for any but the most cursory explanations right now. My goal is to do 3 new Mixed Meters posts per month. This is the third for January; yet another "Last Day of the Month"-er.
I'm now composing the seventeenth season of The Seasons. That would be the first season of the fifth year. It's called Winter 2015. The very first season was Winter 2011.
Each season has two versions, long and short. The long versions have silences separating the bits of music. There's one bit o'music for each day. The short versions have no silences but identical music. You can find all completed long versions here on Mixed Meters. Until now I only posted short versions beginning with Mantra (Spring 2013, short version).
A few days ago, out on my walk, I set my iPad to shuffle play. It decided that I needed to listen to Winter 2012 (short version). It had been some time since I'd played it. And I enjoyed it. I usually enjoy listening to my old music if I don't do it too often. Sometimes, however, it depresses me. I figured this piece was good enough to post. Plus, it would make an easy third post for January.
After Winter 2011, the very first season, I tried different schemes for musical unification. In Winter 2012 there is a 12-tone row used throughout. There are no other serial techniques; it's just a kind of melody with all twelve pitches that pops up from time to time. For the following season, Spring 2013, I figured out how to make the daily bits link together metrically. I've been using that technique ever since.
In Winter 2012 (short version) the musical bits vary considerably in their musical style. The shifts can be surprising. Hearing it now reminded me of John Zorn's For Your Eyes Only which is filled with musical quick-cuts and stylistic changes. I wasn't aware of the Zorn piece until several years after I wrote Winter 2012. And, of course, my piece does has no movie references.
Today, January 27, 2015, would have been Arthur Jarvinen's 60th birthday. It's been over five years since Art chose to take his final bow. His decision left a lot of baffled and befuddled friends, family and colleagues behind. He is missed.
Saxophonist and composer Eric Barber was a friend and colleague of Art Jarvinen. And, for a while, his student. Last fall Eric released a solo saxophone album entitled Harp of Life in Art's memory. Here's the cover:
Eric provided this description of the album from his Bandcamp page:
This music is a tribute to my friend, mentor, and teacher Art Jarvinen. The years we spent together eating, playing, and discussing greatly influenced my musical approach and vocabulary. After his untimely passing in 2010, I began composing the music for this project. I think Art would appreciate the music, the meticulous dedication to the recording process, and the utter lack of any marketing potential or financial return on a multi tracked solo saxophone album. I miss him and will always remember the wonderful times we shared and all that he taught me.
Eric's precise order of "eating, playing and discussing" amuses me greatly. Any friend of Art's will understand those priorities. Via email Eric expanded on his relationship to Art:
I studied composition with Art for two years at CalArts (97-99) and he basically turned me on to everything good... Beefheart, Rweski, Feldman, Zappa. We had a duo called We Are Not Mailmen which was acoustic sax and his electronics setup. Our band Balkanova with Randy Gloss, Milen Kirov, and John Heitzenrater was a twisted Bulgarian gypsy wedding band with Art on bass, and we played a bunch of his originals too. And I had a trio with him with Art on drums, Scot Ray on trombone and Hammond. And I played a few cuts on Invisible Guy. Most of this was between 1999 and 2004. And we had a lot of Thai food, sea bass, and saunas along with all the Halloweenie fests and pig roasts. He really was like an uncle.
Harp of Life has six tracks - all for various combinations of tenor and soprano saxophones. The tracks are entitled:
Harp of Life (circa 2167 AD)
The Folly of Primes (Libyan Fox Trot)
Repose
Simantronica
49 Halves of 14 (circa 2167 AD)
Sabotage (via ledgerdemain)
I sensed allusions to Jarvinen in these titles.
For example Simantronica is clearly a reference to the East European musical instrument (similar to a piece of lumber) called the Simantron. Art was expert on all things simantronic. He wrote this article about it. Here's a short lo-res video of Art using a simantron to call his dinner guests to begin consuming a whole roast pig. There are no simantrons in Eric Barber's Simantronica; it is for 3 soprano and 3 tenor saxophones.
