a math problem + i heart hector

I spent the majority of last week trying to make strict minimalism line up with the modern romantic aesthetic. Sounds heady, right? Not so.

The text I'm setting right now has this really cool line about the reflection of fire ("reflet du feu" in French) and so I got this sound-image in my mind of sitting around a campfire having a conversation. No matter what's being said in that situation, there's always this constant underpinning of the crackle of the fire. The musical device that came to represent this is the constant back-and-forth of a C-minor triad in either the piano or harp which vacillates from start to finish between a single 'C' and an 'Eb-G' double stop.

Unfortunately for my not-so-good-at-math brain, the music that surrounds that triad switches from 4/4 to 6/8 to 2/2 and all sorts of stuff in between with the crackle of that fire never changing tempo. What that means is I've got a math problem on my hands. How do I notate that in all those different meters so it never, ever changes?

So that's the challenge for this week of writing. It's going to take me forever. Well, probably not that long but it's going to feel extremely tedious and un-creative.

For obvious reasons I've also been listening to a lot of French music lately. My current pièce du moment is Berlioz's song cycle, Les Nuits d'Eté. I've been listening to the orchestrated version of it in a recording by the Argentinian mezzo, Bernarda Fink and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. I'm completely mystified by how Berlioz makes the vocal line sound totally spontaneous but still perfect. And the opening to the fourth movement, "L'Absence," is simple but incredible. He makes this serene moment out of nothing more than a few suspensions.

And what do you suppose he's looking at in that picture?

finale finally + currently listening

I'm in about ankle-deep entering notes into Finale for this one French song that's finished. It's probably the most terrifying part of the process because MIDI sounds terrible and it always shakes me a little to hear something that sounded gorgeous on an acoustic piano farted into my ear by a shitty MIDI approximation of a flute. My first instinct is to think that the music is terrible rather than the "instrument" that's playing it. That being said, I don't have any plans to try and figure out how to make it sound good any time soon because, in my humble opinion, my time could be better spent doing something useful...you know, like blogging. So for now I guess I'll just have to pull myself up by my proverbial bootstraps and just find a good MIDI combination that works (I'm partial to the oboe sample as well as the sax family...but the flute is t-t-terrible).

All this Finale/MIDI talk brings up a good thought that's been festering for me. Whenever I'm at a premiere or something like that there is inevitably someone who comes up to talk shop about composition. That discussion always results in the question, "So do you use Finale or Sibelius?" And then we usually talk about the supposed huge contention about which one is better or some such thing. There are even people out there that think there is some sort of massive rivalry between the two competing brands. Like the Sharks and the Jets of music notation software or something like that. (If that's true then I want to be Bernardo...but would settle for Anita.) Is this really a huge deal?

That's just a half-formed thought but I think it bears mentioning. I do not understand people who can write on the computer. There is no way I would be able to do that because I don't think I could move fast enough to write at the speed of thought if I was hampered by a bunch of electronics. What can I say? I'm a pencil-in-hand guy and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't write this way. That being said, I know they're out there.

I bought two albums this past week that have been on a loop. Rufus Wainwright just put out a live album called Milwaukee At Last!!! and, although I am a huge Rufus fan, this album feels obligatory rather than inspired. There's nothing extraordinary about it like his last live album where he recreated Judy Garland's landmark 1961 Carnegie Hall set song for song. Don't get me wrong: it's a fine, fine album and I love hearing some of his songs rendered in a live performance (especially "Release The Stars" and a great cover of the Irish song "Macushla" sung with nothing but a brass ensemble), it's just that I wanted something more inspiring.

Someone handed me a copy of Ocean Eyes by Owl City on Monday morning and I think I've listened to the entire album at least once a day ever since. Owl City is the nom de plume for singer/songwriter Adam Young and, people, this music is incredible. It's digi-pop in the tradition of The Postal Service (he even sounds like Ben Gibbard at times) and there is something contained in this album that just sits right with me. It's optimistic but not naive. Repetitive but not boring. There are a few perfect songs on this album that people will struggle to live up to whenever they sit down to write music (this composer included).

And the have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too thing about it is that Young is from Minnesota! Specifically the town of Owatonna (the home of the company that makes the Finale software!) fifteen minutes from where I grew up. There's a strong possibility that we even had the same choir teacher in high school.

