Blog: Music in Trains
Music in Trains is the blog of Benjamin Williams, composer. It began as an online forum for graduate students at The Ohio State University School of Music to discuss theoretical issues related to new music. The purpose was to tackle such questions as:
- What is music?
- What is the role of the composer?
- How is music related to the other arts and culture in general?
But the life of a graduate student is a busy one, leaving little time for participation in such a forum in addition to each musicians' individual research.
Soon thereafter, Music in Trains became the personal blog of Benjamin Williams, composer. Posts generally fall into the category of Aesthetics, Theory or Politics with an occasional mention of a recent Premiere.
Happy Reading!
The Ying Quartet at the Southern
Last night the Ying Quartet played the opening concert of the 2009–2010 Season of Chamber Music Columbus. If you live in central Ohio and have not availed yourself of the opportunity to go to one of these performances, I highly suggest that you make efforts to get to one (I will hopefully be at many, if not all). Before the performance began, Emily and I were looking over the schedule for the season and in particular discussing one of the upcoming CMC concerts featuring John O'Conor on piano (3/6/10). One of the potential difficulties of listening to an evening of piano music is that it can become tiresome with the lack of variety in terms of timbre and dynamic envelope available to the pianist. Whereas many other instruments and the voice can vary these parameters in a variety of different ways, the pianist makes musical gestures out of a different set that, for example, includes intensity of attack, but not dynamic envelope.
The Culpability of the Art(ist)
As I read through various reports on Arts this morning, I found a common thread through three articles: "Love the Art; Hate the Artist?" by John Schaefer
In Israel you still won't hear the music of Richard Wagner in concert. The music sounds just as glorious there as it does anywhere else, but the Nazi's appropriation of his music and of some of his anti-Semitic writings make it a painful listening experience for many Israelis who survived the Holocaust and settled there.… If we remove all the art by artists of bad character from our lives, who are we hurting? Not a long dead composer… We're just denying ourselves the good—in some cases, perhaps the only good—that these people did.
Can Parents Fill In When Schools Cut Music?
Don Aucoin of The Boston Globe recently wrote an article in which he explains "How parents can fill the void when schools cut arts and music programs." In summary:
"The first art to develop is the art of looking.… The next step is to take them to a museum, so they can see how the pros do it…"Or, in the case of music specifically:
"The next step is to take the children to a 'starter show' like 'Shear Madness,' then graduate to 'Blue Man Group,' and then on to more challenging fare."
E-Art
I'm always fascinated by reports of current trends in music consumption. An article in The Atlantic, "Why Aren't Kids These Days Downloading Music?" by Derek Thompson was cited by Frank J. Oteri in "You Can't Take That Away From Me" remarking on the latest trend: moving away from downloading and keeping tracks toward visiting streaming sites such as Pandora and YouTube where you listen in a less committal way. This new structure is changing the economy of music as noted by Alexandra Topping:
Even though users of streaming services are not necessarily buying more music, the industry benefits by learning more about fans' tastes. Steve Purdham, CEO and founder of We7, a music streaming service and download store, said: "They may not buy an album, though they have that opportunity, but you can sell them tour tickets and a T-shirt of their favourite band."
(Un)Conscious Inspiration
No matter how much composers wish to be noted for their tendency to think outside-of-the-box or to be on the cutting-edge, it is apparent that composers are also unlikely to compose without drawing on some form of external (whether intentionally imposed or not) inspiration. One likely source of inspiration is that a similar generator; in the case of composers, another composer. One composer with whom I studied, Nikola Resanovic, made it evident that he drew some of his inspiration from other musicians; namely, The Beatles. He made no attempts to hide such inspiration, but rather made it evident with occasional titles such as "Igor's Pet Walrus" alluding to the source of a harmonic progression (as well as components from Stravinsky). It became apparent, however, that such preferences leaked into his music even when he hadn't necessarily consciously intended to do so, e.g. preferences for particular progressions typical of pop music, and became part of a wonderfully engaging personal style.
Pre-recorded? So, what?
Whereas I have written before in defense of live performers ("Who Needs Performers?"), I found the recent attacks on performers who used pre-recorded music rather lacking in substance. In particular, the 2009 inauguration performance and the national anthem at the 2009 Super Bowl were written about by Eric Felten in the Wall Street Journal in an article titled "That Synching Feeling". Here are some of the reasons offered by performers as to why they would use pre-recorded music:
- This occasion's got to be perfect. You can't have any slip-ups.
- The slightest glitch would devastate the performance.
- There are too many variables to go live.
- The performers care too much about their art to risk presenting something substandard.
The Custodian of Musical Aptitudes
I worked with guitarist/composer/conductor Dennis Roden for around 10 years at a church in Canton, OH where he was music director and I was pianist/organist (musicians wear so many hats, don't they?). He recently earned the name Master Roden with his writings on the Stravinsky Mass. The research provided some interesting insights into the compositional process of Stravinsky (odd text accentuation, musical form that does not directly follow the form of the text, etc.), but I was most struck by Stravinsky's thoughts about composers and spirituality. Two quotes, in particular, stood out to me as calls to composers in regards to their work:
I regard my talents as God-given, and I have always prayed to Him for strength to use them. When in early childhood I discovered that I had been made the custodian of musical aptitudes, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of their development, though, of course, I have broken the pledge and received uncovenanted mercies all my life, and though the custodian has too often kept faith on his own all-too-worldly terms. -Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a Diary, (London: Faber, 1968), 125.
Guns, Germs, Steel and Music?
A true gem of a thought that I can not resist periodically shows up on Orchestralist, the international forum for orchestra professionals. One such post recently came up that contained such good points that I am still mentally working my way through my own thoughts regarding the questions posed. The author paraphrased Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs and Steel with a list of factors that may be the most important factors in whether an orchestra will present a new work.
The “Custodian of Aural History”?
"The DJ is the custodian of aural history." —Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky
From Conception to Execution
On my drive home yesterday, I was listening to NPR, as I am usually apt to do. I was struck by some thoughts presented in a report by Andrea Shea, "Conceptualizing Sol LeWitt's 'Wall Drawings'." Although Sol LeWitt died last year at 78, one of his biggest installations, "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective" will open to the public soon, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts and be on view for 25 years. LeWitt hired a number of artists to execute his ideas over the past several years, including the time after his death. LeWitt was one of the pioneers and masters of the "conceptual art" movement. For him:
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. — Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," Artforum, June 1967.