I asked Eric what the other Jarvinen references in his titles might be. He wrote:
Yes the titles do [refer to Art] but are not based on his music necessarily. Folly of Primes (Libyan Fox Trot) is a nod to Art's Egyptian Two Step. 49 Halves of 14 is a nod to A Conspiracy of Crows. Harp of Life is inspired by the Hymn string quartet he wrote that was performed at his memorial. Sabotage has a relationship to Breaking the Chink, which I got to play at CalArts as a student and was my entree to Art.
Eric added that Harp of Life is a reference to composer Henry Cowell who also wrote a piece of that title. (Here it is on YouTube.) While you're at it you can hear Egyptian Two Step (listen carefully for the bursts of air at the beginning) and Conspiracy of Crows.
More to the point, you can hear Eric Barber's Harp of Life on Bandcamp. Better yet, you can purchase the whole album for the outrageously reasonable price of $7. Talk about the utter lack of financial return.
The opening cut, Harp of Life, begins with several minutes of mournful solo tenor. You might mistake this for the beginning of a jazz tune and expect a piano, bass and drums to enter. Nope. After this invocation Barber introduces a simple ostinato pattern taken up by more saxes. The music with rich harmonies evokes a church hymn. The relationship to Jarvinen's music is much more than in name only. Solos over the pattern search higher and higher for meaning.
Barber's music on this album comes from the world of minimalism - often with multiple contrapuntal lines fusing into textures. Much of the music is rhythmic but without an overall sense of meter. As a composer Barber has an excellent feel for just the right moment to add bits of new material.
The piece Repose uses a muliple sopranos glissandoing in a narrow range. You can hear difference tones being produced. It would probably be devastating done live.
My favorite piece is 49 Halves of 14 (circa 2167 AD). This consists only of a series of complex chords, almost clusters, held for various lengths of time, separated by silences. There is a great sense of anticipation. You're forced to listen, to wait, because you never know when that next chord will explode, interrupt.
I agree wholeheartedly with Eric's statement "I think Art would appreciate the music." And I commend Eric Barber for producing a well-crafted artistically challenging album. He called it a "labor of love".
One way of honoring Art Jarvinen's memory is to play his music. Another is to let Art's memory inspire us to make new music. That's a very good thing and something Art would certainly have understood and approved.
Today's Powerball Lottery is worth one and half billion dollars, the biggest jackpot ever. I bought my tickets. Of course, I'm not going to win -- and neither are you. Buying a ticket doesn't change the chances of not winning. You have a nearly identical chance to not win if you don't buy a ticket as you do if you buy some. Either way, you'll lose. I guarantee it.
They say "the lottery is a tax on people who don't understand mathematics". Here's a website that convinces me that I don't understand mathematics. I say "Screw math. The fantasy of a big win is worth a few bucks." I enjoy immersing myself in the occasional delusion of sudden, unlimited wealth.
I wonder how big the jackpot would have to be before Bill Gates or Warren Buffet purchased tickets. And if someone who was already obscenely wealthy won another billion dollars in the lottery, how long would it take for people to start believing that the lottery is rigged.
I'm reading George Orwell's 1984. I read it once when I was much younger, before the year 1984. Orwell seems to have accurately predicted some annoying features of our society. He was even better at describing life today in North Korea.