The only thing I'm worried about with this album is that it seems like the MTV culture is going to take it up as a cause célèbre and I think that the inevitable over-saturation that would result from this would really be doing this music a disservice. There's too much integrity in it for it to be whored out like that...not to put too fine a point on it.

Mahalo.

silent bob at the state theater + done with one movement

I went to the State Theater last night for a Q&A session with director Kevin Smith. I've been buying his movies ever since I saw Mallrats in college and it was extremely interesting to hear him talk about all sorts of things ranging from his love of hockey to writing a script to working with Bruce Willis. If you have the chance to go see him I highly suggest it. It was tons 'o fun.














In compositional news I'm done with one movement of the French pieces and I found the kernel for the next one. It's called "Le vent" ("The Wind") and is the fast one in the set. I've got a kickass tempo modulation in the second stanza which goes from triple to duple with the bottom hand of the harp/piano keeping the same pulse throughout. I'll probably post more on that later because, at the moment, it sounds like maybe the coolest transition I've ever written.

I've been listening to a ton of art songs by French composers lately (Poulenc, Fauré, Ravel, etc.) and am trying to find the "French vibe" for fast music so I can absorb how a native speaker would have treated their own language. (I had no idea that Fauré arranged the Il est ne carol for solo voice.)

in the throes of writing a set

I've been working fairly diligently on writing this solo French set (for soprano, piano and harp) as of late and have come to the conclusion that writing a set of pieces is far, far different than writing just one, stand alone work. Come to think of it, I think I know this already but, since commissions for multiple-movement works aren't usually the bread and butter of a composer's work, I just "re-realize" this every time I get a commission like this one.

If I'm writing something that will exist solely on its own I tend to throw everything and the musical-emotional kitchen sink at it. Having multiple pieces means that you can't really do that. The range of things that I want the audience to feel is stretched out over many pieces instead of just one so, in a sense, there has to be some compartmentalization in the writing of these things.

At the moment I'm 95% done with one of the movements and, because of the text, I decided to create this kind of hazy fog of half-remembered memories (or something inarticulate like that). It's in E-Lydian, the main melody spans a 7th and it's very "tune-y" (think Fauré, I suppose). Here it is without any accompaniment written in quite yet (click on it to see it a little closer):








The original text by Rilke is gorgeous. Here's the English translation:

You don't survive in me
Because of memories
Nor are you mine because
Of the strength of a beautiful longing

What does make you present
Is the ardent detour
That a slow tenderness
Traces in my blood.

I do not need
To see you appear;
Being born sufficed for me
To lose you a little less.

Isn't that beautiful? Especially the last stanza. I almost always repeat that last line a few times in my head whenever I read it and, more than likely, the music will reflect this.

That being said, I would never have set this in English because it's not quite immediate enough for me to take it up in that way. For instance, you have to get about three levels below "ardent detour" before it starts to have some sort of personal emotional resonance. However, the moment you start singing that thing in French I am so on board.

So that's one song nearly in the can. All of the parts for the soprano are written and I'm pretty close to the piano and harp parts. It's become very interesting visualizing what it all will sound like because those two instruments are such an odd combination...sort of like trying to find the happy medium between a linebacker and a ballerina.

hail to the chief!

President Obama came to Minneapolis to speak at a health care rally at the Target Center yesterday and this unashamed, lily-livered, pants-wetting liberal Democrat made the trek down to attend. Mama Shank drove up to go with and we had an incredible time; like one of those events in your life that you'll never forget. 30 years from now I can say that I saw Barack Obama speak.

It was absolutely incredible. Trying to write how it made me feel to sit with tens of thousands of people (in the most diverse crowd I've ever seen in Minnesota) and feel great together about something important would be a moot point. So I'll just try and hit on the experience.

We left my apartment around 8am (there's very few things besides the President of the United States that could get me up this early on a Saturday) and took the bus down to the Target Center. The line had to be a good half mile long (or more) and the doors opened at 9:30 for the 12:30 start. That being said, waiting in line was really enjoyable. The weather was great and, aside from the crazy, Bible-thumping zealots screaming at us at one point about who-knows-what, the crowd was in a fantastic mood. We were just there to see our President. By the time you got to the arena, it was evident just how many people had showed up. This is obviously only a small fraction of the crowd hanging around outside.
















Here's a shot of half the arena. It was packed.
