Here's a passage that seems relevant. Our hero, Winston Smith, resident of Oceania and member of the INGSOC party, has taken a walk in the bad part of London, the part of town where the lower-class proles live, a place where Winston is not really supposed to go:
In an angle formed by a projecting house-front three men were standing very close together, the middle one of them holding a folded-up newspaper which the other two were studying over his shoulder. Even before he was near enough to make out the expression on their faces, Winston could see absorption in every line of their bodies. It was obviously some serious piece of news that they were reading. He was a few paces away from them when suddenly the group broke up and two of the men were in violent altercation. For a moment they seemed almost on the point of blows. "Can’t you bleeding well listen to what I say? I tell you no number ending in seven ain’t won for over fourteen months!" "Yes, it ’as, then!" "No, it ’as not! Back ’ome I got the ’ole lot of ’em for over two years wrote down on a piece of paper. I takes ’em down reg’lar as the clock. An’ I tell you, no number ending in seven -- " "Yes, a seven ‘as won! I could pretty near tell you the bleeding number. Four oh seven, it ended in. It were in February -- second week in February." "February your grandmother! I got it all down in black and white. An’ I tell you, no number -- " "Oh, pack it in!" said the third man. They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had gone thirty meters. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces. The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.
Here's a picture of our dog Chowderhead contemplating the kumquat bush in the driveway.
Kumquats are among the few foods Chowder doesn't like. He does sometimes help out by watering the bush - in his fashion
As you can see we have a good deal of fruit this year and that fruit has been ripening nicely. Experience has revealed that if I pick them in large quantity they'll go to waste inside. So, instead, I leave them on the bush as long as possible. That way I can enjoy a few freshly picked bursts of citrus each time I walk by.
Yes, I like kumquats. I'm like the dog in one respect; there are very few foods I don't care for, but our opinions about kumquats differ.
And I am the reason we even have a kumquat bush. Leslie planted it. She has occasionally attempted to grow certain plants simply because I like the produce. She herself doesn't care for kumquats any more than the dog does. She planted it for me. The kumquats have been a great success. Not so great successes have included strawberries and blueberries, those are both ill-suited to our climate.
One thing I've acquired a taste for as I've grown older is martinis. I noticed that these always tasted better to me in restaurants than when I made them at home. So I set out to make a better martini.
To this end, several years ago, I took an informal martini making lesson from composer Bill Kraft. Bill makes a great drink. I've experimented with his method and lately my recipe has formalized.
I realize that tastes and dogmas vary when it comes to cocktails. This is just how I do it. If this doesn't sound good to you, at least you'll know not to ask me to make one for you.
Mix together:
4.5 ounces (3 shots) of gin (Lately I've been enamored of 114-proof Few gin. It's potent stuff.)
1/4 teaspoon vermouth (Yep, this is a dry martini. I try to ignore Tom Lehrer's recipe: "Hearts full of youth, Hearts full of truth, Six parts gin to one part vermouth.")
A dash or two of Fee Brothers Orange Bitters (you might already have McCormick Orange Extract in your spice cabinet. That'll work too.)
Crushed Ice
Shake well.
Pour into a super-chilled martini glass. I use a wine goblet from my Grandmother's etched pink depression stemware set. My Grandmother was not a martini drinker. The small size of this glass determines the quantity of gin in the recipe.
Garnish with two or three fresh-picked kumquats. (In the off-season I settle for green olives.)
Drink up. After all 'tis the season. Best wishes for a prosperous new year to all three of my readers and everyone else as well.
The resulting libation looks something like this:
I've been using Carpano Antic Formula vermouth, a strongly-flavored dark-colored liquid. I selected this brand mostly because it came in a small bottle. I had been told that vermouths get old once the bottles are opened and you can well imagine that I don't go through the stuff very quickly. I've started keeping it in the fridge to prolong its life. I'll try another brand next time.
Listen to the source of Tom Lehrer's martini recipe:
I haven't posted a 30 Second Spot in, like, more than a year. (One year and four days to be precise.)
'Tis the season for my annual contribution to the War on Christmas, and let me tell you, this is not my best work. It is scored for bass guitar, bass tuba, bass drum and sleigh bells.
The one thing JB-AFAP has in its favor, however, is short length. You could listen to it twice in one minute - and that includes 10 seconds of silence.
My personal history with Jingle Bells as an expression of my seasonal musical disaffections is almost as old as Mixed Meters itself. Here's a complete list of the Jingle pieces so far:
There are a lot of books in our home, most of them Leslie's. One set of old volumes has occupied a prominent location in our den since we moved here nineteen years ago. We have long since stopped noticing it. It's decoration, like an art object, just sitting there because, well, what else would we do with it?
So, anyway. One evening last week Leslie and I were sitting in the den, probably watching something boring and forgettable on television, when I happened to pick up Volume VI. Thumbing through it, my eye fell upon the title "The Genial Idiot Discusses the Music Cure" by John Kendrick Bangs.
This turned out to be a short story in which our hero, the Genial Idiot, confers with his doctor, Capsule M.D., about the efficacy of using music to cure physical ills. In spite of the medical professional's skepticism, the Idiot proceeds to offer copious anecdotal evidence that music does indeed have healing powers and eventually suggests it will soon become a dominant medical treatment modality. What was apparently just a silly joke over a hundred years ago has now become an accepted treatment in our times. Thus civilization advances, first comedy, then remedy.
Of course, from my all-too-modern viewpoint, the story is neither funny nor well-written. I have no way to evaluate how someone would have reacted to it in 1907 or thereabouts. Probably rolling on the floor laughing, or whatever acronym for ROFL the hipsters used back then.
So, anyway, my interest in Bangs' story was piqued by mentions of composer Richard Wagner, who would have been ever so popular during those times. And, as you know, Wagner's awful, endless opera music is one of Mixed Meters' favorite bugaboos.
First the Idiot tells the Doctor about claims for the healing power of music which he has read in the press:
It may not be able to perform a surgical operation like that which is required for the removal of a leg, and I don't believe even Wagner ever composed a measure that could be counted on successfully to eliminate one's vermiform appendix from its chief sphere of usefulness, but for other things, like measles, mumps, the snuffles, or indigestion, it is said to be wonderfully efficacious.
Then, after describing his own experience of how his insomnia was cured by attending both Parsifal and Gotterdammerung, the Idiot adds this:
Clearly Wagner, according to my way of thinking, then deserves to rank among the most effective narcotics known to modern science. I have tried all sorts of other things - sulfonal, trionel, bromide powders, and all the rest and not one of them produced anything like the soporific results that two doses of Wagner brought about in one instant, and best of all there was no reaction. No splitting headache or shaky hand the next day, but just the calm, quiet, contented feeling that goes with the sense of having got completely rested up.
Doctor Capsule is unimpressed. He responds:
You run a dreadful risk, however. The Wagner habit is a terrible thing to acquire, Mr. Idiot.
The Idiot is not worried about getting addicted to Wagner.
I am in no danger of becoming a victim to it while it costs from five to seven dollars a dose.
That's about $120 to $170 in today's money. Sounds about right for a half-way decent seat at a live opera. (If we're lucky maybe Martin Shkreli will buy up all rights to Wagner and raise the price by 5000 per cent.)
The Idiot then tells another story about his friend, an artist, whose upset stomach was cured by a neighbor playing Arthur Sullivan's The Lost Chord on a cornet.
As the story concludes our Idiot makes predictions on how music will, in the future, cure nearly all medical ailments and revolutionize the medical industry.
If a small boy goes swimming and catches a cold in his head and is down with a fever his nurse, an expert on the accordion, can bring him back to health again with three bars of Under the Bamboo Tree after each meal.
So, anyway, I'm sure that by now you're anxious to read The Genial Discusses the Music Cure. It's available widely online. You can even find audio versions.
For your convenience I scanned and OCR'd and posted the story myself. Read it right here on Mixed Meters. It might cure your insomnia better than a Wagner opera.
Instead of presenting the daily segments in the order they were composed - as they were in (I'm Sorry We're) Out of Time - this time they are "shuffled" into a different order. (I originally wanted to tell you that the piece was being played "sideways". Shuffling, however, is much more descriptive terminology.)