Once we got inside (about an hour and a half later) we finally got to sit down while we waited for the President to get there. When Air Force One landed at Twin Cities International they broadcast it on the jumbotron...and the crowd lost it. Here's the view of the Presidential State Car pulling away from in front of the 747. That is so cool.
















Before the President came out to speak the Secretary of Health & Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, came out to fire the crowd up. I'm a huge fan of The West Wing and, seeing a cabinet member up on stage made me nerd out a bit...or a lot.

As you can probably tell, a lot of the event was experienced--like a rock concert--through the huge television screen.

Halfway through, however, I realized that I wasn't really feeling any different than any other time I'd seen him on television. After that, I made a concerted effort to watch the tiny figure at the other side of the arena instead. That was the President right there across the room.















Click on that picture to enlarge it. It's not a great photo...but I was in the room with him--albeit with a bunch of other people--when I took it.

Towards the end he told this really funny story about why he likes to ask if people are "fired up." And you know what? That story was really funny and, luckily, I found the clip on YouTube. Around the 2-minute mark is where he starts in on that story and, whether you voted for him or not, it's pretty plain to see that he's a tremendous speaker.

Hail to the chief, indeed.

'Nuff said.

Back to work.

grieg is the man

I'm totally in love with Edvard Grieg's Fire Psalmer ("Four Psalms") at the moment. I sang this work a few years ago (completely in Norwegian...it was a bitch to learn but the different vowels you have to employ really make it fun) but haven't had a chance to revisit it in a while. I just splurged and got a bunch of stuff by the Norwegian Soloists' Choir and getting these four pieces proved irresistible.

They're all works "after old Norwegian church melodies" so there's a measure of familiarity in listening to them that I hadn't really hit upon until I heard a choir of native Norwegians singing them. I originally heard the first, Hvad est du dog skjøn, way back in high school when I picked up a recording from the St. Olaf Choir (to hear a piece by another Norwegian, Knut Nystedt's O Crux) but it's still completely amazing to me.

The second movement, Guds Søn har gjordt meg fri, has been re-arranged here and there into a piece for men's chorus but the original is way more arresting. You've got a baritone soloist singing in one key and the choir singing in another (polytonality from a guy who died in 1907!) and, from what I remember, this movement was the most difficult to learn.

Jesus Christus er opfaren is a patient interplay between soloist and choir and, in the performance I bought, benefits from an incredible interpretation. The choir sings it in a folk style that, to my ear, is reminiscent of some of the choral stuff you might hear in--of all things--The Lion King (I know that's really weird to say...it's just what I hear).

The Norwegian Soloists' Choir represented Norway at the World Choral Symposium when it was held right here in Minneapolis in 2002. Their performance and the workshop that Grete Pedersen put on about Norwegian choral music were some of the few things from the symposium that I remember vividly. On the recording (which you can still buy!), one of the pieces they're represented with is the final movement of this work, I Himmelen. It translates to "In Heaven Above" and--if you'll permit me to be a little schmaltzy for a second--it isn't hard to see why.

I visited Grieg's house, Troldhaugen, in Bergen in 2003 and I've gradually begun to listen to a lot of his music and really enjoy it. Look up the choral arrangement of Våren if you're game...it's so beautiful. The half steps at the beginning kill me every time and, in the NSC recording, a soprano goes further into the ledger lines above the staff than I think I've ever heard in a choral performance.

Takk deg, Edvard! Din musikk forbauser!

Now back to work on these French pieces!

some great live music lately

The last few days have been full of some great live inspiration here in the Cities. On Thursday night I ambled over to The Artists' Quarter in Saint Paul to watch the Dave Karr Quartet play some amazing jazz. It was way better than my last trip to the AQ because, frankly, it wasn't completely over my heard this time. And, on top of that, their namesake saxophone player turned 80 the very next day.

















I hope to hell that I'm still as good as this guy is at half that age. He was absolutely incredible...to say nothing of the other 3 guys on stage who took some pretty amazing solos themselves.

Last night I went to the Triple Rock Social Club near Cedar and Riverside to see some local acts. It was a pretty packed bill with four bands (I missed the first one) playing until around 1:45am or so. But completely worth it.

The Sunny Era took the stage about 20 minutes after I got there and was easily one of the more interesting experiences I've ever had at a rock club. Imagine something akin to rock and roll gypsy music (they used violin, accordion and clarinet alongside the traditional guitar and drum set) that pours over and over itself in all of its harmonic minor splendor and, at one point, incorporates a theremin(!). There were a couple of really transcendent moments where they suddenly switched into major in the middle of a song. I really want to learn how to do that because, whenever I've screwed around with something like that in the past, it just came off as trite.