There's method to my musical shuffling. In the first three minutes you hear all the segments which I composed on Mondays in the order they were composed. (That much, just the Monday bits, is also known as Garbage Days of Summer 2015. Garbage Day versions for a few other seasons are online if you're curious.)
After the Monday segments come all the Tuesday segments. Then Wednesday. Then . . . you get the idea. Eventually all the weekdays are accounted for and the piece ends. (Don't you dare call this Serialism. Well, go ahead, but please tell me you're only making a joke.)
To my ears the shuffle worked surprisingly well musically. The two pieces are very different. I'm hard pressed to decide which one I like better. I think the shuffle works because Summer 2015 adheres to the Garbage Day Periodicityidea quite rigorously. New ideas are introduced each week starting on Mondays and therefore the original music is quite episodic.
The shuffled version, however, is not episodic. It has more of a periodic feel, like a set of seven variations, cycling through the sequence of a dozen or so weekly ideas before going on to the next day. I think these segments are fairly easy to hear if you're attentive. If you're multitasking, this time chart will help you identify when each new day begins:
Monday
0'00"
Tuesday
3'11"
Wednesday
5'28"
Thursday
7'28"
Friday
9'43"
Saturday
12'06"
Sunday
14'45"
I felt free to adjust the time between segments if I felt that was needed in the two versions, so I was surprised that they turned out exactly the same length. The versions are, however, mixed quite differently because musical bits appear in quite different contexts. I was also surprised when I listened to both versions simultaneously - there was cacophony, just not as much as I expected.
Besides the generic seasonal titles which I give all my pieces from The Seasons, the short versions (those are the ones without the long silences) also get poetical titles. I'm pretty sure this double titling is misleading or confusing to many people. Sometimes it's just downright deceptive. And intentionally so. These additional titles often refer to some personal aspect of the music. Most likely they're irrelevant for anyone except me.
I've titled the short versions of Summer 2015 "(I'm Sorry We're) Out of Time". Imagine a game show host telling us that the fun is finally over and, if you want more fun, you'll have to tune in next week. For expediency's sake I often shorten the title to "Out of Time".
Musically, my principal intent was to create music no one can dance to. (If you do succeed in dancing to this music, please please post some video.)
The opening of (I'm Sorry We're) Out of Time was inspired by the annoying confirmation beeps of car alarms. You know the drill, some jerk with an expensive car pushes a button on his keychain and his car yelps like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. This serves two important purposes. First of all, the jerk is secure in knowing that his car is protected from malefactors. Also, he has the small pleasure of informing anyone nearby that the car is valuable enough that he feels entitled to startle and aggravate us with ugly electronic sounds. It's a small social faux pas which our culture provides to people who spend too much money on their automobiles. On the relative scale of vehicular sound pollution, locking your car with a beep is a far cry from the asshole who guns his Harley in a freeway underpass.
Anyway, keep your ears peeled for the Beep Theme right at the beginning. It recurs periodically throughout (I'm Sorry We're) Out of Time. Enjoy.
(I'm Sorry We're) Out of Time quotes a famous classical piece. Be the first person to correctly identify said classical music and win a not-so-valuable prize. Really, I'll send you a CD of my music which is otherwise unavailable online.
If you're not so sure you want to invest eighteen whole minutes listening to Out of Time - after all, time is money, right? - then you might want to gamble three of your valuable minutes listening to Garbage Days of Summer 2015. This is a kind of time-lapse version comprised of the musical segments which I composed on Mondays.
One more thing - the undanceable nature of (I'm Sorry We're) Out of Time prompted me to make time-lapse versions for the other days of the week. Those are the days when I merely created garbage but didn't share it with the world. I've strung all those versions together to create a whole different version of Out of Time. I called it (I'm Sorry We're) Out of Time Shuffled. The two pieces are exactly the same length and have exactly the same music, only the ordering is different. Listen to Out of Time Shuffled here or read more about Out of Time Shuffled here.