Then you've got the Eau Claire, Wisconsin art rock quartet, Laarks. They were anchored with a keyboard but their lead guitarist (who I had a great, nerdy discussion with after their set) threw in all sorts of great "noise" throughout. The drummer in this band is, by far, the coolest thing to watch on stage. He rocked so hard that I thought he was going to pass out at some point or, at the very least, bite off his tongue. During their set he broke both a bass drum pedal and a drumstick (but didn't take stock in order to regroup and, instead, just kept kicking ass with a broken stick in one hand). I had already thrown the money I brought to buy an album at The Sunny Era otherwise I would have walked out with their CD.
















The Small Cities finished out the evening and, even though a lot of people had left by the time their set rolled around, they rocked really hard. The last time I saw a guitarist use a Rickenbacker in concert was when I saw Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers a few years ago so it was nice to see one on stage again.

All in all, not a bad time was had at all. Back to work.

black beans + jeff buckley + congratulations

I'm busily trying to keep myself from any work whatsoever. What all this boils down to is sipping some iced coffee in my neighborhood's amazing coffee shop, Uncommon Grounds. It's a late 1800s Victorian house situated in the middle of Uptown (it seriously sticks out like a sore thumb) that is pretty much the most unique place to have coffee in the Cities. I guess Rachel Ray featured it in her magazine (whatever that is) recently and, frankly, for good measure. It's totally cool.
















Anyone ever heard of Jeff Buckley? He's the mid-90s singer/songwriter that made Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" famous (before Rufus Wainwright kicked it firmly into pop culture on the Shrek soundtrack) but died in a tragic drowning accident at the age of 30. His voice is absolutely singular and haunting and sinewy and seemingly limitless in the upper range. I'm listening to his Live At Sin-é album from a 1993 performance in a New York City cafe. It's just him and a Fender Telecaster and it is incredible. I highly suggest you listen to it if you're into this kind of stuff. At one point he does an exhilarating cover of a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan song called "Yeh Jo Halka Saroor Hae" completely in Urdu. Holy eff, who does that!

My home cooked meal this week was a kickass vegan black bean soup. It's ridiculously easy to make (if you discount chopping an entire damn onion) but really good to eat. Garnish with sour cream (which, come to think of it, probably means it isn't vegan) and a few green onions and you've got a pretty good meal.

I also finally finished the Andrew Jackson biography, American Lion, I started reading way back in July. It took me so long because of the massive intellectual investment I had to make every time I cracked it open. Don't get me wrong, it was great...just a lot to chew through. Here's another daguerreotype of Jackson I found. Isn't that weird that it's the guy on the 20 dollar bill? That's an actual photograph of him. That just blows my mind.

The writing isn't purely "academic" but has the weird flavor of a novel at times and, though I almost never read historical non-fiction, it's easy to see why it won the Pulitzer. That being said, I think I'm going to follow it up with the Harlequin romance novel that a friend gave me this summer as a joke. It's called Blaze and, if the first two paragraphs are any indication, it's going to be hilarious.

On a slightly different note, I read an article somewhere (can't remember where, exactly) that talked about how some composers "digest" tons of different things that somehow end up in their music--food, art, other people's music, theater, television, cinema, etc. This blog entry is probably pretty good evidence of the varied interests of its rambunctious proprietor but I'm not really sure that any of this will actually end up in my music. In the John Adams (the composer, not the president) autobiography that I read this summer he talked about the two different kinds of composers:

• the ones who trust--almost implicitly--their intuition and initial compositional choices
• the ones who go back over and over and over and revise and revise and revise until it's just right

I am most certainly the first type but I'm not sure that I fit anywhere into what that mystery article talked about with regards to the absorption of other things. Maybe it isn't something that has to overtly be in my music.

Ah, who knows? I write it here so I am forced to stew on it. In fact, I should probably get back to work. These three French pieces are not going to write themselves. Quelle surprise!

Oh, and a massive congratulations goes out to friend-and-fellow-blogger Peter Hoesing for snagging a Fulbright to go study in Africa for the umpteenth time. He's brilliant and I'm lucky to know him. Here's a co-opted photo of him drumming with some guy from his blog.

Congratulations, sir.

You. Are. The. Man.